foundasian.org

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today upon the passage of H.Res. 121, a resolution calling on the Japanese government to formally acknowledge and apologize for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women, known as “comfort women,” into sexual slavery during its occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands during the World War II era:

“Today, the House of Representatives made a strong statement in support of human rights by calling on the Japanese government to formally acknowledge and apologize for their forced coercion of women into sexual slavery during World War II.

“More than 200,000 women were subject to inhumane treatment at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. Ironically called ‘comfort women,’ these women were deceived, kidnapped, and beaten to perform sexual acts against their will.

“More than 50 years later, the Japanese government has still not issued a clear apology to the ‘comfort women.’ This is disappointing because Japan is a critical ally of the United States and a leading international voice on issues such as global warming and assistance to the poorest people in the world. Yet in this case, the Japanese government should do more to recognize these injustices.

“Although the violence against the ‘comfort women’ occurred many years ago, their wounds have yet to heal. Only a few hundred of these brave women are still alive. They continue to tell their stories today, so future generations will not repeat the mistakes of the past.

“Today’s vote sends a strong signal that Congress will stand with the ‘comfort women’ in their struggle for truth and recognition.”

Thursday, August 2nd
6:30 PM – 9:30 PM
E3rd Steakhouse & Lounge
734 E. 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
$5 for OCA members, $10 for non-members

Please RSVP

Free first drink for the first 50 people. Light snacks will be served. Learn about OCA and how to get involved with the Greater Los Angeles chapter!

Founded in 1973, OCA is a national organization dedicated to advancing the social, political, and economic well-being of Asian Pacific Americans in the United States.

Contact info@oca-gla.org with any questions.

MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (www.manaa.org), the only organization solely dedicated to monitoring the media and advocating balanced, sensitive, and positive coverage and depictions of Asian Americans, on July 25 issued a press release taking offense by Rob Schneider’s “yellow face” portrayal of a Japanese man in the current #1 movie in the country, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James.

In a scene where the main characters journey to Canada to get married, Schneider plays a minister who makes their union official, donning prosthetic make up (slanted eyes, bigger nose, darker skin color, etc.) to play a stereotypical Japanese nerd with thick eye-glasses and a bowl-style hair cut who speaks in broken English with missing “r”s.

Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “I felt victimized by the stereotype shtick of … Schneider.”  And Emmy-nominated actor Masi Oka (“Heroes”) told USA Today he was also offended by the yellow-face portrayal.  Says MANAA Founding President Guy Aoki, “In August of 2006, shortly after Mel Gibson’s tirade against Jews, Schneider, pointing out he was half Jewish, took out a full page ad in Daily Variety promising to never work with the writer/director/actor.  We wish Rob had the same pride about being part-Asian.  Somehow, we don’t think he’d make the same assertion against someone who spouted anti-Asian hatred because the actor has himself done quite a good job of putting down people of Asian descent.  As Richard Roeper of ‘Ebert and Roeper’ recently said in his review of Chuck and Larry, ‘Rob Schneider’s Filipino background [he’s a quarter] hardly excuses his portrayal of an Asian minister in perhaps the most egregious stereotype of its kind since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’”

Rob Schneider also repeatedly perpetuated the tired stereotype that Asian men have small penises in a 2005 movie he co-wrote, Deuce Bigalo:  European Gigolo” (e.g. an Asian male prostitute says in broken English, “I no more man-whore!  Too much danger!  I take my three inches elsewhere!”).

Besides an Asian American fireman who gets no lines, the only other Asian faces we see in Chuck and Larry are five Asian women who come out of a van wearing Hooters-like clothes to “pleasure” Chuck (Sandler) and who’re later seen “having fun” with each other while waiting for Chuck to come back to bed.  “Therefore,” Aoki points out, “the impression people get from watching this film is that Asian men are disgusting-looking geeks and that Asian women are sluts.”

“Sandler showed his movie to GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and edited out scenes they deemed offensive because he didn’t want to make a movie that would offend the gay community.  He should’ve shown it to MANAA; we would’ve had quite a few things to say to him (MANAA has consulted with studios about their films, including Rising Sun and Pearl Harbor).”  MANAA is reachable at manaaletters@hotmail.com, (213) 486-4433, and P.O. Box 11105/Burbank, CA  91510.

Thursday, July 26, 2007
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The International Hotel Manilatown Center
868 Kearny Street, San Francisco
Donations Requested: $10-$20 sliding scale

CO-PRESENTED BY FILIPINAS MAGAZINE

Co-presented by the Young Filipino Professional Association (yfpa.org), Asian American Journalists Association San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (aajasf.org), APA|5 (apafive.org), Chinese for Affirmative Action (caasf.org), NAAAP-SF (naaapsf.org), HYPHEN Magazine (hyphenmagazine.com) and manja.org. Co-hosts include Keith Kamisugi, Glenn Fajardo and Dexter Ligot-Gordon.

Featuring Supervisor Tom Ammiano and comedians Sam Chanse and Kevin Camia.

On August 4, 1977, more than 50 elderly Asian immigrants, most from the Philippines, were evicted from the 10×10-foot rooms in the International Hotel located on the edge of downtown San Francisco in Manilatown. The evictions were carried out to make way for an office tower, but instead they gave birth to a defiant grassroots movement for affordable housing.

100 percent of all donations will go to Manilatown Heritage Foundation, which promotes social and economic justice for Filipinos in America by preserving our history, advocating for equal access, and advancing our arts and culture.

The (H)API Hour (hapihour.org) brings together supporters of Asian American Pacific Islander communities through happy hours that raise funds for, and awareness of, nonprofit organizations serving AAPIs in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

RSVP on evite.com

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Don’t go to Slant: Bold Asian American Images expecting to catch a kung-fu fight or a documentary on sushi chefs in Japan. The film festival is a showcase of real, homegrown Asian American cinema. Known for its mix of rollicking off-beat comedies and sassy stereotype-smashing, Slant began seven years ago at the Aurora Picture Show, a microcinema in Houston, Texas. It is traveling to San Francisco for the first time, where it will play at the 4 Star Theatre on July 21.

The festival, which specializes in short films, is curated by Melissa Hung, founding editor of Hyphen, the national Asian American culture magazine based in San Francisco.

Aurora Picture Show has also collected some of the best films from past years of Slant onto one DVD. Be the first to own a copy of the Best of Slant DVD at the pre-release party at Kearny Street Workshop on July 19 .

The festival’s events include:

Best of Slant DVD Pre-Release Party
Thursday, July 19, 7 pm
Kearny Street Workshop, 180 Capp St
$2 o $5 Suggested Donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Slant has screened more than 100 short films since its start. That’s 100 films you missed out on. But don’t cry. Be the first to own a copy of the Best of Slant DVD at the pre-release party, hosted by Kearny Street Workshop.

Screening 1: Children, Young & Grown
Saturday, July 21, 7 pm
4 Star Theatre, 2200 Clement St
$8

Children try to find safety from a harsh world, whether it’s the little boy practicing his karate moves in Siu Ta’s Kata Practice, or the children in Tze Chun’s Windowbreaker , who build traps to protect their home. Vivid imaginations take hold in the summer in Suzi Yoonessi’s whimsical Dear Lemon Lima and in Kimi Takesue’s The Summer of the Serpent.

Two films also explore the relationships between parents and their grown children. A mother and son take a final journey together in Jae-Ho Chang’s The Last Vacation while a movie director confronts his estranged father in Lead Role: Father by PJ Raval.

Slant curator Melissa Hung will be in attendance.

Screening 2: Best of Slant & More!
Saturday, July 21, 9 pm
4 Star Theatre, 2200 Clement St
$8

In celebration of the Best of Slant DVD compilation, this program includes some greatest hits from past years of the festival. Wes Kim’s Profiles in Science takes a quirky look at one man’s pursuit of scientific knowledge. A pie maker tries to explain himself in Nobu Ailman’s faux documentary I Pie (A Love Story) . Maritess V.S. the Superfriends, an animation by Dino Ignacio, tells the plight of the Superfriends’ Filipina maid. And Doan La’s comedy Dragon of Love chronicles one man’s dating disaster when he meets the woman of his dreams.

But there’s more! This program will also feature Josh Kim’s The Police Box, a charming story of romantic crushes told in four minutes; Frank Yeean Chan’s cycling adventure Russian Hill Roulette ; and Ling Liu’s Officer Tsukamoto, a documentary about the unsolved 1970 murder of a police officer.

Filmmakers Frank Yeean Chan, Ling Liu and Dino Ignacio, as well as curator Melissa Hung, will be in attendance.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/16997.

The 4 Star Theater has been independently owned since 1992. A supporter of Asian American arts, it is also home of the 10th Annual San Francisco Asian Film Festival, playing November 8-18. www.4starmovietheatre.net or www.hkinsf.com.

Founded in 1998, the Aurora Picture Show is part of the micro-cinema movement that began in the mid-1990′s and is the only facility of its kind in the Southwest. Aurora supports non-commercial, independent and artist-made film, video and new media through fifty programs a year. www.aurorapictureshow.org

Slant is co-sponsored by Hyphen magazine, Kearny Street Workshop, Manja.org and the Center for Asian American Media.

Asian American writer/director Fay Ann Lee’s movie, “Falling for Grace,” opens July 20 at Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco’s Japantown.  David Sohn forwarded to us an email from Alec Chang, whose brother is one of the movie’s investors.

Alec has arranged a Q&A with Fay Ann after the July 28, 4:30 p.m., showing.

Falling for Grace is a new romantic comedy about Grace Tang, an up and coming investment banker from New York Chinatown, who wants more than anything to be part of the Upper East Side socialite world.  Grace finally gets that elusive invitation to join the Opera’s prestigious junior committee when she’s mistaken as an heiress from Hong Kong. When Grace also falls for Andrew Barrington, Jr., one of the most eligible bachelors of New York City, Grace decides to run with her new-found identity.

Falling for Grace, starring Gale Harold, Fay Ann Lee, Margaret Cho, Christine Baranski and Lewis Black was a sold out hit at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.  Logan Hill of New York Magazine picked it as one of the two best films in competition.

FallingForGrace.com | myspace.com/FallingForGraceMovie

More from Alec’s email:

Falling for Grace is a new romantic comedy about Grace Tang, an up and coming investment banker from New York’s Chinatown, who wants more than anything to be part of the Upper East Side socialite world.  Grace finally gets that elusive invitation to join the Opera’s prestigious junior committee when she’s mistaken as an heiress from Hong Kong. When Grace also falls for Andrew Barrington, Jr., one of the most eligible bachelors of New York City, Grace decides to run with her new-found identity. The movie stars Gale Harold, Fay Ann Lee, Margaret Cho, Christine Baranski and Lewis Black and was a sold out hit at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.  Logan Hill of New York Magazine picked it as one of the two best films in competition, Scott Hoffman of moviepicturefilm.com <http://moviepicturefilm.com/>  described it as “Tribeca’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding”  and Premiere Magazine wrote that Falling for Grace “brings a fresh twist” to romantic comedies.

But what may be even more compelling is that the filmmaker, Fay Ann Lee, the Asian American writer/director of this project, against all odds, took years to raise the money to turn her passion into reality.  It is truly an American dream at work.   Falling for Grace, originally titled East Broadway, was a screenplay that placed in major screenwriting competitions.  When Hollywood producers started noticing this screenplay, many had asked that Fay change the ethnicity of the leading character, Grace, to a Hispanic one for someone like Jennifer Lopez, because Hollywood did not feel that a film starring an Asian American woman or man (other than Kung Fu films) would be popular with an American audience.  Fay believed in the strength of her story and decided to stick to the original plot of the film and keep the lead character from Chinatown.  This was obviously the correct choice since Falling for Grace has been popular with test audiences in many states including, California, Texas, Pennsylvania and of course, New York.  It’s taken Fay a decade to bring her script to the big screen.

Fay’s tenacity and dedication to bringing her vision to fruition has been an inspiration to young men and women across many college campuses who are preparing to pursue their own dreams.  Fay was an invited speaker just last semester at Yale (three times in one semester), University of Pennsylvania, Temple, Boston U, UMass – Amherst and Johns Hopkins.