Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

They're baaaaaack! And sharper than ever:

Election Watch:

• A Fil-Am Colma, CA city councilwoman is speaking out about her experience with domestic violence.

• Nikki Haley's points are dropping, and she's fundraising the home field.

• And in the state to the north, IndiAm Steve Rao is running for Wake County board of commissioners from across the aisle and a generation from his predecessor.

• An Orange County congressional race pits Repub-skewing Viet-Ams against a larger number of unreliably voting, Demo-skewing Latinos. Politics in Obama's America! Here's more.

• Speaking of Obama, the Canned One is backing Ahn "Joseph" Cao's ethically-compromised Demo opponent. More on that. This one is making my head hurt.

• Apparently, San Francisco has more Korean American candidates than ever before, but the KoreAm community isn't supporting them.

• Indi Am San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris is running for CA attorney general with Obama's endorsement.

• Apparently, China is turning into a bugbear in this year's election, with hit ads accusing candidates of ties to the PRC. Vincent who?

In other news:

• Interview with a top casting director, Koream Keli Lee.

• Fil-Am former U.S. diplomat flees South Korea to the Philippines ahead of accusations of fraud, but gets arrested anyway. (He's also wanted in California for fraud.)

• Hawaiian Fil-Am newspaper employee found guilty of killing his 19-year-old son after an argument.

• IndiAm designer Anand Jon, who was convicted in 2008 in California of serial rape, is facing similar charges in New York.

• A 71-year-old Iranian American businessman, who was jailed in Iran for two years with no charges, has been released.

• Karen Tei Yamashita's novel of the Asian American Movement, I-Hotel, has been nominated for a National Book Award. (Full disclosure: I worked on this novel as a book publicist earlier this year.)

• The new Japanese American museum of San Jose opens this weekend. And Chicago's Chinese American Museum reopens after a fire.

• 3000 Hmong Americans protested in Sacramento this week against the ongoing prosecution of 12 Hmong Americans for plotting to overthrow the Laotian communist government.

• An Orange County Viet Am lawyer is handling a class action suit by Vietnamese Gulf fishermen against BP for fundamentally changing their way of life.

• Is retro Chinese American food a new trend? Let's hope not, for your sake, General Tso.

• 57-year-old KoreAm cyber bully drops his campaign against a Korean singer. Bizarre.

• It may be Asian American pop's moment in the mainstream. And O-Dub has a quote for you about it.