Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

The SF International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) launches this week, plus Philly arts events…

By William Wong It may be churlish to insert a dissonant note in the lilting symphony of praise that the Oscar-winning best picture, Crash, is getting these days, but here it is: As impressive as Crash is in showing the multidimensional humanity – the good, the bad, and the gray in-betweens – of Los Angelenos of different ethnic backgrounds, the movie continues a Hollywood tradition of mostly one-dimensional portrayals of Asians. Oh, no, you say: Not another yellowish whine! If Crash weren’t about complex racial and ethnic relationships, then my complaint would, indeed, be inappropriate, paranoid even. But that was exactly the point of Crash, to portray the nuances of Los Angeles’s – and by extension, America’s – racial and ethnic relationships. So why would it portray East Asians in such an inept and unflattering way?

Sam Chu Lin, one of the first Asian American reporters on network TV, died Sunday. He was 67.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Jumpha Lahiri talks about her bi-cultural upbringing as part of the "The New India" package that graces the cover of Newsweek this week, probably to coincide with Dubya trip to South Asia.