Obama’s Asian American Kid Sister Moving to DC
July 31, 2009
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, 38, is moving her family here from Hawaii and will spend the next several months living in the nation’s capital, White House officials say. Her husband, Konrad Ng, a professor at the University of Hawaii, will become the scholar-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Program here next month.
The siblings, who share the same mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, spent several years together in Indonesia and in Hawaii before Ms. Dunham decided to return to Indonesia with Ms. Soetoro-Ng while Mr. Obama remained in Hawaii with his grandparents. (Ms. Soetoro-Ng’s father was Indonesian; Mr. Obama’s father was Kenyan.)
Former Major League Pitcher Jim Parque Explains Why He Used Performance Enhancing Drug
July 27, 2009
“I’m Jim Parque, former major-league pitcher, and I took human growth hormone.”
With those words Jim Vo Parque, 1997 first-round draft pick of the Chicago White Sox, became one of the few major league baseball players to voluntarily admit that he took performance-enhancing drugs. But he does more than that in his July 23 article in the Chicago Sun-Times; the Norwalk, Calif.-born Vietnamese American Parque bares his feelings about his past choices, talks about his fears of not being able to support his family and having to walk away from a lifestyle he hoped for since he was a five-year-old boy.
“For those of you who still are thinking I did have a choice, you are correct. I fully agree. It was the wrong decision from a pure sporting standpoint. I should have walked away from the game and entered the real world. I should have been a better man and turned the HGH down.
“But I still have to ask you this, husband-to-husband, father-to-father and man-to-man: What would you have done?” asks Parque, now 36 33.
Parque, a southpaw sensation and All American at UCLA from 1994-97, led the Bruins to the College World Series as a junior, writes that he feared failure because of the economic hardships he saw his parents go through.
“My father was a hard-working man who gave everything he had to his family and had very little to show for it. My mother, a Vietnamese immigrant, worked at a sewing factory in Chinatown, riding the bus to and from work,” Parque wrote.
- Read Parque’s entire Chicago Sun-Times piece Why I Juiced here.
- HGH May Be Banned, But It’s Readily Available on the Web, Google
- Jim Parque Bio, Wikipedia
I Miss Watching Music Vids on MTV
July 24, 2009
The music video for “Hibi no Neiro” by Sour from their Water Flavor EP. Watch.
via Garry Tan & Laughingsquid.com
Asian American Media Musical Chairs
July 23, 2009
 |
 |
 |
A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper reporter made the leap from print to online journalism, UsWeekly’s gossip queen called it quits and the Asian American Journalists Association soft-played a staff shake-up this week. [Read More]
- Huffington Post Nabs WaPo Rising Star, Mediabistro
- A Lot of “The’s”: Jose Antonio Vargas Leaves The Washington Post for The Huffington Post, The New York Times
- Arianna Huffington Seduces Young Journalist Over Internet, Valleywag
- Filipino Reporter Wins Pulitzer, New America Media
- Janice Min Helped Us Weekly Feed a Hunger for Celebrity, L.A. Times
- Janice Min’s Mysterious Future, Gawker
- Janice Min’s Farewell to Us Weekly Staff, AllieIsWired.Com
- AAJA Names New Interim Executive Director, AAJA
- “Officially it was a mutual decision” that she leave, Maynard Institute
- AAJA National President Sharon Chan, blog
Thursday, July 16, 2009 (Video runs 06:03)
MONTEREY PARK—Democrat Judy Chu was elected to Congress on Tuesday by an overwhelming margin over Republican Betty Chu and became the first Chinese American woman to win a seat in Congress.
With results in from all 32nd Congressional District precincts, Judy Chu defeated Betty Chu by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. The Chus are cousins by marriage.
In a room at Nick’s Taste of Texas in West Covina packed with members of the Chinese-American media, Judy Chu claimed victory late Tuesday night.
“What a victory,” said Chu, who is on the state Board of Equalization. “It’s incredible to be standing here tonight.”
She said she will fly to Washington, D.C., today and will be sworn in Thursday. Chu joins Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), the other Asian Americans currently serving in Congress from California.
The Asian American House Caucus also includes Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Virginia) who is of mixed Filipino and African American ancestry; Chinese American Rep. David Wu (D-Oregon); Indian American Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-Louisiana); Japanese American Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii); Filipino ancestry Rep. Steve Austria (r-Ohio) and Vietnamese American Ahn Joseph Cao (R-Louisiana).
Hawaii’s late Republican U.S. Senator Hiram Fong was the first Chinese American in Congress, serving three terms from 1959 to 1977. Fong died in 2004.
Judy Chu won 61.7 percent of the votes, Betty Chu won 33.1 percent, and Libertarian Christopher Agrella was in a distant third place with 5.2 percent.
Election officials believe a record-low number of voters showed up for the special election, which was held to replace former Rep. Hilda Solis, who left the seat to become labor secretary.
Chu won her first elected office, a seat on the Garvey School Board, in 1985. Three years later she captured a City Council seat in Monterey Park, after she and her husband, attorney Mike Eng, helped battle a racially divisive “English-only” campaign in the rapidly changing city. In 2001, after two unsuccessful attempts, she was elected to the state Assembly, then won a seat on the state Board of Equalization in 2001.
Richard Gere’s Take on Hachiko: A Dog’s Story
July 14, 2009
 |
 |
 |
Hoping that it will exceed Marley & Me’s $100 million box office gross, Richard Gere’s Hachiko: A Dog’s Story is a rip-off an American retelling of of one of the most famous stories in contemporary Japan and marks Gere’s second project in five years involving the repurposing of Japanese source material. He starred in the remake of Japan’s Dansu Wo Shimasho Ka (Shall We Dance?) in 2004.
Former Hawaii Quarterback Arrested After Altercation
July 8, 2009
HONOLULU — Former Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang, one of the most prolific passers in college football history, has been arrested on suspicion of robbery and released without charges pending further investigation.
The 27-year-old Chang was arrested at his Mililani home Thursday after a woman alleged her camera was taken away from her while she was filming a brawl last month in the Pearlridge area.
A man, whom Honolulu police say was Chang, told the woman to stop filming the fight. A struggle ensued and the suspect allegedly took the camera and threw it on the roof of a nearby building.
Chang could not be reached for comment. He holds the NCAA’s career leader in passing yards. He last played in the Canadian Football League and was released by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in February.
Judith Hill: Jackson Memorial Mystery Singer
July 7, 2009
She commanded center stage during some the most memorable moments at this morning’s Michael Jackson Memorial, but her identity had most in attendance at Staples Center and millions of international television viewers baffled. Who was the young Asian woman singing lead on the moving “Heal the World”?
Thousands of Google searches ensued and the mystery was solved. She’s Judith Hill, a thirty-something singer from Pasadena, Calif. who was to be one of the backup singers on Jackson’s ill-fated 50-show “This Is It” concert series that was supposed to start July 8 at London’s O2 Arena. Jackson died June 25 at the age of 50.
Hill also participated in a rousing performance of “We Are the World” and earlier in the memorial program was a backup singer on John Mayer’s instrumental version of another Jackson hit, “Human Nature.”
From Ms. Hill’s bio:
Judith was born in Los Angeles and raised in a family of musicians. Her mother is an immigrant from Japan who met her African-American father in a funk band in the 1970s.
She laughs about her bi-racial experience, “I was a skinny mixed kid with a lot of hair that I didn’t know what to do with (and still don’t know what to do with it). And my mom could not help me with it!”
She admits that she never “fit in”. Depending on the social circle, she was labeled “too quiet”, “too loud”, “too black”, “too Asian” or too something. Judith expresses, “I was a traveler, kind of a drifter. But, looking back I see how all of those experiences, friends, and cultures made me who I am today.”
Hill lists three women vocalists as major influences—Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald—and she is a classically trained musician, having studied composition at Biola University. She won several awards for her chamber ensembles, orchestrations and composing for jazz bands, and quartets.
Did you notice that Judith Hill is also beautiful? She’s a statuesque 5-9 with a soulful vocal range from B2 to above C6 if you can dig it.
Watch and listen:
- Judith Hill MySpace Page
- Official Judith Hill Blog
- Judith Hill: The Amazing Singer From The Michael Jackson Memorial, Reflections On Media
- The woman who sang “We Are The World” at the Jackson Memorial, jozjozjoz.com
- Judith Hill – Heal the World singer at Michael Jackson Memorial, ChannelAPA
Turning Japanese: Billy ‘Tae Bo’ Blanks
July 6, 2009
Back Channels: The Jong-il, Jacko Proposal
July 6, 2009
 |
 |
Gotham Chopra, 34, is a media entrepreneur and journalist. A colleague of Laura Ling at Current TV, he is the son of New Age spiritualist author Dr. Deepak Chopra.
By Gotham Chopra
The last time I spoke to my friend Michael Jackson was about a month ago, 3 weeks before his shocking death. He had called me late one night to ask about another of my close friends who he had read about in the news. Laura Ling, a former colleague and friend, was detained originally by North Korean border guards along with her colleague Euna Lee on March 17th. Since then, they have been imprisoned, had very little contact with their families or western officials, and endured a secretive trial at which they were sentenced to twelve years hard labor. At this present moment, it is unclear where Laura and Euna are – whether they remain in a government guesthouse where they were originally held, in a hospital (due to medical problems for both of them), or moved to the infamous North Korean labor camps that many do not survive.
