Hey all!

As this year draws near its end, Mar and I (like good parents) would love to pass on this little baby we've created. However, this means that new blood must rise to the challenge of blogging Asian Americana at Columbia for months on end.

How do you think we can improve? What kind of motivated, progressive APA students would you like to write for this blog? What kind of topics, issues, or events would you like us to cover? Just post your thoughts in the comments of this post. It will be an open discussion forum from which Mar and I will learn where to leave this blog at the end of the year.

This is by no means a farewell post, so look forward for more material from both of us! And post your thoughts! If you're interested in writing / editing for us next year, just shoot us an email!

Asian American University of Maryland Students Mobilize To Save Asian American Studies

(COLLEGE PARK, MD) -- Students at the University of Maryland are stepping up to demand Asian Americans are included in the future of the University. The current draft of the University "Strategic Plan" – a document which governs future resource allocation and academic affairs policy for the next 5 to 10 years – completely ignores Asian American Studies and does nothing to address meeting the needs of Maryland's growing Asian American student population.

Outrage has been vented at several recent meetings of Asian American student organizations and activist groups. Given forecasted fiscal shortfalls for the state of Maryland, many students fear Asian American Studies, as well as other academic programs dedicated to the study of race, gender, sexual orientation and issues of identity, face elimination or severe cut backs in the case of a budget crisis.

"Without inclusion in the Strategic Plan, you don't exist," lamented Pi Delta Psi President Scottie Siu.

As the deadline nears for community input, several Asian American groups are preparing to lobby and write letters demanding that the Provost add provisions to ensure that Asian American Studies be protected and promoted one day into a Major. Other demands include that there should be more needs based assessment surveys so counseling services can be improved, and that there should be a space on campus for Asian American cultural events.

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Lee Fang (301) 318-7351 Lhfang at gmail dot com

April 19, 2008

The EXPOSURE opening video

Remember, if you came to cultureSHOCK, chances are good you received a chance to see Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay this Wednesday the 23rd (I believe). Check out the next batch of images from this movie. (Again, spoiler/whatever warning.)

Tonight - Roone Arledge Auditorium - Tickets at the Lerner Box Office

Dinner . Show . Afterparty

Doors open at 7:30pm

Be there!

... with free Harold and Kumar 2 tickets. Not joking.

Hey all, Gautam from the Asian American Action Fund sent The Blaaag this to publicize - Take a look! The deadline is next week!

http://www.aaa-fund.com/?p=296

Looking for something to do in LA this summer — along with roundtrip airfare to our nation's capital? If this piques your interest, please apply for AAA-Fund's Political Empowerment Internship.

We are looking for a bright, sincere and politically savvy intern to spearhead our business and communications strategy. Our intern will be based in LA, and will be flown to DC to help with our June 10 Gala.

Our Political Empowerment Intern will have 3 main responsibilities:

(a) Spearhead AAA-Fund's business and media strategy;

(b) Help coordinate our June 10 Gala and other AAA-Fund events; and

(c) Write regular blog pieces, newsletters and press releases.

Our Political Empowerment Intern will receive a summer stipend of $1000. We ask that our intern start in mid-May, and devote at least 10 weeks on a full-time basis. Please email your resume and cover letter by April 23 to info@aaa-fund.org (attn: Gautam Dutta, Esq., AAA-Fund Executive Director).

Jack Song over at David Magdael & Associates, Inc. sent us a bunch of publicity materials for some movies he's publicizing so here's the first batch. Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay promises to turn the H&K franchise raucously political. We're crazy excited for this movie. See it immediately when it comes out on April 25th!

Notice: Some of these photos display that typical frat-boy misogyny, seemingly something all comedy movies have to have nowadays. You've been forwarned. Also, if you take these photos as happening chronologically, this is also a spoiler warning, lol.

Kal Penn (left) stars as “Kumar” and John Cho (center) stars as “Harold” in New Line Cinema’s upcoming release HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY. Photo courtesy Jaimie Trueblood/New Line Cinema ©2008 New Line Cinema

... I like that map of China in the back.

Whoa. I didn't believe it until I saw it myself:



According to Apple Trailers, East Broadway (or Falling for Grace) is a romantic comedy of errors premised upon a hilarious misunderstanding at an opera soirée. There, some Manhattan socialites mistakenly believe that Grace Tang is an heiress of a major Hong Kong fashion industry (she's actually a major Wall Street banker). She doesn't actually correct the mistake, and instead goes on to meet, date, and (maybe) love New York's most eligible (rich, white) bachelor.

Margaret Cho and Ken Leung feature as supporting characters, which has absolutely no way of going wrong. My favorite moment in the entire trailer is when Christine Baranski's character asks the male lead if Grace Tang only wants him "for [his] green card" and if she is "unusually willing to perform bizarre sexual favors". Anybody remember Cruel Intentions? She played an equally racist mother who cracks down on an interracial relationship between her daughter (Selma Blair) and her African American cello instructor (Sean Patrick Thomas).

In some ways, this story might look, read, and sound like a cleaned-up cosmopolitan version of The Joy Luck Club (the ignorant mother comments are uncomfortably familiar), which I don't love and probably never will. However, Fay Ann Lee takes some classic Asian American problems in a world of race-class-immigrant-identity confusion and strings them into a contemporary, relevant storyline. It actually looks good enough that I want to see it on opening night (April 15).

Lee has previously starred in Law & Order and Third Watch, but this is her first writing, producing, and directing debut.

Per an e-mail exchange between AAA:

Hahaha
I'm currently sitting in my Lit Hum class, watching people pass around our postcard. YES.


Um, someone just knocked on my door, pointed to the poster that I put in our hallway, and asked, "Who is that?"

BTW,

Today a crazy grad student approached people who were tabling for NYCAASC and told them that our CultureSHOCK campaign is pornography. She also went on to claim that Columbia University is conservative ("although you undergrads wouldn't think so") and said that she is going to talk about her negative reactions to the postcard in a presentation of campus posters (she also picked up KSA Surge & some other stuff).

I nearly went ape shit on her, which is a surprise, given that I'm the type to sit on the sidelines. It was probably the fatigue. Anyway, everyone that I've talked to so far agrees that she's crazy, but I def got concerned for five sleep-deprived minutes. Funny story though.

Oh I forgot the clincher. Apparently she thinks the campaign's extra bad because we're "Asian, and Asians are supposed to be conservative"!

Well, I don't deny that her observation is partially grounded in truth, but her choosing to tell AAA and its affiliates is, well, a little bit hilarious. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.


Maybe she's the one who's been taking down our posters, besides increasing the racist quotient on campus by 9999%.