I apologize in advance, because this blog posting was written in anger. I was so angry about this last night I started to cry --I'm so angry it's hard to get the words out. And I apologize, because this isn't a specifically Asian American story. But it's about the fight that we face, nonetheless. I work in documentary film production, for a very large film corporation that will sue me if they find out I've blogged about them, so it shall remain nameless.

This has been breaking all last week, but in case you haven't heard, Vietnamese immigrant and California congressional candidate Tan Nguyen has been linked to the 14,000 letters sent out to Spanish speakers, warning immigrants that they could be arrested if they tried to vote. Read Chronicle article here. Is it just me, or is this totally sick?

So, suicide has been on my brain lately. Not me committing it personally, but it seems to be popping up a lot. I went last weekend to see "The Science of Sleep" with Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg. See it! It's great. But before we got to see Gael's handsome mug, came the trailers. And I saw a one that I will never forget, for the rest of my life. Warning: This blog entry has turned out to be extremely depressing. and don't hold your breath for a happy ending.

So often when you boil down a question, it becomes one of those perennial unaswerable ones: nature or nurture? heart or mind? chicken or fish? And it's so annoying, because we asked those questions in high school english and I already know that you're just in for endless debate with murky morality and rationalizations all around. Another one of those questions came up for me last night at, where else: the SF Asian American Film Festival.

An Asian American guy with a really bad haircut looks out from my TV screen. "All my life, I wanted to be an American," he says. "I'm sansei, that means I'm the third generation to be born in this country." I missed big chunks of the rest of the commercial because of the yelling. My yelling. Have you seen this spot? It's on PBS. The guy goes on to say that his family was interned during the war, and that he always wanted to be an American but never felt like one until he saw Ken Burn's Civil War documentary on PBS.

Oh my gosh I am sick of talking about stereotypes and issues of representation. We "ethnic media" people are sometimes viewed as whiny and unrelenting and one-track minded, and it's kind of true. Here I am, complaining again about the way my peeps are being represented. But we can't stop, because society at large has clearly not gotten the message. Look at this image! Just look at it! What do you think they were thinking when they came up with this?!!

I never quite understood exactly how it works between the native Americans and our government --casinos, reservations, census data? But at any rate, some Native Hawaiians are fighting to get similar status. Listen the the NPR story here. The argument is that Hawaii was a sovereign nation, until the U.S. government came and took it over --just like they did the rest of the country. Some people think Akaka's bill doesn't go far enough, and Hawaii should be totally free from US rule.

Back when I was in a Duncan dance company (Isadora, that is,) we needed to raise $$ to go to Hungary. We had a couple garage sales, we put on a few performances, we were thousands short of our goal. Somehow our director was contacted by an independent film production company and before we knew it, we were "gypsy dancers" in a dream sequence of a film called --I can't remember. German title, South Asian American film.

Admit it. You watch it. It's everywhere, and it's taken over America. Reality TV. It's okay, I watch it too. Even "SuperNanny" on the really slow nights. And I couldn't turn off the marathon of "Gastineau Girls." Like most viewers, probably, I enjoy feeling superior to the rest of America when I watch, even as I feel guilty and sort of disgusted with myself afterwards. There are a few exceptions. "30 Days," the new show from Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" fame, is getting great reviews.

A survey of 2000 people of color (Asian, African American, Latino, Native American, Arab American) by New California Media found that 45% of respondents prefer to get their news through the ethnic media. They conclude that 13% of all adults in the US get most of their news through ethnic-specific outlets, and that 64 million adults have regular contact with ethnic media. We only need 1 million to subscribe to Hyphen. Heck, we'd be pretty happy with just a few hundred thousand.

Did y'all see John Cho the other week on Grey's Anatomy? He plays a sick dude. A little sad for a guy who has starred in movie... But apparently is not quite a movie star. It got me to thinking, because last week I interviewed Damien Nguyen, star of The Beautiful Country. You haven't heard of him yet because all he's done is background gangster guys. The film will release July 7 (also starring Bai Ling, see Hyphen issue 7 for the interview) but Damien did a really great job.