asian american studies 340

transnational asian/american visual media

[documentasian]

Paramount Pictures’ latest attempt to drum up support for its upcoming adaptation of Ghost in the Shell has not gone according to plan.

Over the weekend, Paramount launched an image generator that allowed fans to upload pictures and write a few lines of text to create an “I am Major” photo. In Ghost in the Shell, the Major is the central figure; a cybernetic android who leads an anti-terrorism group under the banner of Section 9.

When Scarlett Johansson was cast in the role, many Asian-American actors and fans voiced their displeasure over her involvement in the film and the whitewashing of Japanese culture. As part of the retaliation, fans have started to use the generator and the “#IAmMajor” hashtag on Twitter as a way of calling out both the film and Paramount.

[documentasian]

Want to understand the media better? | Media Theorised | Al Jazeera English

Want to understand the media better? Here are 5 big thinkers with critical tools you can apply to your everyday encounters with the media. #MediaTheorised

[documentasian]

EXHUME THOSE BODIES. EXHUME THOSE STORIES.

happy international women’s day! dedicated to my late grandmother.

[documentasian]

My claim is that Who Killed Vincent Chin? is the most important political documentary of the 1980s. It is so because it establishes a present moment of viewing in relation to what has already taken place in the film, such that we regard our own present as past, or, more conventionally, as prologue to a future outside the film which, through the very process of viewing, we may bring into being.

Bill Nichols, “Historical Consciousness and the Viewer: Who Killed Vincent Chin?”

[documentasian]

here is the edited excerpt from the hour of the furnaces i screened in class yesterday.

[chinatowndo]

Courtesy of Theresa Christine.

[ceci-commonplace]

justice for vincent chin

[latenightlaundromat]

(Picture of Lily Chin holding a framed photograph of her son, Vincent Chin)

“In 1982, at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments arising from massive layoffs in the auto industry, a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers. Chin’s killers, however, got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Outraged by this injustice, Asian Americans around the country united for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement.

VINCENT WHO? explores this important legacy through interviews with the key players at the time as well as a whole new generation of activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin. It also looks at the case in relation to the larger narrative of Asian American history, in such events as Chinese Exclusion, Japanese American Internment in WWII, the 1992 L.A. Riots, anti-Asian hate crimes, and post-9/11 racial profiling.

Ultimately, VINCENT WHO? asks how far Asian Americans have come since the case and how far they have yet to go.

For in spite of Vincent Chin’s monumental significance in both the Asian American experience and the civil rights history of America, the vast majority of people today (including most Asian Americans) have little or no knowledge of him.”

Watch the full documentary on youtube: Vincent Who?

[documentasian]

Michael Chin, “Save the International Hotel” (1972) Silkscreen Kearny Street Workshop and Sammi Madison Garcia Collection

[documentasian]

Rachael Romero, “International Hotel Night” (1978) Linocut San Francisco Poster Brigade/Inkworks Kearny Street Workshop Collection

[the-movemnt-deactivated20170912]

900+ Asian American Studies Scholars Issue Collective Statement Decrying Trump’s Proposed Muslim Registry

Over 900 Asian American Studies scholars from across the United States issued a joint statement today decrying President-Elect Donald Trump’s proposal to create a national registry of Muslims and Muslim Americans.

[documentasian]

glad i was able to support this statement. we have so much work ahead of us.

[documentasian]

The topics that Gidra covered were not only particular to the Japanese American incarceration, but they dealt with the anti-war sentiment during the Vietnam War, the rising skepticism of the effectiveness of demonstrations and rallies, “yellow” prostitution, drug use in the Asian American community, and third world oppression in areas such as Africa, broadening its range onto the global scale. It became not just a story of Japanese Americans, but Asian Americans working towards effective constructive changes in a society that shadowed the struggles of the oppressed.

[documentasian]

A whopping 0.006 percent of federal spending in 2016!

In comparison, the proposed border wall (which would be, of course, in addition to the wall that already exists) between Mexico and the United States could potentially add up to $38 billion to the debt.

[documentasian]

Little Tokyo People’s Rights Organization, working to save Little Tokyo from redevelopment in the 1970s.

[documentasian]

"My work is not all that different now," he commented. "It's still a matter of trying to coordinate the efforts of talented individuals to work together -- just like producing and directing a film. Much of what I did at VC was community outreach, writing proposals and administering projects. Those are the things that I continue to do at De Anza."

[documentasian]

Wayne Wang Talks ‘Chan Is Missing,’ San Francisco Cinema, and Lunch with Edward Yang

Chan Is Missing has long been considered a benchmark in Asian-American cinema — some would say that, unfortunately, it’s by default the benchmark — but, 34 years later, writer-dir…

What is this “structural element”?

The film was originally an application for National Endowment for the Arts. When I wrote the application, I wanted to make a mystery that was based on the development of the Chinese written word, which is in the interest of Eisenstein’s montage theory. Basically, in the first stage, everything is based on the image. The second stage is pointing to the situation. To point to the situation, you would draw a knife and add a stroke to indicate the edge. The third is the meeting of the ideas, which is Eisenstein’s montage theory: you take a picture of a knife, and then, let’s say, a picture of a person’s heart, and you put a knife on the heart.

It becomes patience, the meaning of patience, because patience is an emotional concept that you cannot draw. The combination of images to express that — the meaning of ideas. The fourth part is the relationship between picture and sound: an element of sound coming in. A movie about pictures and sounds. Anyway, I wanted to make a mystery that had at least four structural changes. Intellectually, it was interesting, but because of a lack of money and being able to experiment with stuff, I couldn’t pull it off, so I made a straightforward mystery instead.

[madadayo-deactivated20170617]

“You know how long we’ve been here? …If they don’t recognize us, they don’t want to recognize us, and they will not recognize us, you know what I mean?” - Chan is Missing (Wayne Wang, 1982)