#aalimelight

[aalimelight-blog]

Farewell note

So unfortunately, miscommunications can really screw a lot of things over. AA Limelight was recently deleted by their server, iPage, over one of these miscommunications. The details make a short story longer than it needs to be. 

Even though the site is no longer available or active, it was a great experience for the AA Limelight team, as some of them will attest in this post. We've had the chance to interview more than 40 artists, 20 community organizations, and post over 40 Perspectives. The reason we did was because all of you kept reading.

Our Beau Sia interview, coming out later in April, will be our last post. This post is reserved exclusively for Tumblr. After that, it's time for us to move on to the next chapter of our lives, and the team will express a lot more eloquently what a pleasure it's been to reveal the connection between Asian American arts and Asian American community.

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Steven 

AA Limelight was made to show that there is a link between Asian American cultural productions and the Asian American audience. No matter how mainstream or popular a work becomes, it's always rooted in the community that guided its success. I think that over the course of seeing all of our work posted online, this truth has never been made more apparent. I hope that you, our readers, were able to see how closely related the two are, as well. It's been a great privilege to be able to contribute towards AA Limelight, and I hope that seeing the great work that goes into Asian American cultural production would have inspired people to pursue the dreams they've always held.

Kenny

It’s been an honor contributing to the development of AA Limelight for the past year and a half. I will treasure the experience of being able to hit up artists. I would have never thought 4 years earlier when I watched my first Kollaboration in LA that I'd be talking to Kollaboration’s founder Paul Kim. Full of warm experiences and good vibes all around, I will cherish the humbling times I shared with AA Limelight. Shout out to AA Limelight's founder Steven Cong for his vision of collective growth and his vision of bringing media back to the AA community. Certainly, this vision will progress as this is only the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one. Here’s hoping for the best.

Linh

Thank you for being part of what I’d call a unique virtual community that served to share not only knowledge about Asian American arts, culture and entertainment, but delved into deeper themes relating to racism, inequality and historical remembrances of the past. As first time writer for a public website, the experience has been absolutely worthwhile and personal. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to share several personal short stories and articles, and was able to ask several amazing Asian American musicians, artists and designers to share their stories.

The final thought before I officially “sign off”:

Sure, we all are individuals, but we are never alone. Every story has the potential to transcend boundaries and connect with other individuals. Keep telling your stories. Don’t be afraid to share.  Your voice deserves to be heard and as long as you continue to express yourself, there will listeners. The process might take awhile; you’ll get the occasional hecklers. But trust in your voice, be shameless about your values, and stay relentlessly hopeful.

We wouldn’t be AA Limelight without you readers, interviewees, writers, artists and team players. If I could ever get the chance, I would love to meet and give you all a hug because I don’t think words are sufficient enough to express my gratitude. Sometimes, the world feels so big, yet so small (you know what I mean?)

I’m getting too sentimental now so I should stop writing…

Jade

I will always remember AA Limelight as one of the first places I was able to publish my written work, try my hand at interviewing and graphic design, and feel that my many opinions on Asian American culture could be heard. So much thanks to Steven for leading this project since the beginning, and all the work the team put into making a space for our voices. Much appreciation to the friends and followers who have supported us through this journey!

Sophia

I joined AA Limelight around this time last year, and was really nervous and self-conscious of how my writing would be received. However, the more I wrote, the more I became inspired to write how I was really feeling—and about things that genuinely interested me. Whether or not my posts were received by a wide audience, I am so grateful for AA Limelight for inspiring me to and exciting me about the amazing Asian American trailblazers and media producers that are truly seeking change and agency in their representation.

Chris

I believe you've heard that through a series of unfortunate events that it's been decided to bring AA Limelight to an end this year. I never thought that it was possible to explore one's own Asian American identity through the media but just within a year I've been able to gain a grasp on this identity that's eluded me for so much of my life. Being a new writer for AA Limelight, I haven't been here for long but have still gained a great deal of love for this community that has been created even before I came into it. Ya'll made me feel welcome, so I want to thank you all for tolerating my writing. I hope that everyone knows that AA Limelight doesn't end with the website but will continue on in our hearts and our minds because we are the community that is AA Limelight. Have a great year everyone and continue to learn and share everything Asian American!

[aalimelight-blog]

AM Kidd

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, my name is AM from the Bay Area and I’ve been doing music for close to 10 years. It started when I was 16 or 17, messing around with friends. When I was 19, I started taking it seriously. I released a couple of radio songs that were on 106 and stuff like that. I was a part of this whole Hyphy movement in the beginning, but then I realized later on that I wanted my music to be branching to more of a mainstream public, so I started doing more introspective rap, not really a lot of club songs. [I was doing] kind of really emotional and deep kind of music, so my style has really changed from the club stuff to what it is now.

What led you to rap music?

As a teenager I didn’t really have a lot of outlets, as far as people to talk to, and I knew I didn’t want to take drugs as a route for any kind of venting or as kind of an alternative reality, I guess. So I really turned to music and writing as a form of just venting, because as a teenager I went through a lot of stuff. I was really rebellious when I was younger, so I had a lot of parental problems, too. I used music as an outlet to really find who I am.

As a universal art form, how does rap address the needs of your Asian American community?

Well, I think with a lot of people that I’ve talked to before, they really try to find someone who really speaks their story. You don’t really see a lot of lead [Asian American] rappers in the industry right now and that’s what I’m striving for: to be that voice in the community. But I’m not really just focusing on the [Asian American] community, of course. The fact that I am Filipino, people recognize that. So I do music for everybody, but my community needs that for them as well, because I am Filipino and I am speaking my story.

How supportive had the Asian American community been towards you and your music?

They’ve been extraordinary as far as support. I think what they do appreciate is that I don’t just box myself in for that community. They see me as an artist that speaks out to a lot of people of both genders and all cultures and everything, so they really respond to what I do, because I always keep it real. My brand is “always 100,” so everything that I do, I give it my all. Not just my music, but also my lifestyle, my identity, my hobbies, my relationships. I believe in honesty, in giving everything for what you want, so I push that to my fans and that I quote-unquote inspire them to live that kind of a life.

My most memorable experience with a fan is when I walked into a Hawaiian BBQ place and the girl that helped me said I looked familiar, and [asked] if I was a rapper, and I said yeah. She said, “Oh my god, you’re AM Kidd,” and I’m like yeah. So she started venting to me about how my song touched her so much that it inspired her to talk to her ex again, and she almost broke down crying because that song and her story just go so well together that it really made her emotional. When people come up to me and they cry because they found that song that spoke to them so much, that helped them understand their story, it’s really touching.

Who is one of your Asian American role models and why?

Is it okay if I say my dad? *chuckles* Well, my dad, of course he’s a great dad. He’s also an artist as well. He plays guitar, he’s in a band. He taught me everything I know about music. He taught me to how to love music and to give love to music. He taught me when you play an instrument, when you write a song, when you compose music, you compose it with your heart. He taught me the value of loving music, and loving the style, and loving the work, and loving the art of it. No matter what I do with my music, even though it might not be his favorite genre, he still appreciates the fact that I do it with everything I have and I love doing it, and he supports it 110%. When you have someone like that, that says, “Hey, keep doing what you’re doing and one day you’ll make it,” it really means a lot. As far as my support system, he’s there, and he’s definitely my role model.

How do you hope to grow as an artist?

Kind of just experimenting and being able to hit a broader audience. So growing with music, that’s really what I want to do. And not just making music, but also reach out to as many people as I can. Music has so much impact on people’s lives. Not just my music, but when I get impacted by other people’s music, it really changes my perspective. I want to be that artist that has someone look up to me and be like, “Hey, your songs really touched me and really helped me through these difficult times. I really want to be that artist that people turn to.”

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I would go to Tokyo! That’s the first place I would go to. I love Japanese culture so much. I think it’s incredibly attractive, and just the whole culture, and artwork, and everything about it. [I] just really [want to] experience that and really live in that community for a while. Not just to see it on TV but to really be there and experience it from there.

[aalimelight-blog]

The Last (Resort)

by Sophia Ng

“How many have you loved?” In another heartwarming and butterfly-inducing video, Wong Fu illustrated another episode of heteronormative romance in their short, “The Last”. While I often regard my film-watching emotions as hard to please, sarcastic, and eye rolling in reaction to clichés, Wong Fu had momentarily softened my soul in its nine-minute video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvxHPtEsmFc

Perhaps the beauty is in the tender gaze of Harry Shum Jr., or in the high definition video quality that instills a soft glow upon all of its characters’ faces. But mostly, the heart-softening “aww” moments come in Harry Shum Jr.’s last lines, “You are the sixth, you are the last.”

But, let’s get real. Who really asks that question, “How many have you loved?” And, in turn who so eagerly answers that question? While Wong Fu shorts usually employ characters of understanding, empathetic, and honest personalities, their characters usually act without any convincing repercussion. As I mentioned earlier, how can one so effervescently ask that hard hitting question in a relationship about one’s past loves? Furthermore in in its dialogue, the lack of consequences stem from the overtly scripted and unrealistic lines that we all love to hear. Yet, in those nine minutes, we choose to accept what we desire to hear as a form of escapism. And lastly, through this perpetuation of overly squeaky-clean characters, Wong Fu does a great job of staying respectable for its younger audience, but does so as a trade off to audiences yearning to see the model minority myth challenged.

And so, David So’s parody, “The Last Resort,” challenges the model minority myth in a comedic and more explicit manner. “The Last Resort” begins with its two characters looking how we all do when we wake up— meh. Rather than portray the characters of “who, what, when, where, and why” as women of smiles, emotions, and adventure through the narration of a male perspective, So’s version portrays “who, what, when, where, and why,” respectively, as an illicit relationship with a creepy-looking teacher, a shirtless, suggestive guy in the shower, a grungy woman, Dumbfoundead, and a crying Jay Park. While Wong Fu concludes their short with shots of an ever-so-elegant Kina Grannis reenacting all of the previous scenes, So’s parody shows David So in aloof, awkwardly-angled shots (not to mention that David So has the funniest facial expressions).

The first time I watched “The Last,” I felt butterflies in my stomach and looming tears in my eyes in reflection of the beauty of the characters and their situations. Yet, as I reflect on this piece, and my feelings stemming from this piece, I remember that as beneficial and entertaining a short like this is, it only reaches a target audience. By limiting plots and situations to a heteronormative and uniquely sweet and innocent theme, this video perpetuates the model minority myth of happy go lucky, PG-rated Asians. Furthermore, its overly cliché lines were practically begging for a parody. With that said, I am appreciative that So’s parody poked fun at “The Last” through “The Last Resort”. Not to mention that So’s parody was equally well-filmed and full of other YouTube celebrities, it also mocked Wong Fu’s plot in addition to adding comical situations and dialogue. While parodies intend to mock its predecessor, So’s video accomplished its goal whilst destroying stereotypes of squeaky clean, heteronormative Asians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQMf3DaBdk8

[aalimelight-blog]

"Much Love" Review

By Steven Cong

Jason Chu’s new album, Much Love, has a lot to say. The issues he touches on range from reminiscing about high school to reconciling Christian and LGBT identities. That’s pretty deep. Despite the wide range of topics, the album still manages to feel cohesive because Jason always tied it back to what the album is about as a whole. And what it’s about is love, both the love that we have in this world and the love that’s missing from it. He orients his perspective of love around what he knows as a Chinese American Christian rapper, and it gives the listener much food for thought.

To start with the technical details, I thought he was very thoughtful with the beat selection. For songs like “DTR” featuring Kevin Lien, which runs through the many awkward anecdotes that come with teenage crushes, the tempo of the beat was fast and the melody upbeat. For songs like “Exhale,” which reminisces on high school experiences, places, and struggles, he had beats with slower tempos and jazzy instrumentals. Jason also showed versatility with his flow when he used double time in “Dear Mom and Dad,” and was able to capture the desperation of songs like “She Called,” which described a guy’s conflicted reaction to his girlfriend’s pregnancy, in his delivery. It’s an impressive work on a technical level.

One of the songs I want to mention is “Peter,” which talks about the experiences and thoughts of a Christian kid who realized he’s gay. Unlike most stories of Christians who leave the religion after their sexuality yields them to verbal and sometimes physical abuse in the community, Peter’s case is more complicated. Jason’s lyrics touched on how “so many sermons that [Peter] hears drive him away, but he knows God is love so he keeps his faith.” It’s interesting to see Jason present Christianity and being gay as things that aren’t polar opposites, and that’s a message we should all give some thought to if we want much more love in our society.

Another song I want to mention is “One Child” featuring Eva Li, which describes the effects of China’s One Child Policy on its society. You might ask what’s so wrong with being the only child in a family, or why that’s such an issue if China’s population is already so big. Jason frames his answer in the story of a couple in China, and brings to light the hurt that can come from the policy in a chorus that asks “what about your broken heart? What about someone who’s there when everything else falls apart?” In a nation where more and more girls are being adopted every day because the policy leaves their families with room for only a son, that’s a valid question.

One of the album’s central themes was family, and it’s a reminder of how much love immigrant parents hold when they say some version of having “slaved away because they saw the promise in tomorrow, hope the generation after will grow up without the sorrow.” That line came from the song “Grace” featuring Priska, which is yet another one of many songs that deal with the love we find in different parts of our lives. The songs in Much Love all approach the topic in its title from different lens, but they’re all lens we’ve used ourselves in looking at life at some point. Jason’s album has much to say about love, and after a listen, I think many people will find that there’s much to love about it as well.

[aalimelight-blog]

The API Community: A Puzzle to Me

By Chris Moua

Having been born with little or no access to the Internet, realizing that there exists a large API community connected, not only through the Internet, but also as a larger group in a whole, is a brand new concept for me. Having lived my life only thinking about what had happened to Hmong people, I was blind, and still sort of am, to the presence of my Asian ethnicity. I mean living in my local Hmong community is complicating enough as it is. What with the need to balance both my waning understanding of my culture and the overwhelming presence of my American identity, this new community that is so diverse in people and culture is just plain mind blowing. I actually feel out of the loop, or pretty much, behind on my history. Except, to really begin delving into this community with such richness in culture and history makes it hard to figure out where it is that I should begin to set a foothold.

So, where does one begin to explore a new subject? It’s sort of like someone asking you how to draw. What’s the right way to get started? Truth be told, there is no right way to get started at all. You just begin, but the thing about just beginning is that you don’t get off at the right starting as someone else who’s had way more exposure to the subject at hand. So, instead of what, how about where? Where do you start to explore and really nurture your understanding of API culture and history? Do you begin at the roots, and who’s roots would you really begin at? As I said earlier, my roots seemed to fail to really expose me to the world at large. Though, if you take the time to explore the roots of one specific Asian ethnic group, how do you not try to get lost in the thought that they were the beginning of the API community? Just like lines are the fundamentals of beginning a drawing, so are a person’s roots that help form the origins of the family tree. Though beginnings are very specific, one can safely assume that the API community of today began through the course of several years of immigrations to the United States.

Even if it’s very simple to claim that the API community began through the roots of our ancestors, what is it that allowed our community to grow and prosper into the way it is today, thus creating the culture and history that is now here? What is the API culture to begin with? Is it the modern API media that is produced today that defines the API culture or is it the diversity in traditions that defines the overarching culture of the API community? This community is so diverse in religions, ideologies, and people that the definition of the API identity is so obscure and, though unintentional, sometimes very exclusive as well. I guess that to define culture, one should have a strong understanding of the word and what it means. Though, what if this API culture is different in other parts of the United States? When apart, different perspectives can be created that is practiced in one area, but not the other. This further increases the diversity as ideas are introduced into areas that have never seen it before. It is because of all these ideas that the API community seems to have become a huge patchwork of colorful mismatched quilts that just looks right. To really explore this community, one needs quite a bit of time, but the best way is to start at the present. Like a tree, this community is interconnected, where the present reveals to you the past and gives you a glimpse into the future and where all questions have an answer thus clearing the confusion and adding to the clarity.

[aalimelight-blog]

What Do Jessie J and Teresa Teng Have in Common?

Teresa Teng

When I first moved to America, I would go to sleep every night with Su Rui’s “Follow Your Intuition” playing in my parents’ little boombox. Looking back on it, I think that was how they stayed connected to their homeland, China. It’s pretty amazing what cultural artifacts can do. Even now, they’d still call non-Asian/Asian Americans “foreigners” as they go to the local Ranch 99 shopping center in the Bay Area. Even now, they would hum tunes like Teresa Teng’s “The Moon Represents My Heart” from time to time. Music just seems to make their tie to China that much more real. Sometimes, it’s like they’re still there even when they’re here.

I never really understood it. The songs they listened to were never bad, but my 10 year old mind just associated those songs with the word “parents,” which at the time was a synonym for “old.” So the music they listened to was somehow “old,” and “old” definitely wasn’t “cool.” Music I liked were Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, and whatever else was playing on the radio. It’s things I associated with American, because I thought of myself as culturally American. Of course, that was until I learned about underground Asian American music that made me realize that my home is really Asian America.

However, even while we build our roots by creating a cultural Asian America, the culture of the ancestral homeland in Asia still affects us. It’s how we interpret it and reincorporate it into our own culture that makes it unique. When I hear Cynthia Lin cover Teresa Teng’s song, it suddenly becomes hip, and it suddenly becomes Asian American. Not a lot of Chinese people over in China are making acoustic covers of that song. This is a very American phenomenon. You know what’s an even more distinct and Asian American creation? Teresa Lee from the Paper Doll’s rockish cover of that same Teresa Teng song.

Cynthia Lin

The converse is also true. Globalization and capitalism has a knack for making copycats, and the Voice of China (yes, it is based off of The Voice, which is actually based off of The Voice of Holland) is definitely a copycat. It features Chinese singers doing popular renditions of songs like Jessie J’s “Price Tag” and “Someone Like You.” As these singers become popular in China, I wonder if their music would become more relatable to Asian Americans because of their renditions of these American songs. As I think about Joseph Vincent’s cover of Gangnam Style, I can’t help but wonder if future Asian American artists would be look to interpret these Asian artists’ works even as they create unique and original work of their own.

The cultural connection between the ancestral homeland and Asian America is growing tighter, but it doesn’t mean we’re rethinking ourselves as just Asian. See, the difference between my parents and me is that my parents see those Chinese songs as a bridge to the homeland. I see them as part of a living culture that is constantly reinterpreted by us to highlight the “Asian” part of that unique Asian American cultural space we are creating for ourselves.

Paper Dolls

[aalimelight-blog]

AA Limelight Interview with V3Con

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Jocelyn “Joz” Wang. I’m currently the President of AAJA Los Angeles, which is the Asian American Journalists Association, the Los Angeles Chapter. I’ve been blogging for ten years on my personal site, and on various other sites. The site I’m most known for is 8Asians.com, one of the most influential Asian American blogs out there. I’m one of the Co-Editors, but I’ve been a contributor since almost the beginning.

What is V3con?

It’s an endeavor that AAJA-LA is doing for the first time in partnership with some of the folks who planned the previous two conferences for Asian American bloggers known as “Banana.” At that first Banana conference in 2009, there were about 25 people there. In 2011, at Banana2, our attendance went up by tenfold when we packed the room with 250 people. After Banana2, all these people kept asking, “When is the next Banana?”

For us as journalists, we have our eyes on the digital world. So we talked about how it would be possible to put a conference together that would not just be applicable to bloggers, but really turn into a more substantive conference, which could really help journalists, no matter what platform they’re in. So we wanted to make sure that if we did a conference, it made sense for our members but still build bridges and be inclusive of the bloggers that had showed up to the first two conferences.

What V3con is, is really a conference to highlight and expand multiplatform AAPI communications. So this includes the journalists and the creative social media communicators—the bloggers, the YouTube folks and anybody who is interested in engaging in the digital platform online.

Continue reading →

[aalimelight-blog]

On Cultural Appropriation

By Jade Cho

This summer I realized I had truly transformed into a big-word-using, theorizing, Ethnic Studies loving nerd, when I digested a 400 page book about African American and Asian American connections in 2 weeks, read and re-read a chain of online essays on Asian Americans, hip hop, and appropriation of Black culture, then spent one Friday night perusing all 106 comments of a thread in which several professors debated that same topic. As someone who does spoken word, an art form deeply rooted in Black culture and the works of Black poets; as a hip hop fan raised upper middle class and assimilated in a white neighborhood (whose first exposure to non-radio hip hop was a Zion I song playing off of Adriel Luis‘ old website in the 9th grade); I found the content extremely potent, because the Asian American appropriating or not appropriating Black culture in question was me. And it goes deeper; to Asian American anti-black attitudes, to Asian American complicity in upholding white supremacist power structures that oppress Black people; essentially the fulcrum of all American society and capitalism itself. Hella deep shit. These readings made me question myself and my role in society, and I want to begin discussing how they relate to AA Limelight and the current state of Asian American art.

Continue reading →