Hey All,
My fundraising has been dormant since Sam Yoon’s campaign, so I told my web posse that I’d post stuff up about their endeavors.
1. Project X: Militant’s work focused on the arts. You can contribute money to help him out. He’s going to give money to support Asian American artists in film. In his own words:
“Project X is a fund dedicated to the advancement of Asians and Asian Americans in American film. I have set the fundraising goal to $100, 000 US dollars. Once all proceeds have been raised, I will reward any independent film director or producer with an outstanding treatment that casts at least one lead role for an Asian American male or female. Either that, or the film has to depict a distinct era in which the Asian American experience is uniquely captured through a moving lens. I am extremely fond of boldness, strong personalities, and trailblazers. After a person-to-person interview, there will be a panel, TBD, that will make the final decision on who gets the funding. The goal is getting the film screened at major film festivals around the world. “
It sounds pretty good to me. Militant is also working on his own film right now.
2. The Alpha Asian Mindset: Alpha-Asian just recently compiled a book called, appropriately, “The Alpha Asian Mindset.” It’s a collection of writings from his blog with some new material. Proceeds will go to an Asian American charity:
“All sales of the The Alpha Asian Mindset will go to an Asian American cause. Causes will change periodically, and you the reader will choose which cause the profits go to. Check out the causes below and vote!”
(Note: In terms of the possible recipients of those causes, I’m against the 80/20 Initiative, much like 8A and Reappropriate. I think S.B. Woo is an unethical slime. However, it looks like they’re getting killed in the Alpha Asian survey, so I hope it’s all good.)
Related posts:
I also wanted more rice than what could fit inside the wrap....
I think it is great tht Militant is making a film. It is certainly an endeavor worth supporting.
Congratulations to Alpha on completing his book.
Thanks American Girl. And thanks to B for posting for his “web posse.”
B knew about my idea to put out an Alpha Asian book about a year ago, when we first started our blogs. I played around with the idea back then, forgot about it, then came back to the idea when I saw how Kev Jumba does his fundraising for causes.
frankly, I’m the most apolitical person you will ever meet. You talk about politics or social issues with me and my eyes glaze over and I start playing 6 degrees with Kevin Bacon in my head. Which is why I’ve chosen this automated but interactive way to generating funds for causes.
I’ve got a bit of ADD and I have many other interests (none of which my wife finds practical), so I don’t keep up with that stuff. I don’t even watch the news. but thank goodness for guys like B who DO keep up with social political stuff. I just looked over your Fighting 44′s thread on 80-20, dude. Good to know!
Anyway, another idea I was playing around with was having a book collaboration. Each chapter could be from a different blogger about a different Asian American issue or topic. Bloggers can promote the book and profits can go to whatever cause or endeavor you want. Anyway that’s my idea.
Cool deal, Alpha!
No worries about the politics. I’d help publicize your effort even if I disagreed with one bad political group. I think it’s great that you’re doing the book thing.
The blogger collaboration could be really cool too. Actually, I think lots of people would be interested in that.
Hey Jae, thanks for the link!
I’ve actually thought the blogger book has been necessary for some time. The APA blogosphere has grown so much in the last few years, and there are a LOT of great writers out there. Yet, the state of APA literature (particularly politicized literature) is still really sparse; I think bloggers should get together and write a book that could be used as text for APA studies 101, but that could also appeal as a read for apolitical young Asian Americans.
I would totally be on board to help organize a project like that, but I would want to collaborate with someone on it.
I think bloggers should get together and write a book that could be used as text for APA studies 101, but that could also appeal as a read for apolitical young Asian Americans.
That’s sort of what I was thinking. An Asian American Studies primer would be good. Not that there aren’t good Asian American Studies books, but there’s a big difference between academic writing and writing for the general public. With writing for the general public, at least you infuse a bit of wit and humor into it. You’re allowed to put some emotion, attitude and opinions into the writings. You got to make it somewhat entertaining for the readers.
I mean look at http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com. I learned quite a bit of Asian American history from their blog entries. Not necessarily academic standards, but good enough for me.
Anyway, book collaborations can quite flexible (each writer submits whatever they want within the Asian American criteria) or writers can follow a theme. We can even have bloggers submit the best pieces from their blogs.
We have more than enough bloggers in the AA blogosphere to compile a book. And especially after the Banana conference, collaboration and communication should be easy. All we need is a forum for which we can all check in on the project, an editor(s) to review the pieces, somebody to write the introduction, and someone to work out the print on the demand process. Everybody has to do their part in promoting the book, however.
Anyway, I willing to collaborate with other bloggers on this, but let’s just wait until January 4th to start working on it.
What do you think, B?
Working on the Thymos Anthology, I’ve seen first hand that it’s good to have a clearly defined vision/theme to the work.
Having a compelling vision for the anthology is very important. This idea is what generates interest in the project (among potential contributors) and motivates the editors to work on it.
Also, it can be a pain getting people to actually write and submit work. People may express a lot of (superficial) interest and enthusiasm. But when it comes to actually doing the work to produce an essay, that interest may evaporate.
This may be different with bloggers, however, since you are dealing with people who actually write as a calling.
Hey Jenn,
Nice to see you here. Glad that you’re still blogging. Sounds like you’re busy with professional stuff these days.
James and Jenn,
I’m all for it!
With the novel, I probably won’t have all that much time, but I can definitely commit to sending something.
Here’s another idea: What about a history of the Asian American blogosphere? You or we could write about Asianguy, Modelminority, Angry, theFighting44s, Soompi, 8A, AARisings, and all the others. That would be some cool collaboration. It would bring some permanence to the AA blogosphere. This could bring some of the vision that Larry’s talking about.
B.
Also, it can be a pain getting people to actually write and submit work. People may express a lot of (superficial) interest and enthusiasm. But when it comes to actually doing the work to produce an essay, that interest may evaporate.
This is very true, Larry. Man do I hate flakes! This is the reason I do a lot of things by myself.
What about a history of the Asian American blogosphere? You or we could write about Asianguy, Modelminority, Angry, theFighting44s, Soompi, 8A, AARisings, and all the others.
I remember playing around with a similar idea of a brief history of the AA blogosphere on the Minority Militant. BTW, I did sort of “interview” Rick Lee, and I kept pestering him for a podcast interview, but he’s never gotten back to me about that. He did answer my questions by email.
I don’t know if there’s enough history for a book, but I would certainly want thoe sites that you mentioned included, B.
I’m going to let this idea stew for awhile.
Jenn, Larry and B… I’ll definitely contact you guys about this, but probably after the holidays.
Whatever the topic of the book project, makes sure that one is passionate about it. The last thing that you want to do is to commit to doing a book and then discover that you’re only lukewarm about it.
Also, define the audience for the book. Who are they, and would they be interested in the topic? Maybe ask people would they be willing to pay actual money for a book about the subject matter.
In terms of a history of the AA blogosphere, this topic is somewhat interesting, but it would be limited to contributors who know something about this history or were actually part of it.
Maybe you guys/gals could also include the early pioneer sites like
Asian Avenue
Yellow world
AznRaps
into the history as well, cause its all linear, Yellowworld and Asian Avenue both spearheaded movements against AA discrimination,(A&F tshirts, Anna He, ) while Aznraps supported the early Azn artists which pathed the way for later groups like Jin, FarEast Movement, even WongFu, KevJumba(which have used Jin and FarEast movement music in their videos)….
Oh man, I forgot all about those guys. Yes, they’re definitely part of history!
Here’s one topic I thought of, simply because I (just like other bloggers) have readership around the globe: a book on the Asian Diaspora. Each contributor can submit a chapter on the history of their Asian community in their part of the world. Anna you could write about the Chinese Aussie community and its history.
I think it’d be a fascinating look into the similarities, parallels and unique character of Asian communities all over the world.
Hi Alpha, thats a very interesting idea i must say…
would that mean East Asian Diaspora? In the Anglosphere/in english speaking+white dominant countries?(such as AUS, CAN,US,UK)
What topics would that include? would it be the social/political/cultural history? Yellow civil rights leaders?
Any part of the world where Asian communities have propagated outside of their nation of origin. So Asians in the Anglosphere would work (as in Aussie Asians, Asian American) as well as Asians in other Asian countries (the Chinese in Malaysia) and Asians in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean.
It’d be a historical overview of each community as well as current issues facing those communities.
Tough to collaborate on such an endeavor, considering there are very few amateur historians who can write in English who have knowledge of each of these communities. We don’t have to cover every community, just enough chapters to constitute a book.
Hey Alpha,
It might be better if we focus the book on one or just a few key areas, otherwise it would become a hodpodge or everything with no clear direction or focus. Dont you agree? If you have Asians in Asia,thats a whole different situation than Asians in the West, and Asians in the spanish speaking west is different to Asians in the english speaking west. Then Asians in multilingual Europe is different too. Its too many strands going in too different directions.
Maybe the few key areas of common ground unifying the chapters could be
-Geography
-Social/political historical background ~~achievements and discrimination
-Current socio-political issues facing community
so for example
-Anglosphere,US,UK,CAN,NZ,AUS
-1700s+ figures, history
-Media representation,Education , etc
Hey Alpha, these ideas just came to me while i was typing, what about a book about:
- Azn pop culture, Asian diaspora pop culture in the Anglosphere from the 1700s onwards. It could look at Azn pop culture history in entertainment and media, and Azn pop cultural icons in movies, films, publishing, distribution ,eg Anna Mae Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, Carman Chang, etc
-Azn leaders, movers and shakers. The title of this book could be called AZN HEROES or maybe 108 HEROES or maybe GOLDEN HEROES, 200 YEARS OF HEROES, or THE 108.
It would look at the pioneers and heroes of Azns in the Anglosphere in different key areas such as politics, economics/business, entertainmen/pop culture, civil rights, and law.
If we called the AZN hero book, “”THE 108″” we could look at 108 inspirational AZNS in the anglosphere in 5 different areas of Politics, Law, Business, Pop Culture, Civil rights. Each area could have 20-30(or less or more) people(men and women say 50-50 split) each stating their lifestory, what they did, how they did it, what they faced, how they overcame, their eventual victory/success, and its impact on the situation and the future generations(up to modern day). A unifying tone/theme could be something like “its a struggle, but if you work hard you can achieve anything against the odds”" and “”theres such a thing as real AZN heroes in the Anglosphere”"
What do you think? whereas a book about AZN pop culture would look at overall sociopolitical trends about Azns in pop culture, the AZN heroes book would just cover individuals, and their effects on society.
The salepoint of the two later ideas i just suggested as compared to the the first one is that young people these days might be more interested in AZN HEROES, and AZN POP CULTURE more rather than if it was just a straight up history book. Also, these two books would be more focused on specific issues, rather than being everywhere, about everything. Plus dont you reckon its more cool to have a book called “THE 108″ with the pictures of Richard Aoki, Anna Mae Wong, Yuri Kochiyama, Sessue Hayakawa, Mei Quong Tart etc, all superimposed onto each other on the front cover? lol, just the visual effects would be awesome!
Doing a book on the Diaspora would be focused enough, I think. There’s a single thread that goes through each of the chapters, and that is that Asians have made homes in places outside of their nations of origin. Each chapter is like a mini history lesson, similar to each other because every community has a beginning, a growth period, a struggle and an assimilation or acculturation period. We’d see that these racial animosities towards Asians occurred throughout history all over the world, not just in South Philly High.
but each chapter would be different enough, because each Asian community would have its own unique history.
I hear what you’re saying though, that Asians nowadays don’t care for history and would rather read stuff about pop culture. THAT would be all over the place, especially if you’re talking about 108 figures throughout history and recently. I’m already aggregating these figures at the Alpha Asian blog with all the videos. A book featuring these guys would be a lot of work, because you’d have to do in-depth interviews with each and every one of them.
But if you feel passionately about creating such a book, then I say go for it, Anna.
Hey Alpha,
ok.
Hi Alpha,
Just wondering if mixed race Asians would fit into the definition of Diaspora?
Hey Yuey,
Mixed race Asians would definitely be part of the Diaspora, because they are the end result of Asians immigrating to different lands and intermarrying with the general population. here’s one interesting example:
The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America
So I bought Alpha’s book and had it sent to my grandparents house so I could read it while on Christmas vacation. Amazon said it would be there by December 24, which would have been perfect timing except it was about two weeks late.
Nonetheless, it showed up at my grandparents house and my grandfather thought I bought it for him for Christmas and he read it. Alpha, my 89-year-old grandfather said, ” this guy James Chan, hit the nail on the head.” He thoroughly enjoyed your book and overlooked all the swear words. Now I have to buy another one.
@ American Girl
He thoroughly enjoyed your book and overlooked all the swear words.
LOL well I’m glad he liked it. I pictured this book as a way to mentor people in their 20′s and 30′s, but to have an 89 year old grandfather, who’s been there and done that, say that he liked my book is good to hear.
Thanks for relating that story, American Girl. I really appreciate hearing that. BTW the first month of sales for the Alpha Asian Mindset has been sent to AALDEF for their work on South Philly High. Until I come up with another poll with new causes, all profits will go to them.
@ BigWoWo, Larry and Jenn
I know I was going to in touch with you guys about a book collaboration, but the baby is due any day now. I have a feeling that I won’t have any time or energy to do a book collaboration
No probs, Alpha. I was out of it too for similar reasons. Get ready to fall in love.