Gil Asakawa

gilasakawa

Gil Asakawa escribe sobre la cultura pop y la política en su blog desde una perspectiva asiático-americana y japonés-americana, www.nikkeiview.com. Él y su pareja también cofundaron www.visualizAsian.com, en donde realizan entrevistas en vivo con asiático-americanos e isleños del Pacífico notables. Es el autor de Being Japanese American (Stone Bridge Press, 2004) y fue presidente de la junta editorial del Pacific Citizen por siete años como miembro de la junta nacional JACL.

Última actualización en noviembre de 2009

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Eating Together Again for the Holidays

Por Gil Asakawa
3 Ene 2023

It’s been a long, sometimes lonely three years since COVID-19 arrived in the world and changed all our lives. For many of us, this holiday season may be the first since the pandemic shutdowns when we’ll be traveling to visit family once again, and dining with them. (Of course, we didn’t know a historic deep freeze would disrupt nationwide travel over the Christmas weekend….) If we’re lucky, we live not far from our parents and grandparents, and have been able to drive over for Sunday dinners or pick up takeout to enjoy with them this whole time. But if we live …

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Nikkei View

Learning about Asian Americans through Pop Culture

Por Gil Asakawa
28 Oct 2022

Pop culture can be a mirror that reflects the issues and values of its time—for good and bad. For instance, Hollywood initially embraced Asians, and two of the early film era’s biggest stars were Los Angeles-born Chinese American Anna May Wong and Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa. Anna May Wong is now featured on a quarter; Sessue Hayakawa is probably best remembered today for The Bridge over the River Kwai. But as the 20th century progressed, Hollywood began casting white actors with eyes taped back and “yellowface” makeup on their faces to play Asian r…

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Sake to me, baby

Por Gil Asakawa
30 Jun 2022

Nancy Matsumoto readily admits she’s a lightweight when drinking alcohol. “It’s ironic, that I wrote this,” she says. Matsumoto co-wrote Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice, Water, Earth with Michael Tremblay (Tuttle). It’s the latest in a number of book collaborations, including Displaced: Manzanar 1942–1945—The Incarceration of Japanese Americans and an upcoming book, By the Shore of Lake Michigan, in which she served as editor for a translation of a collection of her grandparents’ Japanese tanka poetry. Matsumoto is a pro…

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I’m so disappointed to see stereotyped snack packaging in my supermarket

Por Gil Asakawa
25 May 2022

Racial stereotypes used to be part of the American consumer landscape – everywhere you turned there was a depiction, playful caricature or a ghastly exaggerated image of a person of color on commercials and ads on television or publications, or on packaging on store shelves. But if nothing else, the recent years of anti-racism protests in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and the many Black men and women before him and since, has awakened mainstream Americans and the media and institutions that serve them and let them know in no uncertain terms that racial images are no longer acc…

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This Year’s Pilgrimage to Amache Will Be Very, Very Special

Por Gil Asakawa
8 Abr 2022

Every year on the Saturday before Labor Day Weekend, people converge in southeast Colorado to visit Amache, the camp where 9,000 people of Japanese descent were incarcerated during World War II. This annual pilgrimage started in 1975, organized by Denver activists Marge Taniwaki and Russell Endo. It’s always an inspiring journey, which starts at the site of the concentration camp and ends at nearby Granada School, where community leaders and the amazing students of the Amache Preservation Society at the school welcome and feed the visitors and give presentations. There’s a ceremo…