On a weekend trip to Napa a few years ago, I noticed a plaque near downtown commemorating China Point Lookout. Chinese Immigrants in California Wine Country built a Chinatown there. As this video from TAAF’s The United States of Asian+America points out, the Chinese who helped build California’s Wine Country were often burned out and their history and contributions largely erased, part of The Driving Out.

We have written about the contributions of Asian Americans to California wine country before. This video gives a different perspective and focuses on Chinese laborers. The interviewer, Lois Cho, is a co-founder of Cho Wines in Oregon. The United States of Asian+America is an ongoing series from TAAF, The Asian American Foundation.

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The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), in conjunction with Wong Fu productions, has been presenting Asian American Trailblazers in their series, The United States of Asian+America. This project is an extension of their Asian+American PSA campaign. The campaign features Asian Americans who have tremendously influence American and society in the world. The focus is on trying to combat the pernicious stereotype of the perpetual foreigner.

The series has been going a while since it was first announced. Asian Americans featured so far include YouTube founder Steve Chen, USB co-inventor Ajay Bhatt, and Hip Hop pioneer Sophia Chang.  I had no idea of the influence that Sophia Chang had on hip-hop music, particular with her work with the Wu Tang clan. I have not yet watched all of their videos, and I am looking forward to watching more.

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Marketing has been building up for the Forgotten Island release today, September 25.  I  particularly liked this featurette about the making of the movie. I was pleasantly surprised that some of the animation was actually done in the Philippines.

In case you can’t get enough about this movie, here are some recent interviews and videos of interest:

• H.E.R. Interview on Jimmy Kimmel
• H.E.R. Interview with Karen Davila (seeboy  H.E.R. sing in Tagalog)
• Liza Soberano interview with Karen Davila
• Boy Abunda interview with the Forgotten Island Team
• Sophia Laforteza from KATSEYE on performing a song from the movie

As I have said before, I really hope this is good. So far, Rotten Tomatoes shows positive responses at 96% as I was writing this. You can see the trailer here.

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Like clockwork, Apple has released a new iPhone this fall – the iPhone 18. And with that comes a new ad campaign, starring ROSÉ, of Blackpink (and individual) fame. ROSÉ isn’t Asian American, but she is Asian and Apple’s commercial is being shown in America:

“A look at ROSÉ’S new music video for “new trick” shot entirely on iPhone 18 Pro. The new variable aperture lens on the 48MP main camera captured improved low-light footage and impressive depth of field to bring the music video to life.”

The commercial is essentially a music video shot entirely on the iPhone 18 Pro. It’s a win-win for ROSÉ and Apple. I know that ‘Left Handed Girl’ was shot entirely on an iPhone (iPhone 13 in fact) So was this entire series of Chinese New Year videos. I mean cameras on phones these days are so good that the need to have a separate video camera is not really necessarily quality wise for most use cases. Amazing to see how mainstream K-pop has become in the United States. BTS isn’t submitting their consideration for the Grammy’s new category in 2027: “Best Asian pop music performance.” The Internet has globalized music.

Here’s the entire music video if you’re interested:

I wonder where the music video was shot. I’m assuming in the United States, but I could be wrong. I wonder what it was like to be one of the background actors in the music video as well as other technical details of the shoot (length of the shoot, budget, etc.) and how much Apple paid ROSÉ.

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We frequently mention data disaggregation is critical to understand Asian American population. This summary of a study on South Asian American Breast Cancer confirms this fact. Compared to white women, doctors diagnosed South Asian Americans at a younger age with more aggressive forms of the disease. On average, they received treatment later than white women, Strangely enough, despite that, South Asians were more likely to have a better odds of surviving breast cancer. South Asians women have a higher percentage of private medical insurance, although it’s hard to establish that is a contributing factor.

The study looked at data from the National Cancer Database which includes more than 2 million women. I really appreciate the large database, as some published medical studies have dangerously small sample sizes. You can read the full paper here.

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Asian American dance competitions are nothing new. The successes of groups like Kaba Modern and Poreotics on older shows like America’s Best Dance Crew in the late 2000’s demonstrates this. But Bollywood-fusion dance teams?  That’s new to me and why this trailer to the new movie Best of the Best fascinates me. A quick synopsis from the press release:

Two childhood best friends, Maya and Anjali, join UCLA’s competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team, only to discover that the road to winning the U.S. Championship is far more raucous and cutthroat than they ever imagined.

I really appreciate the Asian Americanness of the movie – the lead characters are definitely American without an accent. We could use more media visibility of Indian Americans who in most ways are just plain American, especially in a time of growing anti-Indian sentiment.  The movie features Canadian actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. I recognize her from the Mindy Kahling series Never have I Ever. Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam write the movie, which is directed by Lena Khan.

Note that there is an earlier movie from 1989 called Best of the Best.  It also includes Asians and Asian Americans but is enjoyable in a completely different way.  The Best of the Best premieres on Netflix on September 18.

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“As September 11th approaches each and every year, the tension just builds up and the stress, sometimes debilitation. We never forget.”

Harry Ong is the oldest brother of Flight Attendant Betty Ong. Betty Ong worked on Flight 11.  She calmly relayed important information during the hijacking, relaying critical information, helping to identify the hijackers and leading the FAA to close US Airspace. The 9/11 commission called her a hero. Ong died when Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center.

I think is a particularly good time to remember Ong, particularly as Chinese Americans are considered suspicious in the current environment. Ong was a native of San Francisco Chinatown.  San Francisco named the Betty Ong Chinese Recreation Center in Chinatown in her honor. In addition, the Betty Ong foundation has been created to commemorate her. You can find out more about Betty Ong at her Wikipedia page and at her 9/11 Memorial page.

(photo credit: www.bettyong.org)

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You may have heard that Coyote vs. Acme came out recently after a long controversial hold when Warner Brothers wanted to shelve the completely finished movie for a tax write off. You not have heard about the very Filipino background behind this story. Asian Canadian Eric Bauza voices the Looney Toon Characters in this movie, as you can see in this delightful video from Pablo Torre Finds Out.

Eric Bauza is hilarious here. You can see him connect with Pablo Torre on a diasporic Filipino level at 3:19. Filipino Americans and Canadians will probably love it. That moment just killed Son Number 1, Torre, and me! Bauza was born in Scarborough Ontario, a heavily Asian city where my cousin and her family live.

Bauza’s and Torre’s discussion of how a greedy corporation shelved a movie about a greedy corporation also makes it worth watching. Unlike the movie Batgirl that was shelved, Coyote vs. Acme received good audience test results. A protest campaign eventually lead to the movie rights being purchased by Ketchup Entertainment for $50 million.

Will Ketchup Entertainment recoup its costs?  Maybe.  Some point out that Coyote vs. Acme benefits from a new phenomenon called a “buycott”. I have to say that joining the buycott is motivation for me to see the movie. In addition, the movie has earned a 96% fresh rating and also stars Lana Condor. We have put the trailer below. It’s in theatres now.

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