The variety of Ruperto’s work surprised me. He works in a variety of forms from graphics (shown here to the right) to film to Virtual Reality. He also has worked on a short movie on Valley Fever, a fungal disease that is particularly fatal to Filipino Americans and African Americans.  Not surprisingly, Ruperto has also worked on movie visual effects.

This exhibit is part of Stanford’s Asian American Art Initiative. Artist Miljohn Ruperto’s exhibit runs until September 14, 2026 at the Cantor Museum.

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Overview of The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook

I’ve known professor and filmmaker Valerie Soe ever since she started producing her documentary film, Love Boat: Taiwan, where I eventually became a minor producer, interview subject, and archival footage provider. So when I saw that Valerie was going to have her documentary on The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook screened at CAAMFest 2026, I knew I was going to attend in person. A summary of the film:

“What would you do to protect your neighbors?

In March 2020, as COVID-19 exposed deep fractures in the U.S. public health system, performance artist Kristina Wong launched the Auntie Sewing Squad. A grassroots collective of primarily BIPOC women volunteers, the Aunties mobilized virtually with an urgent mission: to protect those most at risk. What began as a few dozen crafty activists quickly grew into a nationwide network of more than 800 volunteers, sewing and donating masks to historically disenfranchised communities of color.

In this feature-length documentary, director Valerie Soe (Love Boat: Taiwan, The Oak Park Story) follows Kristina Wong (Radical Cram School) as she activates a group of self-proclaimed Aunties to transform domestic spaces as sites of resistance. From their sewing machines, they confront systemic inequities head-on, openly discussing feminism, anti-racism, mutual aid, and collective care.

Through acts both intimate and expansive, the Squad – Aunties, Uncles, and non-binary volunteers alike – reimagines what solidarity looks like in a time of crisis. Their living room “sweatshops” not only become engines of radical care to offer protection, but also a powerful blueprint for community-driven action and change.”

Relationship to Kristina Wong’s Sweatshop Overlord

I have seen ‘Kristina Wong – Sweatshop Overlord’ performance in San Francisco back in May of 2024 at American Conservatory Theater (ACT), which was hilarious and amazing,

so I was familiar with the story. The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook provides a lot more background and context with a lot of interviews with those actively involved in the mask making effort.

Film Q&A

What was amazing to see was that not only those involved with the documentary, but also the many people involved with Auntie Sewing Squad were in attendance. During the post-screening Q&A, I sat next to one of the aunties. She was a local (relatively) from San Jose, which is about 50 miles south of San Francisco.

The footage of the shutdown from COVID-19 from 2020 to 2021 brought back some memories. Amazing to think we went through that, with all those who died (approximately 1.1 million) and how we were all waiting for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like masks and for a vaccine.

Kristina and others felt they needed to step up because our government failed. I agree, our government did fail. Aa bigger failure was the long-term outsourcing strategy which exposed how dependent the world is on global supply chains, and that maybe it makes sense to manufacture things locally – what a concept!

It was heartwarming to see how the community was built – mostly online, through Facebook and frequent Zoom meetings. The Auntie Sewing Squad Resistance Playbook shows how volunteers wanted to help, where they got supplies and how they learned to sew. What was even more interesting to hear where groups were reaching out asking the Auntie Sewing Squad (ASS for short as Kristina had hilariously realized afterwards after naming her effort). ASS made over 350,000 masks with all non-paid volunteers and donated money and contributions of elastic, cloth, and other supplies.

What I’ve always known and what this documentary demonstrated, was that one person can make a difference. In this case, that person was Kristina Wong, Asian American comedian and activist. We all can make a difference in our own way – either as a leader or individual contributor.

How to See the Movie and other Related Information

Unfortunately, the only way to see the film will probably at a screening at a film festival. There are no currently theatrical or online streaming distribution planned yet. You can keep up-to-date with the documentary and any screenings on its official website – https://www.theauntiesewingsquadresistanceplaybook.com/ or via the Facebook Page or Instagram Page.

At the AMC Kabuki 8 theater, Kristina was also selling her book Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism. Kristina didn’t mention about it (or if she did, I didn’t hear about it) and I didn’t get to learn much about it – but I hope to. One reviewer wrote (as posted on the Amazon.com page):

“The colorful layout and distinct chapter projects make this book one that can be used not only to learn about Asian Americans, but to get readers to see the larger structural issues behind racism and other issues in Asian American communities.”

I will have to take a look and maybe write a review in the future.

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While looking through the CAAMFest 2026 online guide, the documentary Breaking the Code, caught my eye. After seeing the film, I regret not being able to see the film in-person, especially since the subject of the film, Kanwal Rekhi and the filmmaker BenRekhi (his son), were in attendance for the post-screening Q&A.

Overview and Recommendation

Breaking the Code overview:

“Kanwal Rekhi was the first Indian American founder and CEO to take a venture-backed company public on NASDAQ in 1987. He has mentored hundreds of aspiring businessmen through the IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global network for Indian entrepreneurs he co-founded. People call him the “Godfather of Silicon Valley’s Indian Mafia.”

Every Indian American should watch this documentary. Every Asian American and all Americans working in tech should watch this film. I work in tech in Silicon Valley and love learning about the history of tech. I consider PBS’s ‘Triumph of the Nerds’ the best three hours of television ever produced. Often I attend talks locally in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum. Steven Levy’s ‘Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution’ is a great account of the early days of computing.

Discussion (some spoilers)

Breaking the Code not only chronicles the Rekhi’s rise in the tech/business world, but also a memoir of Kanwal Rekhi, his love story and inter-racial marriage with a white American woman, Ann. He corresponded with her for years as Parker penpals prior to meeting in person.  Later, he cared for her during her cancer. The movie shows Rekhi’s reflections on her periods of depression due to her being abused by her stepfather as a child. Breaking the Code also directly exposes the racism and ignorance in America and one man’s efforts to level the business playing field.

I personally had never heard of Kanwal Rekhi until I came across this film, nor the company he founded and took public, Excelan. I have heard of Novell, which eventually acquired Excelan. Rekhi would eventually become second in command at Novell, which at the time, was the second largest software company in the world after Microsoft.

Kanwal Rekhi as an Early Pioneer

The documentary chronicles Rekhi from his early days as a child, to a student at a new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus, to attending graduate school at Michigan Technological University (MTU).

The documentary reminds us that back in the 1960s, there were very few Indians coming to the United States for graduate school. Indians in IT/technology were far and few between. Indians did not have the reputation of Indians today. Nor were there Indian executive like today – Microsoft & Satya Nadella, Alphabet (Google) & Sundar Pichai, Adobe & Shantanu Narayen, and IBM & Arvind Krishna, to name a few. When Rekhi aced his first exam, he was accused by his professor of cheating and for his second exam, his professor stood over him and watch him take his exam.

After graduating from MTU, Rekhi had a few jobs in Florida and in California and was passed over to be promoted to becoming a manager (sound familiar?). His bosses would want to keep him as an engineer because he was so good at his job. Those bosses promoted a less experienced and qualified white colleague instead. Rekhi had ideas and ambition and was entrepreneurial, so left his safe job to start Excelan with his friends and eventually take the company public. And as stated before, Novell eventually acquired Excelan. Typical for those times, Rekhi eventually was passed over for the top job at Novell. He then concentrated his efforts on building the Indian American entrepreneurial network so that other Indians wouldn’t have to have struggled as much as he had.

The Indus Entrepreneurs

In 1995, Rekhi co-founded TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, “a nonprofit support network to provide advice, contacts, and funding to Indian Americans hoping to start businesses.” Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley since 1999, I am aware of TiE and their annual conference in Silicon Valley. Still, I had never known about Rekhi. For Tie alone, Rekhi should be more well known!

In fact, I cannot think of an equivalent influential organization like TiE for Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean or other AAPI communities. The fact that TiE exists could be one of the major reasons why Indian Americans have thrived as business and technology leaders in the United States relative to other Asian American communities (though I have some other ideas on that subject that in the future I will need to formulate more cohesively )

After watching this film, I thought about my friend Jane Hyun and her book, Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling; my blog post on a study on Americans expecting their business leaders to be white, and Morris Chang founding TSMC after hitting the bamboo ceiling at Texas Instruments and how far Indian Americans have come since the 1960s in the United States.

Some Surprises

What surprised me the most was how candid the documentary is, specifically in regards to Rekhi’s wife Ann. It shows her cancer treatments.  Rekhi discusses Ann’s abuse as a child and her periods of depression. In Chinese/Taiwanese culture, airing the family “dirty laundry” would be looked down upon or at least not to be expected. It was refreshing to learn about Ann’s physical and mental health issues. Both of which need to be destigmatized broadly in many if not all Asian American communities.

I think this documentary would be a pretty big eye opener for all Americans working in tech, and resonate with Asian Americans and very heartwarming for Indian Americans.

How can you watch the film?

As for distribution, the documentary is heading to a few more festivals on the circuit (NYIFF on May 30th, and some others that will be announced). The filmmaker is working with sales agents to secure distribution as we speak,aiming for the Fall. I hope this film gets wide distribution like on PBS, much like Invisible Nation.

Indian Institutes of Technology

As an aside, the Indian Institutes of Technology have become so well known by the early 2000’s that 60 Minutes had done a segment on them back in 2003:

“With a population of over a billion people in India, competition to get into the IITs is ferocious. Last year, 178,000 high school seniors took the entrance exam called the JEE. Just over 3,500 were accepted, or less than two percent.”

Personally, I have worked with IIT graduates. I launched Adobe’s first application that was fully engineered by Adobe India. Some of those extremely talented engineers graduated from IIT.

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First, for those who don’t know, what is Pandan?  It is a flavor that comes from the leaves of the Pandanus amaryllifolius plant. I am most familiar with it in the Filipino dessert of Buko Pandan. Living around a lot of Vietnamese Americans in Silicon Valley, I also developed a taste for pandan waffles.  It is used widely through southeast Asia.  The dessert shown above is from Thailand.

As with the article, I have seen pandan appear in more places and included in things like a buko pandan latte. Like with many Asian things that go trendy, I have mixed feelings.  It is great to have representation, but being “trendy” can lead many to completely ignore cultures that created that trendy thing. Also, like with ube, I would be concerned with huge demand increases causing problems with suppliers.

So will it become popular beyond Asian communities?  The Food Network already has a page on Pandan. Healthline’s page on Pandan touts possible (yet unproven) health benefits. I guess we’ll see.

(photo credit: Peachyeung316 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license..)

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I was not able to view Forge in person at its CAAMFest 2026 screening, but so I watched the screener provided to me. I found the plot intriguing, plus Kelly Marie Tran stars in this independent film:

“Siblings Raymond and Coco Zhang run a forgery ring. Coerced by a disgraced millionaire, they create counterfeit masterpieces for his family’s collection. FBI agent Emily Lee investigates a new string of art forgeries.”

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest Film & TV Festival this past March and received positive reviews. The film company Utopia acquired distribution rights and set a release date for the film of May 15, 2026.

Film Review  (and some spoilers)

Overall, I enjoyed the film. Forge is director Jing Ai Ng’s feature debut. For a first time full length feature film, it is very good – from the acting, editing, cinematography, etc. I thought actress Andie Ju portrayal of Coco Zhang was the highlight of the film. Brandon Soo Hoo portrayed immature troublemaker and the Duke-expelled (for making fake IDs) older brother Raymond convincingly. I was most interested in Kelly Marie Tran, as I mostly know her from Star Wars and her comedic role in the remake/re-imagining of ‘The Wedding Banquet.’  Tran’s portrayal as FBI agent Emily Lee, who covers art crimes, was more subdued but still enjoyable.

The Ivy League spoiled generationally wealthy sketchy entrepreneur Holden Beaumont (most likely inspired by the guy who organized the Fyre Festival debacle) and his equally entitled girlfriend/fiancee Eva were a bit stereotypical but served their roles to further move the plot. The film takes place in Miami (a city that I have yet to visit!). Miami became known as a contemporary art capital ever since the debut of Art Basel Miami Beach fair in 2002. It was interesting to learn about Miami art scene.

Being transferred from the NYC FBI office, Lee provides some context to her colleagues (as well as the audience) in Miami about art forgeries. Soon, we find Lee conveniently (through a recommendation) at the best Chinese restaurant in Miami where Coco and Raymond’s mother and extended family help run. Personally, I find that fact a bit too convenient from a plot perspectives, but in a later scene, we see how that Chinese/Asian connection is used and exploited by Coco. I’ve heard that Miami doesn’t really have a lot of Asians (less than 1.8% of the population), so I imagine the Chinese/Asian American community is quite small and tight knit.

After we see Coco and Raymond sell their first forgery, we soon see Raymond getting connected to Holden and his need to sell his own private collection which he inherited and essentially threw away and is in need of money. The rest of the film is setup to be unfolded by Agent Lee.

I found the whole art market very interesting, especially how one might sell a forgery. Personally, even if I were wealthy, I’m not sure I’d spend the kind of money some of these artists’ paintings sell for, given how easily (at least on the surface), a forgery could get passed along as legitimate. Additionally, like fashion, certain artists or paintings might have a period of popularity and be “hot,” then fade away in interest.

With its overall strong performances, an interesting premise, and a solid production, I would recommend seeing Forge, especially if you want to see a work from an up and coming Asian American director and actors.

Where to See Forge

Forge will open with week-long theatrical runs in Los Angeles beginning May 15 at the Landmark Nuart Theatre, followed by New York beginning May 22 at Quad Cinema. Additional select markets will roll out nationwide in the weeks ahead.

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One of my favorite events in the San Francisco Bay Area since moving here in 1999 is attending CAAMFest. CAAM stands for the Center for Asian American Media. CAAMFest 2026 celebrated its 44th year as the nation’s leading showcase for films from Asian America and beyond, haven taken place May 7-10, 2026 in San Francisco Japantown again, like last year.

The film festival kicked off with welcoming remarks by CAAM Executive Director Don Young at the AMC Kabuki 8.  Young took over in his role a year ago,  and this is his first CAAMFest as Executive Director. He gave a shout out to former 8Asians blogger Dino-Ray Ramos, who was this year’s CAAMFest narrative features programmer curating films under the theme “Bad Asians, Good Trouble. It’s been a rough year for CAAM (and many other non-profits), where 40% of CAAM’s funding had been cut. I imagine a lot of federal funding sources dried up due to the current administration.

San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, whose District 5 covers Japantown, then gave some opening remarks. He honored some people attending the festival, including Genny Lim, 9th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, and then introducing some representatives from the opening feature.

Opening Feature

This year, the opening feature to kickoff the film festival was ‘The A List: 15 Stories From Asia and Pacific Diasporas’ by HBO:

which highlights 15 stories of AAPIs, from the famous (Connie Chung, Tammy Duckworth,  Kumail Nanjiani, Sandra Oh,  Bowen Yang) to the not-so-famous. The documentary comes out on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.

The documentary was terrific and the audience clapped after almost every profile that was completed. Those profiled came from different walks of life, different ethnicities and different points of view. Given the nature of AAPIs in the United States, a very common thread was the immigrant nature of the AAPI community and trying to “fit in” and be accepted.

After the screening, there was a Q&A with some of the documentary’s interview subjects as well as those involved with the film:

You should definitely catch the 1:25 minute documentary ‘The A List: 15 Stories from Asian and Pacific Diasporas’ when it becomes widely released – it’ll make you appreciate not only AAPI’s history within America, but also the history of the United States – which at its heart, is a story of immigrants.

The Gala

And as usual, the annual post-screening gala occured at the Asian Art Museum – about a mile or so from the AMC Kabuki 8, which featured food, drink, and music and access to the exhibits.

I always appreciate being able to attend and cover CAAMFest and as I’ve said many times, is one of my favorite annual events in the San Francisco Bay Area!

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I’ve been a big fan of the documentary Invisible Nation ever since I first saw the film back in October 2023 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I have even become friends with the director/producer Vanessa Hope.  I am excited now that the documentary will be broadcasted on PBS this month:

“Beginning May 1, 2026, the acclaimed documentary Invisible Nation will air on PBS stations across the United States, bringing Taiwan’s democratic journey, its geopolitical tightrope walk, and its pivotal role in the global technology order into American living rooms during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month and Taiwanese American Heritage Week. The film will also be available for streaming on the PBS App and PBS.org, expanding access to audiences nationwide.

Directed and produced by Vanessa Hope, Invisible Nation invites viewers on an unprecedented journey with Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen, as she works to secure her nation’s future. Through intimate observational filmmaking, the documentary offers an in-depth look at Taiwan’s past, and present as a young democracy with robust civil liberties and fair elections, navigating pressure from China, relations with the United States, and its place on the world stage.

Premiering on public television at a time when Taiwan is central to geopolitics yet still underrepresented in American media, Invisible Nation reframes the country not as a distant flashpoint, but as a frontline democracy whose future is deeply intertwined with the United States.”

This documentary does a great job of profiling Taiwan’s long journey towards democratization and highlighting the first female president of Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen (a fellow Cornell alum – Cornell Law LLM ’80).

If you want to watch the film immediately, it can be streamed here. Check your local listings here for when it will appear on PBS. As the press release above stated, you can also watch now via the PBS App.

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Jamie Ding’s Jeopardy Winning Streak ended this week. On the same day that I posted about his success too! As with when he was winning, his exit has generated both love and hate.

What did he do that has drawn controversy? In an interview with People Magzine, he said:

“As an immigrant and a person of color, I was able to become part of the history of an American institution. Jeopardy! really is an institution and America’s turning 250 years old and the federal government is going after immigrants in a way unlike anything that we’ve seen in the recent past.  So I hope that immigrants can be seen in a positive light too.”

That last comment generated a mixed reception.

Ding was beaten by Greg Shahade in a runaway. For those of you not familiar with Jeopardy terms, that means that Shahade had a large enough lead to make sure that Jamie could not beat him in any circumstance. Shahade a good run this week, wining three games including the win over Ding.  I am glad that Shahade did well – it would seem sad to lose to someone who was only a one game winner.

While Ding’s time on Jeopardy has ended, he goes home with $882,605. He has a number of solid positions on the Jeopardy Leaderboard of Legends.  Ding signed off on his final response with TTFN (Ta Ta For Now).  He will be definitely be back for the Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions next year, and I am looking forward to seeing him compete again.

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