clear water.
i once read a piece by a white reporter about the lack of racial tension in hawaii and the fact some white people can't handle being the minority and end up moving back to the mainland.
earlier this year, in a time magazine piece, a latino wrote about the growing fear in white america toward the growth of the colored population and that they are beginning to feel outnumbered.
my main concern is the representation of amer-asians in media. media image is very powerful and influences a great number of people who are exposed to its various outlets. for example, in the film crash, korean character (daniel dae kim), is presented to the audience with a heavy accent, a one dimensional personality (if a person can even call it that), and a help-me-because-i-can't-speak-english-and-need-another-person's-help vibe.
it's a movie about l.a., and that is how asian americans are represented. released in 2004, it won the oscar. other cinematic works such as falling down and menace to society show american-koreans to be liquor store owners who are unfeeling and socially inappropriate. although i acknowledge that some of these grocery store owners don't exactly provide burger-king-style, have-it-your-way customer service, i highly doubt (like in falling down) that one of them would point his finger at a man and say, "you pay or go!"
as gish jen once said, it's an example of mainstream society imposing their idea of korean-americans onto movie audiences.
the only film i've seen, made by a non-asian-american, to portray amer-asians with any sort of depth is do the right thing (spike lee). fruit stand owner (steve park) is presented as just another character, not an enemy. there's even one sequence in which a few black characters sitting on the street comment and say something about how the koreans did well for themselves by fixing the place up and opening a business while black people in the neighborhood could've done something similar but didn't.
we have made progress, though. in the past decade in movies i've seen (all without accents): a japanese american detective, a korean american cheerleader, a korean american police officer (with a white last name).
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