LOS ANGELES (Dec. 8, 2011) — Concerned with the slow progress of TV networks in the area of diversity casting, the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition has released its 2011 report cards grading the networks’ past 2010-2011 season while simultaneously challenging ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to cast at least one Asian Pacific American actor as the main star in a TV show within the next three years.

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Pushing the Pen
By SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY
AAP staff writer

An interview with whom Governor David A. Paterson and the State of New York has honored for his “legacy of leadership to the Asian American community and the Empire State” in May 2010, Taiyo Na is a singer, songwriter, MC and producer.

Taiyo has studied at the world renown Robert X. Modica’s Acting Studio at Carnegie Hall, has dropped two albums Love is Growth (2008) and Home: Word (2010) a collaborative sonic tome with California-based Hip Hop duo Magnetic North, and has performed with Maya Angelou and Janice Mirikitani before he was of legal drinking age.

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Charlyne Yi as Dr. Chi Park in the "Transplant" episode of HOUSE (FOX photo).

The Fox network television drama series, “House” started its eighth season two weeks ago and now features Charlyne Yi as its newest cast member Dr. Chi Park at the fictional Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey.

Charlyne Amanda Yi, 25, is a multi-racial American actress including Filipina heritage and raised in Los Angeles. She began her career in stand-up comedy with unique routines that utilized her skills as a singer.

Yi is best know for her feature film, “Paper Heart”, in which she starred and was also screenwriter. The film was a hit on the art film circuit as part documentary and part love story and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Yi joins House as a young, brilliant and slightly oppressed physician who was sent to assist Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), after punching her previous supervisor for grabbing her behind. The punishment turns into a successful abrasive partnership that the unconventional medical genius House who lost his team of a diagnosticians with his stint in prison from the end of the previous season.

The show features a team of physicians that specialize in solving the most difficult cases and many times in the most unorthodox methods. The mystery of the show is also in part to solve the mystery of House’s painful past and to guess what trouble his pain medication addiction as much his abrasive attitudes toward patients and fellow physicians.

House airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. CST on FOX.

ST. PAUL (Sept. 28, 2011) — Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) is pleased to announce that on September 25, the station was awarded 11 Upper Midwest Emmy Awards, having received 26 nominations in 20 different categories.

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Boa Lee

By SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY

Saymoukda Vongsay presents “Pushing the Pen” a series of interviews that highlight Asian American artists and individuals who advocate for Asian American art.

Last week, Vongsay featured Kimberly Nightingale. Look for the following interviews in the weeks ahead:

• Ka Vang – Bush Artist Fellow, playwright, and journalist with MN Women’s Press

• Kao Kalia Yang – author of The Late Homecomer and MN Book Award

• Katie Leo – playwright and theater artist whose latest work, Four Destinies, will be produced by Mu Performing Arts this season

• Boua Xiong – journalist and newsbroadcaster with Kare11

• Aki Shibata – 3D book artist in residence at the MN Center for Book Arts housed at Open Book

Boa Lee is a former journalist with the Sun Post, KSTP-TV (MN), and WEIU-TV (IL), and communications consultant who campaigns for social, racial, and economic justice. She will be presenting the workshop, “Trials, Tribulations and the Truth About Being a Journalist,” at the inaugural Hmong Women Writers Retreat held September 9th – 11th at Villa Maria in Frontenac, Minn. For application and information on the retreat, please visit www.hmongwomenachieve.org.

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Gisele Tongi and Dr. Tess Mauricio, RSVP's hosts, will ask viewers in the Filipino community to respond and voice their concerns, issues and praises about the latest trends in fashion, beauty, health, and family.

Dr. Tess Mauricio, dermatologist, physician educator and television personality, will debut a half-hour magazine talk show on The Filipino Channel starting Sept. 10. “RSVP” will feature in-studio guest hosts and discussions on the latest topics and news happening in the Philippines, the United States and beyond.

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LOS ANGELES – FUEL TV, Fox Sports Media Group’s dynamic entertainment and sports network for young males, announces extensive television coverage of the 2011 Nike US Open of Surfing.

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Raul Rodriquez
New America Media

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Pulitzer Prize-winning Filipino journalist Jose Antonio Vargas has started a national discourse regarding immigration with his admission last Wednesday that he does not have papers allowing him to live in the United States.

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Prof. Andrew Weaver

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (May 12, 2011) – As Hollywood heads into its annual summer blockbuster season, few if any, major films will feature minority characters, due to studio executives’ fears that white audiences will stay away, which a new Indiana University study appears to confirm. In a new research paper, Andrew J. Weaver, an assistant professor of telecommunications in IU’s College of Arts and Sciences, conducted two studies to test whether the racial makeup of a film’s cast could influence the decisions of white audiences. His findings appear in the Journal of Communication.

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Linda Wang

AAP staff report

Linda Wang will be playing a Korean American woman who pokes fun at stereotypes of Asian women in professional golf on the new television comedy show “Sports Show with Norm MacDonald” set to air May 24, 2011 at 9:30 (CST) on Comedy Central.

The premise of the episode is that MacDonald and his cohorts, who talk about sports – charged with humor about the absurdities they see mostly in the professional ranks – question why is it that Korean females are seemingly dominating women’s professional golf?  The show then blends some sketch comedy in their pursuit of an answer – where the crew hits the streets to find Wang, a Chinese American portraying a Korean woman, who says that her character does a little reverse psychology and pokes fun by embracing the stereotypes.

Wang said that although she doesn’t play golf, ironically she filmed a golf-themed television pilot last year called Back Nine, starring John Schneider and Carmen Electra, which was directed for Spike TV by Jason Filardi and written by Mark Perez.

Then it was up to Wang to gain a perspective that would help with the comedy. She had heard of Korean American sensation Michelle Wie, but was pleasantly surprised to learn about so many other Korean champions such as Se Ri Pak, Ji-Yai Shin, Grace Park, Inbee Par and many others that qualified for the LPGA tour.

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