“It is with great pride that we see Secretary Mineta’s remarkable story of leadership and service honored in the Portrait Gallery,” said Konrad Ng, director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, in a press release. “He represents the key roles that Asian Pacific Americans have played in US culture, history and politics.”

He served in Congress from 1975-1995, co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus and helped push through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which called for an official apology and redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Mineta, along with his family, were interned during the war.

Mineta was also the first Asian American to hold a presidential cabinet post. He was named commerce secretary by Bill Clinton in 2000 and served as transportation secretary under George W. Bush until resigning in 2006.

It’s almost commonplace in many areas of the country to have Asian Americans in government, and it was Mineta and others of his generation who opened the doors. For that we owe them thanks.

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

The NBA draft only has two rounds, and most prognosticators don’t believe Lin will be chosen. He played against inferior competition in the Ivy League, and some scouts say that while he’s a great passer for a point guard, his offensive skills may not be ready for the NBA.

In this video, he discusses his workout with the Warriors, and here are some highlights of his college career.

If he hooks up with a team, Lin would be a rare Asian American pro athlete, which is why he has a lot of fans in the Asian American community. Lin wasn’t offered a scholarship from a big-time college program when he graduated from high school, and stereotypes about Asian Americans not being good athletes may have played a role, which he also discusses in this video. But he’s proven the detractors wrong with a nice career at Harvard and could make it to the pros.

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Jackie Chan trains Jaden Smith in the remake of "The Karate Kid."

Aly Morita contacted me the other day about publicizing her call for a boycott of the remake of the Karate Kid, saying it’s another example of Hollywood perpetuating stereotypes about Asian Americans.

It was right after I started seeing commercials for the new movie that made me wonder how Asians (it’s set in China) and Asian Americans would be portrayed, so it was good timing. I gave Aly a call to find out why she wanted a boycott.

The remake has blockbuster written all over it. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are among the producers of the new movie and it stars their son, Jaden, as the young martial arts student. Jackie Chan plays the wise mentor, updating the iconic and Oscar-nominated Mr. Miyagi role played by Aly’s father, Pat, 25 years ago in the original film.

Aly, who wrote about her relationship with her dad in the Inside/Out Issue of Hyphen, told me she’s aware that she’s criticizing a film that stars two actors of color, which is a rarity. And she’s aware that she opens herself up to criticism by passing judgment on something she hasn’t seen.

“All I’m asking is they not pay to see it in a movie theater, wait for the DVD or Netflix,” she said of her Facebook boycott page. “Be conscious of where the money is going.”

That would be Hollywood, which many would agree hasn’t given Asian American actors many good roles, or many roles at all, and hasn’t moved much beyond kung fu imagery created for characters such as Mr. Miyagi.

“Growing up, I always struggled with fact that my father played Mr. Miyagi as my own identity politics started to form,” she said. “I’ve come to my own personal peace with it.”

But she says not much has changed since her dad taught Ralph Macchio to “wax on” and “wax off.”

“It’s been 25 years since the original came out, and we’re still dealing with the same stereotypes,” Aly said. “Where are the other roles for Asian American actors? Why is the karate master the one role that people can respond to?”

The original Karate Kid movies, despite the stereotyping, were a step forward.

“For anyone that grew up during that time period, finally there was a movie starring an Asian American actor,” Aly said. “It had a good 10-year lifespan, and I think for a lot of Asian Americans, even those who had problems with the character of Mr. Miyagi, it was like, ‘Wow, I could star in a film if I was Asian American.’ I think it was very inspiring for a lot of people. We haven’t had that in some time.”

Of course, boycotting the movie doesn’t allow you to judge it on its merits. Aly’s protest is more about the entertainment industry than it is about the Karate Kid remake. Like she says, we’ve been complaining about Hollywood for years with not much to show for it.

Whether it’s a boycott or blogging about it, she says the only way Hollywood imagery of Asian Americans will change is if people inform themselves about the issue and speak out.

“I don’t know, maybe we should boycott every movie that’s not representative of who we are as people,” she said. “That remains very frustrating because it’s 25 years later.”

So, will you boycott Karate Kid?

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Sim and Tanveer Bhullar are 7-foot Indian brothers who are emerging as two of the top high school basketball players in the country.

There are few Asians or Asian Americans playing major college sports and even fewer South Asians at such a high level. And unlike Jeremy Lin, the brothers have recruiters at big-time college basketball programs salivating at the prospect of having one or both siblings on their teams. While Lin certainly has the skills, the Bhullars’ size sets them apart and makes them tantalizing NBA prospects.

Sim, 17, is 7-4 and 285 pounds. Tanveer, 15, is 7-2 and 265 pounds. Both grew up in Canada and now attend The Kiski School in Saltsburg, PA, near Pittsburgh. Their parents immigrated to Toronto from India and sent their sons to school in the United States to help them enhance their ball skills.

Wouldn’t it be cool if someday the Bhullar brothers and Lin were in the NBA together?

Daniel Dae Kim moves from "Lost" to a role in the new "Hawaii Five-0."

The new “Hawaii Five-0,” with Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, will feature two of the most high-profile roles for Asian Americans on TV this fall.

Kim moves from “Lost” but stays on the islands for the new ”Five-0,” playing Chin Ho Kelly. “Battlestar Galactica” alum Park plays Kona “Kono” Kalakaua. Alex O’Laughlin plays the lead as Steve McGarrett, son of the character played by Jack Lord in the original series. Scott Caan plays Danny “book’em Danno” Williams.

The show is not a remake of the original but a reboot set in present day. Here’s a preview of the show.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the cool theme song.

Who can’t get into that?

Recent shows set in Hawaii have been busts. With “Flash Forward” canceled and Lost ending its run, Kim and Park, along with Sandra Oh on “Grey’s Anatomy” are pretty much it for Asian American characters with big roles on TV. Maybe some of that “Lost” island magic will keep Kim and Park on the air longer than “Flash Forward.”

How’s “Five-0″ look to you? Will you watch?

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

John Cho plays FBI agent Demetri Noh in "Flash Forward."

ABC has  canceled “Flash Forward,” the  sci-fi show that starred John Cho in one of the most visible televison roles for an Asian American actor in recent years.

Cho played FBI agent Demetri Noh, who was part of a team that was investigating why everyone on the planet blacked out and saw visions of the future.

The high-concept show started with a bang and seemed to have promise. After a few bad episodes, I thought the show was starting to pick up. But it never caught on with many viewers, and a  three-month hiatus didn’t help, so ABC canceled it.

The show was also notable for having Noh in an  Asian-black interracial relationship with a character portrayed by Gabrielle Union.

At least  we’ll see Cho in sequels to “Harold and Kumar” and  ”Star Trek,” but I’m disappointed ABC didn’t give “Flash Forward” a chance. Anybody else wish it was renewed?

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Liu is an associate dean and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, law school.

If the Senate approves him as an appeals court judge, Liu would be in line for a Supreme Court nomination and potentially the first Asian American on the high court.

That’s one reason many in the Asian American community are closely watching his nomination to the appeals court.

Liu’s legal and academic credentials seem flawless, but he is opposed by Republicans and will likely opposition for his liberal views on affirmative action and abortion.

This post is also on the Hyphen magazine blog.

Yu died Tuesday after he was knocked to the ground Friday and never regained consciousness.Police and community groups aren’t saying much about it, but it’s hard not to think about the racial element to this and recent attacks on Asian Americans in a San Francisco neighborhood that’s been historically African American but where a recent influx of Asians, mostly Chinese, have moved in. Huan Chen, 83, died after being kicked and punched in January in San Francisco’s Bayview district.

Yu was attacked after his son was punched in the street earlier in a seemingly unprovoked confrontation. And some of the San Francisco incidents, including Chen’s, seemed to be unprovoked as well.

That’s not to say only Asian Americans are the targets of racism. It goes the other way as well; there’s racism on the part of Asians and Asian Americans toward African Americans and others, such as the highly publicized 1991 killing of  Latasha Harlins, an African American teenager shot to death by Korean American storekeeper Soon Ja Du in Los Angeles.

The recent attacks are wrong no matter who the perpetrators or victims are, but is race or some cultural misunderstandings at play here? Or is it just some bad people, who happen to be black, doing bad things to people who  happen to be Asian? Or are Asian Americans stereotyped as inviting targets because they’re perceived to be carrying valuables, as this story  suggests, or that they won’t fight back?

This post is also on the Hyphen magazine blog.

The UC Riverside center is being named for  Young-Oak Kim, an Army vet who served in World War II and Korea. I’d not heard about him but he did a lot in the Korean American and Japanese American communities after retiring from the Army as a colonel. What a great way to honor him.

This post  is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Because of this, many of the stereotypes about Asian Americans come from food. It’s one of the reasons Founding Editor Melissa Hung proclaimed Hyphen would  never publish a recipe or cover food in a way that doesn’t uphold Hyphen’s ideals.

Well, we broke her rule about recipes a few issues back with our story about  sustainable seafood practices. And, we have another for Afro-Asian jung in the new Food section that debuts in The Inside/Out Issue of Hyphen, which will be out soon.  Subscribe or look for it at a newsstand near you.

The Food section will hold true to Melissa’s other goal of covering food from a social justice angle, which influences much of what Hyphen does.

In her  introduction to the new section, Food Editor Nina Kahori Fallenbaum references  Michael Pollan and his book,  The Omnivore’s Dilemma, for raising awareness about farming, food, politics and how they are thoroughly intertwined. His work provides a model for how we hope to cover the subject.

“Food is a real link to our heritage, so we should be the ones to craft the storyline about how Asian food became hybridized in the United States,” Nina says.

We’re open to suggestions for our Food section. Contact Nina if you have ideas about what to cover.

The rest of the Inside/Out Issue takes a look at what it means to be on the inside yet the outside, to occupy the foreground yet the background. Stories to look out for include a feature on the relevance of  Asian American museums, how Asian American basketball hotshot and NBA prospect  Jeremy Lin is still just a regular guy, the new face of the “outsider” enclave in  Las Vegas’ Chinatown, and the sassy stories of an all-Asian drag queen troupe, the  Rice Rockettes.

We’ve also got stories on  Asian American actors finding work as non-Asian characters, Asian American authors writing non-Asian American stories (and the best Asian American characters written by non-Asians) and a feature on a topic that is both ubiquitous in American politics and rarely discussed at Asian American dinner tables —  abortion.

And you won’t want to miss a moving First Person  essay by Aly Morita on the life and career of her father,  Pat, the actor best known for his Academy Award-nominated role as Mr. Miyagi in  The Karate Kid.

The cover model is Mr. Hyphen  Pahole Sookkasikon, who shows a side of himself that no one has ever seen.

In addition to the  Afro-Asian jung recipe, the new Food section illustrates the  science of the wok, and we learn about the issues facing restaurant workers in a fascinating conversation with  Bonnie Kwon of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, DC.

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.