“It’s never happened, as far as we know,” said Andrew Hong, communications associate for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that tracks and promotes Asian Pacific American participation in politics.

Chiu, currently the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, joins city Assessor  Phil Ting and state Senator  Leland Yee as the three Asian Americans vying to succeed  Ed Lee , who was appointed in November as the city’s  first Asian American mayor but has said he will not run for a full term.

Read the full post at Hyphen magazine’s blog.

Keni Styles stars in Bruce Lee XXX: A Porn Parody

I blogged at Hyphen magazine about  a Bruce Lee porn parody that’s being produced. And while the pop icon probably is turning in his grave over being immortalized in an adult movie, the prospect does raise issues of race, sex and stereotypes, particularly of Asian American men.

“Bruce Lee XXX: A Porn Parody” stars Keni Styles, the only Asian male working in straight porn produced by major studios. Styles’s uniqueness in porn is similar to the dearth of Asian Americans in mainstream movies and TV: they’re stereotyped as unattractive or lacking audience appeal.

A few years ago I wrote about similar themes when UC Davis Asian American studies professor Darrell Hamamoto made a porn movie featuring an Asian American couple as a way of reclaiming Asian masculinity and the sexuality between Asian males and females that he say has been lost to Western colonization and stereotyping.

Read more in my post at Hyphen.

The San Francisco Examiner put David Chiu and Ed Lee on its Jan. 9 front page.

The “Asian Power” headline from the  San Francisco Examiner encapsulates what’s happening in politics for Asian Americans, especially in San Francisco, where Ed Lee is about to become the first Asian American mayor.

Lee, the city administrator, is set to be named interim mayor Tuesday if the SF Board of Supervisors votes him in as expected after a week of  political maneuvering.

David Chiu was re-elected chair of the SF Board of Supervisors on Saturday after speculation that had him at various times being named interim mayor himself or the pick to  replace SF District Attorney Kamala Harris, another Asian American who took the oath as the newly elected California attorney general last week.

Read the full post at Hyphenmagazine.com

“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.

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.

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.

Jake Shimabukuro's career took off after a YouTube video of him went viral.

Shimabukuro been called the Hendrix of Ukulele (or for you 80s heavy metal fans, the  Yngwie of Ukulele, as former Hyphen Music Editor Todd Inoue described him). I sawShimabukuro play at Yoshi’s San Francisco on Monday night, and along with his mad ukulele skills, he had an engaging stage presence when telling the little back-stories to each song before performing it.

“Me & Shirley T” is inspired by his favorite drink as a kid, a Shirley Temple. “Five Dollars Unleaded” was written for his father, whose gas tank seemed to always be on empty. So when father and son got into a car, their first stop was a gas station, and his dad always asked for $5 unleaded when filling up, which, “back then would be a full tank.”

Maybe the best story Shimabukuro told was his own. It’s about how a little video on YouTube of him playing the Beatles’ “ While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in Central Park went viral and changed his life. He thanked all the people who e-mailed the video. Without YouTube, “none of this would be possible.” He paid tribute by wearing a YouTube sweatshirt after the show when he was signing autographs.

This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.

In the last three years, Shimabukuro has peformed a duet of the Beatles’ “ In My Life” with Bette Midler for the Queen of England, toured the world and played with the likes of Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Buffet, Yo-Yo Ma and Bella and the Flecktones.

It’s got to be a whirlwind for him, but he seems humble and appreciative, signing autographs for everyone who lined up at Yoshi’s even though it probably made him late for his second show of the night. Maybe it’s the laid back Hawaiian style. After all, he ended his show by saying, “If everyone played the ukelele, the world would be a happier place.” I believe him.