Subaru's "Sweet Tomorrow" Commercial

Long-time readers of RiceDaddies might know that we got a Subaru Outback not long after our little Sunshine was born. As with most other car brands, we get a free subscription to their monthly car magazine (Subaru Drive). This month's issue mentions a TV commercial called "Sweet Tomorrow" that Subaru is running in key Asian-American markets. The ad "tells the story of a young Chinese couple balancing tradition with their Chinese-American lifestyle."

The commercial is produced in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. But upon watching the English version, there is nothing to suggest any kind of cultural balancing act. While the husband does visit an Asian supermarket, the couple could have been any combination of white, black, Asian or Latino. I guess that's a function of this commercial's intended versatility. In English, the couple is as American as apple pie. In Cantonese or Mandarin, the couple is Chinese.

Trophy husband, one year later

[originally posted on August 10, 2011 at daddy in a strange land]

Exactly one year ago today, The Today Show told the entire morning-news-watching nation that I, as a stay-at-home-dad married to a doctor, was an example of a new status symbol for "alpha women." I was a trophy husband.

If you watch the entire segment linked here [having trouble embedding it, sorry]—which was pegged to a Marie Claire article for which la dra. and I had been interviewed for an hour each and in which we were reduced to a family photo and one quote about (not by) me presented very much out of context—you'll see that the NBC videographer who shot and cut the piece ignored the magazine editor's "trophy husband" framing and that good ol' Matt Lauer actually went after her for it, closing with a reference to "the guy in the piece" who said "'it's not babysitting, it's parenting." [My new catchphrase. Heh. I need to make t-shirts.]

In the intervening year, the conversation in the mainstream media and in the parentblogosphere about changing roles, especially in an uncertain economic environment, and the redefinition of fatherhood has continued. Fatherhood gets talked about in the context of a larger re-envisioning of modern manhood online, dadbloggers plan their own testosterone-centric take on the momblogger conferences only a few of us dare to crash—and yet, things like SAHDs, involved fatherhood, and equally shared parenting continue to be treated as "trend stories," as anomalous and intriguing oddities that are newsworthy because they're not "normal."

Just a week ago, AngrySAHD Josh K. wrote some guidelines on "How Not to Screw Up the Conversation About the Modern Dad" on the site of The NYC Dads Group after watching another group member and dadblogger get set up in an adversarial moms-vs.-dads conversation about parenting skills on iVillage. His "list of a few things to think about when being an involved dad, and especially when discussing it, whether it's on TV or the playground":

1. Don't be the boob.


2. Be involved in everything—not just major discipline.


3. Be on top of your stuff.

"For better or worse," he writes, "part of the 'job' of being an involved dad is helping to change the incorrect impressions people have of all dads. Set an example, live that example, and correct people when they are wrong."

I was lucky with how my Today Show experience turned out. I had no control over how the finished article portrayed me and my family, and no control over how the video piece would use us as an example of a stay-at-home-dad/breadwinning-mom family with which to introduce the topic on the show. I totally lucked out in having Matt Lauer virtually have my back and fight against the usual mom-vs.-dad, stay-at-home-vs.-work-outside-the-home adversarial framing of much of the media coverage modern parenting gets.

In a comment on the NYC Dads Group post, I wrote, "[I]n terms of how not to screw up the public conversation, a lot depends on the luck of having sympathetic allies involved in the set-up and presentation of the discussion. We can't assume folks'll have our back or be on the same page, and if they aren't and we're all by ourselves, especially if we're on their media turf, it's very easy to get steamrolled no matter our intentions."

As I said earlier, this stuff still gets portrayed in the media as the funny little human interest story, "hey look, they're doing things different [read: not normal], maybe it's a trend [read: not mainstream]." But as hinted at above, we're not waiting around for the mainstream media to tell our stories or just sitting around waiting for the day that what we're doing is so non-remarkable that there is no story. We're telling our own diverse, not-always-agreeing-with-each-other stories, moms and dads, SAH and WAH and WOTH and full-time and part-time and everything in between, in every possible permutation of "parent" and "family. We're connecting with each other virtually and IRL and creating fluid, fluent communities of interest and support, on new blogs, on Twitter, in books [like the new Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood, to which I am a proud contributor], everywhere.

And so that's how we continue to shape and "not screw up" the conversation—by having it with as many different people in as many different venues as we can. I recently had a conversation with another dadblogger about his mixed feelings on being lumped into a "trend" of redefined fatherhood when all he felt he was trying to do was raise his kid and be himself. But he was a part of it, I countered, whether he liked it or not, simply by the fact that he had chosen to talk and write publicly about who he was and how he was raising that kid, as a dadblogger. Mere presence, while not enough to make real changes, is enough to start—and I think that there are enough of us out there writing and talking about what we're doing and living to be sure that this is, indeed, the start of something.

Left by the Ship

LEFT BY THE SHIP trailer English from visitorq on Vimeo.

This just came through my Facebook feed, and I wanted to share it with anyone who might possibly be able to catch this screening tonight at 10PM in New Jersey (or on July 9th in LA).

It's a film titled Left by the Ship, and it's about the children of Filipina sex workers and American servicemen who were stationed at Subic Bay, Philippines. The film's title is a translation of a derogatory Filipino term for these kids: "iniwan ng barko." Not surprisingly, the children of African American officers face some of the worst discrimination. In this trailer, one beautiful teenager talks about how she wasn't allowed to take part in games or contests because her skin was too dark and her hair was curly. To add insult to injury, Filipino Amerasians were never recognized by the US government, unlike Amerasian children from other countries.

Tonight's screening is a part of the Hoboken Film Festival, and will take place at 10PM in Teaneck, NJ. The next screening is at: Aritvist Film Festival, Hollywood, CA on July 9th at 8 pm at the Egyptian Theatre.

Click here for more information about the film

Geena Davis on the Effects of Gender Inequality on TV and in Movies

In today's issue of the Wall Street Journal, Geena Davis talks about why she founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and how gender inequality on television and in movies has a powerful impact on kids. I couldn't find the following quote in the video, nor on the WSJ website, but it appeared on page R11 of today's print edition:

The more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life. And the more hours a boy watches, the more sexist his views become.

She also goes on to say,

Negative images can powerfully affect boys and girls, but positive images have the same kind of impact. We know that if girls can see characters doing unstereotyped kinds of occupations and activities, they're much more likely as an adult to pursue unusual and outside-the-box occupations. I really believe that if you can see it, you can be it.

She says a lot of great things in this interview, and none of this is news to us of course. But I post this here in the hope that we can see her initiative as an example of how Asian-Americans might approach the Writers Guild, Animators Guild, and the Casting Directors Guild. I'd like to think that if we presented the facts derived from such research, then perhaps we'd be a step closer to advocating for positive, non-stereotypical portrayals of Asian-Americans in the media.

Imagine if we applied her sentiments to the portrayal of Asians in the media:

The more hours of television a young Asian-American child watches, the fewer options s/he believes s/he has in life. And the more hours a white kid watches, the more racist his views become.

Negative images can powerfully affect boys and girls, but positive images have the same kind of impact. We know that if an Asian-American child can see characters doing unstereotyped kinds of occupations and activities, they're much more likely as an adult to pursue unusual and outside-the-box occupations. I really believe that if you can see it, you can be it.

With that in mind, I hope you are all aware of www.racebending.com and their campaign to avert the whitewashing of the live-action version of Akira.

Challenge Update: 2 new proposals added

HOLY CRAP, would you believe that it's been almost TWO YEARS since we added some new proposals to the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge? Since that time, all of our educational proposals have either been fully funded, or have expired.

I'm not even gonna try to make up any excuses for why I dropped the ball on this. Anyway, this morning ThisisLarry finally gave me the kick in the butt needed to update our Challenge.

The following two proposals are currently in need of funding:

Help Us Learn About The World's Cultures Through Art! (Asia)
- New York, NY - Grades 6-8 - Poverty Data Unavailable -

"The resources requested include books and art supplies that are to aid us in our exploration of ASIA. Our first assignment is going to be to read the book A Thousand Paper Cranes, and try to make just that to display in our school."

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Peacebuilding in Middle School - Race to Understand Race
- Ventura, California - Grades 6-8 - Poverty Moderate -

"I am requesting 35 copies of the graphic novel "American Born Chinese." By reading this fun, high interest novel, students will have opportunities to explore how it feels to be seen as different. Students learn to empathize with others and they will have opportunities to explore how they see themselves, as well."

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Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

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Come celebrate Secret Identities with some Rice Daddies!

What, some might say, does a comic book about Asian American superheroes have to to with fatherhood? The editors of Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology might just say, "Everything."

The editors of Secret Identities, which came out last month and is in the middle of a cross-country publicity tour, set out to do more than just tell interesting comics stories with Asian American protagonists and to rectify the dearth of Asian American characters on the page. Remembering both their childhood love for the form and what it would have meant to them, as children, to have seen themselves reflected back in four-color panels, they set out to leave a legacy to their children, and to all our children, so that they don't feel the same lack of fictional role models, of possibilities, of their own places and faces in the potentialities of the fantastic.

In short, they did it because they were dads now. Jeff Yang, our own InstantYang, is the father of two. Keith Chow, our own RakuMon, is the father of one. And Parry Shen, best known for turning the model minority myth on its head in Better Luck Tomorrow, is the father of two (and if we ask nice enough, maybe he'll join us here too!). One of Parry's own stories in the book, Sixteen Miles, was inspired by the superhuman strength displayed by the late James Kim in trying to save his family.

I am honored and proud to play a small part in the book, as author of the one-page introduction to the section that features full-color character treatments of characters created by Asian American celebrities, called "Many Masks." (Which you can find on page 128, in case you were wondering, heh.) And I am happy to be joining the editors and many of my co-contributors at events in Los Angeles this weekend.

The big LA launch party is on Saturday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., at the Japanese American National Museum, but there are a bunch of readings/signings throughout the weekend and throughout the Southland. (I'll be at the JANM event tomorrow and at Skylight Books in Los Feliz tonight, Friday, May 29, at 7:30.) You can check out the full schedule here and revisit the book blog for updates on upcoming events, including an Asian American comics convention in July at the new Museum of the Chinese in America in New York City. So come pick up a copy for your bookshelf, and for your children's bookshelf, and get it signed and drawn on by some awesome artists!

[And for any new readers surfing in from NYTimes.com and DoubleX/Slate, welcome!]

Yes, even the Dharma Initiative had a RiceDaddy

In the scene below Miles Straume (who has traveled back to 1977) witnesses the father he never knew reading to a 3-month old Miles:

Earlier in this season of Lost, the writers finally redeemed themselves for initially handicapping Daniel Dae Kim's character with the inability to speak English. Via the literary device known as time travel, they gave Jin three years of English immersion amongst the Dharma Initiative and a handful of lines he could deliver in full (though accented) English sentences.

On Wednesday night, the positive portrayal of diversity was taken even a step further. In the latest episode of Lost, Miles Straume's back story was fleshed out, giving Ken Leung an opportunity to utilize his acting skills in ways few Asian-American actors ever get to do on primetime network television. We even got to see the tender paternal side of the mysterious Dr. Marvin Candle (François Chau), and Miles' mother (Leslie Ishii).

Why is this significant? Let's see... in this episode, we've got:

• Asian-Americans in recurring major roles on prime time network television
  
• Asian-Americans who aren't portrayed as perpetual foreigners with foreign accents
• Asian-Americans cast in compelling story lines, regardless of ethnicity
  
• Asian-Americans in non-stereotypical roles
  
• Asian-Americans as human, multi-dimensional characters, experiencing the same joys and sorrows as other human beings
  

I hope we get more of this on television. Maybe MetroDad's sitcom would have a shot on ABC, even though ABC is owned by Disney.

Challenge Update: 1 new proposal added

It's been quite some time since we added some new proposals to the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge. Since that time, all of our educational proposals have either been fully funded, or have expired.

To keep the momentum going, we've added one new proposal to the challenge (more to come!):

• Critical Media Literacy: Reading Ethnicity in the Media

Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

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Critical Media Literacy: Reading Ethnicity in the Media
- Los Angeles, California - Grades 9-12 - Poverty Data Unavailable -

"Critical Media Literacy challenges students to critically examine and read messages that the media plays for them everyday. In order to do this, we will be examining many issues through movies, television, music videos, music, and magazines. We will read what the media says about different Ethnic groups and issues that affect them."

So why should RiceDaddies care about Mainstream Hollywood?

After reading RakuMon's post, some of you may have wondered okay, so what does this have to do with being a RiceDaddy? After all, mainstream Hollywood is all about fluff, fantasy and fiction, while we RiceDaddies concern ourselves with parenting within the context of Asian culture and tradition, right?

Well, since many of us are Asian-American dads, RakuMon's post is especially relevant to our experience because it's important to know how mainstream American media affect our children, and their relationships with their peers.

It's an undeniable fact that as a modern component of culture, the media play a primary role in shaping Americans’ perception of who exists within and outside of the human, and thus the moral realm. We are eight years into the 21st Century, but the lack of meaningful portrayals of Asian-Americans still relegates us to the periphery of the American experience. It is this cultural exclusion that makes it difficult for our peers to relate to us as human beings, let alone fellow Americans.

So, considering the fact that the psychosocial causes of bigotry and genocide are rooted in the process of moral exclusion, is there any wonder why a group of teenagers thought it was acceptable to assault Filipina student Marie Stefanie Martinez on a New York City bus simply because she “looked Chinese?” Is there any wonder why Kwok Po Lui was beaten with brass knuckles by classmates who exclaimed, "Hitting Chinese is very fun?"

As red-blooded American fathers, we RiceDaddies want our children to be seen as they truly are: multifaceted, three-dimensional human beings, capable of experiencing the same joys and sorrows as every other red-blooded American. We want their non-Asian peers to see them as Americans to whom they can relate, and not as perpetual foreigners in the land of their birth.

Challenge Update: 2 for 1 Matching Expires SUNDAY, March 9th

You may be wondering why the deadline for 2 for 1 matching falls on such an inconspicuous date. Let's just say that March 9 is the birthday of a certain... RiceDaddy.

So, in lieu of birthday gifts, be generous with your donation to the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge, and take pride in the fact that your donation will be worth TRIPLE what it would've been worth had it not been for 2 for 1 donation matching.

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Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

Challenge Update: 2 for 1 MATCHING!

I'm feeling really generous today, so before I change my mind, I just wanted to get this post out ASAP...

All donations to the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge made from January 1st through March 9th will be matched $2 for every $1!!!

That's right... for every $1 you donate, Mrs. SoulSnax and I will donate $2. Sorry, US Dollars only (Canadian dollars are too expensive these days)! ;)

Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

Ni Hao, Round Eye!

"Daddy, why does Kai-Lan have such round eyes?"
"That's what you call an idealized representation of Chinese features."
"What does that mean... idealized?"
"It's when art tries to improve upon reality."
"Oh... so, round eyes are better than narrow eyes?"
"Well, DUH! Don't you watch television?"
"I want round eyes too."
"Well, if you're lucky, you can marry a man with round eyes, and maybe your children will have round eyes too."
"I wish mommy married someone with round eyes, so that I could have round eyes also."
"I'm sorry honey, but that's what happens when you marry a man for the content of his character, regardless of his epicanthic fold."

Lemons to Lemonade

Way back in 2006, Mrs. SoulSnax and I put ourselves on a "modified media diet." We did this to avoid pissing our money away to producers of diversity-negligent media/entertainment content. When we became parents earlier this year, our 2007 resolution was to take those savings, and donate them to diversity-oriented education.

A few weeks ago, a large envelope arrived in the mail from DonorsChoose.org. It contained photos and letters of thanks from students who benefited from the educational programs that we helped to fund through the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge.

Upon reading through the letters and viewing the snapshots, I realized that I was holding tangible proof that a modified media diet can actually change the world! Just think: money that would have gone to producers of diversity-negligent content were diverted, and instead, helped to fund the education of kids in a way that helps to empower them by virtue of their diversity. Our 2007 New Year's Resolution has truly paid off!

You too, can also make a difference. Right now, you have a little less than 72 hours to make your last tax-deductible contribution for 2007. We've added six new proposals to the challenge, since your generosity has already funded the previous twelve proposals:

• Pen-pals say Gung Hay Fat Choy!
• Bringing The World Into The Classroom
• Cultural Awareness Wanted
• What in the World Are You Reading? (Asian Literature)
• Coming of Age in China
• Multicultural Celebrations Books

Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

If things don't change...

If things don't change drastically in the next few years, I can envision the following conversation taking place:

Sunshine: Daddy, the movies from Chinatown don't look so great in the home theater.
SoulSnax: Fine, what movie do you want? I'll see if someone at work has it, and I'll make a copy for you.
Sunshine: Why can't we just buy it at Blockbuster?
SoulSnax: Honey, if we just went and bought it at Blockbuster, then we'd be giving our hard-earned money to the pseudoliberal Hollywood hypocrites who robbed your uncle Roy out of a career.
Sunshine: What's a hippo-cricket?