iamasiam

“Turn and face the strain”, goes the 70’s Bowie hit about self-reinvention. [1] You get a pre-coffee jolt this morning when your visiting grand daughter asks you about that that red-eyed, mullet-frocked, tie-dyed image that your kind old “friend” drunk...

Emerging from a church basement thrift shop with my prizedhaul, I notice a van just pulling up behind my car.  More bargain hunters, I thought. As I am about to pull out, an African-American lady’s face bobs downsmiling at me through my right front window...

My other half confesses forgetting sometimes what my race is.  I must admit I myself lose sight of the fact that my eye slant, bone structure and skin color shout “Asian” in its entire splendor.  Good or bad?  I guess it depends.
Needless to say, I’m proud of my racial, cultural and historical background.  And, yet, sometimes I feel warm and fuzzy just being lost in a crowd of sorts, as when everyone around you screams his or her own unique individuality and yet meld altogether...

Last June the 3rd, several hundreds gathered at South Madison Avenue in NYC to participate in the annual festivities commemorating 114 years of Philippine independence from Spanish colonial rule. [1]
Having attended the event a few years ago, I remember but a sprinkling of mostly bland floats, haphazardly or disingenuously put together by banks, money-transfer outfits, law firms and handful of other bland industry sponsors. Regardless, this year...