Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

When Bobby Pontillas was asked to help create TJ, the first Filipino American muppet on Sesame Street, he immediately thought of the physical features that would represent most Filipinos, including himself. Growing up, he did not see himself represented onscreen so designing a Sesame Street character that would reflect his ethnic background felt monumental.

As legacy media and publishing platforms have grappled with fallout from the steady encroach of the internet over the past two decades, a lot of old barriers to entry (both overt and less obvious on the surface) have at least partially eroded. Remnants and engrained instincts of gatekeeping hurdles, though, remain.

Involved in the entertainment business since finishing her film degree at USC, Ellen Huang has proved to be one of the most visionary advocates for diversity and inclusion in media. Following work as a development executive and as a founder of the first-ever diversity lounge at the annual Sundance Film Festival, Ellen currently occupies the seat of VP of Diversity at Entertainment One.

“It is an honor just to be Asian!” – Sandra Oh That was exactly what the Asian American talents felt at the Gold House Second Annual Gold Gala held recently at The Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. With the powerhouse attendance, it was a rare big gathering of the best and the brightest in the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community in the US.

“The biggest struggle for me is just being faced with the question ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ every single day,” said April Absynth who is currently featured as Jacque in the comedy-drama Blindspotting. In a rare portrayal of a Filipino family on mainstream television, April’s character and her father, played by Dante Basco, figure in an episode.

One of the most powerful elements of cinema is how it brings languages, costumes, and stories to audiences all over the world. Tizuka Yamasaki, the granddaughter of a Japanese couple, born in the south of Brazil, at the height of the coffee wave does exactly this in her work.

While the Writer’s Strike marches on with no end in sight affecting over 20,000 writers in the Writers Guild of America, one such writer is Albert Kim, showrunner, Executive Producer and writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sleepy Hollow, and Nikita. For Kim, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“From Asian Excellence to Creative Excellence,” a panel that featured actor-producer-activist Daniel Dae Kim; host-producer-author Padma Lakshmi; Eric Nam, singer, actor, co-founder and creative director of Mindset, artist-driven mental wellness audio platform; and Janet Yang, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was one of the highlights of the 2023 Global Conference. Curtis S.

“After a year of imprisonment and impoverishment – because they took everything from us, the government comes down with a loyalty questionnaire demanding loyalty. ”, Takei told the HFPA in an exclusive interview with Brent Simon.

A big South-Asian wedding winks at Jackie Chan and his kung-fu moves in a Jane Austenesque sisterly love story with a sprinkle of the inevitable comparison to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Nida Manzoor's Polite Society – just out in theaters in the U.