Asian Pacific American Heritage

Kent Donguines, a Filipino Canadian filmmaker, has always been fascinated by tattoos. He proudly shows us, during a Zoom interview, the many tattoos he got, including the ones he received from 106-year-old famed tattoo guru or mambabatok, Apo Whang-Od – who lives in the remote village of Buscalan, in the municipality of Tinglayan, Kalinga, Philippines.

Pacific Islander Duke Paoa Kahanamoku was a four-time Olympic swimmer who picked up three gold and two silver medals, and just happened to almost single-handedly internationalize surfing — an effort whose planted seeds would then go on to flower into every other board sport in the world, from skateboarding to snowboarding. The first person to be inducted into both the Swimming Hall of Fame and Surfing Hall of Fame, Kahanamoku also broke through racial barriers many years before icons like Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson.

Its current Rotten Tomatoes score is 96%, some have dubbed it the most important step forward in film in decades, and it’s all anyone can talk about. Yet talking about Everything Everywhere All at Once is difficult as it’s nearly impossible to explain or sum up.

Bold, colorful, daring, original, individualistic, and talented – these are the new breed of female singers of Asian heritage who are making a name for themselves on the global music scene.  They express themselves confidently, passionately showing the world who they are through their songs, innovating and creating music from the heart.

John Woo was born on May 1, 1946, in Guangzhou, Republic of China, during the Chinese Civil War into a Christian family. They faced persecution after the communist revolution and fled to Hong Kong when he was five years old.

Rachel House has been in the business of acting and directing for over 25 years. You may recognize the now 50-year-old New Zealander from her striking looks in roles such as Topaz in the Hollywood blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok (2017), or you may recognize her voice as Gramma Tala in the Disney animated film Moana (2016), or as Terry in the Golden Globe-winning animated feature Soul (2020).

Growing up in Mindanao, Philippines, Alexis “Bong” Monsanto had already traveled at a young age to all the main islands of the Philippines and Southeast Asia.  “I’ve seen traditional costumes, visited museums, savored the cuisine and delicacies, the architectural wonders, watched zarzuelas, stage plays, and musicals,” he recalled.

Breaking into Hollywood is challenging enough for a woman, much more if you are Asian, colored, or minority female. But pioneering Asian women in Hollywood broke the ceiling and opened the doors for other Asian actresses to come in.

Pacific Islander actress Frankie Adams will be playing next to Sigourney Weaver and Alycia Dednam-Carey in the adaptation of Holly Ringland’s debut novel The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. The seven-part series follows a young woman named Alice, who moves to live with her grandmother after a family tragedy and whose adult life is highly affected by a violent past.

“As the Manila bureau chief for the Agence France-Presse [AFP], I was going to do a story on eco-tourism in Palawan. I thought it would be a fun story about this beautiful place.