{"id":3280,"date":"2011-02-28T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T00:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2018-10-14T22:02:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T05:02:48","slug":"bringing-banana-2-to-you-a-diacritics-report-from-the-second-annual-asian-american-bloggers-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2011\/02\/bringing-banana-2-to-you-a-diacritics-report-from-the-second-annual-asian-american-bloggers-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Jade Hidle Brings BANANA 2 to You!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calling all bloggers, twitter and fb users, all internet savvy folk! \u00a0diaCRITIC Jade Hidle gives us the insider’s scoop and an in-depth view of the\u00a0BANANA 2<\/a> Conference.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On Saturday, February 26th<\/sup>, one of the studios on the CBS lot housed BANANA 2, the second annual conference dedicated to Asian-American blogs and bloggers. For this occasion co-hosted by author Lac Su (I Love Yous Are for White People<\/em>) and filmmaker Steve Nguyen (Channel APA),<\/em> the studio was decked out with all of the new media essentials for the citizen journalists in attendance\u2014a blogging station, a live Twitter feed projected onto the wall, and video cameras for live streaming media. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and well into the night for the after party in the studio where Hitchcok\u2019s Psycho<\/em> was filmed, the attendees themselves were actively tapping, scrolling, and clicking on smartphones, iPads, and laptops to Tweet, Facebook, and blog about the event.<\/p>\n

For those of you who couldn\u2019t make the event, don\u2019t monitor a Twitter account minute by minute, or\u2014smart and loyal as you are\u2014come to diaCRITICS for your news on the happenings in Vietnamese- and Asian-American art and culture, I present to you highlights of the key discussion points, expert tips for readers and writers of blogs, as well as pictures and videos to make visible to you the largely unseen faces behind the words you read\u2014the writers who are fleshing out what it means to be Asian-American.<\/p>\n

First of all, what are the major concerns in Asian-American blogging today? Well\u2026<\/p>\n

Because there is so much\u00a0talk about\u00a0social media\u2019s ability to foster community across space and time (especially after recent revolutionary usage of Facebook in Egypt), each of the panel\u2019s discussions inevitably focused on the multiple challenges and rewards to creating and maintaining a sense of community amongst Asian-American bloggers and their audience(s).<\/p>\n

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From left to right: Mekahlo Medina of NBC4 Los Angeles, Moye Ishimoto of 8Asians, Ho Chie Tsai of TaiwaneseAmerica.org, Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center, and moderator Kai Ma of KoreAm Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center started off the morning by pointing out the important fact that the community called \u201cAmericans,\u201d as represented by mainstream media, remains widely ignorant of, and indifferent to, stories about, by, and for Asian<\/em>-Americans. Due to this underrepresentation, Asian-American bloggers, or citizen journalists, face the challenge of bridging the gap between Asian and American. As such, they are up against a history of being relegated to the margins\u2014to being seen as only \u201cAsian\u201d without the \u201cAmerican,\u201d as \u201cimmigrant,\u201d as \u201cother\u201d\u2014and, in the words of Filippino-American journalist Emil Guillermo of amok.com<\/a>, confined to a \u201cvirtual ghetto.\u201d<\/p>\n

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From left to right: Emil Guillermo of amok.com, Erica Johnson of Hapa Voice, and Daigo Fujiwara of JapaneseBallPlayers.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sharing the stage with Guillermo, Suzanne Leung and Emily Nakano Co of Absolutely Fobulous<\/a> expressed their concerns with being disregarded or branded as immigrants, or being lumped in with Asian-Americans when they in fact identify as Asians (both are from Singapore) in America and, as their site so endearingly calls themselves, \u201cfobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Suzanne Leung and Emily Nakano Co of Absolutely Fobulous<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kai Ma, editor at KoreAm Magazine<\/a><\/em>, likewise expressed similar sentiments about making the necessary distinctions between the terms and identifications of “Asian” and “Asian-American” in all of their variations when she shared that she struggles to target a niche readership of one particular ethnicity while also appealing to a pan-Asian audience.<\/p>\n

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Kai Ma of KoreAm Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An important presence at BANANA 2 were the mixed-race bloggers who represent a demographic often altogether overlooked in notions of community amongst Asians and Asian-Americans alike. With a mission to spread awareness of the celebratory use of \u00a0\u201chapa\u201d (a Hawaiian term used to identify those of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry), Erica Johnson runs Hapa Voice<\/a><\/em>, a site that is comprised entirely of audience-generated content. So, if you are hapa, you can have your story published and read by other hapa writers, creating a community among those who often feel they don\u2019t belong anywhere. For all the bloggers out there, hapa or otherwise, who have felt that excluded or unheard, heed the words of Suanne Leung:\u00a0 \u201cyou can\u2019t expect there to be a space for you. You just have to be like, \u2018Yo, I\u2019m here!\u2019\u201d (Watch out, Hapa Voice<\/em>, this Vietnamese-Norwegian diaCRITIC is comin\u2019 at ya soon!)<\/p>\n

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Hapa Voice's Erica Johnson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another biracial blogger who writes about quite a titillating topic\u2014SEX!\u2014is N\u2019jaila Rhee of Blasian Bytch<\/a><\/em>. A formally trained journalist and former exotic dancer, Rhee writes about sex workers, dildos, and her own big beautiful Blasian ass, currently pictured on her site. That\u2019s right! Visit blasianbytch.com now!<\/p>\n

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N'jaila Rhee of Blasian Bytch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the BANANA-goers certainly reeled in the joy of dildo and sex jokes for which Rhee\u2019s presentation opened the floodgates, Rhee also discussed the serious issues of identity politics and underrepresentation that Asian-Americans, particularly in the sex industry, face. One such concrete issue she addressed is the lack of health care coverage, and the panel entitled \u201cUncovering the Activist in You:\u00a0 Social Media for Social Change\u201d further addressed how blogs can be used to enact change and justice.<\/p>\n

I must confess here that I was so absorbed in this panel\u2019s presentation that I forgot to take a picture of its members or video of their dialogue. However, among discussion of the Vincent Chen murder, other civil liberties violations, and \u201cracebending\u201d in Hollywood films, the panelists\u2019 more resonant points included the following: Frances Kai-Hwa Wang stressed the importance of \u201csneaking in education\u201d into a blog, as in the way Big Bad Chinese Mama<\/a><\/em> lures in ignorant, foreign bride-seeking audiences by initially seeming to give them what they\u2019re looking for only to turn that racism on its head by giving the audience what the blogger herself deems important. Muslim Reverie<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Jehanzeb Dar, who analyzes Islamophobia in comic books and pop culture, reminded the BANANA 2 audience that such changes to racism are small and occur in (often individual) steps\u2014that we must not get discouraged when revolution does not take place overnight as we dream it would. Lastly, from this important panel organized by Edward Hong, we must take Marissa Lee\u2019s practical point that every blog with the goal of social change must end with a call for social action.<\/p>\n

On that note, if you want to more about the practical ins and outs of writing and running a blog that reaches people, check out the following tips from some of the experts putting on clinics at the conference.<\/p>\n

So, if you\u2019re interested in starting a blog of your own, what do you need to know to get started?<\/p>\n

Take tips from Ted Nguyen, a Little Saigon-based blogger whose site http:\/\/www.tednguyenusa.com\/<\/a> has garnered him opportunities to make money off of writing (gasp!) and to host local food crawls in his hometown. (By the way, if you\u2019re a foodie who is looking for new food blogs to follow, check out Marvin Gapultos\u2019s Burnt Lumpia<\/a><\/em>, as well as Wesley Wong and Evelina Giang\u2019s Two Hungry Pandas<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

In the video below, you can watch the charismatic Nguyen interview the members of the panel\u00a0on “Covering Niche Communities” about their experiences starting their successful\u00a0blogs and tips they offer to\u00a0any one considering starting their own:<\/p>\n