East West Players and After: Acting and Activism

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-263
Author(s):  
Christine Mok
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
Steering Committee ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit

“Where are all the Asian actors in mainstream New York theatre?” What began as a plaintive status update on Facebook launched a full-scale investigation by Asian American actors that culminated in a report titled “Ethnic Representation on New York City Stages” and the formation in the fall of 2011 of an advocacy group, the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC). AAPAC's findings were disheartening. In the preceding five years, Asian Americans had received only 3 percent of all available roles in not-for-profit theatre and only 1.5 percent of all available roles on Broadway. The percentage of roles filled by African American and Latino actors, in contrast, had increased since 2009. According to the report, “Asian Americans were the only minority group to see their numbers go down from levels set five years ago.” The data AAPAC compiled were both surprising in their concreteness and unsurprising in their bleakness. The Facebook query sparked an active digital conversation that touched a collective sense of discord just below the surface for many Asian American theatre artists, especially actors. Ralph Peña, artistic director of Ma-Yi Theatre Company, invited key Facebook commenters to hold a more formal conversation about access, embodiment, and Asian American representation. This group, many of whom were artists in midcareer, trained at top conservatories, and fostered in New York City's vibrant Asian American theatre community, became the Steering Committee of AAPAC. The members of the Steering Committee channeled their frustration and anger into archive fever by researching and documenting ethnic representation on Broadway and in sixteen of the largest not-for-profit theatres in New York City over a five-year period. In front of an audience of three hundred, members of AAPAC presented their findings at a roundtable at Fordham University on 13 February 2012 that included prominent artistic directors, agents, directors, casting directors, and producers and was moderated by David Henry Hwang. With the report in hand, AAPAC members roused the New York theatre community with a series of town hall–style meetings and urged theatrical production gatekeepers to do, if not better, then, something.

The meaning of doing

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin A Harper
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Private Information ◽  
York City ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Participatory Art ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit

Governments write us into being by compelling the public to fill in tiny boxes on forms revealing our most private information. These personal details become matters of public record. What if students thought about how writing in public administration shapes us? In the spring of 2015, my Public Administration class joined with New York City Historic Houses Trust and its LatimerNOW project a not-for-profit organization affiliated with the New York City Parks department whose goal is to reimagine the use of historic house museums, Louis Latimer House and Writing On It All (a participatory art not-for-profit exploring space and identity through writing) to learn public administration through participation in a public participatory art project. The immediate goal was for the students to use public administration theory to design, implement, participate and evaluate a one-day project. The hope was to offer a chance to practice on a real project in a safe space so that they could later use the skills once they were employed in public administration (and the stakes were higher). I engaged reflective practice to get them to move from theory to practical application, forcing them to defend and make explicit their administrative choices, thus offering a common vocabulary for critical conversations about the process and the results. In this article, I describe the experience and critically evaluate how reflective practice can add to the teaching and learning of public administration.

Working but Poor in New York City

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 101-112
Author(s):  
Howard Shih
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Low Income ◽  
York City ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
American Children ◽  
American Poverty

This policy brief summarizes the methodology and key findings of the Asian American Federation’s report, Working but Poor: Asian Americans in New York City. The report marked the first time Asian American poverty in New York City was examined in detail using the new American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample. The report also uses two definitions to examine struggling Asian Americans, the official poverty thresholds traditionally used and a concept of low-income families defined as families living below twice the federal poverty thresholds. After a summary on the methodology of the report, the brief will cover the findings and recommendations through three issue areas: improving job opportunities for working-age Asian Americans, building skills to help Asian American children broaden their future opportunities, and helping seniors in need of access to the social safety net. The brief concludes with an overview of Asian American poverty from a national perspective and discussion of future areas of study.

Games as Exchange: Module 4 of RE:PLAY: Game Design + Game Culture

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-143
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
New Media ◽  
York City ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Gaming ◽  
Media Arts ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit

This article is excerpted, with the permission of the editors and the publishers, from an edited book published by Peter Lang Publishing in conjunction with Eyebeam ( www.eyebeam.org ), a not-for-profit new media arts organization in New York City. It reproduces one of the book's four organizing ‘modules’ – Games as Exchange – which focuses on new kinds of social interaction made possible by digital gaming. The book grew out of an ideas exchange among participants involved in an online forum and live symposium discussing and debating game design and culture. The module reproduced in this article involves 15 of the 50 core contributors to the book as a whole, whose ideas were coordinated thematically and edited by Amy Scholder and Eric Zimmerman. The module is prefaced by Eric Zimmerman's Introduction to the book as a whole.

A Tale of Two Global Cities: The State of Asian Americans in Los Angeles and New York

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Howard Shih ◽  
Melany De La Cruz-Viesca
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
The United States ◽  
Metro Area

At the national level, the Asian American population has grown more than any other major race group. According to the 2010 Census, the Los Angeles metro area had 2,199,186 Asians, making it the home to the largest Asian population in the United States. Following close behind was the New York City metro area with 2,008,906 Asians. Over a quarter of the 14.7 million Asian Americans reside in either of the two greater metropolitan regions, where they comprise around a tenth of the total population in each metropolis. We begin with a brief historical overview of immigration legislation that has both invited and excluded Asian Americans, as a means of understanding how Asian Americans have been perceived over time. We will also compare some key characteristics of Asian American populations in Los Angeles County, New York City, the Balance of LA Combined Statistical Area (CSA) (excluding Los Angeles County), and the Balance of NYC CSA (excluding New York City), and the Balance of the United States. The paper will cover: (1) demographic trends and patterns (2) economic status (3) political engagement and incorporation, and (4) residential settlement patterns. We close with a discussion of how these demographic changes have contributed to Asian Americans rapid social, economic, and political upward mobility in the last decade, at a time when the global restructuring of the economy has blurred nation-state boundaries that once existed and migration from Asia to the United States has become more complex, particularly over the past two decades.

scholarly journals Determinants of Depression Risk among Three Asian American Subgroups in New York City

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Supriya Misra ◽  
Laura C. Wyatt ◽  
Jennifer A. Wong ◽  
Cindy Y. Huang ◽  
Shahmir H. Ali ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
South Asians ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Southeast Asians ◽  
Depression Risk

Objective: Although the fastest growing mi­nority group, Asian Americans receive little attention in mental health research. More­over, aggregated data mask further diversity within Asian Americans. This study aimed to examine depression risk by detailed Asian American subgroup, and further assess de­terminants within and between three Asian ethnic subgroups.Methods: Needs assessment surveys were collected in 16 Asian American subgroups (six Southeast Asian, six South Asian, and four East Asian) in New York City from 2013-2016 using community-based sampling strategies. A final sample of N=1,532 com­pleted the PHQ-2. Bivariate comparisons and multivariable logistic models explored differences in depression risk by subgroup.Results: Southeast Asians had the greatest depression risk (19%), followed by South Asians (11%) and East Asians (9%). Among Southeast Asians, depression risk was associ­ated with lacking health insurance (OR=.2, 95% CI: 0-.6), not having a provider who speaks the same language (OR=3.2, 95% CI: 1.3-8.0), and lower neighborhood social cohesion (OR= .94, 95% CI: .71-.99). Among South Asians, depression risk was associated with greater English proficiency (OR=3.9, 95% CI: 1.6-9.2); and among East Asians, depression risk was associated with ≤ high school education (OR=4.2, 95% CI: 1.2-14.3). Additionally, among Southeast Asians and South Asians, the high­est depression risk was associated with high levels of discrimination (Southeast Asian: OR=9.9, 95% CI: 1.8-56.2; South Asian: OR=7.3, 95% CI: 3.3-16.2).Conclusions: Depression risk and deter­minants differed by Asian American ethnic subgroup. Identifying factors associated with depression risk among these groups is key to targeting limited public health resources for these underserved communities. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(4):553-562; doi:10.18865/ed.30.4.553

Hospitals: N.Y. Appellate Court Denies Move to Privatize Public Hospital

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-203
Author(s):  
Robert Chatham
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Municipal Hospital ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
The City

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257 (N.Y. Mar. 30, 1999), that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act (HHCA), establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc. (PHS), a private, for-profit entity.

Self-perceived oral health among three subgroups of Asian-Americans in New York City: a preliminary study

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo D. Cruz ◽  
Diana L. Galvis ◽  
Mimi Kim ◽  
Racquel Z. Le-Geros ◽  
Su-Yan L. Barrow ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Oral Health ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
York City ◽  
Preliminary Study

Messy, Energetic, Intense: A Roundtable Conversation among New York's Asian American Experimental Filmmakers of the Eighties with Roddy Bogawa, Daryl Chin, Shu Lea Cheang, and Rea Tajiri

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-78
Author(s):  
Vince Schleitwiler ◽  
Abby Sun ◽  
Rea Tajiri
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
American Film ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
History Of

This roundtable grew out of conversations between filmmaker Rea Tajiri, programmer Abby Sun, and scholar Vince Schleitwiler about a misunderstood chapter in the history of Asian American film and media: New York City in the eighties, a vibrant capital of Asian American filmmaking with a distinctively experimental edge. To tell this story, Rea Tajiri contacted her artist contemporaries Shu Lea Cheang and Roddy Bogawa as well as writer and critic Daryl Chin. Daryl had been a fixture in New York City art circles since the sixties, his presence central to Asian American film from the beginning. The scope of this discussion extends loosely from the mid-seventies through the late nineties, with Tajiri, Abby Sun, and Vince Schleitwiler initiating topics, compiling responses, and finalizing its form as a collage-style conversation.

Channelling the dead: A conversation on Desdemona with Tina Benko

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Rapetti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African American ◽  
Toni Morrison ◽  
York City ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
Character Building

Tina Benko is an American stage, screen and television actress who has steadily trodden the Broadway boards for twenty years while starring in films and TV series and teaching acting and movement in New York City. An intensely focused and versatile performer, Benko has played in a broad variety of genres, ranging from screwball and Shakespearean comedies to realistic Russian, Scandinavian and American plays. In this interview, she discusses the factors that attracted her to drama and theatre, her acting training and approach to character-building, and theatre as a space for healing and reconciliation as she experienced it while working in Desdemona (2012), a cross-cultural theatre adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello staged by American theatre and opera director Peter Sellars, with texts by African American Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and music and lyrics by Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré.

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