When Good Things Happen to Good People in the Film World, I'm Surprised --Short Documentary Film 2010 Academy Award Nomination

One of the first things I learned as a budding filmmaker is that filmmaking is not a meritocracy. Like many industries, you move up the film world through who you know, not what you know. Pseudo-artists make it big while real artists starve. Some of the best works of art do not necessarily garner the most accolades; some of the weirdest, most violent and gratituously sexually explicit independent films, in the name of art, often win many awards at both Cannes and the Independent Spirit Awards. Some films which I feel are so extraordinary don't quite make it commercially while others which I would personally consider to be less worthy go on to become blockbuster hits. The world of film has its particular tastes and trends, which often go against my personal aesthetics and tastes. But who cares what I think? I am a nobody in the film world. But yet as a voting member of the Independent Spirit Awards, I find many of the films to be too violent and gratituously sexual and sometimes a combination of both. "Sin Nombre," by a half Japanese and half Swedish American Cary Funakaga, while a beautifully artistic film, had multiple scenes of attempted rapes and children committing acts of violence. An 11-year-old kid shoots a man and the corpse is cut up into pieces and fed to the dogs. So often I find so many bizarre, disturbing and distasteful films being nominated for top awards. "Sin Nombre" was a piece of art and also is probably one of the first American films which provides historical insight into the Central American/Mexican immigrant experience. According to published reports, Funakaga researched his story meticulously. But did it have to be so violent? Was that violence germane to the expression of story? I think some of it was; I think some of it was sensationalism. In many ways, I think it was a masterful, multi-faceted visual storytelling but I do not think it had to be so violent. So many of the nominated Independent Spirit Award films are violent. Last year's "Hunger" and "Gomorrah" made me numb.

What does this have to do anything with the Academy Awards? Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert who are among the humblest and kindest among our species have been nominated for their short documentary film "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant." Their sensitive, intimate portrayal of GM workers losing their jobs and community as the last truck rolls off the assembly lines brought me to tears. It is about the impact of the recession on ordinary, working-class folks who want nothing more than to raise their family. I saw portions of the film at the IFP Market and met Steven there for the first time in person though I have been corresponding with him for the past 5 years.

Speaking of Oscar-worthy films, the Ohio-based documentary filmmaking couple Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert who helped me to find production crew in Dayton have been nominated for an Oscar this year for their short doc, "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant." They are among the kindest and humblest of our species, in addition to being among the finest docmakers around. So happy for them. And moreover, I am thrilled that good films and great humane filmmakers without giant egos get the spotlight and recognition that they deserve. I could not be happier with their nomination. As my Associate Producer Karen said "That's great. Isn't it nice when good things happen to good people? Especially in an industry where, at least in my experience, people often fail upward, or are rewarded merely for whom they know..." She worked in film for a decade before she had kids.


Steven Bognar helped me from the very beginning in 2005 when I first began shooting my film in Ohio. He didn't even know a single thing about me. I just called him up and without hesitation he assisted. He helped me to find a cameraperson who was willing to work at student rates the last time I was in Ohio in April 2009. During that same videoshoot, when 2 out of my 3 batteries went dead all of the sudden and I was unable to find a professional videostore in Dayton, Steve saved the day by calling up several of his filmmaker friends in the Dayton, OH and asked them to help me. I'm in awe of their generosity as much as I am of their achievements in filmmaking. Anyways, just found out that they were nominated last night and can't stop raving about them. Usually, I am complaining that such and such film got nominated when another should have been. There is meritocracy in the film world after all. Yeah!

Prejudices Against People Who Speak English as a Second Language

Several years ago, we submitted a trailer of our film to a well-known Asian American Film funder, whose name I will not mention here. And our grant application was rejected and I requested a reviews by the judges. One of them said that it was clear that Mr. Truong, Can's father, did not speak English as his first language and that I should have gotten him a translator. This statement was rather offensive to me and made me wonder how an Asian American organization could have allowed that judge to be critiquing films. Firstly, the fact that a language is not a person's first does not necessarily mean that he/she cannot be fluent or speak the language proficiently. Many Asian Americans speak one or more languages well without an accent; many people around the world are multi-lingual. In fact, in some countries around the world, it is natural to learn several languages. In Holland, most speak English, in addition to Dutch. In several African countries, there are over 200 languages, many of them are indigenous and are spoken by a small percentage of the population. Such insensitivities should not be perpetrated by an Asian American organization. They should know better having lived at the confluence of more than one linguistic world.

English isn't my first language, but I speak it better than most. This is one of the ways in the majority of Americans, many of whom are monolingual take barbs at Asian Americans who speak a multitude of languages. Furthermore, an accent is not indicative of ignorance or an inability to speak the language. I must preface this statement with the disclaimer that individuals have variable levels of linguistic ability and highly different ways of expressing themselves. Some people can learn to speak many languages proficiently, just like some people can learn to excel at playing several instruments or play a variety of different sports.

Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics

In some of my previous blog entries, I mentioned the increased diagnoses of mental illnesses among children and the increased use of powerful psychiatric drugs -- many of which haven't yet been tested for children -- trends likely to have long-term physiological and psychological effects on an entire generation of children. It is disturbing trend and I hope that the undue influence of pharmaceutical companies comes to a halt.

By DUFF WILSON
Published: December 11, 2009
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.

Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?

The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.

On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by hundreds of thousands of people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.

Meanwhile, a group of Medicaid medical directors from 16 states, under a project they call Too Many, Too Much, Too Young, has been experimenting with ways to reduce prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs among Medicaid children.

They plan to publish a report early next year.

The Rutgers-Columbia study will also be published early next year, in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. But the findings have already been posted on the Web, setting off discussion among experts who treat and study troubled young people.

Some experts say they are stunned by the disparity in prescribing patterns. But others say it reinforces previous indications, and their own experience, that children with diagnoses of mental or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.

Part of the reason is insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do. Part of it may have to do with the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.

“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”

Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.

After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.

“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.”

Because there can be long waits to see the psychiatrists accepting Medicaid, it is often a pediatrician or family doctor who prescribes an antipsychotic to a Medicaid patient — whether because the parent wants it or the doctor believes there are few other options.

Some experts even say Medicaid may provide better care for children than many covered by private insurance because the drugs — which can cost $400 a month — are provided free to patients, and families do not have to worry about the co-payments and other insurance restrictions.

“Maybe Medicaid kids are getting better treatment,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist and professor at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. “If it helps keep them in school, maybe it’s not so bad.”

In any case, as Congress works on health care legislation that could expand the nation’s Medicaid rolls by 15 million people — a 43 percent increase — the scope of the antipsychotics problem, and the expense, could grow in coming years.

Even though the drugs are typically cheaper than long-term therapy, they are the single biggest drug expenditure for Medicaid, costing the program $7.9 billion in 2006, the most recent year for which the data is available.

The Rutgers-Columbia research, based on millions of Medicaid and private insurance claims, is the most extensive analysis of its type yet on children’s antipsychotic drug use. It examined records for children in seven big states — including New York, Texas and California — selected to be representative of the nation’s Medicaid population, for the years 2001 and 2004.

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This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 31, 2009
An article on Dec. 12 about a higher rate of antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children on Medicaid than for children whose parents have private insurance, using information from a Food and Drug Administration analyst, gave an incorrect estimate of the number of people in the United States under the age of 18 who use such drugs. An F.D.A. official who made the estimate of 300,000 at a public meeting on Dec. 8 subsequently said she intended for that the number to apply to one leading drug. There is no authoritative or official count of youths under 18 using antipsychotic drugs, but it is believed to be much higher than 300,000.

Among Asian Americans, Many Subgroups Lack Adequate Health Coverage

This article from Asiaweek underscores the disservice that the model minority myth does to Asian Americans.


January 28, 2009


Asian Americans are often seen as the model minority, with higher rates of education, income, and employment. But this perception might be overshadowing the problems of lack of health insurance coverage among the Asian American community.
In a January 2007 study by Kaiser Family Foundation called “Key Facts: Race, Ethnicity, and Medical Care,” Asian Americans, when compared to other minority groups, had relatively high rates of health coverage. Of the white, non-Hispanic population, 13 percent were uninsured, with Asian Americans falling not far behind, with 19 percent uninsured. In contrast, 34 percent of Hispanics, 32 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and 21 percent of African Americans were uninsured. Comparatively, Asian Americans were the best-performing minority group in terms of health coverage.
But when separated into different ethnicities, the data for health insurance coverage for Asian Americans becomes shocking, with many subgroups having high rates of uninsured people.
“When we aggregate the data and look at it all together, they do perform better than all other ethnic groups, but when we disaggregate them, we find that lumping Asian Americans together really does mask a lot of problems,” said Cara James, senior policy analyst for Kaiser Family Foundation, who led a study released April 2008 that examined health coverage among Asian Pacific Islanders.
The study found large variations among the Asian American population: Employer-sponsored coverage was as high as 77 percent for Asian Indians, but as low as 49 percent for Koreans. In general, Indians and Japanese had the highest rates of coverage, with just 12 percent of their populations uninsured.
Filipinos followed with 14 percent uninsured, Chinese with 16 percent, other South Asians with 20 percent, Vietnamese with 21 percent, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders with 24 percent, and Koreans, with the highest rate of uninsured, at 31 percent.
James attributed the high rate of uninsured among Koreans to their tendency to work in small businesses which can’t afford employee health insurance. “Koreans tend to work for smaller employers, which partly explains higher rates of uninsured, contrasted to the perception that Koreans tend to be not poor, so though they have high incomes, they have lower rates of insurance,” she said.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 60 percent of nonelderly adult Korean workers are employed at companies with 100 employees or less, compared to less than 40 percent for other Asian and Pacific Islander groups.
One of the major issues uncovered by the study was the effect of grouping Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians with Asians: the low rates of health coverage among Pacific Islanders are masked by the influence of the larger populations like Chinese and Filipinos.
Deeana Jang, policy director of Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, who helped with the study, said, “We shouldn’t lump all Asian Americans together. The Pacific Islander number is such small number, it’s really meaningless. We need to separate it out.”
James agreed, especially considering the large disparities in coverage between Asians and Pacific Islanders.
“We tend to talk about Asian Americans collectively, but Native Hawaiians have rates compared to some of the worst-performing minority groups,” James said.
James correlated the rates of health coverage to income, saying that Indians had the highest rate of coverage because they are least likely to be poor, meaning their incomes are well above the federal poverty line. Meanwhile, she pointed out that 43 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are near poor.
Gem Daus, a Filipino American studies and Asian American sexuality professor at the University of Maryland, who formerly worked with APIAHF, agreed that income is a major factor in getting coverage.
“It’s expensive, and it’s hard to get, especially when you’re not making a lot of money,” he said.
But even beyond issues of low income, are language barriers, which make it difficult for those who don’t speak English well to navigate a health system that is already complicated.
“It’s confusing enough in English,” Daus said.
One unique program in Montgomery County, Maryland is trying to remedy this.
Called the Asian American Health Initiative, the program was established in 2005 to meet the health needs of Asian Americans in the county, which comprise 13.5 percent of the Montgomery County population. The program aims to expand health services available to Asian Americans, outreach to different ethnic groups about the availability of health care, and eliminate barriers for those in the Asian American community to accessing health care. It specifically targets seniors and recent immigrants who are often isolated.
“Asian Americans have the highest linguistic isolation compared to other groups, even Hispanics,” said Julie Bawa, AAHI’s program director.
Often, language barriers can prevent immigrants from seeking health care or understanding how to obtain health insurance. To fix this problem, AAHI has a program called the Patient Navigator Program.
The program identifies health resources for Asian Americans in Montgomery County and helps navigate the health care system for people who otherwise would have been limited by lack of English skills, uninsured or underinsured status, or socioeconomic status. Information specialists speak Hindi, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean, languages spoken by 70 percent of the county’s Asian American population. For those who need other languages, language lines are used to translate.
Bawa said that the top question asked is “How do I get insurance?” Questions also range from how to apply for Medicare and Medicaid to simple requests for help filling out forms, showing a gap between the availability of health coverage and general understanding in how to obtain it.
“There needs to be more awareness in general, as well as more effort in having materials in different languages,” Bawa said.
But even beyond language barriers are obstacles for recent immigrants, who must wait five years after arriving in the U.S. to be eligible for public health programs.
“Because Asian Americans are largely an immigrant population, there are still some barriers for immigrants to access public health coverage,” Jang said.
Immigrants also face the problem of conflicting priorities: whether to get health coverage or deal with more immediate needs like finding jobs and providing for the family, said Bawa.
There is also the issue of cultural barriers. Findings from the Commonwealth Fund’s 2001 Health Care Quality Survey found that Asian Americans, as compared to other groups, were “the least likely to feel that their doctor understands their background and values, to have confidence in their doctor, and to be as involved in decision-making as they would like to be.”
Only 56 percent of Asian Americans said they felt involved in decision-making, compared to 78 percent of whites. Only 48 percent reported they felt their doctor understood their background and values, compared to the highest rate of 61 percent for Hispanics.
Jang said she thinks this could be prevented if doctors took the time to find out more about their patients. “In order to have high quality care, you have to be patient-sensitive, you don’t treat patients same. You need to find out about their lives, and ask the right questions,” she said.
Interestingly, the Kaiser Family Foundation study found that Asian Americans who were 3^rd plus generation Americans were the most likely to have health insurance, compared to other subgroups, with just 11 percent uninsured.
However, James attributes this not to cultural values, but to the fact that families in the U.S. longer tend to have higher education, income, and jobs, which she says all affect take-up of coverage.
Jang agreed, especially based on her own experience. “My grandma was a garment worker. She didn’t have health coverage. I’m an attorney. So the longer people are here, the next generation gets better jobs that are more likely to provide coverage.”
Still, high un-insurance rates remain a problem, especially in light of Asian Americans’ high susceptibility to cancer and Hepatitis B.
Those without health insurance tend to not seek health care, missing out on preventative screenings for things like cancer. This is especially important because cancer is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans, according to data from 2003 from the National Center of Health Statistics. But for Hispanics, African Americans, and whites, heart disease is the leading cause of death.
Jang said she believes this abnormal trend is due to the fact that Asian Americans are less likely to be screened for cancer, allowing the problem to worsen over time and only be caught later on.
The solution to improving health insurance rates still has yet to be found. Daus believes that universal health care coverage should be expanded, while making sure to outreach to specific communities. Jang believes that more patient navigators should be provided to help Asian Americans who would otherwise be lost trying to understand a complicated system.
But one thing remains clear, despite perceptions of Asian Americans being a model minority, health coverage and access to care are major problems in the community. Access to health insurance needs to be made easier, Daus said.
He said, “Health insurance is a safety net for the future, but if you have more immediate needs and it’s not easy to get, it’s easy to ignore.”

Recovering from a Home Burglary

I live in an ungentrified, densely-populated, urban neighborhood; some snobby upper-middle people might even call my neighborhood a ghetto. For me, it's where I've always wanted to live: an undeveloped neighborhood where class wasn't an issue. I had previously envied those who moved into Soho when it was rows of slaughter houses and Williamsburg when there was gang violence on the streets. Within many artist sub-cultures in NYC, to live in an ungentrified urban development was a mark of honor and courage among artists/activists like myself. It's one thing to say that you're not bourgeois, but to live among the more disenfranchised is another.
As an artist/activist whose heroines and heroes have always been the likes of Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Maya Angelou, and Malcolm X, I have always known in my heart that I had to live in a neighborhood like one that I do. I have dedicated my life to fighting classism, racism, sexism, and now ableism, (which is discrimination against people with disabilities). It is easy to fight classism from afar, from an ivory tower or from an upper-middle to middle class neighborhoods where I have lived most of my life. Many intellectuals can talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk. So here I am. I am a product of privilege in certain ways; I spent my last years of high school in an upper-middle class neighborhood, contemplating Kant and Plato which led to my liberal enlightenment. Contemplating Kant, despite their being dead white men with Euro-centric views of the universe, can instill a great sense of duty and social responsibility. If there is any one thing responsible for my poverty, it is my liberal education that has propelled my quest for social justice in mental health among many other social issues. I am imbued with upper-middle class liberal tastes. However, with some of the issues in my family, I was in certain ways deprived of things I can't quite say in this blog.

I wanted to move into this neighborhoods, where there are drug dealers and not-so-kind people on the streets. I chose this despite all my other choices so I should not lament. But lately, I have questioning my decision to buy my condo in this neighborhood and here's why:

Lately, my neighborhood has been under siege, making national headlines with a brutal shooting of 5 cops and a story that reads like a script out of an episode of Law and Order. In pursuit of the criminals, the police deployed the SWAT Team and a police helicopter, which hovered directly over our building at 5:30am in the morning on July 16, 2009. The sound of it was so surreal, had someone told me that it was UFO landing on top of our building I would likely have believed them. I literally woke up believing that I had dreamt the strange loud noise and fell immediately back to sleep. This happened less than 2 blocks from my home on July 16, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?scp=1&sq=reed%20street%20jersey%20city&st=cse

One month later, my home was burglarized while I was asleep. It's been crazy ever since. I have to finish writing this later, but I think I have to go to sleep. But below are the events that happened.

I woke up around noon on August 11, 2009 to find the window fan in one of the 2 windows in my office removed and placed in a chair next to the window. One of the last things I had done prior to going to bed at 3 am was turn off the window fan so I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was an indication that something was seriously wrong. I walked into my dining and living room area and discovered that my 2 laptops and digital camera were gone. My immediate impulse was to knock on some of the doors on my floor to ask if anyone had seen or heard anything, but I could not find my bag, which contained my house keys. I walked throughout my home, searching in the usual places I stored my bag, but it was nowhere to be found. I frantically continued to search for my bag, which also contained my cellphone, wallet, cash and credit cards, in disbelief. I then called the police, my sister and Vanessa, the superintendent of our building. I began to search my apartment for other missing items and clues while still in a mild state of shock and disbelief. At approximately 12:20pm, Officer Howlett came and took my police report.
My apartment is on the 5^th floor and the window, which appeared to be the point of entry, is not on a fire escape so the point of entry being that window seemed very implausible. But it did certainly appear that way. I wondered if the perpetrator might have entered through the roof and somehow accessed the window via the roof so I asked Officer Howlett if we should perhaps investigate the roof. I asked him to please take a look at the roof, which is only accessible by key. The door to the roof, if not opened with a key, sounds siren so I cleared roof access with Vanessa. I also asked her if there was anyone else who had roof keys and she said no. The officer and I went on the roof and found nothing unusual. The only things I noticed in the roof area directly above the window, were DirectTV Satellite Dishes installed. The officer said this was not significant in any way. He seemed skeptical that the window was the point of entry for the burglar to enter my apartment. The window was not adjacent to any other structures that could have given the burglar access to this window at such a dangerous height of 5 flights. He asked me if anyone had keys to my apartment and if my door had been open when I discovered the burglary. I told him that only my superintendent had the keys and that the door was slightly ajar when I first discovered the burglary as if the intruder left using my front door. He asked me questions that seemed to imply that it was possible that the perpetrator somehow used the front door as access and set up the scene to appear as if the window was used to as the point of entry. To this day, I do not have any solid evidence to establish the exact point of entry.
Later that evening when a neighbor, Ben, came over to help me replace the lock to my door, he noticed a large palm print on the outside ledge of the window. So I called the police again to request that they come and take the prints as evidence. Officers Bravo and Montanez came, looked at the palm print and said that the surface of the ledge was not a good surface to take fingerprints from and that the likelihood of such evidence being admissible in court was slim. I think if I recall correctly they also said that palm prints are not taken for criminal records, only fingerprints are taken for arrested individuals.

Fast forward to my return from Arizona on Sept 17. On Sept 18, there was another burglary in my building. Scary as shit and everyone is on the edge.

Workshop/Screening in Phoenix and Amazing Sedona

I got some good news yesterday. Michael Isip, Vice Pres of TV Content, KQED, the public TV network in San Francisco, said he really liked our most recent 61 min rough cut. His high opinion of our cut makes it much more likely that our final cut will be broadcast on PBS.

Sept 10 - I gave the first workshop "Deconstructing the Asian American Model Minority Myth" with Hyung Chol Yoo, PhD, a professor of psychology of Arizona State University at the 2009 National Assoc. of Rights Protection and Advocacy annual conference at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak (an amazingly beautiful hotel). For more info, you can read my blog about this workshop. But I'm not done writing about it yet:(http://www.amongourkin.org/2009/09/deconstructing-model-minority-myth.html)

As always, I meet some of the most interesting people at these conferences like Ron Bassman (ronaldbassman.com). A psychologist, he was once told that he was a chronic schizophrenic with little hope of recovery and would have to be on medications for the rest of his life. At one point, he was in insulin-induced coma, administered electroconvulsive therapy (shock therapy) and a host of other "treatments" which ultimately harmed him in many ways. Institutionalization and forced treatment were common practices in the 1960's for people with mental illnesses. People with mental illnesses were viewed as having no rights. He defied all norms by becoming a PhD. recovering from an "incurable" mental illness and recently wrote a book "A Fight to Be." I highly recommend that you check his website: ronaldbassman.com out.

This Pointe Hilton Hotel was absolutely gorgeous with a water park, consisting of 8 pools. I tubed down this "river pool" and went slithering down this very long water slide 3x. I think I was the only person over the age of 12 having so much fun. (It's 105 degrees in Phoenix so you need to swim)

Sept 10 - The screening of my 61 min rough cut at the Arizona Public Health Assoc. Conference went ok. I thought it was charming that they served popcorn during the film. The turnouts were far lower than expected, but we got good film evaluations at the public health conference. Less than half of the number of people expected attended the conference. The recession apparently has affected travel budgets for public health administrations. Even less than that number attended my screening.

The audience was mostly MDs, PhDs, MPHs, nurses and other health service providers. I thought they as medical professionals would have negative comments about some of the anti-psychotropic medication opinions expressed by consumers in my film, but none of them mentioned that in their written evaluations. A few said that the film was powerful and amazing. Two women stayed after the screening and talked to me in depth about the social importance of the film. One Native American woman said that she, too, could relate to the experience of trying to bridge the intergenerational cultural gap between Can and his traditional parents.
She said that many young Native Americans have conflicts with their more traditional parents. She said the film was powerful in rendering that situation. Her comment made me think how such human experiences resonate universally, no matter how culturally-specific we may think they are. A medical doctor told me he learned a lot and the film gave him insight into his ex-girlfriend who was from Taiwan. He made no mention of the medical stuff.

We also got a few negative responses, which was expected. 2 people said the film wasn't enjoyable, but educational. Some said it was a little disjointed, but I already knew that. But overall, I received much better
responses than I had expected.

Ellen Owens-Summo, the Vice Pres of the Arizona Public Health Association, said she felt frustrated throughout the film b/c she felt like Can's identity was like fused with his mental illness. She didn't feel like he was moving forward. I told her she was witnessing the reality of the situation. Can sometimes does over-identify with his mental disorder and talks about it incessantly. Though he has gotten better lately. One of his friends sometimes jokingly refers to him as Mr. Bipolar. He is stuck in certain ways. In a way, her comment was a compliment b/c it meant that we were accurately portraying reality as uncomfortable as that was. But this was clearly a struggle that I as a director have had to deal with over and over again. Showing Can's repetitiveness makes him less likable, but it is in actuality how he behaves. Should I make a deliberate effort to make him more likable with less regard for accuracy? Yes, some producers/directors would say. No, is what I have been saying. But I am open to making him more likeable without detracting from the overall integrity of the reality.

I was so glad that the screening was over. Because of my home burglary on Aug 11, I lost 2 wks of editing time and felt so inadequate presenting the cut as it was. I was actually glad that the audience size was smaller than expected because the cut wasn't where it should have been. I was running on pure adrenaline for the last 2 days before leaving for Phoenix and I had gotten only an hour of sleep the night before I flew out of NJ. I was so relieved.

Sept 11 - The day after my screening, I attended the conference as a participant and learned so much about American public health issues, like how social determinants affect health and longevity. Cheryl Easley, President of the American Public Health Assoc. gave an inspiring speech about human rights and health disparities. Native Americans have an average lifespan far below the American average. People with serious and chronic mental illnesses live 25 years less than the average American for a multitude of reasons related to side effects of medications and other
social and economic factors.

I also attended this workshop about obstetric care for Somali refugees in Phoenix. And I was really impressed with the extent to which this obstetrican/gynecologist went to in order provide culturally and linguistically appropriate care to these refugees who fled their homelands because of the civil war there. The clinic was highly successful. The only question I had going through my mind was how is it that these Somalis are able to receive culturally competent medical care after only being here for a few years? Asian Americans have been in this country for 4 centuries and yet many Asian Americans do not receive culturally and linguistically competent medical care. Is it the model minority myth that makes people think that Asian Americans do not need culturally competent mental health care? Maybe probably?

Do you know that one's race to some extent is a reliable predictor of lifespan and health outcomes? Income and socioeconomic status often affect diet, levels of stress and exercise habits. All these factors affect our health choices. Did you know that most immigrants, even those from developing countries, are healthier than most average Americans upon arrival? But as soon as they start assimilating to the American lifestyle, their health goes downhill. It's a conundrum. Check out this
documentary clip: http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/video_clips.php


SEPT 12- AMAZING SEDONA
redrockcountry.org

I went to Sedona to do research on Navajo and Hopi languages and cultures for my next film about the linguistic history of the U.S. Unbeknownst to most Americans, this land was once the home of thousands of Native American languages, many of which are now extinct or are in danger of extinction today. Franz Boas, the father of anthropology, could not even begin to categorize all of them due to vast numbers and variations of languages and dialects. Modern day America is the most monolingual this land has ever been. I think this is such a fascinating statement, given the current legal, social and cultural debates surrounding the use of English and Spanish. Many Americans are debating whether they want to live in a bilingual society, much less a land where thousands of languages are spoken. As a Korean American, I've heard so many racist comments leveled at recent immigrants who do not speak English well as if all Americans "should" speak English. This "should" is culturally induced and certainly not a prerequisite for American Citizenship. In fact, Citizenship tests are frequently given in many languages because of Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin. (My grandmother when she was 82 took her test in Korean and proudly scored a 96% on her exam, much to our surprise.) There is a misconception that America is supposed to be a English monolingual society, when, in fact, our ancestors and forefathers were multi-lingual. Not to mention the fact that the first Amendment of the Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits government from interfering freedom of speech rights. It has been my personal mission as an American to correct these kinds of social wrongs from happening. The film will map out the historical and prehistorical linguistic landscape of the U.S. beginning with the tongues of the Native Americans, most of whose languages did not have a written form.

I did not make it up into Navajo and Hopi reservations in Northern Arizona. I just didn't have the time and money, though I certainly did have the will. I spoke with many of the Navajo vendors who sold their jewelry and arts by the roadside at the local Dairy Queen on one of the main arteries through town. Through some of these women, I learned a bit about the culture and where the main reservations were. It seemed to help that I was Korean and was able to relate to some of their cultural dilemmas about assimilation and language. Many Native Americans have diabetes and other serious and chronic health issues.

I camped out in a tent in Sedona for 4 days, much to my own amazement. I thought I would be scared to camp alone, but after doing a little research, I discovered that I was by far safer camping alone in Sedona than living in my apartment in Jersey City. Sleeping under the stars and waking up at dawn hasn't really been a part of my lifestyle. I was going to sleep a few hours after sunset and getting up an hour after dawn, which is so contrary to my usual night owl routine.

I climbed Cathedral Rock, which is a gorgeous and amazing place to be. The views are mesmerizing and there is a spiritual and mystical quality about Sedona. I learned that there are vortexes in Sedona, which are some kind of energy fields. I had to go on all fours for latter part of the rock climb. It was a precariously dangerous 60 degree incline at a few points, where one slip could lead to death or serious injury -- at least a 40-50 foot fall. I paused, looked down and got too scared to climb further. At one point, I had given up and was ready to climb back down until 2 passerbyers cheered me on and told me not to give up. It was all a mental game. Once you begin to entertain the notion of falling, you can't go on but the minute you think you can, you can. And I made it up 3/4 of the way to the top, way past the point at which I thought I couldn't go on because it was too dangerous. What an amazing zen experience!
For some pictures of Cathedral Rock, click below:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=cathedral+rock+sedona&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Kku1SsPON9iD8Qb3t4S6Dg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no photos to share with you! The photos I took are all gone. Something is wrong with my brand new Polaroid camera. I came home and tried to download my photos from my camera, only to discover that there was absolutely nothing on my SD card or camera memory. Bizarre.

On my last day in Sedona, AZ, I went back to the vortex at Cathedral Rock and meditated. I also thanked God for the wonderful time and all the terrific people I had met on this glorious journey. I was truly blessed to have this time in Sedona on this journey... What a gift these past few days have been... Thank you God.



Many thanks to all of you who have helped me to make this cut, workshop, and screening possible by helping me with a hundred different details. Many thanks to the Mental Health Assoc. of California, Dianne Yamashiro-Omi of The California Endowment, and Nicholas Martin, editor. Thank you Pat Shea of NASMHPD for believing me and my project. Thank you Narges Maududi of NASMHPD for paying for my travel. Thank you Dr. Hyung Chol Yoo of ASU and Minh Ta. Thank you to my family and friends: Karen Glasser, Ben Park, Jackie Hu, Linda Hattendorf, Bill Lichtenstein, all those who attended my NYWIFT screening (Nuria and Chris), Ellen Owens-Summo, Jennifer Bonnet of the AZ PHA, Bill Stewart and Ann Marshall of NARPA. My super fantastic neighbors/friends: Eleanor Kaufman, Rich Greenstein and Ben Bartholomew.

Deconstructing the Model Minority Myth - Workshop at National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA)

The perception of Asian Americans as model minorities who are academically and economically successful with few social problems has done a great disservice to Asian Americans, in general, and a grave injustice to Asian Americans who experience mental health issues, in particular. Among all the ethnic groups in the U.S., Asian Americans with mental illnesses are least likely to find culturally and linguistically competent services in part because of this public perception. This notion of Asian Americans being diligent, industrious and capable of overcoming the many social and economic obstacles to the American dream has, inadvertently, been used to deny Asian Americans equitable access to social services. To further compound the issue of inequitable access to mental health services, many Asian Americans with mental illness are not revealing their psychological needs, requesting services, or stepping up to assert their rights under the law. This is the model minority myth, which basically reinforces the capitalistic ideology that America is a meritocracy, where a strong work ethic will be rewarded with financial wealth. Conservatives use the Asian American model minority myth to disparage other racial groups for "not making it" without looking at the underlying sociological complexities that tell the real story. The fact is the Asian American under-earn in comparison to their White counterparts when comparing educational background and years of experience in the same jobs. Asian Americans have historically over-invested in education in order to offset the effects of discrimination. Many believing that attaining advanced degrees from prestigious schools are the only means to achieving financial and career success.

The term Asian American assumes a certain level of homogeneity even when none exists. How federal govt defines Asian American as people having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. Asian groups are not limited to nationalities but include ethnic terms as well, such as Hmong.
Heterogeneity of this group - 43 distinct ethnic groups, more than 100 languages, and multi-religious, including but not limited to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
50-70% are foreign-born and speak a language other than English at home. Approximately 40% of the Asian American population immigrated to the U.S. between 1990-2000.

The truth is that this group of people labeled "Asian Americans" really does not exist as a homogenous group of people, but are a highly diverse, multi-religious, group of 43 different ethnicities and more than 100 languages. Despite this inordinate diversity, Asian Americans, like other non-European populations, were racialized, perceived and treated in particular ways because of their race. The 2000 Census showed that the largest 5 Asian American groups are Chinese, Phillipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Asian Indian.

Here's an excellent article written by Hyung Chol (Brandon) Yoo, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, with whom I will be presenting with at NARPA:
http://www.education.com/reference/article/unraveling-minority-myth-asian-students/

Here is my outline of Workshop at the 2009 National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy (http://www.narpa.org/) in Phoenix, AZ on Sept 10.

Introduction and brief summary - Pearl [3 min}
When I first started this film project, it was with the intention of helping to break the silence about mental illness within Asian American communities and to contribute to the broader public discourse about mental health and cultural competency. I soon came to realize that many people in mainstream mental health organizations did not perceive as Asian Americans as having social problems and made little to no outreach efforts to Asian Americans. Even the most educated among them had internalized stereotypes about Asian Americans in their minds, coloring their perceptions of Asian Americans. I realized that even before the issue of cultural competency could be dealt with that the myth of the model minority first had to be dispelled. Many Asian Americans do not want to acknowledge that they have mental health issues in their communities and families. The denial and shame has made Asian Americans, the least to seek mental health services among all the ethnic groups in the U.S. The model minority myth actually helps to obscure the truth and reinforces the denial.
We are fortunate to have Dr. Hyung Chol Yoo, Associate Professor of Psychology of Arizona State Univ. and scholar. One of his specialties is the model minority myth. But first I'd like to show the first 20 minutes of a documentary film in progress, Can. Some of you may know Can Truong, who is a board member of NARPA.

VIDEO – Clip from documentary film “Can” [20 min]
Defining Asian America - [Pearl] [3 min]
What AA means in conversation - Most people think of people of East Asian ancestry such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese, when the term "Asian American" is used. But for the purposes of this workshop, we will be using the term to refer to
How federal govt defines AA -Asian refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. Asian groups are not limited to nationalities but include ethnic terms as well, such as Hmong.
Heterogeneity of this group - 43 distinct ethnic groups, more than 100 languages, and multi-religious, including but not limited to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
50-70% are foreign-born and speak a language other than English at home. Approximately 40% of the Asian American population immigrated to the U.S. between 1990-2000.
III. Describe Historical, sociopolitcal context and clearer definition of the model minority myth [Brandon--12 minutes]
Definition of racism - Media images that reinforces AAMMM
Not a stereotype, but a construct that reinforces the power structure
History/Sociopolitical Background
Defining Model Minority Myth and components.
VIDEO - Experts describing Model Minority Myth within the context of mental health - [10 mins]

Deconstructing the model minority myth [Brandon--10 minutes]
Ethnic Heterogeneity
Selective Immigration
Context Dependency

Implications of the MMM [Brandon--10 minutes]
Interracial tension
glass ceiling
psychological distress
Asian American women and suicide
mental health service use
silence and invisibility [Pearl] [5 mins]
lack of cultural competency care
Lack of understanding mental health experience/needs
Lack of media images of AA with mental health issues. Media images of AAs most typically reinforce cultural myths and stereotypesMany major mental health organizations are not conducting outreach to Asian Americans and currently, there exists no national Asian American grassroots groups that are dealing with mental health issues. Asian American women between the ages of 15-24 have among the highest suicide rates in the nation, with only Native American women leading the rates.