By Emil Guillermo

After the Oscars, when Asian Americans were everywhere on the winners list, from actors, writers, directors, but also makeup artists, and not just in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but also in movies like “The Whale,” I turn to the Oakland playwright Ishmael Reed who must be wondering will Asian Americans now go for the Whiteness Prize?

(I consider Asian American to be a generic term, indicating people of Asian descent either living or working not necessarily indicative of their citizenship status.)

I’m in New York as an actor in “The Conductor,” the latest Reed production now off-Broadway (get your in-person or live-streamed tickets here: https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/).

I play a brown-skinned Tucker Carlson-type on a faux Fox, and very conservative news network.

That’s how good an actor I am!

As an Asian American sometime-actor, I’m gratified to see Asian American creatives take their historic star turn at the Oscars. Asians have won the Academy Award for best supporting actor before, but never has there been a best actor/actress winner until the Malaysia-born, Hollywood-based Michelle Yeoh last weekend.

There’s something about being a “first.” A “never before.”

But what’s next?

And that’s where Reed’s play got me thinking.

In Reed’s “The Conductor,” Blacks start a new underground railroad to help Indian Americans — not American Indians, but those from the continent of India — escape a wave of xenophobia that is forcing them to flee to Canada.

The main character, columnist Warren Chipp is Reed’s alter ego. When a conservative Indian seeks refuge and asks Chipp why the liberal Chipp is being so nice to him, Chipp reveals his grasp of irony.

“Minorities make alliances with us (Blacks) until their admission to the white club is accepted. This happened to the Jews, the Japanese, the Irish, the Italians and now you guys (Asian Indians).”

It’s just one of the provocative asides in the play, but the historical examples are there.

Says Chipp/Reed: “These groups come running to us when the white man decides to sic mobs on them because of some geopolitical conflict or culture war. Begging us to hide them and save them. And then, when they get an ‘all-clear’ sign, they return to auditioning for whiteness again. Lining up and trampling over each other, asking white people to ‘choose me!’ Some of them even change their names to go Anglo.”

Reed says it’s the root of “Afro-Pessimism.”

What’s that?

It’s a term by Frank Wilderson, as Reed explains, that means Blacks can’t depend upon Blacks’ “junior allies.” Wilderson calls B.S. on intersectionality and says that Blacks “must go it alone.”

After rehearsals and the first four performances, the passages from the play haunt me.

Especially last Sunday. When the Asian Americans were preparing for their Oscar turn, I was off-Broadway living Reed’s play.

Is the Model Minority now back to auditioning for whiteness again?

I hope not. I get what Reed’s saying in his play. But I see the Oscar victory as a win for not just Asian Americans but all BIPOC communities in all their unique narratives.

AAPI stories have a kind of heat now. An independent film about a family with a laundromat dealing with the IRS and the multiverse where people have hotdogs as fingers puts us in a whole new ballgame.

We aren’t so weird after all. We’re of immigrant descent, sure. We’re different, yes. But we’re of the modern world and our stories deal in universal truths.

People flocked to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which gave it some cache as an indie project that was making money. Not like “Top Gun” money, but enough to satisfy Hollywood accountants. Once it caught the attention of the Academy looking for diversity, the film was simply recognized for its off-beat ingenuity and its creative weirdness.

I was having lunch in New York’s Chinatown with a lawyer friend of mine, a Chinese American immigrant and also a triple Harvard (College, Law School, and MBA) graduate. My friend surprised me when he said he couldn’t understand the hype about “Everything, Everywhere…”

He called it unwatchable. He liked the movie “Tar.”

I told him maybe it was generational. Just goes to show you that not everyone, not even Asian Americans are on board with “Everything, Everywhere…”

But the huge victory on Sunday makes the film like a Golden Spike in Hollywood. The track is finally connected and open for AAPI creatives bound for glory.

“Everything, Everywhere…” has put everyone in the equation on notice. We have stories to tell that sell, and that people want to see.

Stories that win Oscars.

I see the phenomenon as a rising Asian American film lifts all boats. And with AAPI at just over 6% of the population, I don’t buy the “Afro-Pessimism” idea in his play.

We can’t go it alone. We don’t have the numbers. We need each other.

Like anything worthwhile, it’s going to have to be done together.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. See his vlog on www.amok.com And see “The Conductor” in person or live-streamed tickets here: https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/

By Lee Hubbard

While the rain stormed down all day in the Jefferson Park area of Los Angeles, it could not damper the excitement of the grand opening of the Hidden History Museum of Black culture, this past weekend.

Various actors and celebrities such as Vivica A. Fox, and hundreds of other people, were on hand to celebrate the last weekend of Black History Month.   Founded by Tariq Nasheed, an award-winning documentary film producer and New York Times best-selling author, the Hidden History Museum highlights current and past historical Black figures from freedom fighters, to inventors, master teachers, to founding pioneers in Black California, as well as Hip-Hop culture on the West Coast.

One example of this is an exhibit that looks at the naming of the state California, which was named after Califa, a queen who was a Black Moor. The Spanish writer Garci Rodriguez wrote the novel in 1500, and although Califa was a fictional character, when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, founded it in 1542, he named the area after the character in the novel.

“Stories like this are featured in the museum and it’s needed,” said Utopia Hammond, a San Francisco resident, who came to the grand opening. “People need to know our Black history and this museum features things and people that aren’t normally talked about and or featured in other museums.”

“I decided to start this museum after I was driving down Crenshaw Boulevard and saw that people were using the site where Nipsey Hussle got shot and killed as a tourist attraction,” said Nasheed. “On any given day, you can see crowds of people taking pictures in front of the mural that has Nipsey’s face on it.”

Hussle was a popular and emerging rap artist who was just coming into national acclaim when he was shot down in front of his clothing store March 31, 2019.  The makeshift Nipsey Hussle  memorial and daily scene behind it pushed Nasheed to create a place where people can see positive affirmations of black culture and tell the stories of black history that aren’t told.

“We need to create institutions that we as Black people and or Black groups own and control the narrative,” said Nasheed.

People came from all over the country for the grand opening. They also got to watch the premiere of Nasheed’s  new documentary film, “American Maroon,” which looks at the Black people who maintained hidden communities while fighting with slave-owning colonizers pre- Civil War.

Nasheed spent just under $2 million to build the Hidden History Museum. Half of the money was raised in a month by a Black grassroots crowdfunding effort Nasheed started using his YouTube channel Tariq Radio, and other social media platforms. This, along with some of his personal funds were used to buy the building that houses the museum.

“The Black grassroots supported my vision and this effort,” said Nasheed.  “We wanted to have the museum over in Leimert Park, a black district in LA, but when we tried to buy property there were several roadblocks, before we got to Jefferson Park.”

The Hidden History Museum is located at 2131 W Jefferson Blvd. in Los Angeles Ca.  For more information, go to www.hiddenhistorymuseum.com

IN YO FACE Filmworks recently released the film, “I Thought You Knew” on the internet and is available for viewing through IMDb.

Amir Abu Haqq Shabazz, owner of Haqq Shabazz Entertainment, and staffer for the Post News Group more than 20 years ago, has produced and/or co-produced many films with Black casts and crews.

With the intent of addressing LGBTQ themes as well as mental health issues and how to cope with them, Haqq Shabazz’ most recent effort, “I Thought You Knew,” follows beautiful and intelligent Lavette, who has just been released from prison after completing a two-year sentence. While inside, she succeeds on her college SATs exam, realizing her desire of going to college.

But things swiftly spiral out of control. To her astonishment, her terrible connection with her father re-emerges as do troubles with her psychotic best friend.

It results in a life-or-death situation.

The stars of the film are Glenn Plummer, Felicia Snoop Pearson, Marcus T. Paulk, Drag-On, Lindsey Cruz, Zaina Juliette, and Michael Monteiro.

The story concept was created by playwright and executive producer Retornzia Riser and the screenplay was written and directed by Conrad Glover.

Haqq Shabazz, Damon Jamal, and Chad Montgomery, executive producers of IN YO FACE Filmworks, led a fine team of line producers in Riser, Cleo Flucker, Anthony A.B. Butler and Emily T. Hall.