About a month ago, I was invited by a friend to be part of the LA City Council Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Committee and still being new to the LA area, I was very excited to get involved and see what great things the committee had in store for the City of Angels. About 20 minutes into the meeting, my excitement turned into doubt, doubt then led into frustration and confusion.

What happened?

For one thing, their concept of how we as Asian Americans are to be perceived was something I couldn't get myself to agree on. For the entertainment, their best ideas were to bring in traditional dancers and have the entire venue be devoted to Chinese dragon dances, bhangra, and other such performances. When my friend suggested bringing in youth, someone in the committee yells out: "OH WE CAN BRING IN YOUNG TAIKO DRUMMERS!"

Wow. Fail. What she actually meant was bringing in people like Kaba Modern, Quest Crew, Bhangra Empire, and etc.

After that, I tuned out for the rest of the meeting and just had to wonder why the committee, the majority of them being Asian Americans, could not realize that the image they are portraying is not the complete picture of what Asian American really means. I am not dismissing on these traditional dances as they are important aspects to who we are as Asians but this is about Asian AMERICAN and the two, while inherently linked, are very different. Yet it is the pervasive idea that remains with us because they are catering to how the mainstream perceives Asians. They are playing the easy and safe route; they are going with what is most familiar. I understand that and I want to make sure that I get both sides of the argument. I understand that if one sells the stereotypical image of what being Asian means, you are guaranteed to have an audience who will pay money to go watch Asian dances and eat Asian food. Nobody seems to really know what Asian American is so they can't sell that image to make profit.

But putting aside what Asian American means for now, I have to ask myself: "Is being Asian all about our pretty dances and our tasty food?"

Things went further downhill when a week ago, the LA City Council APAHM Committee showed their design for the Opening Ceremony Invitation letter:

No disrespect to the LA City Council APAHM Committee, but the picture for the APA heritage month invitation for the opening ceremony is pretty...um...exotic? Geishaish? "Honoring Asian and Pacific-Islander American Angelenos", really? Is this all there is to what being Asian American is all about?

Other than the exotic image that the committee is sending out to the districts of Los Angeles, I also  find an issue with this design because it does not speak to the diversity of Asian Americans. When I say diversity, this applies to the East, Southeast, South, and yes, even the Central Asian community. Far too often, when we say "Asian", we seem to only talk about East Asians and occasionally Southeast Asians. Although centuries of Western imperialistic actions have driven the wedge between the East and South Asian communities in terms of who is Asian and who is not, let me just say this: I may be "yellow" and Desis may be brown, but we are all Asian, we are all considered model minorities in the eyes of mainstream America, we all have been considered exotic, discriminated and targeted against for the actions of a few individuals (Japanese American internment camps during WWII, the persecution and hate crimes committed against South Asians and Muslims after 9/11 are such examples), and as such, we must stand united.

Yet you may ask me, "If you are so against this picture, do you have something that's better?"

I'm glad you asked because, yes, there is:

Now that's a beautiful design. This is how I see Asia America and what I wish the LA City Council would've taken inspiration from. This poster encompasses both the diverse Asian traditional heritages and the Americans that we are now. By having both, I believe this is the strongest way to show our roots and our pride of being Asian and American.

I must then go back to the question of what the frak Asian American means. That is the thing that troubles me the most because even now, the idea of Asia America is still relatively invisible to the world. When I think of Asia America, I think of the foundations we laid out in this country as railroad workers and sugar cane plantation workers back in the 19th century, the 1960's political movement that allowed Asians to fight against the "Oriental" label, the first pan-Asian civil rights movement in American history that mobilized after Vincent Chin was murdered in 1982, the JACL being the first civil rights organization to support gay marriage, artists and scholars like David Henry Hwang, Beau Sia, Yellow Rage, Edward Said, Ronald Takaki, and Helen Zia making a stand and having their voices heard. But not many people know this and what they do know are the images of geishas, dragons, kung fu experts, yakuza thugs, and the untrustworthy and inscrutable foreign menaces as we are often delegated as, even in 2010.

Yet we are more than that. We are everywhere and we are not just in the fantastical Asian movies that you watch (that aren't even played by Asians these days), the take-out food that you eat at your nearby mall, or your grocery and liquor stores. We as Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority in the nation and it's time that we take the responsibility of showing America and the whole world what being an Asian American really means.

And no, it does not just mean being a geisha holding a pretty umbrella.