Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans

From The New York Times, May 8, 2000
By Edward Wong

NEW YORK - This was the year that the hip-hop singer with a dragon tattoo stole the spotlight from the folk dancers.

He called himself Double O, and he strutted in a black tank top across the stage at Sunday's Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival, his left arm emblazoned with a blue dragon. As a deep bass pounded across Union Square Park, he ripped into rhyme. "I'm what you want, what you need," he sang. "Oh baby, please come home with me."

"It's like the Asian urban outlet that was never exposed before," he said to a reporter as he kissed a female fan after the show. "I think we're on the tip of the iceberg. I think it's going much farther."

In recent years, acts like Double O have gradually taken center stage at the 21-year-old festival, edging out more traditional fare like Korean folk drumming and Malaysian dancing. Chalk it up to younger organizers taking over the programming and a younger audience attending the event. Since 1997, organizers said, more professionals in their 20s have dropped by, more companies focusing on that market have paid for banners and booths and more contemporary performers have been brought in.

The changes mirror larger trends in certain segments of New York's Asian-American community - namely, the growing visibility of young Asian-American professionals in what is considered mainstream culture, and the emergence of popular art forms that voice their sensibilities.

Many of the thousands who attended Sunday's festival came with cell phones, sunglasses and slick hair, and they were less interested in the martial arts demonstrations than in the erotically charged lyrics of Double O.

"We want to make sure the general audience and our community see a reflection of what we are today," said Chuck N. Lee, one of the festival organizers. "That's why we have the contemporary stuff."

The festival was started in 1979 by the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans when President Jimmy Carter designated Asian-American Heritage Week. (President George Bush later expanded the designation to encompass the month of May.) For many years, it drew several hundred people, most of whom had ties to the 30 or so nonprofit groups that set up booths. These included organizations like the Chinatown Health Clinic and the Basement Workshop, an arts collective.

Most of the festival financing came from state grants, fund-raisers and rents for the booths. But since the late 1980s, corporate sponsorship has become increasingly common. That backing has intensified in recent years, especially as many companies have become aware that Asian-Americans have the highest average household income of any ethnic group in the United States - $46,637 in 1998, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Although nonprofit groups still dominated the 100 or so booths yesterday, many business executives said events like the festival provided convenient access to the Asian-American market, which is otherwise not easily reached. There are virtually no magazines or television shows that cater specifically to it, unlike for the African-American or Hispanic population.

"We want to show support for the event, to help fund it and bring in artists," said Betty Huang, marketing director of Community Connect, which operates a Web site called Asianavenue.com. "On the other side, it's a good way for us to get out name out there."

And those coming to the festival are increasingly younger, and more have full-time professional jobs that are not associated with the nonprofit groups, said Ramon Gil, president of the group running the festival.

Scholars say the changes reflect a general demographic shift in the last decade or so within many Asian-American communities. Immigration laws passed in 1965 have resulted in more white-collar immigrants entering the country and an entire generation of children growing up in the United States in the 1980s and entering the workplace.

But the increasing commercial presence at the festival has raised concerns among some people who worry that corporations may overshadow the work of nonprofit groups.

And when the visibility of the professional Asian-American class increases in mainstream culture, the awareness of working-class immigrants and their problems can get lost, said Robert Ku, a professor of English and of Asian-American Studies at Hunter College.

But festival organizers said they had been careful to keep the event grounded in its original purpose. For instance, career-oriented groups at the festival, like the National Association of Asian-American Professionals, often run mentoring programs to help recent immigrants or students.

Besides drawing a larger corporate presence, the festival's younger organizers and audience have also led to a significant shift in the entertainment lineup this year. Organizers said this was the first year that contemporary pop singers outnumbered musicians specializing in traditional Asian styles.

"I think it will be encouraging for people to see that there are Asian Pacific Americans performing this nontraditional and unusual path," said Toni Wang, a 28-year-old aspiring diva who belted out R&B-inspired lyrics on the main stage.

"She's not bad," said Marc Wong, 32, a computer technician at Goldman Sachs, as Ms. Wang began her third song. "Then there was that guy Double O. He didn't sound like a typical Asian-immigrant-family type of kid. He was obviously a guy who had soaked himself in a particular kind of American culture."