Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
With his latest movie, “Blue Bayou,” award-winning filmmaker Justin Chon (“Gook,” “Ms. Purple”) explores the plight of Antonio LeBlanc, a New Orleans man who was adopted as a baby and is facing deportation, due to his lack of U.S. citizenship. Based on the real-life cases of adults who literally were sent back to “where they came from,” the movie had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, before its September 17, 2021 theatrical release.
Jocko Sims portrays Dr. Floyd Reynolds on the NBC medical series, “New Amsterdam.” An avid traveler, Sims said before he sets out to explore a new city or country, “I absolutely look up restaurants. I want to go to the best of the best, from very cheap to most expensive. What built the town or the culture? What place is impossible to get into? That floats my boat.”
“My grandfather is from Sicily and I heard the story of his childhood,” said Rachael Ray. “All I’ve ever done is daydream about living in Italy. I think the air smells sweeter and I feel completely relaxed and at home there.”
“I love going down South to visit my mom’s side of the family,” said “General Hospital” star Sydney Mikayla. “My Grandma Tina always cooks up big meals. What can I say? I love to eat good soul food. It’s also nice to be around my extended family since my immediate family is just the three of us and my dog.”
“We were in Vietnam for six weeks and I got to see my parents’ childhood home, met family I didn’t know, and got to connect with my roots,” said “Van Helsing” costume designer Beverley Huynh. “It oddly felt like home. Going to Vietnam felt like I was connecting with a piece of me I felt was missing. That trip changed everything and travel became a part of me that I never want to give up.”
“When I was three years old, my mom picked me up from daycare and surprised me with a trip to Disney World,” said “Turner & Hooch” actress Carra Patterson. “We were living in Florida at the time, so it was a short road trip for us. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to go on a spontaneous road trip to meet Mickey Mouse and Cinderella in person.”
“You can hear these influences a lot in my music wrapped up in a little pop bow, of course,” said musician Kentö. “I grew up listening to singers from all over the world like Freddie Mercury, Ivete Sangalo, Ayumi Hamasaki and Sylvie Vartan. (They’re) very different artists, but all iconic voices that I tried to emulate growing up and, in my own way, shaped the style and tone of my voice today.”
“My father was a sailor from Singapore who met my mum in the United Kingdom,” said “The Suicide Squad” actress Mayling Ng. “(When I was a child), he took us to Singapore and it changed who I was and how I saw the world. I really connected to my culture and started to actively do martial arts and watched more Hong Kong cinema than Western growing up.”
“I don’t necessarily remember the best shows, because the bombs always hit so much harder,” said stand-up comic and “Black Monday” actor Yassir Lester. “There’s plenty of fun shows, but my worst one was in a place called Mesquite, Nevada. A woman ran up to the stage to give me the middle finger during my set and said, ‘You f—— suck!’ That, and in Long Beach one time a dude heckled me just by saying, ‘Look at you with all that acne on ya face!’ Crowd loved it and I was devastated.”
“My whole life, I have heard the word American as shorthand for white, Black and white Hispanic (or) Latinx,” said Nobody’s Girl singer/songwriter, BettySoo. “As a kid who never grasped fluency with the Korean language, I very much felt like a person without a homeland to claim and without a homeland to claim me. I have always felt like a Texan and an American, but as I get older, I become less convinced I will ever be seen as fully Texan nor American by others.”