AACP 2023 September Newsletter

Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

Tomorrow is the last of four events we’re going to in a four week period. I just came back from the 5th Annual Bay Area Chuseok Festival today. All of this to just let you know that we didn’t have much time to work on this month’s newsletter. Sorry about that.

We have an article that I wanted to write back in 2004. I wanted to get in touch with singer/musician Larry Ramos (best known for being a member of the pop rock group The Association) for an interview, but never was able to reach him.

I was doing some recent research on him and discovered that there is quite a bit of information on the Internet on Ramos. So my sister Sharon volunteered to write a short biography on him. Please read her article “Remembering the first Asian American to win a Grammy for Filipino American History Month.”

If you read the article in a few days, I hope to have some of my other favorite Larry Ramos YouTube videos at the end of the article (in the mean time, you’re welcome to browse for them yourself and then let us know your favorites).

For our other article, Celebrate the Centennial of the Birth of John Okada, Author of No-No Boy, This Fall With the Seattle Public Library, it’s really an announcement for a series of programs that author Frank Abe told me about. It sounds like a wonderful series of programs and I hope some of you get to catch it. Note that Frank has given me a rain check for a future interview about his projects. Thanks Frank, I hope to cash it in next year.

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For our featured books, I wish I had time to tell you about them. I really did spend the normal amount of time (which is a lot) looking for all of them. There’s one that I wish we had earlier in the year called “The Year of the Cat.” For Vietnamese, this is the year of the cat, not the rabbit. This is another interesting story about this.

The book “Hug?” is really cute – you have to check it out.

Wow, I found 12 books for Halloween. You have to check these out too – especially if you’re into scary books. I really wish I had time to describe each one of them for you.

For our last two book, they’re part of the Images of America series. We’re featuring them for October’s Filipino American History Month. They booth sound really good.

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Thank you to all the authors that have been doing signing with us.

Thank you Sharon and Frank Abe for your help with the articles.

That’s all for now.

Bye.

Oct. 1, 2023: 18th Annual Millbrae Japanese Culture Festival (we'll be there)

Civic Center Plaza, 1 Library Lane, Millbrae, CA

Author Oliver Chin will be signing his books and

Author Judith Kajiwara who will be signing her book Silly Green Mask

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Oct. 13-14, 2023: Poston Pilgrimage (we can't make it)

Blue Water Resort & Casino, 11300 Resort Dr, Parker, AZ and Poston, AZ

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If you have an event that you would like us to mention and or to participate in, please feel free to let us know.

Remembering the first Asian American to Win a Grammy for October's Filipino American History Month

By Sharon Chan

Who was the first Asian American to win a Grammy? That would be Hilario “Larry” Ramos, who in 1963 won it for Best Performance by a Chorus as a member of the New Christy Minstrels.

Larry Ramos was a talented guitarist, banjo and ukulele player of Filipino descent who grew up in Hawaii. He was born on April 19, 1942 in Kauai. At the age of five he and his sister won a local music contest and at the age of seven he appeared on the Arthur Godfrey Show after winning a ukulele contest. In 1950, a talent scout (and later producer), Arthur Freed, heard Larry singing and playing ukulele in front of his mother’s hotel gift shop and cast him in the film “Pagan Love Song” with Esther Williams. Unfortunately, the scene where he played while Esther sang “The House of Singing Bamboo” was cut from the film and can only be seen now in the outtakes part of the “TCM Spotlight: Esther Williams, Vol. 2” collection.

Celebrate the Centennial of the Birth of John Okada, Author of No-No Boy, This Fall With the Seattle Public Library

Author Frank Abe has informed us that he is doing a three part series of programs honoring the 100th birthday of John Okada. The first program has past, but you can still catch the second two.

Oct. 24, 7-8:30pm: From Page to Stage: Adapting John Okada’s “No-No Boy for today’s theater”

And

Nov. 19, 2-3:15pm: The Postwar Seattle Chinatown of John Okada

If you can't make it, check the Seattle Library Podcasts page to see if they may have the audio from the programs.

Click on the read more button to read the full press release.

View full descriptions of all these featured books at Bookshop.org where you'll also have the opportunity to purchase them.