Asian American Broadcast Pioneers
"Casting Our Voices"
By Christopher Chow, October 30, 1999
What makes a pioneer broadcaster?
Guts, ability, and intelligence - and, lots of luck.
"Casting Our Voices," was originally printed as part of the gala benefit program by the Chinese Historical Society of
America. AsianConnections.com thanks the Chinese Historical Society of America and its author Christopher Chow for
granting special permission to reprint online this landmark article documenting for the first time Asian American
broadcast pioneers.
The gala benefit raised more than $183,000 towards the goal of matching the City and County of San Francisco's half a
million dollar grant. The proceeds will be used to build a museum of Chinese American history in San Francisco, a
project that was begun more than 36 years ago and is now close to completion. To learn more about this project to
preserve this important history for future generations, please go to the www.chsa.org
Today we have Asian American on-air reporters in the major media markets of the United States: New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Honolulu, Boston, Washington D.C., Houston,
Denver, Chicago, etc.
In San Francisco, each major television station has multiple Asian Americans on-air: Heather Ishimura, Terilyn Joe,
David Louie, Kent Ninomiya, and Kristen Sze at KGO; Terrence Chung, Sue Kwon, Vic Lee, Wendy Tokuda, Diana
Yee, Linda Yee, and Emerald Yeh at KRON-BayTV; Sharon Chin, Cynthia Gouw, Sherry Hu, Rick Quan, and Pamela
Tom at KPIX; Robert Handa, Lloyd LaCuesta, Amber Lee, John Sasaki, Thuy Vu, and Kim Yonenaka at KTVU; Lorna
Ho, Sharon Katsuda, Janet Kim, and Arlene Sison at KNTV; Lisa Kim at KBWB; and Mei-ling Sze who anchors the
Cantonese News at KTSF-TV.
Just thirty years ago, there were none in major broadcast news. Nowhere, no how.
That perception began to change in 1970.
When Christopher Chow debuted on KPIX Eyewitness News in November 1970, he said the
station switchboard got telephone calls from curious viewers immediately following the 6 O'Clock
News. "Are you Chinese?" one caller asked. "Yes, I am," Chow gladly responded. Chow's proud
parents also received phone calls from friends and neighbors who said "Isn't that your son? Look at
the Chinese man on television!"
Nine years later and halfway across the country, the switchboard at WMAQ lit up also when
Linda Yu, the first Chinese American evening news anchor in Chicago made her first appearance there. "What is she?"
one caller demanded. "How dare you put that thing on air!"
First On Air
When Mario Machado first went on the air as a news reporter in Los Angeles (KHJ, 1967), some people presumed
he was Mexican, not knowing he was born in China, his father Portuguese and his mother Chinese. Yet he was good
enough to be hired in 1968 as a CBS network sports commentator.
For Sam Chu Lin, breaking into the radio was made possible by his own wits - he used signed petitions from fellow
students and the presence of Chinese American stores along the river to convince his hometown station WJPR of
Greenville, Mississippi to let him get sponsors and host his own radio show while in high school (1956). He Anglicized
his name to Sam Lin and went on the air. To get into television, he had helped put a new public television station on air
as an announcer (KCET Los Angeles, 1965). While he was at it, he helped launch KFWB as one of the nation's first allnews radio station as an anchor/reporter.
The Chinese American broadcast pioneers, like all Americans in the media, came from different walks of life children of laundrymen, restaurant workers, mom-and-pop shopkeepers, chop suey houses, intellectuals, farmers, and
working stiffs.
Virtually all now acknowledge that they benefited from affirmative action.
The Early Days
Broadcasting was born in the twentieth century. Books, magazines, newspapers, and advertising were
already established. European and American political, economic, and cultural imperialism dominated the
world.
America media perpetuated false and mostly negative stereotypes of the Chinese
print. Song, and pictures. Around 1882, the year of America's first anti-immigrant law the Chinese Exclusion Act - the cry was the "Chinese must go!" The chorus of labor
unions, politicians, and news media bred a climate of fear, hatred, and ignorance. The
56th anniversary of the repeal of sixty-one years of Exclusion laws (1882-1943) barring
the immigration and naturalization of first the Chinese and then other Asians to the
United States takes place December 17, 1999.
"The Curse of Dr. Fu Manchu" is not only a pulp fiction and movie title but a symptom of Chinese
American condition depicted by media. Chinese and therefore Chinese American men were stereotyped as
evil, devious, inscrutable, exotic creatures preying upon white women. Chinese and therefore Chinese
women were stereotyped as pliant, mysterious, exotic prostitutes who existed to serve white men.
Charlie Chan on the surface depicted the crafty, wise Chinese detective. But its true subliminal message
was, Chinese at best speak fortune-cookie English and real Chinese American actors were not good enough
to play themselves in the movies. Cultural emasculation at its subtlest best. The prevailing perception was
that Chinese were inarticulate.
Our image on television can be summed up in the name of the continuing Chinese character in that
famous TV western Have Gun Will Travel: Hey Boy! That was Paladin's valet, played by Sammy Fong. This
was during the 1950s and 60s, following the Red Scare, McCarthyism, "Who Lost China," and the
Confession Program, when FBI and INS scoured the community looking for Communist spies, sympathizers,
and illegal aliens.
During the Cold War we lived in fear of going to war with China over Taiwan or some obscure little islands
known as Quemoy and Matsu. The horrific Korean Conflict had concluded with no peace treaty and Vietnam
was coming to the fore.
Earliest Broadcast Pioneers
How did a young ham radio operator, fresh out of Samuel Gompers Technical High,
named Howard Yuen become one of the first Chinese and ethnic minority Americans to
break into commercial radio as an engineer (KSF0), and then go into television and be
one of the pioneers to put KPIX-TV on the air in 1948? It was the first television station in
northern California, and he was the first Chinese American TV engineer. It had to be more
than luck.
How did a young speech-radio graduate of San Francisco State (who minored in business for insurance)
named George Lum break in as a floor director at KPIX-TV in 1954, and then become the first Chinese
American director in 1956? In those early days of live television when there was no videotape to cover
mistakes, Lum produced and directed Shell News at 6, Morning Show with Sandy Spillman, Captain Fortune,
The Del Courtney Variety Show, and even commercials! Lum says that in his thirty-plus years in
broadcasting he knew only four, maybe five Caucasian managers who were not prejudiced in their
employment practices. It had to be more than being in the right place at the right time.
Or, how did a very young David Louie break into television as a regular panelist on a
weekly Sunday school program in Cleveland, Ohio (KYW) in 1955 at the prodigious age
five? It had to be much more than his cuteness.
In the sixties, the cradle of the civil rights movement, a Chinese man could be
regularly seen in Bonanza, the most popular TV show at its time. It was an hour "in full, living color on NBC"
about a white widower and his three sons cavorting on the Ponderosa Ranch, with the Chinese houseboy,
Hop Sing, bopping in now and then to say his sing-song lines. He was played by the veteran actor Victor Sen
Young.
These guys apparently took the credo of the Declaration of Independence at face value when they
launched themselves into mass media: that all people are created equal and entitled to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
By the 1960s, Chinese Americans had become successful entrepreneurs,
engineers, businessmen, and scientists, but none were respected as social or
cultural leaders. We had no newsmakers or news storytellers.
But this was an era of change. Social, political, and racial unrest tore up the
nation. Race riots destroyed black ghettos in Los Angeles, California and Detroit,
Michigan, and flared in Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Seattle, and San
Francisco. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued the Kerner Report that declared one
root cause of racial unrest and inequality was the omission of minorities from coverage in the media, and the
utter lack of even token representation in the ranks of reporters, editors, and owners of the nation's mass
media. The search for minorities was begun in earnest.
So it should not be surprising that San Chu Lin, David Louie, and Mario Machado would break into on-air
television news in 1967 and 1968.
The year 1968 saw the birth of the innovative in-depth TV news show with real
journalists sitting around a real news editor's horseshoe-shaped desk talking to each
other about their stories, and not just reading from the teleprompter. It was called
Newsroom. Anchored by Mel Wax, it was also distinguished for the work of Victor Wong
the actor, who had begun photography after his brother Zeppelin Wong gave him his first
camera. Victor Wong merely established the genre of the TV photographic essay,
marrying his still pictures with music and spiced with his own on-camera, in-studio
narration. Wax described him as "a superb photographer who did it all in his own initiative."
And following the Kerner Commission Report came new federal guidelines that
mandated employment diversity among broadcast stations. By early 1970, local stations
began to integrate their technical staff. In the case of KTVU, a gruff, loud, bit lovable Willie
Kee, an erstwhile still photographer on the Peninsula, took a news photographer's
suggestion and tried his hands at TV news film. He was a natural, picking up the
technique from watching the pros do it, and seeing his first stuff ever shot actually aired in
the news. Kee went on to win twelve Emmys, including two in producing and one in
writing, putting many a reporter to shame. Yet it remains an indictment of media and
society that Chinese Americans had to wait over a hundred years to get into wielding the
world's most powerful instrument of education and information.
Community and Industry Controversy
In the spring and summer of 1970, after President Nixon had approved the invasion of Cambodia and the
nation looked toward another long, hot summer of unrest in the ghettos, Chinese for Affirmative Action (which
had been formed by Alice Barkley, Buddy Choy, L. Ling-chi Wang, and George Woo) released a study that
showed Bay Area broadcasters were virtually "lily-white" in their hiring and employment practices, with only
Belva Davis, Mel Knox, Mike Mills, and Ben Williams on the air, and Al Caldron, George Chong, Loni Ding,
Willie Kee, Gimmy Park Li, Sam Lopez, George Lum, Bill Moore, Howard Yuen, and a few other nonCaucasians behind the scenes.
This sparked controversy in the community and the industry.
George Lum put his job on the line at KTVU. He helped to organize the
community around the issue of hiring and sent a pointed letter to the East-West
Chinese American newspaper, questioning the local stations' sincerity in
eliminating discrimination in their hiring practices (July 15, 1970):
"KRON and KCBS denied that they have in any way discriminated against hiring Chinese Americans?Mr.
Jim Simon of KCBS was quoted in the Chronicle article as saying he 'has actively tried to recruit a Chinese
American broadcaster' and he speaks of one in Phoenix. I know whom he speaks, for this young Chinese,
Mr. Sam Chu Lin, called upon me a few years ago?
The "gist of what I told him was that even as cosmopolitan as the San Francisco Bay Area seems to be,
no radio or television station is going to hire an Oriental for on-the-air in Phoenix. Sam has now been quite
successful on CBS radio feeds and on KOOL-TV on-air work in Phoenix. For your information, Mr. Simon
and Mr. See [KRON], only a couple of months ago I spoke to Sam Chu Lin in regard to the news personnel
changes here at KTVU, and I know that a phone call from either of you would bring him running.
"The phrase 'Equal Opportunity Employer' used by Mr. See and Mr. Simon are nice words to hear, but for
the Chinese American, it still means behind the scenes work in broadcasting. One picture would truly be
worth a thousand of your words."
The battle was joined, to open up the public's airwaves.
The Chinese and other ethnic American communities began to pressure the stations to adhere to new
federal equal opportunity guidelines. There was added pressure from the government because the stations'
licenses to broadcast and operate were up for renewal before the Federal
Communications Commission. They also had to show they were serving the interests of
the community in their programming.
Suddenly job applications from Chinese Americans appeared from out of nowhere,
especially from those already in the business like Christopher Chow, Connie Chung,
Suzanne Joe, Sam Chu Lin, and David Louie. Before this, many an applicant was openly
laughed at for even thinking of applying for an on-air job. But in San Francisco, the
historical capital of our community, once a Chinese American hit the commercial airwaves,
the concept of an Asian American on-air person gained currency.
Christopher Chow quickly established himself as a capable, insightful reporter, distinguished for his
writing and his enterprising investigations into Chinatown youth gangs, land reforms and California
agribusiness, and other social issues. When he let his hair grow long he tested the industry's tolerance for
diversity and its limits of non-conformity. By the age of twenty-two he had earned the Northern California
Associated Press Award of Merit for his Chinatown documentary. The next year he became the first Asian
American reporter to win a local Emmy Award for Best Documentary. His work established the credibility of
Asian Americans as on-air reporters in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Chow was so successful that other stations tried to woo him away from Channel 5.
When he decided to stay at what was then the top station in the market, it didn't take long
for other stations to begin looking around for their own Asian tokens, as long as they
didn't have an accent or look like chop suey. And especially when, even as tokens, they didn't need much
training or development.
The stations wanted on-air personalities fully formed. KGO brought in David Louie from ABC Chicago.
Suzanne Joe was supposedly "lured away" from Oakland's KTVU by KRON. In actuality, she had
assiduously positioned herself to be in the right place at the right time by banging on doors and taking
"token" positions at KCBS radio, KGO-TV, and KTVU-TV. When KRON went looking for a token, Suzanne
Joe was ready, willing, and able when the call came. She proved herself with two Emmy nominations and
coverage of major stories like the Patty Hearst kidnapping and the attempted assassination of President
Ford.
While Asian Americans were trying to penetrate the ranks of broadcast
journalists, others were trying to break into the business side, including account
executive (commercial time salesman) Don Yamate and Vic Lai, who would
eventually become KPIX-TV's business manager. But these power centers of the
business, like the club atmosphere of corporate boardrooms and top
management, did not welcome minorities.
One Chinese American understood that power lay in ownership (whoever
controlled the purse strings calls the tune). Known as the "Father of Chinese
television" in America, Leo Chen had the ambition, talent, and guts to pull all his
personal resources and start the first Chinese language television in San
Francisco, Am-Asia TV in 1973. He bought blocks of air time in KEMO-TV,
Channel 20, and served as his own producer, interviewer, and newscaster.
People cried with joy at seeing a Chinese program on television. Eventually, he was the first Chinese
American to be granted a federal broadcast license (restricted to U.S. citizens).
Women Overcome Typecasting
With the doors to broadcasting being opened up to minorities, women began to make
great strides in broadcast journalism as well.
Being a woman was more than a double-edged sword that cut many different ways.
Women were denied entry because news, and especially broadcasting was considered a
man's profession. Yet, when barriers were broken down in other fields, women were hired
or promoted as tokens. An Asian American woman was a double minority token who
fulfilled two slots. Women were underestimated but they could turn that misjudgment into
an advantage as they swept past men stuck in complacency or by convention. Women
were denied the best assignments and most challenging opportunities because the male
bosses thought attractive, feminine females were too pretty, pampered, and soft to be real journalists or TV
news people. Yet those very same intangible qualities of attractiveness and charisma could become very
valuable and justify elevation to on-air reporter and news anchor positions.
Many women were motivated by media sexism to work harder, take greater risks,
and perform better - often for less pay than men. Women eventually proved they were
just as tough, just as brave, and just as smart as men, if not more so.
Yet even after the doors were opened in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and
Honolulu (Ken Kashiwahara, reporter/anchor, 1968), it was very hard elsewhere. Joanne Lee, who blazed a
trail in every market she entered (Sacramento, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cable News Network in New
York), said "California was paradise - it was much easier to be hired as a token. Chicago was really tough, a
LOT of racism. They never saw an Asian face before that could do any reporting." More than once when she
showed up with a news crew for an interview, a spokesperson for a corporation of the government would say
to her, "Why don't you come here and sit on my lap and I'll tell you a story?"
Before Linda Yu got to Chicago as the first daily news anchor of Chinese
ancestry, she was told by a secretary, "We hired someone more minority than
you." That made her angry and determined to show that there is room for an
Asian American like her in the business.
To stay in the business for a long time, or to achieve credibility, respect, and
accolades, you had to be good and show some "moxie." Joann Lee recalls that when she was hired in
Philadelphia in the 1970s by the man who would eventually become the head of CBS News, Eric Ober, he
later told her that the reason he hired her was obviously not for ratings, but because she was a good
reporter, and he was impressed by her assertiveness which came through during lunch when she stopped in
the middle of their conversation to ask the waitress to bring her a better fork. Her fork
was slightly bent.
Connie Chung used her tenacity, drive, and aggressiveness to become the first Asian
American network correspondent covering Presidents Nixon and the Watergate scandal,
political conventions, etc., then the first Asian American evening news anchor on CBS,
and now the most visible Asian American public figure.
Switching from biology, Chung earned a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1969.
Her first job was with WTTG-TV as a copy person and secretary, waiting for an opportunity to advance to the
news division. When a position opened up, Chung was denied it on the grounds that she was essential
where she was. Unwilling to accept this, she found a replacement for herself and reapplied, this time getting
the job. She was made an on-air reporter in 1971.
Later that year Connie Chung secured a job at CBS's Washington bureau, aided in part by the Federal
Communications Commission's timely mandate for stations to hire more minorities.
In 1976, Chung moved to KNXT Los Angeles, where she became a very high-paid
local news anchor, receiving as estimated $600,000 annually. By the 1990s, her work for
NBC and CBS catapulted Chung to celebrity status. The winner of three national Emmys
and a Peabody, she currently co-anchors 20/20 on ABC and other special assignments
under a multi-million-dollar contract.
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Down-sides
Yet, in spite of these lofty attainments, Chinese American broadcasters would
also be brought down and humiliated. Chris Chow jokes that he was "first-hired
and first-fired" at KPIX. He was told, "We're no longer running a trainning school."
Some said it was because his hair was too long, that he was "intractable." Others
said he was "a threat, too militant, too radical." It should be noted that Chow was
one of several heads that rolled when the station had fallen to number two in the
ratings. The others included the program director. For a time he was blackballed
by the industry until he made a comeback at KCET Los Angeles in the late
seventies.
The station replaced Chris Chow with Linda Shen, the first Chinese American TV news reporter in New
York City (WNET-TV, 1972). Shen joined Suzanne Joe (KRON) in the emergence of Asian American women
on the air. A serious reporter who won an Emmy for reporting on a pilgrimage to the Tule Lake internment
camp, Shen later quit the business because she "was forced to do unethical things" to generate ratings for
the station. She bristled when asked to do a gang story, and refused any such assignment because (a) she
didn't know anything about the subject and feared for her life and (b) she knew there was no way the truth
could be told with the style and ethics of television news.
Within a year, KGO hired Felicia Lowe to counter the competition. Her reporting was
distinguished with two Emmy nominations, and the station featured her picture in display
advertising. Yet, quality work was no guarantee of longevity. A new news director decided
to replace Lowe with Linda Yu from KATU Portland.
Irrespective of ratings, the emergence of Chinese and Asian American women in TV
news, especially as anchors, has been phenomenal. On the national TV networks, witness
Julie Chen, Connie Chung , Ann Curry, Carol Lin, Lisa Ling, and others. In major cities
across the country, there are Joie Chen, Angela Correa, Sophia Choi, Denise Dadoor,
Sandra Gin,
Cynthia Gouw, Susan Hirasuna, Sherry Hu, Terilyn Joe, Melissa Jue, Lisa Kim, Cathy
Kiyomura, Gina Lew, Shari Macias, Lina Nguyen, Barbara Tanabe, Wendy Tokuda, Eme
Tominbang, Kaity Tong, Tritia Toyota, Kristen Sze, Thuy Vu, Emerald Yeh, Denise
Yamada, Pamela Young, and the list goes on. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle,
and Honolulu, a majority of the stations have at least one Asian American woman on-air,
and if they have an Asian American anchor, it is a woman.
The push for ratings and the emphasis on sex appeal in television news has led to the
seeming decline in numbers of Chinese and other Asian American men (because there
are many more women on the air). By the 1980s, the trend was so rampant that Ben
Fong-Torres, himself a radio announcing pioneer (KFOG, 1967), was able to publish one
of the first and extremely few articles in a Sunday newspaper written by a Chinese or
Asian American person: "Why There Are No Male Asian Anchors."
That question is still being asked and debated today.
There has been progress however, following the 1970s when Mario Machado, Sam Chiu Lin, and Ken
Kashiwahara were anchoring the news in Los Angeles and Hawaii. For two years in the late 1990s, James
Hattori co-anchored the weekend news on Bay Area's KRON-TV. Today Ted Chen, Rob Fukuzaki, Curtiss
Kim, Kent Ninomiya, David Ono, Rick Quan, Russell Shimooka, and John Yang anchor the news or sports in
the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Honolulu, while ESPN's Michael Kim talks
about sports to a national audience daily.
Benefiting The Community
The real tough question now is, has the community benefited? Has the inclusion of Asian
American on-air journalists made a difference in what news is selected, which people are
chosen to speak, and how the community's issues are presented? That has yet to be fully
assessed.
Has more Asian Americans on the air meant more, better, and regular coverage? When
you look at how the Asian American communities were smeared and battered with a broad
brush with the John Huang-Democratic campaign finance scandal and the
Wen-ho Lee-U.S. nuclear spy scandal, the coverage of Chinese American issues has
been abysmal. One of the few exceptions was ABC's Nightline program that Sam Chu Lin
worked on behind-the-scenes (June 18, 1999), which illustrated how Asian Pacific
Islander Americans have been stereotyped by the scandal, history, and the media.
As the fastest growing population in the United States with high levels of income and
education, and at least one-third the population in San Francisco, Asian Americans
should at least be getting one serious story a day in each of the newscasts of each and every station in the
market. With ownership, management, and other decision-making ranks of the broadcast industry virtually,
completely, predominantly held by non-Asians, perhaps that is an area that should be pioneered next. Who
will pick up where Leo Chan (now retired) left off?
For so long the voice of the Chinese American community has been silent, muffled, or
suppressed. For a time it was thought in silence there is protection. If you do not make
yourself obnoxious, you will not be touched. Now, silence is self-defeating. Now, to be
respected in America, to have your issues heard and your needs
addressed, you have to be able to speak up. That's why we honor those Chinese
American broadcast pioneers who have paved the way and made it just a little bit
easier in mass media. That is why a national historical museum and learning center is so important to
not only celebrate, but to teach and inspire and sustain the knowledge and truth that shall make us
free, equal, and happy.
Note: The author wishes to thank all those who contributed comments, suggestions, and thoughts for this
article and regrets that he could not name all the people who deserve to be acknowledged in this piece. May
the story continue to evolve and be told in more ways by more people and more often.
- Christopher Chow
This article was originally printed as part of the gala benefit program by the Chinese Historical Society of
America. The article,"Casting Our Voices - Chinese American Broadcast Pioneers" is reprinted by special
permission from the Chinese Historical Society of America and its author Christopher Chow.
The gala benefit raised more than $183,000 towards the goal of matching the City and County of San
Francisco's half a million dollar grant. The proceeds will be used to build a museum of Chinese American
history in San Francisco, a project that was begun more than 36 years ago and is now close to completion.
To learn more about this project to preserve this important history for future generations, please go to the
www.chsa.org.
Broadcast Pioneers
Leo Chen
Owner, Producer, Interviewer, and Newscaster,
Am-Asia, TV (San Francisco), 1973
Leo Chen has been designated by the news media as the "Father of Chinese
Television" in America. He was born in Beijing in 1919 and came to the United States in
1948. Before his employment as a Chinese professor at San Francisco State University in
1961, Leo taught at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California.
In the early 1970s, Leo Chen gathered all his personal resources and had his wife sell
her land in order to produce and sustain San Francisco's First Chinese language
television program, the Am-Asia Television Station (Meiya dianshitai). It began on
Channel 20 from one hour a week on Sunday at 10:00 p.m. to three hours a week on Sundays. Leo was the
owner, producer, interviewer, and news broadcaster.
Leo Chen's primary goal was to use television as a vehicle to teach the Chinese language. When it aired,
Am-Asia received many letters from viewers who cried because they were so happy to see a Chinese
program on television. In 1985, Leo became the first Chinese American granted a license to do television
programming. After a series of changes from Channel 20 to 26, Am-Asia ended up on Channel 38 under
Rainbow (Caixia) TV. Leo closed shop in 1996 due to health reasons.
At present, Leo Chen is working on a multilingual version of Xiyouji (Monkey King) for children.He is
enjoying life in San Francisco with his wife, Helena, and their three children and six grandchildren.
Christopher Chow
Reporter-Producer, KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 1970
Born in San Francisco and raised in Chinatown, Christopher Chow is noted as the first
Chinese American hired, awarded, and fired as a television news reporter in San
Francisco (KPIX-TV, 1970). He is the first Asian American reporter to win an Emmy
Award for best documentary Pastures of Plenty in northern California, and the first Asian
American to win an Associated Press Award for television investigative reporting (Under
Their Ancestors Shadows, 1971), and one of the first Asians to share a DuPont-Columbia
Award in broadcast (28 Tonight, KCET Los Angeles). Chris was also one of the first Asian
American public information coordinators for the U.S. Census and the first media
coordinator of the Asian Pacific Caucus (1984 Democratic National Convention). When
he left the media to work in the community, he became a media consultant and youth worker for such groups
as Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Korean Community Service Center. His hobby is documenting
community history with the Asian American Media Center. He co-produced/directed such films as Fall of the I
Hotel, Lest We Forget-Highlights of Korean American Oral History, and Proceedings of the Civil Liberties
Education Fund Conference. He produced the first national Asian American Writers Conference, and taught
at San Francisco State. Chow now edits an Organization of Chinese America's newsletter and works for the
Commission on the Environment.
Sam Chu Lin
Reporter-Anchor, KOOL-TV (Phoenix), 1968
Sam Chu Lin is a reporter/news anchor/radio announcer who found that "informing and
helping others is what makes journalism exciting." As one of the first Asian American
network reporters in New York City (CBS News), he announced to the nation the fall of
Saigon and helped Superman's creators win their pensions. He's interviewed presidents
and world leaders and covered earthquakes and other major disaster. In China, he went
on the air to report the government crackdown on the democracy demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square. He feels journalism can also be educational. "It's a chance to use
your roots for a positive purpose." Sam recently convinced ABC's Nightline to do a
program called "Asian American - When Your Neighbor Looks Like the Enemy" and
helped book the guest, checked the script for accuracy, and found historical footage for the broadcast. He
spent over a year talking with the executive producer about how Asian Americans have been unfairly
stereotyped because of the campaign fundraising and spy scandals. The program was the highest rated
show in its time slot beating out Jay Leno and David Letterman in the national ratings. He has been
presented with many awards including the AP, UPI, Golden Mike, National Headliner Award for Best
Documentary, Chi Lin is an Old American Name, and the 1998 Los Angeles Press Club Award for covering a
neighborhood shoot-out. Based in Sunnyvale with his wife Judy, and their sons Mark and Christopher, he
also pioneered in Silicon Valley, establishing the television news department for Hewlett-Packard. Sam is a
media consultant, contributor to AsianWeek, Rafu Shimpo, San Francisco Examiner, and reports for KTTV
Fox 11 News in Los Angeles.
Suzanne Joe (Kai)
Reporter, KRON-TV (San Francisco), 1970
Before becoming Suzanne Joe Kai, founder of the web portal AsianConnections.com,
"the Internet's Premier Connection for the Asian Global Community," Suzanne Joe was
the first Asian American woman on-air television journalist in San Francisco and perhaps
the nation in 1970 when she was a panelist on the weekly KGO-TV (ABC) public affairs
program On the Spot moderated by Walt Thompson, and a member of the early morning
Minority Report on KTVU-TV (Cox) with now anchorman Dennis Richmond.
On those live television shows the Mills College graduate interviewed Bill Marumoto,
the first Asian American on the White House staff, and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party.
In 1971, she moved to KRON-TV (NBC) full-time covering such stories as the attempted assassination of
President Gerald Ford and the Patty Hearst kidnapping. She has two Emmy nominations for her Chinese
American reports. One of the youngest reporters in the nation, she began her media career at the age of 18.
She was co-manager of her Mills College radio station with old submarine parts donated by students at
nearby Stanford.
She produced, wrote and broadcast more than 5,000 television stories by the time she was 25 years old,
also earning a Masters Degree in Communication from Stanford during this same time period. By the end of
the decade, Suzanne had met her first husband and moved to Arizona where she was a Governor's
appointee to the state's Motion Picture and Television Board and co-founded the National Bank of Arizona,
now merged with a Nasdaq-listed banking group. Suzanne is founder of CSI International, a Pacific Rim
equity firm based in Newport Beach and San Francisco, as well as the Internet venture,
AsianConnections.com. One of her last venture projects before returning back to her media roots, was
arranging a joint venture and financing a $100 million dollar high rise in Beijing.
Suzanne's mission for AsianConnections.com is to utilize the power of the Internet and the "human
power" of all of our knowledge, connections and relationships developed over the years in Asia and the U.S.
to help others to fulfill their personal and professional dreams.
Click here for more about AsianConnections.com
Joann Lee, Ph.D.
Reporter, KXTV-TC (Sacramento), 1975
Dr. Joann Lee is Associate Professor and Director of Journalism at Queens College
(CUNY), and is author of Asian Americans: A Collection of Oral Histories Gathered form
Asian America, First to Fourth Generation (New Press, 1992). Her career in journalism
spans over twenty-five years. She was the fist Asian American journalist hired by CNN, as
well as its first New York Correspondent, and the first Asian American television reporter
to be hired for ABC and CBS local affiliate stations in Sacramento, Chicago, and
Philadelphia.
Joann earned her Ph.D. in Media Ecology form New York University, her M.S. in Journalism from
Columbia University, and her B.A. in English at the City College of New York. She taught as Assistant
Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and in 1991, she established the
Journalism Program at Queens College whish she currently directs. Her 1992 book was selected as
"Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States.
Joann's upcoming book entitled Asian American Actors will be published by McFarland in the year 2000.
Vic Lee
Reporter, KRON-TV (San Francisco), 1972
Vic Lee was born in Shanghai, China and raised in Tokyo, Japan. An internship at the
New York Times influenced him to pursue a career in journalism. In 1969, Vic was hired
by United Press International (UPI) and served in its Portland and Los Angeles bureaus.
In 1972, Vic joined KRON-TV, where he worked as a writer, assignment editor, news
producer, and managing editor. He became a general assignment reporter with specialty
in Asian Affairs.
Vic's work has earned him local and national recognition, including numerous Emmys
and awards for Best Investigative Reporter, Best Live Coverage, Best Enterprise Award, and Best Spot
News Award, and the prestigious George Polk Award of Journalism for Best Local TV Reporting. For his
documentary, Airlift Africa and the Faces of Hunger, he received the CINE Gold Eagle Award, New York Film
Festival Gold Award, Best Documentary, and Best Mini-Series Award. Recently in 1999, Vic was presented
with a National Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Award at the Unity Conference and was
honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences into their Silver Circle.
Broadcast Pioneers (continued)
David Louie
Reporter, NBC News (Cleveland), 1968
David Louie began his television career at the tender age of five, appearing each
Sunday for eight years on a live public affairs program on KYW-TV, Channel 3, in
Cleveland, Ohio (now WKYC-TV). This early on-camera experience, which ran from 1955
until 1963, paved the way for him to become the youngest reporter intern ever hired by
NBC news at age 18 in 1968. Among his first TV new reports was the urban riot that
exploded in Cleveland's Greenville district that summer. While at Northwestern University,
David continued to work for NBC News as a vacation relief news writer and assignment
editor in Chicago (WMAQ-TV). David returned home to Cleveland the summer of 1969 for
an on-air internship at WEWS-TV (ABC).
Upon graduation in 1972, David was the first Asian American reporter hired by ABC owned KGO-TV in
San Francisco. Now in his 28th year at ABC, he has received two Emmy awards. He was elected National
President of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) and Chairman of the Board of the National
Academy of television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). He is currently a national board member of the Radio
Television News Directors Association and a trustee of its Foundation. David is also an Asian American
pioneer in broadcast news management. He was named Assistant News Director at ABC-owned WXYZ-TV
Detroit in 1977.
David has performed a wide range of duties at ABC 7, including East Bay and Peninsula bureau chief,
business editor, food critic, and co-host of the station's annual salute to Asian Americans, Profiles of
Excellence. He was briefly a weekend news anchor and weekday substitute anchor. He has even filled in a
sports and weather.
Along with actress Ming-na Wen, David recently narrated a documentary feature film, We Served With
Pride, about the contributions of Chinese Americans in the U.S. military during World War II. The film
premiered at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. this year and will go on national tour next year.
Felicia Lowe
Reporter, KGO-TV (San Francisco), 1974
Felicia Lowe is an independent television and film producer, director, and writer with
more than twenty-five years of experience. She was one of the first Asian American news
reporters on Bay Area television in the early 1970s.
Bay Area native Felicia moved to New York in 1970 to study television and film
production. She worked for Children's Television Workshop on the program, The Electric
Company, and participated in a yearlong affirmative action media training program at
WNET-TV. In 1972, Felicia was chosen to be a Michelle Clarke Broadcast Journalism
Fellow at Columbia University with KNBC-TV, Los Angeles as her sponsor. After a year of
news writing in Los Angeles, she returned to the Bay Area to report for KGO-TV.
Felicia is currently developing her first feature film, Child of the Owl, based on a Laurence Yep novel. For
her Chinatown documentary produced for KQED, she won a Northern California Emmy for best cultural
documentary, a CINE Golden Eagle, and a National Educational Media Network Silver Apple. Her other
award-winning documentaries, Cared in Silence and China: Land of My Father, have also been broadcast on
national television and are used in high school and college classrooms. Felicia has taught film production
and script writing at San Francisco State University and Stanford University.
Felicia Lowe is now President of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation which recently was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
George Lum
Producer-Director, KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 1955
George Lum was born in 1931 in Des Moines, Iowa. When his family moved to San
Francisco, he attended Polytechnic High School and received his B.A. degree from San
Francisco State. From 1955-59, he worked for KPIX-TV as a producer-director of
programs like 6 O'Clock News, Captain Fortune, Adventure School, Dance Party, and
The Del Courtney Show. When he moved to work for KTVU-TV, he was Production
Manager and Senior Director, directing shows like 10 O'Clock News, Romper Room,
Captain Satellite, and a variety of sports and community service programs.
Broadcast Pioneers (continued)
Mario Machado
Reporter-Anchor, KHJ-TV (Los Angeles), 1967
Mario Machado is the first Chinese American on-air television news reporter and
anchor in Los Angeles and perhaps the nation when he signed on with KHJ-TV in 1967.
His father's Portuguese name and his Chinese mother's heritage steeled him for the
travails of the mass media system that often prejudged him as a Mexican and ignored him
as a Chinese American. His undeniable talent for communications made him one of the
first and few ethnic minority national network sports analysts when he joined CBS Sports
in 1968 as a color commentator. In 1969 he became the first consumer affairs reporter in
the nation at KNXT Los Angeles, where he broke the story of cyclamates, a food addictive
and sugar substitute that was found to be carcinogenic. By 1970 he had become the
weekend news anchor for KNXT, the first Asian male news anchor in the nation's #2 media market. He is the
winner and nominee of ten Emmy awards for reporting and producing, including the award-winning medical
series, MEDIX. His other credits include hosting daily radio talk shows on several Los Angeles stations,
doing the play-by-play announcing for international World Cup and Olympic soccer finals as well as
appearing in numerous motion picture character roles.
Linda Shen
Reporter, WNET-TV (New York), 1972
Linda Shen became the first Asian American TV news reporter in New York City when
she joined WNET-TV's The 51st State in 1972. The Radcliffe College graduate started at
WNEW's Black News where she was accused of "inciting a race riot" in Connecticut
because of producing a story about police brutality and the Black Panthers. When she
was on the air at WNBC-TV many Chinese American, including the eight-year-old
daughter of the Chinese grocer in her hometown of Hamden, Connecticut, watched for
her faithfully. That young girl, whenever she saw Shen on the TV would yell, "You tell'em,
Linda!"
Linda was recruited by KPIX-TV in San Francisco to replace Chris Chow in 1973. She went on to become
the in-studio consumer affairs reporter and the first Asian American reporter to win an Emmy for reporting on
the Japanese American community's pilgrimage to the Tule Lake concentration camp (1974-75). Outraged
by the station's descent into cheap, sensationalistic broadcasting, Linda quit in the middle of her contract.
After returning to the East Coast (WETA, Washington, D.C.) for a stint, she established a successful food
business in San Francisco and retired after sixteen years. She now cares for her family and never watches
television at home.
Victor Wong
Photojournalist, KQET-TV (San Francisco), 1968
Victor Wong is a native San Franciscan who created the photojournalistic essay genre
now popular on public television in 1968 when he went to work for the seminal news and
analysis program, Newsroom, on KQET-TV, Channel 9. The creator of that show, Mel
Wax, uses the word "superb" when talking about Victor Wong: "Victor is a superb
photographer who married picture and music with his own on-air narration to create a
special form of story that has inspired imitations and variations to this day on public
television." His brother Zeppelin gave him his first camera and encouraged him to go into
that line of work. Victor's name is also on the plaque marking the founding of the famous
Second City comedy club in Chicago, Illinois. Following his photojournalistic career, he
became a motion picture character actor in such films as The Last Emperor, Golden Child, Dim Sum, Joy
Luck Club, and Big Trouble In Little China.
Broadcast Pioneers (continued)
Linda Yu
Reporter-Anchor, KATU-TV (Portland), 1975
A native of X'ian, China, Linda Yu and her family moved to Hong Kong when she was
two years old. Three years later, they immigrated to the Untied States, first Philadelphia
and then to Indiana and California. She became the first Asian American to be on a
network station in Chicago.
From March 1975 to December 1975, Linda was news anchor and reporter at KATUTV in Portland, Oregon. Before that, she held positions at two Los Angeles stations,
KTLA-TV and KABC-TV. From 1976 to 1979, Linda worked as a general assignment
reporter at KGO-TV in San Francisco, and then moved to Chicago's WMAQ-TV to serve
as a general assignment reporter and weekend co-anchor. By 1981, she was co-anchor for its 4:30 p.m. and
10:00 p.m. newscasts. In April 1984, Linda joined WLS-TV in Chicago, where she currently co-anchors the
11:30a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eyewitness News.
Since going to Chicago, Linda has earned three local Emmy Awards. In 1984, she was honored with a
National Gold Medal from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for her documentary The Scars of
Belfast. Linda is on the board of the Juvenile Protective Association, chairs the annual March of Dimes
Mother's March, and is co-chair of the advisory board of the Chinese American Service League. She is also
co-founder of Chicago's Asian American Journalists Association.
Linda resides in Chicago with her son and daughter.
Howard Yuen
Engineer, KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 1948
Howard Yuen earned his broadcast license in 1942 and went to work for KSFO in
August of that year. At the time, the company also owned KWID and KWIX, shortwave
radio stations, which broadcast foreign language news to Asia for The Voice of America
during the war years. In the summer of 1948, the company purchased television
equipment and started KPIX. On Christmas Eve of that year, the first program aired was
the movie "Scrooge." Since then, Howard has seen many new developments, which
brought about a lot of changes in the industry. He retired in 1978, after serving thirty-six
years with KPIX.
Linda Yee
General Assignment Reporter, NBC/KRON-TV Newscenter 4, 1973
Linda Yee graduated with a B.A. degree in Journalism from San Francisco State
University. From 1973 to 1977, Linda worked as a producer and news writer for Channel
4. She then worked for KGO-TV and KPIX-TV until she returned to KRON-TV in 1980.
Linda's reporting has garnered eleven Emmy nominations and four Emmy Awards from
the Northern California Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
She recently received the "Best News Series" Award from the Radio and Television News
Directors Association in 1998 for her two-part series Big Brother.
Broadcast Pioneers (continued)
Special Guest
Dong Kingman
Born in Oakland, California, Dong Kingman moved to Hong Kong with his family in
1916 when he was five. He attended Lingnan School where he learned English and
"plein-air" painting from his Paris-trained artist teacher Szetu Wei.
In 1929, Kingman returned to Oakland along with his mother, his young wife, and his
brother. While opening a restaurant in 1931, he took painting classes at nearby Fox
Morgan School, where his teacher told him that he would never make it in painting. After
the restaurant failed, Kingman moved to San Francisco and worked as a cook and
houseboy, but on Sunday mornings he would paint views of the City and joined the Chinatown Watercolor
Club. In 1936, he exhibited his work at the Art Center Gallery on Montgomery Street, after which he began
receiving invitations to a variety of shows. That same year he was awarded the First Purchase Prize of the
San Francisco Art Association. His studio, in the Montgomery Block near the Black Cat Caf? became a
gathering place for artists and writers such as Beniamino Bufano, Raymond Pucinelli, Matthew Barnes, John
Steinbeck, and William Saroyan. It was during this period that Dong Kingman met his first collector, William
Gerstel. In 1942-43, Kingman received two Guggenheim Fellowships enabling him to paint all over the
United States.
Dong Kingman was drafted into the Army the following year but was "rescued" by an admirer, Eleanor
Roosevelt, who had him transferred to the OSS Art Department. While in the Army, Kingman had his first
major exhibition in 1945 at the M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum in San Francisco. This was followed that
same year by his first New York exhibition at the Midtown Gallery and his first magazine assignment
illustrating a story on China for Fortune. In 1954, he was introduced to Hollywood by his friend the late
cinematographer, James Wong Howe, who produced the short film, "The World of Dong Kingman," shown
on Kingman's goodwill trips for the US State Department. In the 1960's, he was hired to create opening titles
for such Asian themed films as "55 Days in Peking," "The World of Suzie Wong," and "Flower Drum Song."
The year 1969 marked the beginning of a twenty-year association Kingman had as one of the judges for the
Miss Universe Pageant.
Dong Kingman has lived in New York City for more than forty years and continues to paint, travel, and
exhibit his work worldwide. The CHSA Chinese American National Museum and Learning Center is proud to
announce that Kingman's works will be a major exhibition at the museum's grand opening scheduled for the
end of 2000.