EthnicMajority

(ESPN) Jeremy Lin isn't just carrying the New York Knicks.

He's carrying the hopes and dreams of legions of fellow Asian Americans. Most have never met Lin but might feel like they know him. They've been starving for someone like him to come around and break the stereotypes of a race that has been dubbed the "model minority."

He's the boy they grew up with, the one who was in the same class as their daughter, who played sports with their son.

Michael Chang can relate. Two-and-a-half decades ago, he was that boy.

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(Chicago Tribune) When Drew Lee and his younger brother Joe were in elementary school in the mid-1990s, they would sneak to the park during the summer to spend long hours playing basketball. Their parents were deeply involved with their Christian ministry and initially had no idea.

At the park, the brothers stood out for several reasons: They were little, just 7 and 9 years old, scrappy and tireless. They, and a friend, also were the only Asian-Americans on the courts.

"Sometimes camp counselors (at the park) would see us out there so much, and they didn't want to just kick us off the court, so they invited us to play against their players and do drills," said Drew, 26, who's Korean-American. "We learned a lot and it boosted our confidence."

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(ABCNews, Juju Chang) Jeremy Lin has dunked and dazzled his way toward shattering the Asian geek stereotype — good at math, not good with the ladies.

Growing up Asian-American, my sisters and I were painfully aware of the biases, but it was worse for my brother.

But "Asian beefcake" has become hot in Hollywood too, with "Glee's" Harry Shum, Jr., "Hawaii 5-0's" Daniel Dae Kim, and Ken Jeong in "Community" and "The Hangover" films.

Enter JT Tran, the self-styled "Asian Playboy," who has built an empire from hosting dating seminars for single Asian men, who pay thousands of dollars to learn the art of romance from him.

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(Yahoo Sports) Ben & Jerry's will take fortune cookies out of its new Jeremy Lin-inspired ice cream flavor after hearing complaints that the ingredient was racist.

The limited-edition flavor, "Taste the Lin-Sanity," originally featured vanilla frozen yogurt, honey swirls and bits of fortune cookies, the latter ingredient serving as an obvious nod to Lin's heritage. After the backlash, the company pulled the cookies from the mix and replaced them with waffle cone pieces that will be served on the side.

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(San Jose Mercury News) They know what it feels like to be overlooked. People, they say, assume they are weak, servile, out of place. So when these Asian-Americans watch Jeremy Lin slash and shoot his way through the NBA's finest, it's almost as if they are on the basketball court with the Palo Alto point guard who has set the zeitgeist on fire.

Asian-Americans have rallied around other athletes — Michael Chang, Hideo Nomo, Yao Ming, Michelle Wie, Ichiro Suzuki. Tiger Woods was embraced for his Thai side. But Lin has a new and different appeal — a homegrown star besting some of the world's greatest athletes in an intensely physical sport. Asian-Americans have done well in America in many areas, but not this one.

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(Huffington Post) Though ESPN apologized for referring to Jeremy Lin as "Chink in the Armor" Friday night, an Asian-American civil rights organization isn't satisfied with the response.

ESPN changed the headline, and apologized, but the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an organization that promotes civil rights for Asian Americans, wants the network to do even more.

In a statement posted its site, the AALDEF said that the term used was "inexcusable" and wants ESPN to apologize on air so that "it is clear to all viewers that this racist language is unacceptable."

The AALDEF offered to meet with the network to help educate its staff and establish procedures to prevent such slurs from appearing in their work.

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(NPR) Once upon a time, Asian-American artists would have taken their anger to the streets.

That's what happened in 1990, when Asian-American actors, outraged over a Caucasian actor's yellowface performance in Miss Saigon, staged public protests over the casting choice. It was one of the most divisive debates over racial representation in the history of the American theater. Twenty-two years later, the battle is still being waged — though now it's via social media and a PowerPoint presentation.

At the RepresentAsian conference, a three-hour wrangle at Fordham University on Monday, it wasn't about slogans, signs or sit-ins. Cold numbers, pie charts and bar graphs told what Asian-American advocates say is a sad fact about casting. Based on data the group compiled from the past five theater seasons, Asian-Americans are the only minority group whose share of New York acting roles declined, and they were also the least likely to be selected for roles that would traditionally be played by white actors.

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(USAToday) Point guard Jeremy Lin has become a sensation not just in New York. He posted his first double-double in his two-year career in a 107-93 victory against the Washington Wizards on Wednesday. He's been the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter in his three starts with the New York Knicks. In China on Monday, Lin's name was among the top 10 search terms on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, according to Salon.com.

Asian Americans of all stripes are energized by Lin, the first Asian-American player in the NBA:

"I don't care about the outcome. I just want to see him in action. He's as good of an Asian American athlete as there is."

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(US News) Ethnicity is a growing area of interest for banks, largely because they want to understand their customers better.

[50 Ways to Improve Your Finances in 2012]

By 2050, says Fred Makonnen, vice president of multicultural sales at ING, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans will make up the majority of the U.S. population, compared with just over one-third now. “We need to have, as an industry, products that can speak directly to these consumers. We’re seeing time and time again there is a significant gap between various ethnic groups … and the reasons tend to be embedded in cultural differences,” he says.

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(Washington Post) America’s historic Chinatowns, home for a century to immigrants seeking social support and refuge from racism, are fading as rising living costs, jobs elsewhere and a desire for wider spaces lure Asian-Americans more than ever to the suburbs.

As the Lunar New Year begins Monday, annual festivities in Washington, D.C.’s shriveled Chinatown are, for the first time, being promoted by a large marketing firm. New York’s Chinatown, one of the nation’s oldest, has lost its status as home to the city’s largest Chinese population, based on the 2010 census.

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