In Memoriam: Tom Plate, Asia Media International Founder

Dear Asia Media International and LMU Community: I am saddened to share that Tom Plate, clinical assistant professor of Asian Pacific American Studies, passed away on May 23, 2023, of natural causes. He was 79 years old. Professor Plate joined LMU in August 2010 teaching part-time as a Distinguished Scholar…

AMERICA WATCH: HOW MANY MORE WITCH HUNTS LIE AHEAD?

ANDREA PLATE WRITES – Donald Trump may have cheapened the phrase “witch hunt,” but American history is rich and notorious with sad sagas of domestic persecution: the Salem Witch Trials of colonial Massachusetts, immortalized by playwright Arthur Miller in 1953’s “The Crucible;” the pursuit, persecution and internment of “enemy” Japanese…

RIP DOBIE, LMU ’56: CELEBRATING A TV ICON

ANDREA PLATE WRITES – The outpouring of grief that followed the death this week of actor Dwayne Hickman at age 87, star of the smash 1959-1963 CBS TV series “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” came as no surprise. Yes, he was just an actor in a role: a clean-cut,…

SRI LANKA: A NEW NOVEL REOPENS WOUNDS OF WAR

ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Robert McDonald, US Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, struck deep into the hearts of mental healthcare workers at the West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs, albeit unintentionally, when he told them this: The effects of any war can be felt forty years after…

SOUTH KOREA: THE ACCIDENTAL TRANSLATOR

ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Lizzie Buehler, 25, raised in Texas, is the translator of The Disaster Tourist, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun’s first novel to be translated into English and published in the US recently. This truly original book is about international tourists who thrive on visiting world-famous tragic sites…

SOUTH KOREA: BIG GAINS AND NOTHING LOST IN TRANSLATION

ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Imagine watching your mother and grandmother being stabbed to death in a random attack on Christmas Eve, and showing no emotion. This is Yunjae, the protagonist of Sohn Won-Pyung’s Almond (HarperVia), first published in 2017 and translated into English this May. Why the title Almond? First, because the human brain…

DIVORCE, NORTH KOREAN STYLE

(This is the fifth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Thirty-eight years. That’s how long it took for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to approve, for publication in…

BOOK REVIEW: A SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR TELLS A UNIVERSAL TALE

(This is the fourth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — “Fitting into middle class society is getting harder and harder for the younger generation.” So says Kim Sagwa, author…