Goldsea Asian American Daily

Goldsea.com covers social, economic, political and lifestyle news and trends from the Asian American perspective. Its status as the most visible content site with an Asian American focus has made Goldsea a lightning rod for both those who support its mission and those who would like to see its focus expanded. Some critics argue that its perspective is exclusively East Asian American, focusing only on those of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent. Goldsea has consistently played up the achievements of Asian Americans in the fields of business, sports, entertainment and the media. While this has attracted many loyal supporters who feel that the site fills a glaring void in the U.S. media, some resentful members of other Asian ethnicities have sought to undermine Goldsea as not being truly representative of all Asian Americans. Goldsea is perhaps unique among ethnic websites in attracting such intense attention from those who claim to scorn its alleged exclusivity.
Goldsea's demographic focus
Goldsea's status as the first and leading Asian American content site (est. 1995 under the name of tmiweb.com, changed in 1998 to goldsea.com) has attracted criticism from Asian Americans who feel excluded by its coverage. For example, in some articles Goldsea has not included South Asian Americans in its discussions. One notable article suggests that Southeast Asian Americans are included only because "they are frequently members of the Chinese diaspora" . The article appears to refer mainly to Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Filipino Americans in its use of the term Asian Americans.
This article appears to have offended some South Asian Americans with its claim that because India is largely Hindu and Pakistan is Muslim, their cultures are distinct from that of East Asia and Southeast Asia. It seems to overlook the Hindu and Muslim populations of Southeast Asia and that, historically, the Indian Subcontinent is connected to Southeast Asia and the Far East through religious and cultural influences .
However, as Goldsea has evolved over the years from its early focus on Asian American lifestyle and identity to a broader-based daily, it began regularly featuring news items on India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mongolia, among other nations. However, there remains a visible skew toward China, Korea and Japan in the vast majority of its articles.
Asian American Issues
Perspective toward interracial relationships between Asian men and non-asian women
Goldsea has attracted some notoriety for promoting equal coverage of interracial relationships between East Asian American men and White women, as well as the discussions about White men and Asian women which are more prevalent on other so-called Asian American sites. Goldsea's supporters believe that the site promotes Asian Americans as people with personalities, problems, humor just like regular Americans, rather than the typical stereotypes. Some posts and articles have pointed out that the United States media belittles East Asian American men by portraying them stereotypically as evil characters,wimps,kung fu masters, and generally people with bad accents. Some posters (but not the site's articles) argued that some white men have a perverted and often demeaning fetish for East Asian American women. Goldsea highlights the very few hollywood movies that portray Asian men with non-Asian women.
Differences in racially-mixed East Asian Americans
Some racially-mixed Asian Americans were put off by one poll that asked whether Asian Americans who are in part some other race are really Asian Americans according to Hollywood. People such as Keanu Reeves is as an example of people whom Hollywood does not discriminate against because people do not know of their Asian ancestry. . By contrast, Asian American celebrities with Asian surnames, including Russell Wong , Kelly Hu frequently portray stereotypical Asian roles (evil character, bad accents).
Discussions of traits by racial and national origin
Some critics have suggested that Goldsea has promoted divisiveness among Asian groups with polls (now frozen to new input) which rated various nationalities for traits like friendliness to other Asians . Some polls even explored the positive physical traits of various Asian nationalities and races . These "intra-Asian" relationship polls only included Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese nationalities. Among them was a poll that sought to rate Asian nationalities for looks . One Goldsea articles features an extended analysis of the facial features of Asian men and women in the context of western and universal beauty standards. A facial features comparison table suggests that in certain respects like jawline and cheekbones East Asian men compare favorably with White men but less favorably in features like the nose and chin. Similarly, another chart suggests that East Asian women rate favorably against White women in features like nose, lips and youthfulness but less favorably in the eyes.
One of Goldsea's most distinguished features are its extensive compilations of the most successful Asian Americans in numerous fields. Among them are the top 20 Asian American athletes, the 12 most brilliant Asian Americans, 100 most inspiring Asian Americans (which does include a half dozen South Asians as well as several mixed-race Asian Americans), 20 most successful corporate executives (which does include South and Southeast Asians), and the most successful Asian American women.
Economic dominance of East Asia
One of Goldsea's Issues pieces (meant to spark discussion) asks whether a unified North and South Korea could become "the center of the global economy" . Goldsea has suggested that Japan may become relatively less powerful in the future and that China, Taiwan and the Koreas will become more powerful . It seems to suggest that Japan has hurt the East Asian global image by having "little testosterone" and it "has only reinforced every insulting stereotype" unlike China and Korea, which a Goldsea Issues piece claims improve the East Asian image. "South Corea exports people who take hooey from no one" and "North Corea showed balls in standing up to the west" . One Issues piece suggests that a strong China reinforces the strength of East Asia. One of Goldsea's Issues pieces asks whether "the U.S. provide upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars" for slaughtering Korean civilians during the Korean War .
 
< Prev   Next >