The year 2010 was a great year for Asian Americans and Asians in the American media. Here’s our timeline of significant events! Note that we didn’t cover events that were significant in Asian countries, but we focused on the events that garnered attention mostly in North America.
January 27, 2010 – Li Na defeats American Venus Williams at the 2010 Australian Open. This is the first time China has had two players in the last four of a tennis grand slam.
February 26, 2010 – Kim Yu-Na wins Olympic Gold with a record score of 228.56. She takes the gold medal with a huge 23.06 point margin. Japanese figure skater, Mao Asada wins the silver medal.
March 15, 2010 – Jay Park returns to the US and creates his own Youtube channel, jayparkaom, where his first video went viral and received 1.5 million views in less than 24 hours. His rendition of the song, “Nothing on You” is speculated to have increased revenue of the song originally by Bruno Mars and BOB by $300,000 due to topping charts in Asia.
March, 2010 – Charice’s song, Pyramid (featuring Iyaz) soars to the #1 spot on the Billboard dance/club play. Her album reaches #8 on the billboard top 200 albums, making her the first Asian artist to enter the top 10.
April 8, 2010 – Asian dance crew, Poreotix crew wins America’s Best Dance Crew, showing America that Asians really know how to dance the best (how many Asian crews have won this thing by now?)
May 26, 2010 – The Karate Kid premieres, showing that Jackie Chan still has it after a string of subpar releases (The Spy Next Door). Eventually the movie grosses over 350 million dollars.
June 4, 2010 – Korean group Wonder Girls starts their 20-show tour of North America beginning in Washington, DC. They record new single, 2 Different Tears in three languages, Chinese, Korean, and English.
June 30, 2010 – The Last Airbender is critically panned by critics, earning a 6% rotten rating on Rottentomatoes. M. Night Shymalan loses almost all credibility as a director (who else laughed when they saw his name on the “Devil” trailer?) Hopefully we’re not going to see anymore Caucasian Aangs after that horrendous movie.
July 8, 2010 – Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao both play major supporting roles in Hollywood blockbuster, Inception, which went on to gross over 800 million dollars and achieve high critical acclaim with an 87% approval rating on Rottentomatoes.
July 18, 2010 – A reality show some call “The Asian Jersey Shore” is announced to be in production. Tentative title, “K-Town.” Asian Americans getting more media coverage if this gets aired, but will it be positive or negative?
July 21, 2010 – Harvard grad Jeremy Lin signs a two year deal with the Golden State Warriors making him the first Taiwanese American in history to play for an NBA team.
July 28, 2010 – Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan upsets American Andy Roddick at Wimbledon. This is the first time that a man representing an Asian country has reached the quarterfinal of a grandslam since Shuzo Matsuoko of Japan did it in 1995. Lu was only ranked 82nd in the world while Roddick has a Wimbledon finalist the previous year.
September 2010 – Kevjumba and father are announced as a team on the 17th season of The Amazing Race.
September 7, 2010 – Charice is featured on hit television series, Glee, showcasing her great singing talents.
September 9, 2010 – Premiere of Nikita, one of the VERY few (if not only) mainstream TV shows to have the titular character who is an Asian American female (Maggie Q).
October 30, 2010 – Far East Movement “Like a G6” video tops the Billboard charts and is #1 on iTunes download list. They are the first Asian American group to reach #1 on the Billboard 100.
November 20, 2010 – “LIke a G6” goes reaches double platinum status
November 23, 2010 – Nigahiga’s short movie, Agents of Secret Stuff, gets premiered on Youtube and his channel, and to date has received around 7 million views. Looks like Asians are making strides in the entertainment industry.
December 21, 2010 – The K-town deal is closed. Looks like we’re going to be watching some Asian American Reality TV!
December 21, 2010 – Nigahiga reaches 3 million subscribers, making him the most subscribed person on the Internet! So while Hollywood still has no good roles for us, we’re making our own roles by dominating social media. We’ll take over soon.
As of December 2010 – Far East Movement’s “Rocketeer” has received tons of airplay and is rising on the billboard charts, so far peaking at 41. Looks like Far East Movement is no one-hit wonder.
Did we miss any? Write us a comment below and we might add it to the list! Now looking forward to a great 2011 year.
Written by Editorial Staff