MANAA, the only organization solely dedicated to advocating balanced, sensitive, and positive depiction and coverage of Asian Americans, was founded in 1992. It led nationwide protests against the film Rising Sun in 1993 and challenged Sarah Silverman’s use of “Chinks” in her joke on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” in 2001. Between 1999 and 2019, as part of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (APAMC), MANAA met annually with the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the top four television networks pushing for more inclusion of Asian/Pacific Islanders (APIs). In 2015, it also promoted that vision with talent agencies ICM Partners, WME, Paradigm, and CAA.
MANAA has been at the forefront of educating the media and public about the increasing problem of “white-washing,” where white actors play Asian/Pacific Islander characters in other films like 21, The Martian, Aloha, The Last Airbender, Kubo and the Two Strings, Dr. Strange, and Ghost in the Shell.
At its annual dinners, the organization presented MANAA Media Achievement Awards to writers, producers, directors, and actors who created positive, prominent roles for or constructive reporting on APIs including Janet Yang, Rob Cohen (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), George Takei, Jeff Yang, Sam Chu Lin, Margaret Cho, David Henry Hwang, Russell Wong, David E. Kelly (Ally McBeal), Chris and Paul Weitz (American Pie), Nightline, and the creators of All American Girl, Mulan, Star Trek: Voyager, Lilo and Stich, Lost, and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.
In 1995, MANAA got KKBT-FM’s morning show, “The House Party,” to agree to stop creating skits that mocked well-known Asian Americans with fake Asian accents (This happened after the group went after the station’s sponsors).
In 1996, MANAA Founding President Guy Aoki negotiated a settlement with KFI and its morning host, Bill Handel, after the disc jockey said he was “tired of seeing slanted-eyed figure skaters winning all the time.” Handel agreed to apologize on the air-- something he’d never done before.
In 2006, Aoki, working with other community organizations, got CBS Radio to agree to mandate sensitivity training for its employees and to develop a pamphlet outlining for its on-air talent the responsibility they have toward ethnic communities after host Adam Carolla aired a skit mocking the Asian Excellence Awards with people saying nothing but variations of “ching chong” for almost a minute.
In 2007, Aoki convinced CBS President Nina Tassler to host a meeting between him and the writers and producers of her TV shows to discuss ways of incorporating APIs into their existing shows and creating new ones. Tassler later invited the heads of the Multi-Ethnic Media Coalition (including the NAACP, Latinos and Native Americans), The Geena Davis Institute On Gender And Media and GLAAD to this historic discussion, which became an annual event.
In 2009, MANAA met with Adam Goodman, President of Paramount Pictures, over the studio’s offensive movie The Goods and M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming The Last Airbender; the following year, MANAA coordinated the Hollywood protest (over 100) against the white-washed casting in Airbender.
In 2011, as co-chair of the APAMC, Aoki issued a challenge to the networks to air a show which starred an Asian American (first name in the credits) within three years. Fox’s “The Mindy Project” starring Indian American Mindy Kailing became a series one year later. CBS's “Stalker" with Mqggie Q debuted in the Fall of 2014, and ABC announced “Fresh Off the Boat”--the first Asian American family sitcom in 20 years--would premiere in early 2015.
In 2015, MANAA garnered massive press coverage when it called out director Cameron Crowe for hiring over 30 white actors for his Hawaii-based film Aloha, which only featured one real speaking role for an Asian Pacific Islander (Crowe apologized for that and casting Emma Stone as a half Hawaiian/Chinese character, and so did the actress for taking the role).
In 2021, MANAA got Jay Leno to apologize for making a series of jokes about Koreans and Chinese eating dogs and Chinese restaurants serving dogs and cats while host of “The Tonight Show” between 2002 and 2014 and while a guest judge on “America’s Got Talent” in 2019. The apology came after MANAA asked the producers of his upcoming game show “You Bet Your Life” to fire him as host or the group would go after their advertisers.
Also that year, MANAA convinced KFI-AM to suspend longtime radio talk show host Tim Conway, Jr. and his producer Sheron Bellio for a week without pay. Both concocted a skit where Bellio impersonated a Japanese American using a stereotyped accent, making cliched martial arts sounds and uttering random Japanese phrases. In reality, that woman, Yuko Sakamoto, speaks with no accent whatsoever.