Finally, we found some time to put a recap of BANANA – Infamous Asian American Bloggers Unite to Chop It Up. First off, we appreciate the time, effort, and money spent by Lac Su and Steve Nguyen (he’s also channelAPA’s LA correspondent) and their volunteers to put the event together and gathering influential bloggers from across the country in one place. Since this was their first event, there were bound to be glitches. Panelists and attendees covered both the good and bad about the event pretty well.

Here’s some of what has been written about the event from panelists like Nikkei View, AArising, Hyphen Magazine, BigWoWo, Julie of Kimchi Mamas, Asian American Movement, Bicoastalbitchin’ Azn and Cbruhs, NEAAT, and Minority Militant (here and here and here). Even from the attendees perspective Jon Yang, Absolutely Fobulous, and Dariane Nabor from Racebending.

People had different thing that they wanted to see and get out of the event. We’re sure there will be many improvements for future events. Along with our fellow panelists, we’ve given our feedback to Steve and Lac. Top on the list will probably be the removal of liquor at the event.

Our favorite part of the event was connecting with the people behind the blogs, especially the people who’ve been doing it for a long time. We wish we had more time with our fellow bloggers, we would have loved to interview more of them. On the panel, we loved hearing the various perspectives on different topics, especially the female perspectives on blogging. Besides the bloggers, we met lots of cool people too like Dan from afterschoolspecial, composer George Shaw, singer Dawen and his manager George, MTV Silent Library host Zero Kazama, Slanted webseries creator Andrea Lwin, The Asian Persuasian host M. Meow and many more. We’re looking forward to the next one. Look for more interviews coming soon.

Thoughts from Steve Nguyen on BANANA