Category Winners an Offbeat Cultural Mesh

In the first round of competition in the 1990 Nikkodo International Karaoke Contest, the winners in the “Anglo-American” singing category were two young black show-biz hopefuls and a Japanese-American sushi chef belting out the Motown sound.

The offbeat blend of cultures apparent Wednesday night at West Los Angeles’ Budhokan restaurant was just what organizers of the Nikkodo Karaoke contest are hoping for.

A fund-raiser for September’s Los Angeles Festival, the Karaoke singing competition invites seven different ethnic communities in Los Angeles--Anglo-American, African-American, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic and Korean--to select two contestants each to a final competition, in which one lucky winner will win $2,000, a trip for two to Japan and Hong Kong and recording contract with the Japanese branch of Polydor Records, a division of Polygram.

The contest represents a local effort to support the festival’s 17-day multicultural blitz of artists representing 21 countries of Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. Karaoke (pronounced Kara-OK) is a form of amateur entertainment developed in Japan and gaining popularity here, in which participants sing along with taped background music.

In the preliminaries, entrants may sing any song in any language, whether it be a traditional Mexican folk song, a Top 40 hit in English or “My Way” in Cantonese. In the final competition, to be held Sept. 30 at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, contestants must limit themselves to songs available on Nikkodo software in eight languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Spanish and Thai.

While festival and contest organizers hope the Karaoke contest brings L.A.’s ethnic groups together, others involved believe that dividing the contest into ethnic categories could raise more complex issues of race, ethnicity, language, and culture than the festival itself.

Festival director Peter Sellars and Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Woo, who dreamed up the contest--believe issuing special invitations to each ethnic group makes everyone feel more welcome. And singers can join any preliminary contest regardless of his or her own race--provided he or she doesn’t change groups midway. “I think that is what’s great--it all comes together,” Sellars said.

Sellars does not see any special problems raised by contestants having to affiliate with an ethnic group. “These are the choices people make every day of their lives. At this moment in history, there is no way around it,” Sellars said.

“That’s why I see this (the Los Angeles Festival) as a 10-year project,” Sellars continued. “It’ll be interesting to watch the labels fall away. At the first party, maybe you have to wear name tags--but maybe as we get to know each other better, the tags won’t be necessary.”

Woo originally thought of the contest as a way to raise money in the Chinese community, where karaoke is already popular. Later, it was decided to expand the idea to include all groups. Woo said individual contests make sense for immigrant groups, who might feel less inhibited singing in their own languages with judges familiar with their native music. “Bringing them all together--that’s what the final competition is all about,” Woo said.

But even with the open invitation to sing with any group, others believe that putting ethnic labels on the preliminary contest could cause more problems than it solves.

“I think it can create controversy, because the ethnic groups already have their own controversies,” said Florinda Mintz, an Argentinian immigrant and curator of the festival’s “La Terra Nova” Pacific Poetry Festival.

“Within the Hispanic group, you have the Chicanos, you have the Mexican-Americans, then you have the South and Central Americans--the communities themselves are divided. Some don’t want to be called Hispanics; they want to be called Latinos. I know the Asian community is very divided too. There are the Japanese who are born here, and the Japanese from Japan.

“No matter who you are, you don’t want to be classified. I basically feel uncomfortable that we have to be asking who we are again. I believe the intentions behind all of this are very good, but--I don’t know. I am afraid.”

David Harnish, a teaching fellow at UCLA’s ethnomusicology department who worked on the festival, said many Los Angeles residents either fit into one of the ethnic categories, or several. I don’t think there is any doubt that some people would be offended by it,” he said. “They tried to open it up just to be fair, but it’s very obvious they didn’t think through all the potential problems.

“People who identify with these seven groups and feel confident about representing those groups might feel encouraged to attend and participate. But if they don’t--and the bulk of the people would not, or could not--they would not understand the reason why the event is being planned at all.”

Chinese businessman Raymond Chang, an organizer of the Chinese contest, said he’s not quite comfortable with the notion that a non-Chinese competitor might enter that contest--and win. Although he said the group would never forbid anyone to participate, he has encouraged competitors of other ethnic backgrounds to contact their own group.

“At the beginning, we wanted to do a pure Chinese group. If they have any Chinese blood, they qualify,” Chang said. “We (Chinese organizers) talked about how we would handle a situation like this, and decided we would explain that there are seven groups going on right now. I say, why don’t you join the Hispanic group, and we’ll see you at the finals?

“We ran into the same problem when we were doing the Miss Chinese America pageant. If (a non-Chinese) won, she would have to represent that title without any Chinese blood.”

David Lee, executive producer of the contest and brother of the late martial arts hero Bruce Lee, disagreed. “So an Anglo-American comes out a winner in the Chinese community. So what?” he said. “We just feel that there shouldn’t be any barriers between any cultures.” Larry Covin, organizer of the African-American competition--which so far has the most participants--agreed with Lee. “I would welcome (any winner), I would applaud them all the way. I’m not looking for a black to win, I’m looking for everyone to win. I have all colors in my competition.”

That seems to be the attitude most participants are taking: The contest system may not be perfect for the United Nations, but for the purposes of this competition, it works.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s a place to start,” said Gioia Siciliano, organizer of the Anglo contest at Budhokan. Despite the official designation ‘Anglo,’ she prefers to call her contest simply “American.” “’Anglo’ seems to have too much of an ethnic connotation,” she said. “This way, people can choose: they can compete as what they came from, or what they are now.”

David Rose, an Anglo-American who competed in a recent Asian American Star Search competition, was torn about whether to enter the Chinese contest or an Anglo contest. He finally chose an Anglo contest, because “I’d rather beat a white person than an Asian; I don’t want to knock anyone out.” He also said his heavy-metal song choice might better be classified as “Anglo” music: “If I were singing a Cantonese song, I’d join the Chinese competition,” he said.