Simon S. Tam's Blog, page 6

Once Upon an App: An Online Dating Fairy Tale

I’m pleased to announce that my newest TEDx talk on love and education is finally out!

Please watch Once Upon an App: An Online Dating Fairy Tale filmed at TEDxDupontCircleEd below:

And speaking of fate and coincidences, this talk was released on the one year anniversary to my wife.

Paper Justice

This week, I had the incredible honor of speaking on a panel with Stephen Baird, the original attorney who fought with Suzan Harjo to cancel the trademark registrations of the Washington football team, and Amanda Blackhorse, who bravely continued that effort. There’s no question that their efforts helped to highlight the indignity that Native Americans have had to endure through pro sports using their identities as caricatures and mascots. Both were exceedingly kind, intelligent, and compassi...

What’s in a Name?

I was born “Simon Hsiao Tam” on March 31, 1981…at least according to my parents. Growing up, I had a couple of different middle names. My paper trail through the public school system will sometimes list it as “Hong,” like my father’s, and sometimes “Hsiao,” from my mother’s side of the family. I didn’t really know which to choose, I just knew that no matter what, it began with an “H,” so that my initials of “SHT” would either be a badass proclamation or a target for ridicule.

But this wasn’t...

On That Whole Yellow Fever Thing…

Controversy and news erupted this week over a tweet sent by Whole Foods promoting their new partnership with a new, independent restaurant chain called “Yellow Fever.” It’s an Asian themed restaurant that operates with the tagline “Asian bowls for your soul” and run by a Korean American restauranteur. Understandably, the name gave many people pause – and many of those people started tagging me/my band (The Slants) to ask us what we thought. Several social media posts were also using our band’...

On Trophies and Recognition

Finally back in Nashville after a whirlwind trip to NYC and DC. It concluded with an awards show from the American Bar Association in our country’s capitol…just miles away from the Supreme Court where we were victorious.

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I was deeply humbled to receive the Mark T. Banner award though all recognition should have just went to the legal team of Ron Coleman, Joel MacMull, and John Connell (as well as Spencer Trowbridge, who originally convinced me this was something worth fighting for). I’m glad...

Passion isn’t enough

“If you’d like to find a job where you have no boss, you will probably end up having a lousy boss – you – to do the work. We have to be really careful when we’re deciding to act like the boss…then we need to do it as a professional. The fact that we have passion for the project itself is completely irrelevant. When you’re doing professional work, you should do it like a professional.”
– Seth Godin

As someone who has been teaching entrepreneurship classes for a few years and consulting artists...

New TEDx Talk Coming: Once Upon an App

This weekend, I’ll be sharing my newest TEDx talk titled Once Upon an App: An Online Dating Fairy Tale.

TEDx Education events traditionally explore thinking around teachers, parents, and kids on how to build a better school. While many of the talks can take a broader view of what constitutes as learning and education, it’s generally focused on the idea of “school.”Of course, I wanted to approach this from a radically different idea, by applying our learning styles to a very different but impo...

Disparagement, Contempt, and Disrepute

I recently sat down with Ken White of the Make No Law podcast to provide an inside look at my journey to the Supreme Court. While this is geared towards First Amendment geeks, this is probably one of the better features on the story and is one of the few that actually explores what the unintended consequences were when the government started using false evidence to claim I was engaged in anti-Asian work.

Listen to it here.

You Are Enough to Make a Difference

A few days ago, I was speaking at UC Davis School of Law for an event that highlighted some moments from my journey to the Supreme Court. After the presentation, I spent some time with student leaders of APALSA, the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, where we casually spoke about music, Joss Whedon’s Firefly, and more personal questions about my work with The Slants.

As they were thinking about everything we shared, one of them asked me what kind of advice I had for a young law...

Negative Stereotypes and Fear of the Chinese are Still Very Present

Senator Rubio, along with the FBI Director, are targeting Chinese students, saying they’ve infiltrated “naive” colleges and universities, especially those in “math and science,” and part of a “whole-of-society” threat to the United States despite not having any evidence.   Yet, they aren’t talking about the FBI’s own evidence that white supremacist groups have infiltrated the police and secret service in large numbers over the past four decades.   The last few times the government...