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[TV static drones]
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[distant sirens wailing]
[shoes squeaking]
- This Garden crowd on its feet
is delirious right now.
[dramatic music]
His IQ for the game is off the chart.
Lin puts it up, puts it in!
[whistle blows]
- While I'm watching this live, I'm like,
"This cannot be happening.
This cannot be happening."
- And listen to this Garden crowd
on this 10-0 run.
- I know Jeremy.
Type A, high-achieving, [indistinct] kid.
I know what his house smells like.
I know what his mom's minivan smells like.
Like, I know you, Jeremy.
- Pull-up jump shot.
Knocks it down! [whistle blows]
- I'm a Lakers fan, but I'm out here cheering
for the Knicks.
I think it just blew all of our minds
that we would see someone that looked like my cousin
dominate on an NBA court.
It's the playground basketball court
where people like me, as a kid, would be bullied.
- Lin for three! Bang!
- The reason this matters so much
is because if you are an Asian American person,
you have spent your entire life
identifying with people who look nothing like you.
But now, I can just see someone
who actually looks like me, and that's it?
I didn't know it could be this easy.
- Linsanity continues here at Madison Square Garden.
A career-high 38 points...
- An Asian guy dropping 38 on Kobe?
- It was incredible.
- 38 points in New fucking York City.
[dramatic musical sting]
- Hold up, hold up.
Before we get into any of this,
let's jump back to the beginning.
[audio playback]
Because there's no way any of this
should have been possible.
[light percussive music]
♪ ♪
- No one's telling little Asian American immigrant girls,
"You should be a stand-up comedian."
I bet you no one's telling little Asian American boys,
"You need to grow up to be an NBA basketball star."
- Oh, Miyoko,
what do you think of item for loose paper?
- When most Americans think about Asians,
they think about dry cleaners.
They think about IT guy.
They think about emasculated, no-dick-having,
no-luck-with-women-having dudes.
They think of dragon lady, sex workers.
They think of masseuse's happy endings.
I could keep going.
If you are all of those five things,
that means you're definitely not...
- For anyone to break outside of these norms is strange.
People don't understand it.
- People go, "Well, how harmful are those stereotypes?"
You're like, "Yeah, it's kind of harmful
if I have big dreams."
If my dreams are for middle management,
sure, being small, unathletic, diminutive,
passive, great, great.
I'll send you the reports, Bob.
But if I'm trying to be "The Guy,"
at work, at school...
in the NBA,
you cannot be any of those things.
- It's this constant, like, overwhelming sense of doubt
from the outside that tempted me
to even not believe in myself.
That was one of the biggest obstacles
that I had to overcome.
- Asian Americans have just gotten beaten down
because the stereotyping, the derision,
the media portrayals,
mischaracterizations of Asian Americans
are so rampant.
- To people who ask "What do I do?"
I say, "I work for ESPN."
They say, "Oh, so like tech support."
Seriously.
From someone else who worked in the business.
- On top of all the stereotypes,
the racism going on on the outside,
I mean, inside the house, Asian parents,
different set of priorities.
- When I was a child,
there was a doctor named Dr. Ho
that was on the "TIME" magazine cover
for figuring out AIDS and shit.
- He just studied-- he just studied.
He kept studying.
- I remember my parents brought that up.
They're like, "Yo, Dr. Ho.
That's a good fucking Asian."
[laughing] Okay?
- And then eventually, he studied so hard
that he cured AIDS.
That's almost the Asian parents' dream,
that you're gonna study a way into success and prominence.
If you study hard enough,
you're gonna become a rock star.
[electric guitar riff]
- Our parents come to this country,
and they basically see a finite number of possibilities.
And to the best of their ability,
they're preparing us for a certain version
of the world.
- You're here. You came to America.
Your job is literally to get A's
and listen to your teacher.
That's what my parents told me.
- All of a sudden, the realm of possibility
becomes this narrow.
And everything that's cool and relevant
is all in this part.
- All these Asian parents supporting Jeremy Lin,
like, love him to death.
"Oh, my God, Jeremy Lin, what a hero."
How many of these parents would have encouraged their kids
to do what Jeremy Lin was doing
when, you know, the kids need that backing
at crucial moments in their development?
- What's different about my story
is that my dad really loved basketball.
I mean, he was obsessed.
My mom's dream was that I would be great at piano,
and she bought a beautiful piano and all this.
And then finally, I remember after about five, six years,
my mom was just like,
"You don't have to play piano any more.
I'm not gonna force you to do it anymore."
And I'm saying that was, like--
it's one the best moment of my life.
That's when I knew, like,
all right, my mom's all in with this.
And from there it was just competitive basketball.
- Lin led Palo Alto High School
to an upset victory,
also earned Northern California
Division II Player of the Year honors.
- It's the best feeling to go out on top.
I mean, it is a dream come true.
Me and my dad-- we had to cut together
our own highlight tape.
And we're sending them out, just hoping and praying
that somebody will like it and give us a response.
I mean, at the end of the day,
I won a state championship,
I was California Player of the Year,
and I had zero scholarship offers.
None.
- I grew up in Northern California
when Jeremy Lin was playing for Palo Alto High School.
When he played
at one of the state championship games
at ARCO Arena, I remember being like,
"Who is that Asian kid with spiky hair?
"Oh, that's cool.
"That's a cool little high school run.
Dope."
Like, even my expectations of myself
and the community was capped.
I was like, "Oh, he made a starting rotation.
"Oh, he got to play on an NBA court.
"That's pretty cool.
Let's see what he does after that."
Like, oh, he'll probably hard pivot
into, like, premed.
- At the end, it came down to Harvard and MIT,
neither of which gave athletic scholarships.
But Harvard was Division I.
MIT was Division III.
My parents loved MIT.
They loved the program.
But for me, I was dead set on Harvard.
I gotta compete against the best
because it was Division I.
- Lin goes to traffic.
Wow.
[cheering]
- A pass around. A pass to Lin.
He rises, throws it down!
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- The pre-draft process was so frustrating for me.
My agent was like, "You gotta be prepared.
You're not gonna get drafted."
But in my heart,
the reason why I had so much hope
was because I did those workouts.
I played in front of those people
and I competed against those point guards,
and I knew I killed it.
It always just felt like they had their mind made
without watching what was going on.
What they would say on paper
was just what you would probably say about any Asian.
And surprise, surprise,
I didn't get drafted.
The amazing thing about the owner of the Warriors,
Joe Lacob, was, he just bought the team.
And he grew up watching me play
because I always played against his son.
He made a gutsy decision
and was just like, "We're signing this guy."
And he signed me even when the general manager
and the head coach didn't even want me on that team.
But my stint with the Warriors,
man, as quick as it started,
that's how fast it ended.
I got sent to the D-League three times,
and then I got cut.
I get picked up by the Rockets.
I go there, I'm the sixth-string point guard.
Can't even get reps in during practice.
Cut again.
Then I'm taking a nap at home while I'm on the waiver wire,
and my agent calls, and he's like,
"The New York Knicks picked you up."
And I'm like, "What?"
- Yeah, it's funny how I met Jeremy.
I'm walking out of my hotel room,
and I see this little Asian kid walking, like, by me.
- Tyson's coming down the hallway,
and I'm like, "Yo, Tyson!"
- I honestly thought he was about to ask for a picture.
- "It's Jeremy." He's like... "Cool."
- "Okay, how you doing, Jeremy?"
I was like, "It's nice to meet you, my man."
- He was so shocked and scared.
It was like, "Who let this guy into our floor?
"Like, why do we have fans on our floor?
This is, like, a security breach."
- Come back the next day for shootaround,
and I see him get on a bus.
I'm like, "Yo, what's up, Jeremy?"
- So I just showed up the next morning, put a jersey on.
I don't even know if the team knew who I was,
but, hey, look, I'm a New York Knick now.
[engine roaring]
♪ ♪
You know, I'm in New York City
on a non-guarantee rookie salary.
I asked my brother and sister-in-law.
I was like, "Hey, can I just crash
on your couch for six weeks?"
- It was like sleeping on your homey couch
and you don't know if you gonna have a job tomorrow.
And you still gotta smile,
still gotta act like you on the team,
still gotta promote the team,
still gotta come to the meetings,
you know what I'm saying?
You still gotta get a ride to practice
and you gotta be there early.
- I would be walking into the arena,
and I'd be walking in pretty early
because I was gonna get some extra work in,
and Security would be like, "Ay, show me your badge."
And I'm like, "I don't have a badge."
He's like, "You're not allowed to--
then you're not allowed to enter from this entrance."
And I'm like, "No, no, no. Like, I'm a player."
They're like, "What? Show me your badge."
I'm like, "I don't have a badge.
Players don't have badges."
- I'm like, "Dawg, you ever played basketball
"against somebody that's sleeping on the couch
and don't know when they gonna see they family?"
Like, playing against a desperate man
is totally different.
- I remember after practice one day,
one of the assistant coaches came up to me,
and he was like, "Hey, Jeremy. Can I talk to you?
You know why you never play?"
And I'm like, "Why?"
And he's like,
"Because you play basketball like--
"like a Japanese cartoon character.
Like, you play like you're in a video game."
And I'm like, "What does that even mean?"
It doesn't feel like I belong.
And it doesn't feel like I have a home,
and it doesn't feel like people believe in me.
But that was what was really hard about that time.
I mean, there's nothing more symbolic
than sleeping on a couch for six weeks.
- We had a ton of injuries.
I'm talking to coach, and he's like,
"I mean, I don't know what to do at this point."
"We're down players. We're down--
I mean, I'm thinking about throwing him out there."
"Jeremy?" He's like, "Yeah."
I'm thinking, "He has lost his damn mind."
I loved Jeremy. I loved him as a person,
but we out here trying to win.
And I had never seen Jeremy play before at this point.
- My brother, you know, he's like, "Ay, man,
"my friends are coming in town.
Um, and they need the couch."
And they're like, "Can you find a place
to stay for a night or two?"
The only person I was comfortable asking
to crash a night with was Landry.
And Landry was like, "Yeah, of course you can crash."
He's like, "Come on over, but I gotta warn you,
the couch is small." I was like, "It's cool.
"I've been on small couches.
I'll figure it out."
And I'm walking into his apartment,
and I'm 6'3" and this couch is, like, four feet long.
And so I'm like, "How am I gonna fit on this thing?"
And I got my head hanging off one end.
I'm already in the fetal position, curled up.
I got my legs hanging off the other end and I'm like,
"This is gonna be the worst night's sleep ever."
And I woke up the next morning,
and he's like, "Man, hope you slept all right."
I was like, "It's all good. Don't worry about it."
Like, at least I had a place to stay.
And that was what it was leading up
to that New Jersey Nets game.
[cheers and applause]
- The New York Knicks get set
to take on the New Jersey Nets.
- And I'm on the phone with my agent, Roger Montgomery,
and Roger's telling me, he's like,
"If you don't play well,
this is your last game in the NBA."
He said, "Promise me this one thing:
"No matter what you do tonight,
you gotta play Jeremy Lin basketball."
- "Rog," I said, "You're right.
"Like, I gotta do it.
"No matter what happens tonight,
"if I touch that floor,
"it's gotta be Jeremy Lin basketball all the way through.
"And the result is the result.
Like, whatever happens, happens."
- And then they finally turned.
"J-Lin, get in there."
[tense music]
- And then it starts.
[rhythmic percussive music]
♪ ♪
When they subbed J-Lin in,
he was looking people dead in they eye.
You talking 'bout somebody that's coming from
"I don't know if I'll be on the team tomorrow.
But, for tonight, fuck you."
- My hopes was that he could just score.
But then I saw that he started to be able to have
a feel for the game
and he started to make some plays.
- Jeremy Lin drives and finishes!
- Jeremy Lin! - Nice play from Lin.
- Jeremy Lin goes off.
He goes off.
- This kid came out of nowhere
and started ballin' like for real.
- That Nets game, that first game of Linsanity.
When he lobs it up to Tyson Chandler,
he throws it down and then knocks that ball...
[laughing] With his head.
- I was like, "Oh, this is something
that we can work with."
- Splits the defense again.
Gets to the rim, pops it in!
- I made an and-one,
and when I just wound up and I screamed
and I let out that emotion, like,
it felt like I was letting out that year and a half
of, like, doubt.
Next thing you know, we win the game.
And I look up, and I'm like, "I have 25 points.
How the hell did that happen?"
- Lin! [cheers and applause]
- I didn't even catch it live.
I was watching SportsCenter.
And it was this, like, "Oh, cool.
What a lucky break."
- And I remember getting to the shower,
and I didn't know if, like, it was water from the shower
or tears from my eyes.
And I was like, "They can't cut me now.
They can't cut me now. They can't cut me now."
- Then the second game.
Oh, he scores even more.
Oh, this is funny.
- You start in New Jersey.
You to go Utah, right?
You go to Washington.
- The big dick energy that he had was just like,
"Oh, this is incredible."
Isolations, ball hogging,
going into the lane, penetrating,
finishing with both hands,
dunking.
- I didn't know he could dunk.
- He crosses up John Wall
and he sledgehammers it in.
- I remember a teammate said, "Yo, I can't believe
"J-Lin just went in and dunked it.
Chan, you kind of got up."
- You don't think no Asian kid that's this size
is going to be dunking.
It's stereotypical,
but it's what we're all thinking.
- After the John Wall game happened, I made a video.
He frickin' crossed and smashed on John Wall today.
Step your game up. You cannot get dunked on
by a guy who took Calculus BC.
- The same way the world was caught by surprise,
us on the same team as him was caught by surprise.
- Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks point guard
that's caught the NBA world by storm.
- Jeremy Lin is fantastic.
- Lin, we gonna win.
1-7, we going to heaven. That's it.
- Lin's #17 jersey sold out within 48 hours
of going on sale at Madison Square Garden.
- Husband, mom, sister, dad,
and then he's working on the kids' ones
for my nephews. [laughs]
- I was getting random people calling me,
asking me for a Jeremy Lin autograph.
I'm playing with Melo.
I'm playing with Amar'e.
I don't feel like I'm no just joke myself.
And like, y'all calling for Jeremy?
- It's a lot right now,
but I think I'm getting used to it a little more.
- And suddenly, it's Madison Square Garden.
It's his first real home game.
And of course, he's playing the Lakers.
- Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers
are coming to town. You know,
they just won two championships.
- We saw Jeremy ball against the Jazz.
We saw him ball against the Nets.
But the Lakers?
I didn't know if it was gonna be the same kind of game.
- A sell-out crowd at Madison Square Garden
and many to see the "Cinderella" story
of Jeremy Lin.
- The pregame was like being at a big fight in Vegas.
- That ticket is hot!
That is the hottest ticket
since the Knicks were in the Conference Finals
in the year 2000.
- It was the crackling energy of something might happen.
But you don't think that Jeremy Lin's
gonna be the guy to knock out Kobe and the Lakers.
- This is peak Lakers.
They still had Metta.
They still had Pau.
They still had Kobe.
- The Lakers came in with the idea
that "Nah, like, not on our watch.
We gonna end this fairy tale, and we gonna end it tonight."
- Kobe in an interview gave Lin some gas and said some shit.
- Are you surprised at the production
that Lin's had over the past week?
- I don't even know what he's done.
Like, I don't--I have no idea
what you guys are talking about.
- Would you consider guarding him
if he's having one of those games?
- Jesus Christ. - [laughs]
- I'm on the way to the game,
and I see what Kobe said about me,
and I'm like, "Tonight,
I'm just gonna be hella aggressive."
Like, no matter what happens, 50/50, like,
if I have any space, like, and I don't know what to do,
I'm shooting it.
- Though you're J-Lin and we're rooting for you...
[laughs] That's Kobe Bryant.
- It's MJ, Kobe, and Bron.
Anytime you have a opportunity to play against these guys,
it's a chance to measure yourself.
- He the closest thing to Jordan.
Like, if you hate him, it's because he actually
hits the shots Jordan hits and did the hand,
and it pissed you off 'cause you couldn't do it.
Tonight, we get to look the Mamba in the eye.
- Jeremy Lin, what do you make of the splash
that he's made with the Knicks? - I mean, it's great.
It is the worst job of talent evaluation
that I've ever seen in my life if this kid is this good.
When you get that opportunity, you have to kick the door in.
Now he's not only kicked it in.
He blew it up.
- But this, without question,
the toughest test for Jeremy Lin.
- Jeremy, in that boxing analogy,
comes out of his corner, and he's swinging.
- Lin shot.
[cheers and applause]
- Jeremy has nine, ten points in the first three minutes,
and the Garden is going apeshit!
- I let my first few fly on me.
I have, like, four or five field goal attempts
within the first, like, couple minutes.
And I get hot.
Okay, here we go.
It's gonna be a long night for them.
- Lin drives in and lays it in!
- I just remember how fast he was moving.
He's going to the rim,
and he's attacking the rim hard.
- This guy was driving.
He was going past Kobe.
- Jeremy just stepped up to every moment,
and he didn't back down.
He hitting and-ones. He's screaming.
He pumpin' his fists at the crowd.
Like, he's living in the moment.
- Never relenting, taking fallaway jumpers.
Confident stuff that a kid who had never played
on this kind of a stage should have.
- This kid was like a video game 'cause he's not supposed
to be doing these things that he's doing.
- You know the video game where you, like--
a player's, like, tired, and then you put somebody else
in that's not tired, and you like,
"Oh, man, you don't even run that fast.
Like, what?"
Like, I just remember seeing J-Lin do that,
and I'm like, "I ain't never been part
of no video game experience."
- He did that crazy, like, spin move against Derek Fisher
and hit that perfect layup.
- D. Fisher's a tough guard too.
- Lin likes the open floor.
Spinning, puts it up, and backs it in!
- And I'm like, "That's something new."
- On the one hand, I'm like, "Dude, I'm a frickin' problem.
Derek Fisher cannot guard me."
But on the other hand, I'm like,
"Yo, what just happened?"
It felt like an out-of-body experience.
I never did that move before that.
[buzzer blares]
- And that will end the first half.
Jeremy Lin was superb.
- Man! - I like his game.
- And he got that Garden buzzin' right now
with that 360 move.
Whoo. - And right after that...
- So at a halftime, you figure, like,
okay, regression to the mean comes.
Because it's the Lakers. It's Kobe, right?
These are guys who have survived runs before.
They've won championships.
- I think our whole team knew
in the second half it was gonna be Kobe time.
- Bryant spinning. Difficult shot...
[laughs] For some. - Yeah.
- Kobe just started to get hot
and hit a lot of tough midrange jumpers in that third quarter.
And we could see our lead dwindle,
and dwindle, and dwindle.
- But what's crazy about what happens in the second half,
Jeremy Lin just keeps attacking.
- I'm watching guys get physical with him
and I'm waiting for him to back down
or his moment to be over.
- But Jeremy just kept making shots.
- Jeremy was cooking, okay?
He was cooking motherfuckers.
- He caught the ball about 28 feet out,
and he drilled it on Pau Gasol.
It was unbelievable.
- Y'all wanna see a little Manu step?
Y'all want the reverse finish?
Y'all want the inside finish?
Y'all want the hook finish?
He was giving y'all floaters.
Man.
- It was just surreal.
Is this the other plot of "Space Jam"?
Like, whose superpowers did Jeremy Lin steal
to become the best basketball player in the world?
- My husband and I were in my living room behind me
standing up the entire time.
And the guy just couldn't miss.
- We were like, "Oh!" Like, I wanted to run around.
I might have taken a few laps.
I started tearing up.
- And this is the part
that still gives me goose bumps.
He knew what stage he was on.
He knew that the cameras were all there.
He knew that he had this chance
to say something that would change this
from "Wow, cool little fluke"
to "This is going to be a legend
that parents tell their kids one day."
- All the hype's around you
'cause you're "Jeremy Lin" right now,
and everybody's like, "I'ma be the one to stop him."
And he gave all y'all what y'all wanted to see.
- There was a shot that I hit that I knew was a dagger.
Tyson hits the ball back and then Shump ends up with it
and he swings it to me in a corner.
And I got all the space in the world.
And as I shoot it, I'm like, "Oh, that feels amazing."
And it goes swish, right through the net.
It felt like we were hovering 'cause that's how loud
and energetic it was, and it was this magical moment.
I've never experienced something like that
before or after.
- Linsanity continues here at Madison Square Garden...
[buzzer blares] As the undrafted point guard
from Harvard electrifies MSG once again.
- Yo, this dude scored 38 points!
- He made 38 points!
[laughing] How is he doing that?
- 38 points at Madison Square Garden.
Are you fucking kidding me?
- One of the more incredible stories we've seen
in the NBA in quite some time.
- It just happened against Kobe,
like, against Kobe Bryant.
And it was like this awe and, like, magical moment
of like, "Man, like, you really did that
"against, like, one of the greatest
to ever play the game."
- For him to outscore Kobe-- rest in peace, Kobe--
but for him to outscore Kobe,
the leading scorer in the league in the Garden,
like, that was crazy.
- I didn't believe it till it was over
because I'm supposed to be an impartial journalist.
But I get the box score, and I say to myself,
"I'm going to keep this box score."
Yeah, that's when I officially was secure
that this had happened.
- And the fact that MSG, but so much of this country,
was having that moment for an Asian American player,
I just kept having to, like, look away and look again.
Like, is this really happening?
And it wasn't just Asian people who were talking about it.
Everybody was talking about it!
- There was a strain of weed out in LA called "Linsanity OG"
that Rick Ross Instagrammed himself picking up.
The Knicks did not have the shirts to sell people.
Barack Obama was praising Jeremy Lin
to his staff on Marine One.
- I've been on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon--
- Are you taking credit for Linsanity?
It kind of feels like you are a little bit.
- I can't take credit for it.
I'm just saying I was there early.
- When Jeremy's going through this whole Linsanity moment,
he never changed from that kid who was sleeping on the couch.
- He's like the calmest, best energy to be around.
He doesn't have a bad bone in his body.
He's gonna encourage us all to pray
and go to church with him.
- The Lakers game, that was wild.
But I'm trying to do everything I can
to tune it out.
But when we got to Toronto,
that's when I knew.
[cheers and applause]
- What Jeremy Lin did at the end of that Raptors game--
he has the ball, and he has the opportunity
to pass the ball.
- Jeremy waves them off.
- And I remember I had to wave 'em off, like, multiple times
because they were like, "What,
you're not running a pick and roll?"
And I'm like, "No, like, get out the way."
- He takes the last shot.
- This is mine.
- This opportunity might never come along again,
and so I'm just gonna say, "Fuck it" and go.
- We could feel it. He's not gonna miss this shot.
- Five, four...
- [inhales sharply]
- Lin puts it up!
[cheers and applause]
- And the crowd went crazy in Toronto, on the road!
- He hit the game winner in Toronto,
and the Toronto fans erupted for him.
- We all know how rare it was,
and we all know what it took for him to get there,
and that superseded the color of your city's jersey.
Like, who cares about the color of your clothing at this point?
Right? We're talking about the color of his skin.
- All my friends kept saying is like...
Do you know what that means?
"Can you believe we have dignity?"
"Did you see the way he did that?"
No, no, no, it's my game too.
I deserve to be here too.
It's not a mean thing.
It's not a "I hate my teammates thing."
It's "What if I had the same audacity
and confidence you had?"
- This is who I am.
This is what I prepared for.
And this is what I'm capable of.
All you guys need to do is watch and see.
- I remember after he hit that shot,
I thought to myself,
"How many moments in my own life
"did I pass up the ball or hold myself small?
"How many times did I turn in that assignment
"or not audition for that thing
"or not put my name as number one on the sheet?
How many times did I not wave someone off?"
That's what that moment meant to me.
- That's not a thing that Asian people get, man.
That's not how we're cast.
- Now, I think the spectrum of masculinity is important.
I think Asian men don't have to prove themselves
in that way, but it's nice when you can see
and point to a reference like Jeremy Lin
as, like, an example of being able to be athletic,
right, and dominating a sport like the NBA.
- Even when I'm on stage
and I look into the eyes of my audience,
I see so many broken dreams.
They're like, "Wait a second.
"I don't have to work at Deloitte?
Like, I can be a stand-up comedian?"
It's just--it's this moment.
It broke the Matrix for us.
- I knew a little bit back then
why that shot was just bigger than that shot in that game,
but now I understand it even more so.
It was a heroic moment.
Like, it was a moment that so many people
had not experienced, but wanted to experience.
Hollywood, the world, like,
we didn't have these heroic moments,
and it was always boxed into the Asian stereotype.
But for it to happen that way, on that platform, in that game,
against people who didn't look like me,
in a game where people like me don't really exist--
that's why, to this day, this moment lives in the minds
and the hearts of so many people,
because it was so much bigger than basketball.
- If you had described Linsanity before it happened
to someone, I think everyone would be like,
"That's--that's not possible."
- It's the most impossible thing
I think I have ever witnessed in my life.
- It's so weird to revisit this moment ten years later
because...
it's like the worst time to be an Asian American.
And so it's really hard...
to only appreciate what happened ten years ago
when you're reminded of where we're at right now.
That's what's really hard.
[somber musical sting]
- The weekend of March 15th,
the first weekend of everyone locking things down in 2020,
when the pandemic just started,
a white guy in a pickup truck slowed down
when it was a green light for him
and stopped right in front of me just to flip me off.
And then I felt my face get hot
and my stomach getting queasy because--
that was when I realized, like, "Oh, shit.
Yeah, I've felt this before."
The feeling like I'm about to get the hate
and the anger directed at me
for no reason other than just walking around being Asian.
It gave me a sense of what was to come.
- Hate crimes targeting Asian Americans has skyrocketed.
- Suni Lee said she was recently pepper sprayed.
- The suspect lit a 79-year-old man on fire
at the Chinatown Cultural Plaza.
- Police say that Christina Yuna Lee
was stabbed more than 40 times in the neck and torso.
- An Asian man who was the victim of a hate crime
just died of his injuries.
- Asian man viciously kicked to the ground.
- Communities on edge.
- Anybody see my--my--my skin.
- She said she doesn't want people to see her skin color.
- For every Asian American person
or anybody who comes from any minority group,
you're immediately told
even though your citizenship status
makes you a home jersey,
the moment you start putting yourself out in society,
they tell you, "No, no, no, no, no.
"You're an away jersey.
Where are you from?"
"Oh, I'm from Sacramento."
"No, no, no, no, where are you from from?"
- This face is always read as being alien,
a betrayer, a spy, weird.
- In times of global catastrophe,
a scapegoat can be pretty helpful.
- Sometimes I'll be walking my daughter to school,
and I'll see different kids.
Young white kids, white parents,
they'll walk into school without a mask.
Every single Asian kid is double masked
like they're in a goddamn hazmat suit
because the room for error-- it's this thin.
God forbid... - [sneezes]
- Your Asian son or daughter coughs or sneezes,
and then all the kids are like,
"Yo, you got that Wuhan?
You got that "Kung flu?"
- And so anti-Asian violence coalesced
around all of those things
and, I think, around a fundamental
underlying issue with how people see Asians,
which is that...
you could take 'em.
They're not to be feared.
You wanna pick on somebody that you could
probably go stuff into a locker?
Pick on the Asian kid. - [laughs]
- If all we see are stories
of Asian people being submissive
and weak and being dominated on TV and movies and in sports,
then of course that translates into real world behavior.
- Six of the eight people he's now accused of killing
are Asian women.
- There are a lot of intense discussions here
about potential hate crimes.
- The shooting in Atlanta, Georgia,
because Asian women have been stereotyped
as being, you know, these dragon ladies
or overly sexualized and exoticized,
that incident was just so horrifying,
but also galvanizing.
And the last few years,
I think, have been a wake-up call
to so many of us in the Asian community
that we have to speak up.
- Ten years later,
I'm excited to talk about Jeremy Lin right now
because, I think, beyond basketball,
it's important for us to understand
that to be outstanding as an Asian American,
to represent who were are
beyond just stereotypes, is that much more important.
Because it's that kind of lack of familiarity
with us as humans that causes people
to be willing to fucking attack us.
- When I think back on those moments of Linsanity,
everyone was talking about
this unknown Asian American player.
I long to feel those moments
of just, like, pure joy and unity.
It was really validating.
It was too short-lived,
but it did really open a door.
- The reason why Jeremy matters
and why we're talking about it is,
it represents possibility
and an expansive worldview at the highest possible level.
If this is possible, what else is possible?
[cheers and applause]
- The biggest thing Linsanity brought was hope.
It inspired people,
and it showed that when you chase your dreams,
good things can happen.
And I think as we go into the reality
of where we are today as a society,
we need to hold on to hope.
We need to believe that things can be better
and we need to fight for those things.
- Maybe the most unifying aspect
of the Asian American experience
is this desire to be included.
It's to be seen as American,
to be counted as one...
of you.
And what Jeremy Lin's story is
is the most visceral example of...
getting to be a part of a world
that had never really had space for you before.
- Out of that crisis, or I should say this crisis,
because we're still in it,
something really extraordinary happened,
which is that the Asian American community
is unwilling to stand on the sidelines anymore.
Like, we're all a bunch of Jeremy Lins out there,
just going for it and exercising our voices
and being unwilling to just remain on the bench.
- Jeremy Lin showed that he belonged,
and he gave an entire generation the hope
that they can belong.
- I really want the next generation to grow up
to not be ashamed of being Asian,
to be proud of your culture, your upbringing,
your parents, your appearance, your talents, your personality.
I want them to be proud to be themselves
and to have a equal and an fair chance
to be their fullest self,
to not have to deal with everything
that the previous generations had to deal with.
- I love the fact
that we get an Asian American Marvel hero now.
That's awesome. I love that.
You could also just queue up YouTube
and watch what Jeremy Lin did to the Lakers in 2012.
- We're talking about it like it's a myth or something.
We have tape, man! It happened.
You don't need to tell them anything.
Just show 'em the tape.
Play the tape.
- Lin gets inside! Oh!
Lin puts up the two-pointer, puts it in!
[cheers and applause]
Drives and finishes!
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause] - Yeah! Yeah!
♪ ♪
- Lin for three!
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]