Sameer Pandya is a literature and creative writing teacher at UC Santa Barbara currently working on a book about Asian-Americans and sports.
The recent Jeremy Lin media phenomenon is right up his alley.
ESPN has published his breakdown of the media tidal wave that is the Jeremy Lin craze.
Follow this link to read the full report on ESPN.com. Here’s a brief excerpt below.
THE JEREMY LIN DISCUSSION
In the past two weeks, it seems everyone has been talking nonstop about Jeremy Lin — from the media, to die-hard and casual fans, to Asian-Americans who have never watched basketball. It was only a matter of time before President Obama would be asked to comment on the New York Knicks wunderkind.
What is going on, and what explains his surge in popularity? What are we actually talking about when we talk about Lin?
The answers to these questions, as answers tend to be, are both simple and complex. Here are eight things that help to explain Lin’s popularity, and what that popularity says about that grand old issue of race:
The underdog
Who besides Donald Trump, obsessed with his own topdogness, doesn’t like a good underdog story? Lin convincingly fills the role.
Continue to read Pandya’s full commentary on ESPN.com by clicking here.
