Mimi Miyagi

• Melody Damayo

Mimi Miyagi was born in Davao City, the Philippines on July 3, 1973, the second of four children to immigrant parents Mike Ariesgado and Luz Damayo, who were both conservative Christians. As a child, Mimi Miyagi was something of a prodigy. She spent her childhood studying piano and dreaming of becoming an Olympic gymnast. At the age of six, she moved to the US with her parents, and grew up in California. She was sent her back to Mindanao for high school by her parents, who enrolled her in a conservative Seventh Day Adventist academy in remote Bukidnon province, hoping she would acquire Filipino values. Mimi made it through high school and enrolled in an Adventist college in the same area, but dropped out after two years. After being a disc jockey on the college radio station, she wanted a career in show business. She returned to LA just before her 18th birthday with a little over $1,000 to her name. Damayo obtained a scholarship to the American College for Fashion Merchandising, Westwood, Los Angeles, but college was cut short in 1992, when she'd run out of money and begun looking for jobs. When she reached the age of consent, and pursued an adult career, starting with Ed Powers. Mimi Miyagi came across an ad looking for nude models and answered it, thus beginning her rise in the adult film industry. She took the name "Mimi" which was her childhood nickname, given her by her grandmother. "Miyagi" was derived from the character Mr. Miyagi from the film The Karate Kid. She cloaked her Philippine nationality in Asian mysticism. Even though she was always the least paid actress on the set, she continued knocking on studio producers doors. Miyagi also underwent surgery several times to increase her natural "B" cup breasts to "DD" size. She then quit, got married, had a child, started publishing magazines and running Web sites all sex oriented.She started publishing her own men's magazine, Oriental Dolls, (now known as Asian Hotties). The rise of the internet led Miyagi to create a website (which she codes and runs on her own) which went "live" in January 2000. When "Mimi" first went online, she performed live nude chat daily and had scheduled events. Now, the business is served by a stable of 12 multi-ethnic women performing chat in rotating shifts, freeing her from filling shifts herself. The run for governor helped propel her web enterprise. Indeed, she says that after an appearance on an MSNBC talk show in the US to discuss her candidacy with conservative host Tucker Carlson, the response was so overwhelming that her Web server crashed for several hours. Now with access to a global public audience, she continued to expand the market for Asian adult films. In 1999, Mimi Miyagi began doing movie production and talent scouting for Metro Home Video and produced the series she entitled FantAsiany, of which there are now three sequels. Nearly bankrupted by her divorce, in September 2003, "Mimi" came out of retirement, and appeared in the adult film Happy Ending. In May 2005, Mimi Miyagi began work in her first bit role in a mainstream comedy, Come Again. In December 2006, "Mimi" returned to adult films with great fanfare after her failed run on the Republican ticket for Governor of the State of Nevada.