Cathlin Goulding is fourth-generation Japanese and Irish American. Her essays and articles appear in I Saw My Ex at a Party (Kearny Street Press), The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Hyphen, Teacher Revised, and We'll Never Have Paris.
A former high school English teacher, she is currently a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, where her research looks at curricular efforts in communities and nations emerging from periods of violence.
In Hyphen’s last issue, Books editor Abigail Licad posed a question: Can Asian American lit get its sexy back? Well, we asked and we received. This past month, we collected submissions for our very first Erotic Writing Contest and we think can unreservedly say that, yes, Asian American literature has its sexy back. In spades.
Artist and writer MariNaomi spills on her sexual past
MariNaomi, the mixed-race Japanese American writer and illustrator of Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22, talked with Hyphen about her no-holds-barred approach to writing and drawing a funny and fraught sexual past. Her forthcoming graphic novel from 2D Cloud, Turning Japanese, traces her evolving understanding of her Japanese heritage, seeking to learn the language for the first time through employment at a Japanese hostess bar.
Asian Fetishism
Thanhha Lai explores symbols emblematic of the American South from her young adult novel.
Thanhha Lai’s 2011 National Book Award-winning young adult novel Inside Out and Back Again is the story of Ha, an adolescent Vietnamese girl who lives in Saigon during the Vietnam War. When the North Vietnamese army captures Saigon in 1975, Ha’s family — three older brothers and an industrious single mother — are forced to flee on a naval boat and sent to live in Montgomery, AL.
A new videogame turns its focus on Japanese internment camps in the racially segregated South.
Since I was very
young, I have seen photographs of Jerome, AR. In one, my grandmother is
standing in front of a black tar paper-covered barrack. She is holding my
infant mother, who is wrapped in a wool blanket, a white cap on her head. There
are icicles hanging off the rooftops. The landscape in these photographs is
stark: miles of farmland and swamps, massive dark foliage and the visible chill
of the Arkansas winters.
The Ms. TangTang Show, a live variety talk show of queer Asian American dancers, musicians, performers, spoken-word artists, and filmmakers, is a co-presentation of 2011 National Queer Arts Festival and the API Cultural Center's 14th Annual United States of Asian America Festival.
Mr. Hyphen 2010 is a savvy scholar of media, sexuality and glam rock.
Mr. Hyphen 2010 is a savvy scholar of media, sexuality and glam rock.
Jen Wang’s debut graphic novel, Koko Be Good (First Second), traces the lives of three San Francisco residents: Koko, a mod-styled cigarette girl scamming for free rent and extra cash; Faron, her teenaged partner in crime; and Jon, a shy musician preparing for a move to Peru with his long-distance girlfriend.
A new documentary on actress Nancy Kwan’s life prompts a revisit to her seminal role as Suzie Wong
It was an accidental audition, one that 20-year-old Nancy Kwan stumbled upon while peering in on Hong Kong actors vying for the much-coveted Hollywood movie role of Suzie Wong. Wearing a wine-colored cheongsam with her hair coiffed into a sleek bun, Kwan smiled broadly at the camera, answering questions about the pronunciation of her name and taking graceful, profile-revealing turns in patent leather heels. Kwan, who had no prior acting experience, was on the verge of making movie history.
This turn of fate opens To Whom It May Concern: Ka Shen’s Journey, a new documentary from director Brian Jamieson. As a long-time fan of Kwan and executive at Warner Bros.’ home entertainment division, Jamieson began researching Kwan’s life when the studio was considering a re-release of four of her films. The documentary, which is currently touring the film festival circuit in the United States and internationally, details Kwan’s life and the role that defined her career.
Earlier this month, Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel was nominated for a National Book Award. A longtime professor of literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Yamashita's latest novel is a multi-narrative epic that explores the lives of student activists, artists, and residents evicted from San Francisco’s International Hotel during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement. The Asian American Writers Workshop has called I Hotel “a future classic of Asian American literature.” Hyphen interviewed Karen Tei Yamashita about the ten years of research she conducted in writing the novel.
Karen Tei Yamashita’s sprawling literary epic is an electrifying documentary of the 1960s Asian American Civil Rights Movement.
American Book Award Winner Karen Tei Yamashita's latest novel, I Hotel, is a documentary-style look at the 1960s Yellow Power Movement.