Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department. Harry currently works as an editor and writer in the communications department of the University of California Office of the President. He’s spent most of his career as an editor and writer for media outlets such as the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Newsday and the Associated Press.
Harry Mok
Asian Spotting: Swimmer Natalie Coughlin Is Part Filipino
Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin, who's added a bronze, silver and gold medal to her collection so far in Beijing, is a quarter Filipino, something that with all the media coverage of her, probably isn't that well known.
iaTV Pulled from San Francisco Cable Lineup
Comcast yanked Asian American television network iaTV from its San Francisco channel offerings last month, and apparently nobody noticed. The cable company cited low viewership as the reason.
Hyphen Road Trip Issue Hitting the Streets
Chinese American Reaction to Olympics
The news media likes to do "reaction" stories, especially if there's a tie to a particular race or ethnicity. With the Olympics starting on Friday in Beijing, a natural story is finding out how Chinese Americans feel about the games being hosted in the "homeland."
Across Asian Middle America
Reflections on life where there are no Chinatowns, where sushi is made with 'whaat rahs' and where Asian Americans can be black or white.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
I WAS RAISED AS AN AMERICAN ABROAD, and my conceptions of the United States were a weird combination of The Brady Bunch, CHiPs and John Wayne. When I was in fourth grade, my family moved to Montgomery, AL, and I soon learned the error of my views.
My new school was 90 percent African American. Until then, I had only a handful of black friends. From seventh to 10th grade, I could count the number of other Asian Americans at my school on one hand.
Top Three: Preeta Samarasan
We asked writer Preeta Samarasan, winner of the 2006 Hyphen-Asian American Writers' Workshop Short Story Contest and author of Evening Is the Whole Day (Houghton Mifflin): What are the best books for travelers?
WaterLand
By Graham Swift
(Random House)
Asian Spotting: Filipinos Geno Espineli, Tim Lincecum Play for Giants
San Francisco Giants pitcher Geno Espineli is reportedly the first full-blooded Filipino to play Major League Baseball and I read today (see very end of story) that teammate Tim Lincecum's mother is Filipina.
Obama, Potentially the First Asian American President?
Jeff Yang ponders whether Barack Obama could become the first Asian American president, even though he's black, just like Bill Clinton was once called the first black president, even though he's white.
Chicago Experience Raises Questions About Stereotypes
My trip to Chicago last week for the Unity Journalists of Color convention drew some parallels the "Across Asian Middle America" feature in the Road Trip Issue of Hyphen, which hits the streets in August.
Chicago is a great city and has a sizable Asian American presence, but it's nowhere near Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco, where I live. Maybe a generation ago, an Asian American writer from Chicago could have written a piece for "Across Asian Middle America," a series of vignettes about living in places that are far away--geographically and spiritually--from areas where there are large populations of Asian Americans.
Hyphen's Momo Chang Wins Center for Media Justice Award
Hyphen's own Momo Chang, editor of the Lazy Susan section, is getting the Ida B. Wells Journalist for Justice Award for work covering the Asian American community for the Oakland Tribune.
Interracial dating and Asian Americans always a hot subject
Jeff Yang's Asian Pop column and a post by The Black Snob at The Dregublog last week broach a familiar topic for Asian Americans: dating and sex.
Hyphen Wins Flame of Justice Award
Not only is Chinese for Affirmative Action giving us office space, the longtime civil rights group honored Hyphen with one of its Flame of Justice awards for 2008 at its annual dinner last week in San Francisco. Hyphen Publisher Lisa Lee and I (above) accepted the award along with our board chair, Grace Kao, and Creative Director Stefanie Liang.
Who Will Be the First Asian American Presidential Candidate?
Bobby Jindal? Gary Locke? Hyphen lays down the odds on the Asian American politicians with a viable chance of snagging a presidential nomination. Check it out in a preview from The Spaces Issue.
John Cho, Eric Byler Featured in Spaces Issue of Hyphen
Happy Birthday Yuri Kochiyama
Activist Yuri Kochiyama is 87 today. Read a nice profile of her in the Oakland Tribune from Hyphen's own Momo Chang.
Holy cow, offensive Fukudome shirts still for sale
Race to Space
Star Trek adds another Asian American, but its reputation for diversity may be suspect.
SPACE ... the final frontier. These are the voyages for Asian Americans, who've boldly gone where they never have before-on five Star Trek TV shows and 10 movies. Star Trek is a pop culture phenomenon spanning more than 40 years and is considered groundbreaking for diverse casts that have always included Asian characters.
Top Three: Aric Chen
We asked architecture/design writer Aric Chen-a contributing editor for Surface, I.D. and Interior Design magazines and the author of Campbell Kids: A Souper Century, which chronicles the changes in America through the ever-morphing Campbell soup kids: What are the best design books out there by or about Asians?
Maeda @ Media
By John Maeda (Universe Publishing)
'Harold & Kumar' Opens Today
"Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay" opens today and it's my most anticipated movie of the year now that the new "Star Trek" has been pushed back to 2009. I know I'm not the only one who's been waiting to see "Harold & Kumar."
Chow Down at AAJA East West Eats
Some of the Bay Area's top chefs will be cooking up culinary delights at the Asian American Journalists Association San Francisco Chapter's East West Eats fundraiser on May 8.
Baseball in Japan Not a Hit for Atlanta columnist
Even with all the talk of new media and the Internet, there's still some dinosaur-like thinking out there in the journalism world. A good example is a sports column by Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who laments about Major League Baseball playing games in Tokyo, "you know the guys who gave us Pearl Harbor."
RIP Dith Pran, an Inspiration to All
Dith Pran's life was so extraordinary it could be have been a movie, and it was. Dith, who died Sunday at age 65, inspired "The Killing Fields," which chronicled the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, during which an estimated 2 million died.
No Little Saigon in San Jose
A big controversy in San Jose over the naming of predominately Vietnamese American shopping area came to a head early this morning when the city council took back its decision to call it the "Saigon Business District."
War with Asians column explained, questioned
Update: The editors of The Campus Press at Colorado University published a story detailing the process behind publishing a column by Max Karson that called for a war on Asians.
Colorado University Columnist Wants War Against Asians
Just a quick note to say this column in The Campus Press at Colorado University is whacked.
Hyphen wants you!
Hyphen is looking for credible, smart, bookish, overachieving, dusty-fingered, detailed-oriented and opinionated editors, writers and tech people. Our staff members and freelancers are news junkies who are interested in social justice issues, politics and pop culture. There is no money involved, just the experience of working alongside the finest Asian American minds that community college ever produced.
Wakamatsu could become baseball's first Asian American manager
New Oakland A's coach Don Wakamatsu is highly regarded and may become the first Asian American manager in Major League Baseball.
Asian Americans help Clinton, McCain win
Asian American voters in California overwhelmingly threw their support to Hillary Clinton and John McCain in Tuesday's primary, according to exit polls.
AZN Television being shut down
Just a quick hit with news that Comcast is shutting down AZN Television, a cable network that targeted Asian Americans.
Lucy Liu's Mia dating an Asian American Man
Angry Asian Man points out that Mia, Lucy Liu's character on Cashmere Mafia, is involved romantically with an Asian American man and are even shown kissing on the show!
Asian Americans at Harvard act white
According to a senior thesis by Jenny Tsai, some Asian American students at Harvard " 'act white because 'acting Asian' is equated with acting foreign or like a nerd."
What a year: Virginia Tech killings, Yul Kwon highlight 2007
Happy New Year. The start of 2008 is a good time to look back at some of the most noteworthy events involving Asian Americans from last year.
Comedy Zen Season 1: No Subtitles Necessary
ImaginAsian
Toisanese turned into performance art
Author William Poy Lee is trying to get some respect for the Toisan Chinese dialect by setting it to music.
Poll: Minorities distrust each other
Asian Americans, Latinos and African Americans have a deep mistrust of each other and engage in significant stereotyping, a poll found, but a majority of those surveyed said they should put aside differences.
Kung Fu movie looking for a star
UC adds categories for APA applicants
The University of California is figuring out that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders don't all look the same.
Shortcomings Stands Tall
Adrian Tomine's graphic novel, Shortcomings is generating a lot of buzz these days.
John Cho to play Sulu
It looks like John Cho of Harold and Kumar fame is going to be the new Sulu for the next Star Trek movie, according to multiple news stories and StarTrek.com.
Still desperate for Asian Americans on TV
There's a petition started that demands an apology for a derogatory remark about the Philippines made in last week's episode of Desperate Housewives.
KQED cancels Pacific Time
Pacific Time, the nationally distributed public radio program about Asian and Asian American affairs, is being taken off the air by San Francisco PBS station KQED.
Note to Joan Rivers: Masi Oka Isn't Chinese
Overheard on the Today show this morning during Joan Rivers' critique of male fashion she liked from Emmy's:
Joan: What's his name, the Chinese guy?
Several Today hosts chime in: Masi Oka
She can't tell Asians apart but she remembered his suit.
Thompson: Be wary of Asian American political donors
Yellow alert from presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who says Hillary Clinton's association to illegal fundraising by Asian Americans in 1996 should have made her cautious about accepting $850,000 from fugitive Norman Hsu.
Oscar winner Miyoshi Umeki dies
Miyoshi Umeki, one of the stars of the all-Asian American cast of Flower Drum Song and Oscar winner for Sayonara, died last week. She was 78.
She was the first Asian to win an Oscar, and she did it back in 1957! What are the chances of an Asian or Asian American winning an acting Oscar today? Umeki really was a pioneer.
The only movie of hers I've seen is Flower Drum Song, and I only saw it this year, so my appreciation for her is new.
Rest in peace
Whoopi Compares Vick Case to Chinese Eating Cats
New The View host Whoopi Goldberg took the plunge into ethnic stereotyping by comparing football star Michael Vick's cultural upbringing with dog fighting to the Chinese and eating cats.
Hyphen Featured in Asian Pop Column
Hyphen is the subject of Jeff Yang's latest Asian Pop column at SFGate.
<em>Harold and Kumar 2</em> Trailer is out
Harold and Kumar 2 is set to be released in 2008. I can't wait!