High Tech, Low Life, directed by Stephen Maing, is a documentary trailing two of the first citizen journalists and bloggers in China.

An Asian American basketball phenom playing point guard for Harvard breaks racial boundaries and scoring records. Sound familiar?

A discussion of the digital fashion media complex, fashion shows in Japanese American internment camps and the aesthetic value of UGG boots with Minh-Ha T. Pham, founder of the blog Of Another Fashion, an online archive highlighting the oft-ignored fashion histories of American women of color. 

Hyphen is proud to announce that editor Momo Chang was recently awarded a 2011 Excellence in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter.

I’m so proud to announce that Hyphen’s Food and Agriculture Editor Nina Kahori Fallenbaum has been selected to be a Food and Community Fellow for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Fog
Directed by Kit Hui

"Memory can be very fragile," says a doctor in Kit Hui's slow, moody film Fog. "Sometimes it’s out of our control."

Hyphen's editors took a break from masterminding Issue 19 (due out in December) to celebrate the landing of Issue 18: The Action Issue in mailboxes and

1) Sam Chanse (Kearny Street Workshop's mistress of the arts)
2) Ali Wong (diminuitive, bespectacled Hyphen hoochie cover girl)
3) One of those Asian Am scene photographers
4) A member of a local indie Asian American band
5) Someone from Hyphen (possibly stoned)

Who did I leave off? Post in comments.

So what did we all think of the premiere episode of Project Runway?

Who says Asian women can't drive?
Not guitarist/facial hair devotee Dave Navarro, who wrote about Verena Mei, the first Asian American woman and first import model to earn a NHRA Pro Drag Racing License, on his blog (linked from Gawker). Seems like his Internet radio show is one of her sponsors. Check out her site here.
Eat that, Devon Aoki. Too fast too furious indeed.

I've noticed over the past seven months that The New York Times' stories on Koreans (whether in the U.S. or Korea) tend to fall into these three categories: drinking, Internet phenomenons, and fried chicken/frozen yogurt.

Just a thought before the weekend: if I tell you that I — an Asian American woman who lives in San Francisco — have a boyfriend, what ethnicity would you assume he was?

A friend says that if he met an Asian American woman in the Bay Area, and she mentioned she had a boyfriend, he would assume her boyfriend was white. Do you agree? What does this say about dating in our community? Does it make a difference if the woman lives in another place, say Chicago or New York? What assumptions do you make about girlfriends of Asian American men? And what about gay Asian Americans?

When I was younger, I was a hardcore reader. I read in every place that it was socially acceptable to do so — and even a few where it was not (church) or was technically challenging (the bath). I even had one of those little pocket lights that attached to the tops of books so I could read at night riding in my parents' car on the drive home.
I wanted to read more about Asian American kids like myself, but at that time Asian American young adult fiction basically meant Lawrence Yep , who was a big favorite of mine. Hungry for anything else that might reflect my community, I also read the entirely age-inappropriate Amy Tan, as well as books set in Communist China (Anchee Min) and modern Japan (Banana Yoshimoto - highly recommended!).
But I really wanted to read a Babysitter's Club that was about Asian Americans; a Sweet Valley High about Asian Americans; and a Sleepover Club about Asian Americans. I wanted to read books about teens who happened to be Asian Americans, like me, but where their ethnicity didn't define them or preoccupy them 24/7, like me. In my dream teen book series, they were just normal teens, who sometimes ate Chinese food but sometimes ate meatloaf for dinner. Their parents spoke English and didn't put pressure on them to study hard, get into Harvard, and marry Asian. They had crushes on other Asian Americans, not white classmates. Their friends were all Asian American.
I realize only now how unrealistic this is - or is it?
I ask you, readers: do you know any books today that portray Asian American youth in realistic, nonstereotypical, non-cliche ways?
Has my dream series finally become a reality?
Should I get out my reading light again?

The New York Academy of Medicine released a report in May on the needs of APIs living with HIV/AIDS in the New York City area.

Some key findings show no real surprises (many barriers to care like cost and language, evidence that APIs delay testing, and overall low knowledge of HIV prevention and treatment), but something to note:

• Extreme Isolation and Mental Distress Because of HIV Stigma. Reluctance to disclose one’s HIV status because of HIV stigma was a major theme in the qualitative interviews. Many participants experienced extreme social isolation because of their fears about disclosing their HIV status and the sometimes negative responses they received when they did disclose. Social isolation appears to have had significant negative mental health consequences. 71% had low or very low mental health scores, compared to 50% for the cohort. (emphasis mine)

Yet even given these high levels of isolation and mental distress, relatively few had utilized mental health services; providers said the barriers were both clients’ reluctance to seek mental health services and the lack of appropriate services. Once again, we see mental health as a major unaddressed issue in our community.

There are many APAs around the country trying to bring more attention to the issue of AIDS in our community and prompting folks to get tested (Boston City Councilor Sam Yoon got an oral test in front of the press in May). But at the same time, HIV clinics and researchers are seeing their funding slashed as the result of an administration that prefers to promote abstinence instead of sex ed to combat AIDS. Here in San Francisco, a Japanese American researcher at UCSF who worked with Asian and transgender communities was recently fired (he claims racial prejudice and lack of concern for transgendered communities).

I wrote about undocumented Asian immigrants living with HIV/AIDS in New York City in HYPHEN’s Fall 2006 issue (The Music Issue), and it never fails to amaze me how invisible this issue is to our community. Maybe people think it’s a nonissue; it has fallen off our radar since the ’80s and ’90s when it was on all the celebrities’ lips and lapels. Or, more disturbingly, maybe people think that Asian Americans simply don’t get AIDS. I once read a submission from a writer who didn’t use condoms because he assumed the Asian women he slept with were “clean” (his words).

So what to do? Volunteer with or donate to APA AIDS/HIV research and service groups, don’t assume HIV is just a gay or White issue, get tested regularly and for God’s sake, use a rubber.