Momo Chang is the Content Manager at the Center for Asian American Media, and freelances for magazines, online publications, and weeklies. Her writings focus on Asian American communities, communities of color, and youth culture. She is a former staff writer at the Oakland Tribune. Her stories range from uncovering working conditions in nail salons, to stories about “invisible minorities” like Tongan youth and Iu Mien farmers. She has freelances The New York Times, WIRED, and East Bay Express, among other publications. She is a senior contributing editor and writer for Hyphen.
Momo Chang
Edison Chen, HK crossover star?
Perhaps you know him from Infernal Affairs...
MATCHA
Jumpstart your Halloween celebrations early with the spirits of the Asian underworld at October's MATCHA at the Asian Art Museum in SF.
Furious Five
Hyphen gets elemental with hip-hop’s new school.
Photographer Seng Chen
Jonah Deocampo and Jack DeJesus prefer to aim straight for your head. With their lyrics, that is.
“When we speak, we try to get in there,” Deocampo, or MC Bambu, says, gesturing to his head with expressive hands.
Music That Matters
Neela: One of my earliest moments of musical definition came when I went to see Guns N’ Roses play in Dayton, Ohio. I was 13 and Axl Rose’s pasty white skin and shrieking lyrics fueled my pre-teen angst. Seeing them live was going to be the most exciting night of my young life.
World Trade Center
Guest blogger Marianne Villanueva reviews some 9/11 movies...
Events: Binh Danh
Reception for artist Binh Danh's Ancestral Altars at the Haines Gallery, and MATCHA at the Asian Art Museum both in SF this Thursday.
Asian American Writers' Workshop
Fall schedule of events and workshops online now for New York's Asian American Writers' Workshop.
International Museum of Women
Call for submissions for the International Museum of Women in Imagining Ourselves, an online exhibit.
Earth, Nguyen and Fire
Poets Bao Phi and Jimmy Thong Tran perform with comedian Ali Wong.
[API Events: August 7-13]
Opening reception this Thursday of the new exhibit at the Asian Resource Gallery in Oakland Chinatown.
[API Events: July 31-August 6]
Get a sneak peak at this year's APAture this week.
[API events: July 17-23]
Farmers in South Korea are resisting U.S. militarization that threatens to evict them from their ancestral homes.
[API Events: June 26-July 2]
Catch Chris Chan Lee's (dir. Yellow) newest film, Undoing, in Los Angeles this week.
[API Events: June 19-25]
See South Asian hip-hop group Karmacy perform in NYC in association with MTV Desi.
[API Events: June 12-18]
Attend two programs at the 2006 Filipino Film and Arts Festival in NYC for the price of one.
Family Calls for Taiwanese Scientist's Release
By Calvin Liu
On May 24, Taiwan’s National Science Council deputy minister, Shieh Ching-jyh, was bizarrely arrested and detained on suspicion of corruption, collusion and profiteering.
[API Events: June 5-11]
What would organizing the Vietnamese community in Oakland look like?
For My Birthday
I bought myself a membership to the Center for Asian American Media, or simply "The Center" (also formerly known as NAATA).
[API Events: May 29-June 4]
Hapa comedian and performer Brent Weinbach – featured in hot-off-the-press Issue 9 of Hyphen – performs in Los Angeles...
[API Events May 15-21]
This week: Who will take home the title of Mr. Hyphen? And more...
[API Events May 8-14]
Do you know who’s running for mayor in San Jose or where they stand on API issues? Or that Pittsburgh premiers its API film festival this week? Events galore...
VJ Mania
They are lively, perky and beautiful. Meet the ladies and gents of MTV's ethnic channels.
Name: |
XIAO |
SIMON |
GREGORY |
ANGEL |
NIHARIKA |
TIM |
Channel: |
Xiao Wang, MTV Chi |
Simon Yin, MTV Chi |
Here's Your MTV
Music video network launches ethnic channels targeting specific Asian groups
Illustrator Junichi Tsuneoka
There’s a graveyard full of media companies that have tried to cash in on the lucrative but hard to crack Asian American market, a fragmented demographic group with numerous ethnicities, cultures, races and languages.
But in the last year, MTV has been trying something different, eschewing the shotgun pan-Asian approach and going for the niches within. The network launched two ethnic-specific channels: MTV Desi marketed to South Asians, and MTV Chi (like “tai chi”) targeting Chinese Americans.
The Other Side of 'Rize'
Two Samoan brothers keep it low-key.
Demons in the Dance
Imagine a bunch of sweaty, noisy teenaged boys violently dancing in your garage. This is the story of some youths' Rize to fame.
It’s Christmas evening, and several teens are gathered at Leilani and Glenn Modina’s house in Long Beach, CA. It’s a mild 60 degrees outside, and the guys are decked in T-shirts, boots and baggy britches.
For the last five years, a group of 15 to 20 Filipino youngsters have gathered here to practice krumping, a fast-moving, body-jerking style of urban dance that got international hype through the film Rize, by David LaChapelle.
[API Events May 1-8]
Monday, May 1 – International
A list of local events is listed here for the May 1 day of action for immigrant rights.
Immigrant Rights
There was an immigrant rights rally/demo Sunday in SF, including an API contingent.
Asians Are Easy Targets Everywhere
By Sonny Le
The Chinatown has been looted and burned and Asians are fleeing for lives. Machete-wielding mobs rampaged through Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon Islands, in running battles with the police and peace-keepers. The uprising erupted on Tuesday in protest against alleged rigged election results.
Bitter Asian Man
Can we move beyond tired cliches, stereotypes and bruised egos?
By Sonny Le
[API Events APRIL 17-23]
Ruin, Rubble and Race: The SF Earthquake and Post-Katrina America, 1906-2006...
[API Events April 10-16]
Tuesday, April 11 – SF
Kearny Street Workshop presents the third annual Intergenerational Writers Lab with Jaime Jacinto, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, and Philip Kan Gotanda. unique opportunity to meet some of our leading local writers, publishers, and performers and learn first-hand what drives the Bay Area's local independent publishing community. KSW started its publishing imprint in 1982, and was one of the first outlets for the publication of Asian Pacific American literature. (7:30pm, Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia St., SF. www.kearnystreet.org, www.theintersection.org $5-10 sliding scale).
[API Events April 3-9]
Film, art, politics & community events this week in Chicago and the SF/Bay Area.
Boston Asian Mag
What happens when a white guy makes a magazine for Asians?
[API Events March 27-April 2]
Musical acts and performance artists galore...
SFIAAFF continues in San Jose and Berkeley...
Many of the films you missed will be playing again in SJ (today and tomorrow) and Berkeley (today). Check out the complete schedule here.
Colma: The Musical
Did anyone watch this film tonight? I heard the theatre was packed.
Sentenced Home, Punching at the Sun, Grassroots Rising...
...Whose Children Are These? and Dastaar are films I've seen within a 48-hour span.
So I have been watching a bunch of documentaries at the SFIAAFF. I'm not sure why I'm drawn towards documentaries, and Asian American documentaries at that. Perhaps I feel like it's my job, since Hyphen is an Asian American magazine.
[API EVENTS MARCH 20-26]
The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival continues with week - check out www.asianamericanfilmfestival.org for a full list of films and events in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. And visit Hyphen’s SFIAAFF page!
[API Events March 13-19]
The SF International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) launches this week, plus Philly arts events…
Where Ya'll From?
There's a lot of Hyphen folks who are from the Midwest and South, it seems. Theories?
I'm taking an informal poll of where Asian Americans are from, or currently live. There are API folks across the country - in places where you'd least expect it - paving the way in many, well, ways.
I have always wondered what it would've been like to grow up in multicultural, urban hubs like NYC or SF. I lived in South Carolina for 10 years.
[FEB. 27-MARCH 5]
This week’s events in SF, Berkeley, Oakland and Toronto!!
Party With Us
[This Week]
This week's events include: more on Eddy Zheng, Chinese operas, in search of Oakland's Iron Chef, and the SFIAAFF launch party...
Eddy Zheng Update
"Another month has somehow slipped by. As my final deportation hearing is getting closer, I can't help but get excited. I look forward to the opportunity to express myself to the government and the people about why I deserve to stay in this country. I'll be speaking for my future. The month of February is full of hope and potential. I'm waiting for another miracle."
That's the most recent post on Eddy Zheng's blog.