Sylvie Kim is a contributing editor at Hyphen. She previously served as Hyphen's blog coeditor with erin Khue Ninh, film editor, and blog columnist.
She writes about gender, race, class and privilege in pop culture and media (fun fun fun!) at www.sylvie-kim.com and at SF Weekly's The Exhibitionist blog. Her work has also appeared on Racialicious and Salon.
Sylvie Kim is getting married and keeping her name -- no matter what the county clerk thinks about it.
Are artist-provocateur David Choe's comments on 'undateable' Koreans really just han in disguise?
Amanda Plummer stars in Lee Isaac Chung's surreal re-telling of a Korean folktale.
In Sunset Stories,
co-directors Ernesto Foronda and Silas Howard give the LA ensemble film
a relationship comedy twist, giving LA and its quirky denizens
prominent roles in this story of two former lovers randomly thrown back
into each other's lives for 24 hours.
Recent highlights from Hyphen’s blog
The Science of Racism: Radiolab's Treatment of Hmong Experience and Real Vietnamese American Housewives of Orange County
Recent highlights from Hyphen's blog
The Yoga Debate: An Existentially Challenged Desi Chimes In
By Kirti Kamboj, January 16, 2012
Dreams, memory and the supernatural fuse with the gritty
realities for young people of color living on the streets in A. Rey Pamatmat’s play Thunder Above,
Deeps Below.
John Derbyshire addressed his racist anti-black how-to guide to his mixed race Asian/white children -- and, by extension, to white and Asian parents alike.
From California's Central Valley to America's heartland, Hmong American b-boys find a symbolic home in hip hop.
Government corruption and media sensationalism help send innocent men to
prison for the rape and murder of two sisters in the Philippine city of
Cebu.
Asian Americans do age gracefully. The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival ushers in its 30th year, kicking off on March 8 with the presentation of Quentin Lee's White Frog.
Director Spike Lee tweets love for new Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin and dismisses the racialized language surrounding Lin in the Twitterverse.
Running out of ideas/time/patience this holiday shopping season? Hyphen columnist Cynthia Brothers has some specific gift items for the various peeps on your list.
Feeling creative (or broke) enough to make a gift for your loved ones this holiday season? Then get in the kitchen.
Hyphen's hooking you up with some vendors who are all about
local artistry, eco-friendliness or handmade goods.
Hyphen has a compiled a list of some independent jewelry, clothing, and beauty/hair designers to keep you and your loved ones looking fine as you head into 2012.
Pop cultural emcee Adam WarRock talks rap.
Adam Warrock — the Korean American attorney turned pop culture-obsessed rapper who won 2011’s Kollaboration Atlanta, the city’s annual Asian American talent show — is nothing if not hard to define. Whether rapping about This American Life’s Ira Glass or X-Men, he’s aware of the pitfalls of being boxed into the nerdcore genre, a school of hip-hop that focuses on themes like sci-fi and comics. While he also raps about race and identity, he doesn’t want to be labeled strictly as an Asian American artist either.
Saif Ansari
Really, Abercrombie? Did you have to act a fool again? I get it: Hijabs don't exactly jive with the whole “mostly nude, mostly white, 20-something surfer dude/chick” look. But what I don't get is the suspension and subsequent firing of former Hollister employee (an A&F company) Hani Khan for wearing one.
Catherine Traywick
Most of the designers author Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu interviewed (including notables like Phillip Lim, Derek Lam and Doo-Ri Chung) were the children of garment producers. From an early age, the designers had assisted their parents with piecework, learning to cut, sew and assemble.
The politics of organizing for North Korea was too complex for this writer to tackle.
Learn how you can help support the producers of documentary Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story reach their $15,000 budget goal in the last days of their Kickstarter campaign.
The ten-year anniversary of the DREAM Act sparks a new petition to halt the deportation of undocumented students.
Runner-up on weight-loss show takes winning and losing in stride.
Ada Wong has gone from a 259-pound project coordinator to an athlete in training, a People magazine health columnist and a public figure in the health and fitness realm.
Thao Nguyen leads the pack of Asian American indie music favorites for this Hyphen staffer. Who are you listening to?
A petition to boycott a free public screening of Breakfast at Tiffany's in Brooklyn got Hyphen staffers thinking about their least favorite Asian/American cinematic portrayals.
In honor of the 29th anniversary, Curtis Chin and the team behind documentary film Vincent Who? have partnered up with Asian Pacific Americans for Progress to offer free viewings of the film in its entirety through the month of July at Vincentwhomovie.com.
Lorene Machado's Cho Dependent -- screening at this year's Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco -- captures comedienne Margaret Cho performing live in Atlanta, GA during her 2010 musical comedy tour.
Underscoring Asian Pacific Americans' love of Spam and its use in both traditional and fusion meals is a history of US military expansion and corporate championing of the meat abroad, as it serves as comedic fodder at home.
Wesley Yang's New York magazine article on overachieving Asian Americans is causing a buzz we haven't seen since Tiger Mom.
Karin Mak’s documentary follows female workers fighting for medical care from China’s GP Batteries factory after suffering years of cadmium poisoning.
Hyphen's celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month kicks off with a profile of the Asian American Studies department at San Francisco State University.
Hyphen nerds out with Korean American geek and pop cultural rapper Adam WarRock.
Joe Wright's Hanna presented a female action hero who is pre-sexual, therefore avoiding the pitfalls of objectifying its leading lady. How awesome would it have been if Hanna were Asian American?
Governor Martin O’ Malley of Maryland is set to sign a new law which recognizes undocumented students as state residents and qualifies them for in-state tuition rates at public universities, dropping an undocumented student’s tuition from the out-of-state rate of $24,831 to $8,416.
Venezuelan-born, US college grad Manolo Lem faces deportation along with his parents -- restaurant owners in Shelbyville, TN -- who are originally from China. Manolo has been in the United States since the age of 2 and his brother Vincent is an American citizen.
With the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 still unfolding, Hyphen asks that you please consider contributing to the relief efforts that have mobilized in response to this natural disaster.
To celebrate the glory that is SFIAAFF -- which kicks off this Thursday March 10 with the screening of West is West and the swanky Opening Night gala -- Hyphen will be supplying you with reviews of select films screening at the fest this year.
A densely packed day of speakers, workshops and networking opportunities on the CBS lot in Studio City, CA Lac Su and Steve Nguyen's Banana 2 showed what a healthy budget and precise planning can do for an event.
A week and a half ago, Gawker pulled together a list of racism-related incidents on college campuses across the country that had occurred within days of each other. What seemed so troubling by the Gawker commenter reactions to this post was the sheer amount of reductionism going on: Schools in the South are bound to be racist. Schools in the Midwest are bound to be racist. Frat guys are bound to be racist. Frat guys aren't racist, they're just dumb. College racism is actually just stupidity and immaturity. And of course, racism happens on every campus, every day, all day. Why is this news?
Together, Lisa Lee and Lynn Chen have launched Thick Dumpling Skin, a blog devoted to creating “a vibrant community for Asian Americans to share and discuss our unhealthy quest, past and present, for the ‘perfect’ body.”
The New York Times recently profiled "nice guy" blogger Jared Eng, creator of snark-free celebrity gossip site JustJared which will purportedly pull in seven-figures in profits this year. Eng, one of five boys in a Chinese American family straight outta Queens, is a Columbia grad who decided that pop culture was more fulfilling to him than the job he was led to via his computer science background. Amen, Jared! Can you explain that to my family please? C'mon, it'll take just five minutes on the phone. Jared?
You've already heard that Asian Americans are taking over the Internet and if you're reading this post, you're probably one of many wired folks who can name every blog, M. Night Shyamalan protest, and Tiger Mother response currently floating around in cyberspace. Why not spend a Saturday rubbing elbows with like-minded folks?
Yes, we know it's January 14 and by now most people who declared they'd stop smoking or eating gluten on the first of the new year have already abandoned ship. But you know, some stereotypes are true: Sometimes, we run on Asian Time.
Dear Bruno Mars, aka Peter Hernandez,
Congratulations on your stellar 2010 and what will likely be an auspicious beginning to 2011 as you anticipate a Grammy or two come February 13. The day before Valentine's Day. How like you.
So the Golden Globe nominations came out, unsurprisingly, with nary an Asian or Asian American nominee in any of the major categories. But for an organization that's pitting Burlesque, Red, and The Tourist against one another in the Best Comedy or Musical field, perhaps we shouldn't take it to heart. Come on, Hollywood Foreign Press. Did Yogi Bear not make the cut-off in time?
In the age of Angelina Jolie and Madonna, transnational adoption has become a highly publicized issue, whether it’s being lauded or criticized. Stephanie Wang-Breal’s engrossing documentary seeks to push past that debate and show the transnational adoption process in the raw by following the transition of 8-year-old Fang Sui Yong of Guangzhou, China, as she becomes Faith Sadowsky of Long Island, NY, over the course of 17 months.
Some of the players seem like they're truly looking for a life change which obesity has a hindered for years. Admittedly, I'm fascinated by the current season of The Biggest Loser because of one such contestant who happens to be Asian American. Ada Wong, whose NBC bio says is a 27-year-old project coordinator from San Francisco -- has one of the most compelling backstories of the season.
Disclaimer: I am a fan of hip hop, but I am by no means a hip hop writer. I’m still blasting cuts from a 1996 De La Soul album in my car, so from that tidbit alone you can tell roughly where it is that I fall on the hip hop relevancy spectrum.
But when my buddy Lac asked me and others in the Asian American blogosphere to review For the People, the debut album of Vietnamese American rapper Mondega, I had to take it on.
In a few weeks it will be election time in California and while most residents have their eyes glued to the gubernatorial race between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown -- with Whitman's former undocumented housekeeper thrown into the mix -- a less-publicized but significant election will also be taking place for San Franciscans.
APIA college students from Florida, Georgia, and other areas from the southeast region (though students nationwide are invited to attend) have been gathering at SERCAAL, which serves as an “outlet for social/professional career networking, keynote speeches, captivating entertainment, and hands-on educational workshops,” since its inception in 2004.