Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Ada Wong will be on the cover of The Bittersweet Issue of Hyphen.

UPDATE (4/20/11): We did a photo shoot with Ada Wong last week. The cover looks great and we're on track to publish on our new, late date of May 15. 

As an all-volunteer organization made up of a bunch of overachievers, Hyphen is committed producing the smartest and most visually interesting Asian American publication.

But sometimes, unforeseen circumstances throw a wrench in even the best-laid plans. We’ve encountered some delays with The Bittersweet Issue, which will hit the newsstands and be sent to subscribers a month later than scheduled, around May 15.

It’ll definitely be worth the wait -- some of the great stories we have planned for the issue include:

• Ada Wong of The Biggest Loser fame will be on the cover. Her run on the show revealed heart-wrenching details about her family history. We’ll catch up with her in a Q&A and find out about her experience on the show and its aftermath.

• Not showering, eating only hot foods and barring visitors for a month are ways some new Asian American moms are holding on to sacred traditions. Our feature delves into how mothers of newborns are embracing post-birth traditions that are common in Asian cultures, even more so than previous generations of Asian American moms have.

• For many Asian American parents, getting their children into Yale or Harvard would represent a triumph of years of hard work. But elite private institutions have never alluded to being completely meritocratic. We explore the landscape of race and college admissions, from stereotyping of and secret criteria for Asian American applicants to changes in University of California eligibility rules that could lead to fewer Asian Americans at the country’s most prestigious public college.

Nobuko Miyamoto is trying to get people to stop using disposable chopsticks. (Photo by Baii Nguyen)

• Wooden chopsticks are ubiquitous at Asian restaurants. Billions of pairs are used and tossed out every year. That’s a lot trees. The B.Y.O. Chopstix campaign is part of an environmental movement to stop this wasteful practice. We highlight the public outreach effort by the campaign, which was started by Nobuko Miyamoto, artistic director at Great Leap, a cross-cultural arts group in Los Angeles.

• The National Bitter Melon Council advocates living through its namesake vegetable. Find out why this motley group of Boston-based performance artists and Asian American activists wants you to celebrate “the health, social, culinary and creative possibilities of this underappreciated vegetable.”

We’re excited to get The Bittersweet Issue into your hands. We appreciate your patience, and thanks for reading Hyphen.