Hyphen

Hyphen is an amazing magazine, dedicated to Asian-American interests, that Brian and I recently started subscribing too. Here's how they describe themselves on the "about" section of their website:
"Because it shouldn't be hard to find substantive and well-researched articles about complicated issues that affect Asian Americans in a single magazine devoted to us. Because we're tired of reading celebrity profiles in publications that tell us what to buy, where to travel, and how to eat. Because we're bored with first-person essays about discovering our roots. Hello, can we stop talking about our roots, which we found a long time ago thank-you-very-much, and move on? Can we talk about people doing interesting things because they're interesting, not just because they're Asian American and always making statements about their identity? Because we feel excluded when reading only about New York and California — what about Texas and Minnesota and Kansas? Because we'll yawn if we see another interview with the same three Asians the mainstream approves of. We want to hear about emerging artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, and musicians. Because we're Asian American, not Asian. Because when we scanned the newsstand, we couldn't find ourselves. Now we can."

This is a magazine designed for adults about adult topics. They have fantastic art, music reviews, interesting interviews and a quirky sense of humor. The writing is solid and we both enjoy reading it. However, we know that some people may be wondering, "Why are you getting this magazine? You're not Asian." A lot of people may feel like that is the sort of thing we should wait and just order for our kids when they are old enough to want to read about "Asian culture" themselves. But we think it's important that our kids see us reading magazines with Asian people on the cover. We think it's important that our kids see us reading books written by Asian authors. We think it's important that they see us listening to CD's by Asian artists and attending movies with Asian performers. We think they deserve to have that be a part of the fabric of their lives. They shouldn't have to demand it as a part of an emerging teen identity. It is their race and it should be respected in their home.

It's equally important that we don't bring home books, CD's, movies, etc, with a sense of false enthusiasm. We're trying to educate ourselves about the wide variety of options out there so we can find racially diverse representations of our particular tastes. We want our choices to be authentic! We don't want to give the impression that in order to fit in as Asian-Americans our children will have to loose their personal identity in support of some wider racial cause. We need to show them that they can find what they are looking for and they can find it represented by their own race. If they don't, then we hope they will be confident enough to become that representation.

We truly like Hyphen - it's an incredibly cool magazine - and it's giving us a great education in the pop culture of young Asia-America. So until we are old, stupid parents "who don't know anything" and have to down grade to the Reader's Digest we are going to enjoy reading Paste and Hyphen because we are an Asian American family and because we like music and literature.

- Brian and Rosemary