GENERASIAN

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE • FALL 2010 VOL. 9 NO. 1

THE REINCARNASIAN
NYU’S PREMIER ASIAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION

What is “Asian”? 1
The Hyphenated Koreans:
in Perpetual Orbital
around North Korea 2
Behind These Eyes: Circle
Lenses on the Rise 3
Muted Blight: Attack on
Asian Students Ignored 4
Live Free, Be Wired:
Far East Movement
Finally Takes Asian
Mainstream 5
Meet the Artist:
Jennie Liu 6
Why We’re Rooting for
Jeremy Lin 7

WHAT IS ”ASIAN” ?
by Sondra Morishima

P ossibly the most difficult part about reviving

Generasian is the plethora of questions surrounding
content and audience. We hope to serve NYU’s Asian
and Asian American community, but what does
that really mean? What does it mean to be Asian or
Asian American? One dictionary definition of “Asia”
included a footnote in bold stating, “can be confused:
Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia.”
Clearly, I’m not the only one having difficulty
understanding the full breadth of the term as
well as defining its limits. “Asian” becomes an
increasingly slippery term to define as I try to make
sense of what separates Asia from the world—is it
geography, culture, people’s physical appearances?
Or maybe it isn’t about what separates Asians
from other races, but what brings us together.
Both of these directions lead to few answers and
more questions, as Asians can trace their lineage
back to places as varied as Japan, the Philippines,
Mongolia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Samoa. And
then we are faced with what distinguishes Asians
from Asian Americans, and what issues and
histories overlap. The possibilities seem endless.
With all of these variables and more, how do
we create a publication that represents NYU’s
community of Asians and Asian Americans? I’ve
been wrestling with this question myself: As a
fourth-generation Chinese-Japanese American, I’m
often asked whether I identify more as Chinese
or Japanese. But to me it’s an unfair question. It’s
like being asked whether I identify more with
being female or being an only child—it’s impossible
to isolate the two and preference them.
When asking the question “what is Asian?”, we
must reach into our own experiences and pull out
what we know about ourselves. For some, it may be
growing up Muslim or Buddhist; maybe you have six
siblings or speak three languages. The intersection of
these characteristics defines your own Asian identity,
and any variation in your life undoubtedly impacts
that identity. Because of this, we at Generasian seem
to have an endless list of relevant topics to discuss.
Undoubtedly, each issue will bring something
new and unique. We can begin to discuss what it
means to be Asian, an NYU student, and a part of the
Generasian community. We want your feedback and
your voice, because we all deserve a say in defining
ourselves. With the revival of Generasian, I hope
that the Asian community at NYU will finally have a
voice and forum to discuss the questions we face and
the issues that are important to us. I look forward
to a future connecting the diverse individuals in our
community and transforming the role of Asians in
NYU, the country, and the world. G

Generasian generasian.tumblr.com 1
THE HYPHENATED KOREANS
in Perpetual Orbit around North Korea
by Harry Lee & Chris Shim
Illustration by Kristina Lim
M ore than anything else, our
backgrounds compelled the two of us
into joining Freedoms 4 North Korea
(F4NK), a student-run humanitarian
organization at NYU. We both spent our
childhood in South Korea for ten years
before migrating west—I left for Oxford,
UK, and Chris moved to the suburbs of
Vancouver, Canada. There, we learned
to speak, think and even feel in the
English language. However, despite all
the fish and chips and Tim Horton donuts
in the boiling cauldron, the essential
Korean spices will always be there.
Despite living on separate continents,
we were exposed to current events in
Korea through the occasional flash
coverages of the peninsula on CBC
and BBC and through the frequent
parental bickering over the dinner table.
Although we were intrigued by what
was happening in our homeland, the
nature of our sources left us only loosely
updated—the historical handshake
between the leaders of South and North,
the tear-jerking family reunions, the
shooting of a South Korean tourist by
a North Korean soldier, and the first
nuclear testing by this “axis of evil.”
Regardless of our concern for
Korean affairs, we were required to
2 The Hyphenated Koreans: in Perpetual Orbit around North Korea
While attempting to
adapt to our respective
environments,
we had turned a blind
eye to our origin
depart from our Eastern acquaintances
in order to attune ourselves to alien
surroundings. We were unconsciously
transforming ourselves into what “FOBs”
have come to pronounce “bananas.”
Such practice of categorization seems
hardly appropriate in this day and
coming age of globalization; even so,
such a problem of identification started
to riddle us upon entering college.
The matter at hand eventually
revealed itself to our consciousness
as we arrived in New York. It only
occurred to our minds then that what
we had been wrestling with for almost a
Behind These Eyes: Circle Lenses on the Rise
decade was an identity crisis, that while
attempting to adapt to our respective
environments, we had turned a blind
eye to our origin. We realized that this
origin would remain within us to the
inscriptions on our tombstones, no matter
how we desired to perceive ourselves.
This sparked our desire to reclaim the
primordial melodies of our race.
We joined F4NK not primarily because
of our concern for the humanitarian crisis,
but because it offered us a channel of
active participation, a sense of belonging
to the Korean discourse. Whatever
diverse reasons there may have been for
joining F4NK, meeting fellow hyphenated
Koreans led us to the realization that
there are others for whom Korea is still
an immutable element—it is a celestial
body around which we revolve, no matter
how far away we have wandered. G
BEHIND THESE EYES
Circle Lenses on the Rise by Joseph Lin
E ven before Lady Gaga’s enormous
electronically-altered eyes in her “Bad
Romance” video, celebrities and models
in Asia have long been sporting circle
lenses, colored contacts that cover not
only the iris, but also a part of the whites
of the eye. Though the sale of contact
lenses without a prescription (corrective
or cosmetic) is illegal, online distributors
from around the world have continued to
circumvent this ban. Optometrists warn
that ill-fitting lenses could deprive the eye
of oxygen and lead to blindness. Moreover,
circle lenses reveal a dangerously
limited vision of what is beautiful.
Michelle Phan demonstrates how to achieve
Lady Gaga’s big-eyed look from her “Bad
Romance” music video using circle lenses.
Video viewable at http://youtu.be/bHVOxhEpjp0
Generasian generasian.tumblr.com
Tutorials about the use and purchase
of circle lenses are all over YouTube, such
as makeup artist Michelle Phan’s video
“Lady Gaga Bad Romance Look,” which
currently has more than 15 million views.
However, beyond the cute zebra print or
pink bear contact case that comes with
the lenses, we should think about this
notion of beauty and its implications
for Asian Americans. While searching
through the circle lenses tutorials, I
found one from “KeiPham,” a teenager
who says, “I don’t want to look like a
squinty eyed freak. Sorry if that offended
anybody, just talking about my eyes.”
In KeiPham’s example, it pains me to
think that Asian Americans are buying
this decorative eyewear as a way to
mask the hate of their own “freakish”
eyes. Many Asian Americans have been
taunted at least once in their lives by
ignorant people who pull up their eyes
to create those so-called slanted eyes.
It seems to be a universal taunt – even
while I was riding my bike while abroad
in Argentina, many children thought it
would be funny to pull that same stunt
while screaming “Chino, chino!” For
KeiPham, the stigma is not merely about
his eyes, but rather society’s standards of
beauty and the internalization of shame.
Which eyes are “beautiful”? Which
eyes are “ugly”? Online buyers have
described becoming “addicted” to
searching for lenses that are green,
blue, purple—any color that is different
from their typical Asian brown. They
suggest how to make the lenses look
more “natural” when taking pictures, yet
why is there no talk about how to bring
out the natural color of their eyes?
In her “Poem for My Grifa-Rican
Sistah or Broken Ends Broken Promises,”
Afro-Puerto Rican artist Mariposa
expresses similar shame she felt as a
child when her mother used to tame
her hair with burning wax. She saw
the ritual of hair-taming as a broken
promise of who she could never make
herself become. Eventually, Mariposa
lets her afro run wild and redefines
beauty as a means of celebrating organic
self-expression, exclaiming, “Black hair
is beautiful./Let your hair be free!”
If we redefine beauty as embracing
one’s roots and individuality, why emulate
the look of Gaga? The world only needs
one person in a meat dress anyway. G
3
MUTED BLIGHT
Attack on Asian Students Ignored
by Vicky Yau
Illustration by Kristina Lim
A t the first meeting of the
year for Asian students of South
Philadelphia High School (SPHS), Otis
Hackney—the school’s fifth principal
in six years—stared at the crowd of
students gazing back at him. “I am your
principal. I’m not asking you to trust
me from day one. But I am asking for
the opportunity to earn your trust.”
What exactly happened at SPHS on
December 3, 2009 is still unclear, but
since that day, news reports confirmed
that at least 26 Asians were attacked in
and around SPHS campus, with at least
seven students hospitalized. Both Asian
and non-Asian students have agreed
that the spike in violence came after
over a year of harassment and assaults
of Asian students, in which the school
administration had done little to end.
While many accounts of the day
describe Asian students as victims
of a mass hate crime outside of the
school, one narrative speculates that
a group of Asian students initiated
the violence by attacking a disabled
African American student.
But despite the validity of these
accounts, the report reviewed by U.S.
District Court Judge James Giles provided
4 Muted Blight: Attack on Asian Students Ignored
no resolution for the victims. Instead, the
verdict completely ignores an entire year
of randomized attacks on Asian students,
some of which resulted in broken limbs
and concussions. The investigators
subsequently neglected to interview the
majority of the victims, witnesses, school
staff and community advocate members
present at the scene on December 3. The
issue of a hate crime was essentially
rendered irrelevant—there was barely any
note on the role of race in the incident.
The long-awaited report was filed three
months after the attacks, but they
seemed to provide no peace of mind to
The verdict completely
ignores an entire year
of randomized attacks
on Asian students
the victims or their families. When Judge
Giles was asked why so many areas were
left void in the report, his reply was less
than compassionate: he did not believe
in “Monday-morning quarter-backing.”
Despite the glaring ignorance of some
officials, there are a select few committed
to ending this apparent injustice towards
Live Free, Be Wired: Far East Movement Finally Takes Asian Mainstream
L
Asian students. This year, in addition to a
new principal, SPHS began the school year
fully equipped with extensive security and
programming in the hopes of preventing
further violence in the school. Students
were also given a pamphlet by community
leaders where they could find resources
and contacts if they fall victim to violence,
even if school staff members are unwilling
to help. However, Principal Hackney seems
adamant about keeping all of his students
safe and promises “to make sure nothing
like [December 3] ever, ever happens again.”
The new changes this school year
have prompted gradual, but much needed
changes. Hackney is not only devoted to
safety, but also to education. His goals
for the school year include leading SPHS
off the “persistently dangerous” list and
being added to the list of schools with
Adequate Yearly Progress. Similarly,
there are several campaigns initiated by
SPHS students in the hopes to further
enhance the safety of their school.
While it is a little unrealistic to hope
that there will no longer be violence at
SPHS, students across the country can hope
that there will never again be an incident
like the one on December 3, 2009—not only
at SPHS, but also everywhere else. G
LIVE FREE, BE WIRED
Far East Movement Finally Takes Asian Mainstream
by Tara Sarath Illustration by Kristina Lim
E xploding out of Los Angeles’
underground Koreatown club scene,
Far East Movement already had a
number of credits to their name before
this summer’s explosion of “Like a G6”
—the YouTube video for “Like A G6”
had over a million views before it even
aired once on the radio. Though their
songs have played on the soundtracks
for mainstream films and television
shows—including Get Him to the Greek,
Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, CSI:
Miami and Entourage—YouTube was the
harbinger of their success. They even
toured with Lady GaGa on her Japan leg
in April 2010. FM cites the energy that the
dynamic diva brings to her back to back
performances as a key part of their creed:
Free Wired, the title of their latest album.
According to the band, Free Wired
means “constantly staying interactive
and living the lifestyle it promotes.”
This means not only being a part of the
club scene that raised them as artists
but also keeping up with their weekly
radio music show, their blogging, and
their road “webisodes” shot a la spycam.
The band “lives free to geek” in part
Generasian generasian.tumblr.com
THE BACKDROP by Alice Tsui
A year ago no one would have imagined that an Asian American hip-hop group would be
topping the charts. Yet, Far East Movement (FM)—composed of Kev Nish, Prohgress,
J-Splif, and DJ Virman—did just that and became the first Asian American artist to not
only appear on the Hot 100 but claim the #1 spot. Up to now, the most successful Asian
Americans in the music industry were either DJs, e.g. Kid Koala and DJ Qbert, or members
of a multiracial group, e.g. Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas).
However, FM sought to create their own unique voice by combining underground party
records and mainstream hip-hop and pop while blending in electro and dance. Concerts
and collaborations with Wong Fu Productions and other Asian American artists, like Clara
Chung and Dumbfoundead, helped expand the group’s fan base in both America and
Asia. The group has constantly enjoyed the support of the Asian community, which is
uncommon for contemporary Asian American artists. But for FM, their sound is meant to
be energetic and engaging with the audience, regardless of ethnic background. According
to them, their work is beyond race—it’s all about connecting with the audience.
because that was how they raised their Secret Agents Concert Series in New York
profiles and built their fan bases, like and LA to give Asian American artists, like
many Asian American artists today. David Choi, Alyssa Bernal, and Jay Park, a
Entertainment in the twenty-first stage to perform. From their underground
century has become an oddly egalitarian promotions and YouTube antics to their
and often anonymous place. With the shot into stardom, Far East Movement
advent of the internet and social media has proven that Asian Americans have
platforms, dissemination of new music the ability to shatter stereotypes and
has grown exponentially easier. Ted Fu break into mainstream culture. Now
of Wong Fu Productions said that the think about you, sitting at your laptop,
internet had really given their crew a huge tapping away at your phone, or shooting
boost leading to their nation-wide tour. with your camera, which could catapult
Wong Fu and FM created the International you into the limelight. Geek Hard! G
5
 MEET THE ARTIST: JENNIE LIU
by Rachel Lin

It’s two hours before Jennie MaryTai Liu’s

interdisciplinary dance theater piece titled
“Soul Leaves Her Body” will receive its
official opening at the HERE Arts Center,
where Liu is currently an artist-in-residence.
For someone who is about to premiere at
a downtown institution, Liu is extremely
relaxed—and with good reason. The Hong
Kong transplant has been making and
creating generative work since she graduated
from NYU Tisch’s Experimental Theater Wing
eight years ago, garnering the recognition
and admiration of her peers. An artist whose
latest work dwells on opposite sides of the
world, Liu offers her thoughts on “making it.”

Generasian: Can you tell us where you
were emotionally, socially, etc. with
your work after graduating from NYU?
Liu: I think it’s pretty common for
undergraduates in the arts to graduate
and feel all at once really overwhelmed
by the seeming immensity of the struggle
before them and also feel really full of
themselves, in a good way. I feel like I
was sort of in between those two places.
I was lucky, in that I had teachers that
really gave me a lot of encouragement
about making work, creating original
performance. So I kind of believed
that I had a process—which was kind
of a huge step forward, I think.
G: So what is it that you’ve been doing?
L: What I do is use different forms—I
use movement, non-representational
movement, movement that is about
movement not about anything else. I also
use theatrical devices—character, text,
story, and design—to create a conversation
on stage that is about cultural friction.
I’m interested in how very distinct ideas
can meet on the stage space to explore
cross cultural encounter and engagement.
It’s not necessarily completely on the
surface—the representation of different
cultural identities is not always what the
piece is about—but I feel that through the
abstract, through the merging of different
forms, I’m able to make a conversation
about felt cultural experience.
One thing I’ve figured
out over the past eight
years since graduating
from NYU is how to use
my cultural identity
as an advantage
G: Do you feel like the label “Asian
American” theater maker applies to you?
L: I am a half-Chinese artist, and I will
always be a half-Chinese artist, and when
I don’t see an exploration of cultural
identity on the stage I completely
disengage. When I see a play or a dance
that is all white people and is not
exploring whiteness in some way—in some
way if there’s not a recognition that there’s
no ethnic diversity on the stage, then I
feel like it’s absolutely not relevant to this
culture, to this moment that we live in. As
artists that use human bodies, speaking,
and the human being on stage as opposed
to plastic objects, we have to in some way
reconcile with our individual cultural,
ethnic, historical, familial identities.
G: Is that label a crucial part of
your work or does it just happen
to be attached to you?
L: One thing I’ve figured out over the
past eight years since graduating from
NYU is how to use my cultural identity
as an advantage, as a way to set myself
a part from the many hundreds, if not
thousands, of people my age working
in my field in New York City right now.
To figure out what is really individual
to me: who I am and how it relates to
where I come form—so that I can be
more of an individual, you know? It’s
just about figuring out my personal

6 Meet the Artist: Jennie Liu Why We’re Rooting for Jeremy Lin
 perspective that has to be completely linked to
where I come from, what languages were spoken
in my household, what languages weren’t, and
the whole crazy history of colonialism and…it
has to be related to how I perceive the world.
G: Have you ever felt like your cultural identity
was a disadvantage? Nowadays there seems to
be a greater proliferation of Asians on the media
stage. How do you feel about that change?
L: Like Young Jean Lee? Yeah, there has been a greater
increase of Asian faces in the media—I guess, the first
time I thought about it was Sandra Oh. Sideways was
the first time I saw an Asian face in a film where that
character didn’t have to be Asian you know—she just
was—because we’re human and people. (Laughs)
I don’t think I ever felt like it was a disadvantage,
but then I made an absolutely conscious choice
not to pursue commercial acting when I graduated
To learn more about Jennie Liu and HERE visit here.org
Photo courtesy of Benjamin Heller (HERE Arts)
from acting school. I knew that would be spending
a lot of time in audition rooms being looked at as
an Asian first and foremost. I knew that I would
be auditioning for limited categories of roles.
There’s a lack of visibility in the general culture
at large. So I deliberately did not pursue acting in
commercial media because of that. And also because
I wanted to dance and experiment with dance, and
in that field I never felt like I was discriminated
against in any way because dance is about a live,
interesting bodily presence—a presence that goes
beyond a racial/ ethnic frame or a gender frame…
dance is about tapping into something deeper.
G: What do you know now that you
wish you knew eight years ago?
L: That’s a good question…I don’t know. It’s about
letting go, I think. Allow there to be mystery in
what you’re making. Don’t be freaked out by not
knowing everything about what your making—
that is something that I still try to tell myself. G

WHY WE’RE ROOTING FOR

JEREMY LIN
by Kenny Hsu

I first read about Jeremy Lin, then a little-known basketball star at Harvard,
Illustration courtesy of Noah Dempewolf (KoreaAm)
in an online scouting report that noted his lack of ball control was the most
noticeable “chink” in his armor. Although the author has since corrected the
language (ball control is now merely “his biggest weakness”) the miscue made
it clear that at least some sportswriters were not accustomed to seeing Asian
Americans in basketball. No one could blame them—only this did October,
Lin became just the first Asian American to wear an NBA uniform since 1947.
Of course, the 6’3” Taiwanese American is only one of several
contemporary Asian athletes to flourish in professional sports. But while
others like Lin have become some of the best within their respective
sports, the backup NBA point guard has quickly developed a cult-
like following among basketball fans of all racial backgrounds.
Lin first made national headlines in December 2009 when he scored 30
points, including two spectacular slam dunks against Connecticut, then
one of the best teams in the country. Although Harvard lost, highlights

Generasian generasian.tumblr.com 7
of Lin’s performance circulated across
the internet. As he literally soared
past athletes much larger than him,
bloggers asked the seemingly inevitable
question: “this guy’s Asian?”
This fascination only grew after Lin,
although not selected during the 2010
NBA Draft, still outperformed John
Wall, the Draft’s best player, in an NBA
exhibition game. This time, Lin caught
national attention: the Golden State
Warriors offered him a contract, and even
ESPN jumped on the Lin bandwagon.
Reflecting on the large Asian American
crowd in Madison Square Garden when
the Warriors visited, writer Matt Wong
remarked, “This isn’t like watching Yao
[Ming]…Asian Americans can more
easily relate to the path Lin had to take
to get to the NBA…I couldn’t help but
get the feeling that I knew him.”
I share these exact sentiments when
watching Lin play amongst the best
athletes in the world. But in these past
years, sports fans have seen several
other Asian American athletes dominate
Contribute to our next issue or blog!
We want your writing, art, and ideas! Email nyu.generasian@gmail.com
EXECUTIVE STAFF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OPERATIONS MANAGERS
Sondra Morishima Vicky Yau
Han Yu
ART DIRECTOR
Patrick Yan ONLINE EDITOR
Patrick Yan
COPY EDITOR
Kenny Hsu STAFF COLLABORATORS
Sarah Chen
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Rachel Lin
Joseph Lin Soomi Rho
Patrick Yan
8 Why We’re Rooting for Jeremy Lin
their sport much more so than Lin. The
Oakland Athletics’ catcher Kurt Suzuki
is one of the best in baseball, and the
Korean-American Pittsburgh Steeler Hines
Ward has won two Super Bowls. Why
then has Lin become such an icon for us?
It’s not difficult to
insert ourselves into
Lin’s story—apart from
his basketball career
The answer does not necessarily lie
in Lin’s athletic ability or his professional
basketball player status, but more
in our perceptions of ourselves. For
Asian American students today, it’s not
difficult to insert ourselves into Lin’s
story—apart from his basketball career.
In many ways but one, he complies with
the Asian stereotype so many of us are
familiar with: he was born and raised as a
devout Christian in northern California,
where he excelled academically enough
CONTRIBUTORS
WRITERS
Kenny Hsu
Harry Lee
Joseph Lin
Rachel Lin
Sondra Morishima
Tara Sarath
Chris Shim
Alice Tsui
Vicky Yau
to study economics at Harvard. His
father, an immigrant from Taiwan, is
a computer engineer. This is probably
a biography we are all familiar with.
The one deviation from the Asian
archetype is his NBA-worthy talent. We
cannot sympathize with a childhood
of intense athletic training, years of
Olympic competitions, or the college
experience of an athletic scholarship
that many athletes have had.
But we can identify with Lin, the
22-year-old Harvard grad who has
devoted much of his life to academics,
almost to the fault of conforming to a
racial stereotype. But unlike ourselves,
Lin can soar past seven-foot men and
faces the likes of LeBron James and Kobe
Bryant everyday. He is almost a comic
book version of Asian American youth—
studious and hardworking student by
day, professional athlete by night.
Like Wong, we cannot help the
feeling that we know Lin when we watch
him play. It is an inescapable feeling
that we ourselves know too well. G
ARTISTS
Kristina Lim
Patrick Yan
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