I'm not quite sure what to make of 2013. In many ways, it was wonderful; in some ways, it was the complete opposite. It was a year of gains and losses, of rising progress and crashing hopes. I've never been one for lengthy lists of resolutions, but if I resolve to do at least one thing in the new year, it's this: "To...

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I could bore you with a lede about how social media has made it easier to be mean to one another on the internet, but instead I'll jump straight to the point, because the point is there's no way to lead into this tweet I received on Friday: There were so many things I wanted to respond with, but ultimately I held back...

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It's been two years, but there's something that still bothers me: one night in 2011, before a midnight showing of this horrible movie I was dragged into seeing, the conversation somehow turned to ethnicity and how much I had in common with another girl in our group of moviegoers--a  girl of Vietnamese descent. "Well, you're both pretty whitewashed," the guy I arrived with,...

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You can watch the full video by clicking the image, or this link. I would've embedded the video, but it autoplayed on the page, and I hate that... On Wednesday, TV personality Julie Chen revealed she underwent plastic surgery nearly 20 years ago after being told she could never make it in journalism because of her "Asian eyes." "I asked my news director...

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The view from a rooftop bar--another reason to love NY. Today was one of those days I hated New York City. I was 10 seconds late for every train I needed to catch; I wore the wrong outfit for the gross, muggy weather; some guy threw his dying cigarette onto my foot on the sidewalk; I felt useless at work; every subway car...

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I adore Audrey Hepburn, but I can't stand to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's. What would be an otherwise lovely film is tainted by Mickey Rooney's portrayal as Hepburn's Japanese neighbor Mr. Yunioshi--now one of the most commonly-discussed examples of 'yellowface.' But although Rooney's character has been denounced by critics since the film's premiere in 1961, it hasn't stopped yellowface from appearing in popular...

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I've come to expect that the pain associated with a forced goodbye is an inevitable emotion. There is no easy way to part with someone who once occupied a space in your heart, and there is no easy way to remove every trace of that person without feeling like you're losing a part of yourself. At the age of 24 now, I can...

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"I speak Mandarin, you know." I looked up from the text message I'd been writing, unsure of how to respond. I hadn't been expecting a stranger I'd gotten into an elevator with to say that, especially as his first words to me. "I'm sorry?" I asked, thinking I misheard him. "I know Chinese," he said. "Ni hao." He looked at me expectantly, waiting...

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This 1886 propaganda poster shows Uncle Sam booting a Chinese man back to China. The poster claims, "The Chinese Must Go!" and is meant to assure Americans that washing machines would easily replace Chinese laundry washers. In the summer of 2000 during the Sydney Olympics, I remember sitting in my living room with my mother and asking her why the phrase "Chinaman" was bad. We'd...

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My grandparents - most likely in Hong Kong, post-war. I used to watch my grandma work on her garden through the living room window of her Sacramento home. The backyard was more than just a place to grow food; it was a place we explored and pretended was another world. The grass was our soccer field, the clothesline was a jungle, and the...

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The D had just pulled up to the station when Zoe fell. I heard her cry out before I saw her at the foot of the stairs. Her maroon hat was on the ground, and her gray hair was a tangled mess. The Fairway groceries in her hand landed beside her, and she was grabbing her ankle in pain. Around her, people rushed...

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"Journalism is the first rough draft of history." -Phil Graham, publisher, The Washington Post (from the Newseum in Washington, D.C.) I first noticed the books in the fall of 2009, half hidden behind the orphaned couch and obscured behind trinkets and gag books received via mail. I'd been working at the New University for eight months, and until that point, I'd never bothered...

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Don't stop reading because I'm beginning with a Sex and the City quote, but... Carrie: Will we still be friends when we're this old? Miranda: Sure. Carrie: What do you mean "sure"? l could barely get us together for the weekend and we're all mobile!...How are we gonna make it to 70 if you've already zoned me out? Miranda: l'm listening. Talk fast....

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There is still sand in the navy blue flats I wore to Long Island the day the three of us went to brunch and ended up on the beach. "I don't know if you know this," I said, "but I'm a Californian who doesn't like the beach." That's not entirely true--some of my best memories come from evenings on piers, and watching the...

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After Joan Didion's husband died, she knew she wanted an autopsy. Not just wanted one--she actively wanted one: "If whoever it was at New York Hospital who asked me to authorize an autopsy experienced such anxiety I could have spared him or her. I actively wanted an autopsy. I actively wanted an autopsy even though I had seen some, in the course of doing...

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I won't pretend that being 24 makes me older or wiser in any way. I remember, as a child, thinking that each birthday meant some big change: I would suddenly gain some knowledge I didn't have before right at the stroke of midnight, and it would be what separated me from the age I had been to the age I had become. Of...

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We sat through the credits, and when the lights came up in the small theater, we exited and sat in the parking lot for a moment or two longer. Before we knew it, hours had passed. Our conversation had eclipsed the length of the movie, and all we could talk about was the pain of what we’d been entangled in: love. We drove...

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