hardboiled

the asian american perspective

Profiling other Asian American student publications

While the Asian and Asian American populations are increasing in the United States, this increase has not translated to a rise in the coverage of Asians and Asian Americans in the popular (white) American discourse. Thus, for Asians and Asian Americans it is important to express their views and experiences through various mediums in order to counteract the stereotypical role Asians and Asian Americans play in (white) American media. One way Asian and Asian American college students in particular attempt to voice their opinions is through Asian American student publications. With that in mind, hardboiled has decided to profile other Asian American student publications to help spread the word that Asians and Asian Americans indeed have opinions and experiences that matter. For this issue, we are profiling UC Davis' Vent Magazine, as well as the University of Southern California's Bamboo Offshoot.

Vent Magazine

Background: Vent Magazine is an Asian American politics and pop culture magazine published at UC Davis. Vent was founded in the spring of 2007 "by a group of UC Davis undergraduates who grew tired of the lack of Asian American representation in the media and politics." In an interview, Daryl Suyat, Editor in Chief of Vent Magazine, states, "Some friends and I were talking one day about how no real publication represents us. Hyphen or Giant Robot? They're all good for the community, but they don't really represent us. Besides a few select people deeply connected with the Asian American community, we felt no one really knows who they are... at least in Davis. And on campus there isn't a student publication representing Asian America. There are Chican@, African American, even South Asian publications. But nothing represented Asian America as a whole. So we decided to make something ourselves. We had no experience, just a lot of passion." Vent is completely student-run "by the most talented and dedicated," as Suyat puts it.

Target Audience: While Vent Magazine is an Asian American magazine, according to Suyat, there is no particular target audience, "For now, we try to do things how we want to. There's no talk or discussion about how to appeal to a certain group or whatever. Like it says on the website, we like to keep things fresh, raw and honest. If we start to revolve our writing around what we think people want to read, then we're lying to ourselves about what our community is truly about. At the end of the day the Asian American identity is created by individuals. Our purpose is to air out the views of those individuals who want to express themselves to the best of our ability."

Vent Magazine may not be concerned about who reads their magazine, but they are definitely concerned about how it looks, "Aesthetics is hella important to us. If you have something that looks hella tight, people will want to read it. The problem with many student-run publications is that they look like newsletters (mostly due to lack of funding)."

Vent proudly published its first issue this past fall 2007 "with hella people lining up for it," and you can view it yourself by visiting their website.

Bamboo Offshoot:

Background: Bamboo Offshoot is the University of Southern California's only Asian Pacific American publication. The student-run organization was established in 1993 "to express their distinctive viewpoints on issues concerning the APA community in Southern California" and has published their newspaper every other month since then. Currently, according to Dominique Fong, Managing Editor of Bamboo Offshoot, the newspaper is going through some transitions, including the move from a paper publication to an online one and the move to becoming a separate student organization.

Making the publication known also presents a problem. "A third difficulty we are working on is increasing distribution and awareness. USC's Asian American audience is about 24 percent of the total number of undergraduates, and we have yet to reach out to many of them. However, any challenge is a good challenge - working as a team to solve these problems and issues brings us closer together." Bamboo Offshoot is currently under the Department of Asian Pacific American Student Services, which helps fund Bamboo Offshoot. While mainly student-run, Bamboo Offshoot also receives some help and advice from an advisor regarding their newspaper.

Target Audience: As the only Asian Pacific American publication on the USC campus, Bamboo Offshoot does have a target audience according to Fong, "The target audience is APA students, faculty and community members. We strive to build a stronger APA student community, a forum that allows students, faculty, and community members to express their distinctive viewpoints on issues concerning the APA community in Southern California." In attempts to attract to a larger audience, Bamboo Offshoot is also hoping to move from a newspaper to a newsmagazine. As Fong states, "We are hoping to turn Bamboo Offshoot from a newspaper to more of a newsmagazine with a glossy cover. Magazines have a lasting impact, while newspapers tend to get thrown away - plus, we only publish twice a semester so having a quality product would be beneficial to everyone."

For more information on Bamboo Offshoot, please visit their website