Clik here to view.
The Hustle: Wattie Kalicharan, Painter & Student
Wattie Kalicharan paints goddesses in her spare time. She doesn’t have to go far–along Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill, Queens, dozens of religious shops await her services. Her favorite, Shakti Saree...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Conversation Scene in Queens
Flushing is known as the “second Chinatown,” Little Taipei or Little Seoul. But it is also home to thriving communities of Central and South Americans. As the fastest-growing racial and ethnic groups...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arcade Rhythms
New Yorkers lost one of the last video arcades in Manhattan when Chinatown Fair closed down in 2011. But two years ago in May, it reopened under new management. Since then, it’s reinvented itself as a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Dance with Chinatown
Jean Kwok lives in the Netherlands, far from the Manhattan Chinatown garment factory where she spent much of her childhood. Since those days, she has built her writing career on stories of young girls...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spiking Tradition
Gritty. Fast. Aggressive. These are the words that characterize 9-man volleyball, an exceptionally athletic sport of Chinese-American origin. Besides an increased number of players (three more than...
View ArticleA More Fundamentally Caring Economy: an Interview with Ai-jen Poo
Long time domestic worker rights activist Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and co-director of Caring Across Generations, was among the winners of the 2014 MacArthur...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Counterculturalists: Alex Hing
[Editor’s note: This interview is part of The Counterculturalists, a project of the Asian American Writers Workshop that looks at Asian American and ethnic identity as an alternative, rebellious,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Talented Master Khan
[Editor’s Note: This is Open City’s third installment of “Lyrics To Go,” a multimedia collaboration between Open City and Rishi Nath featuring conversations with audio and visual artists whose life and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Little Pakistan’s Mission Man
Shahid Khan has two faces. In Little Pakistan, he goes about his day-to-day life blending in with his south central Brooklyn neighbors, stopping to shake hands or nod an as-salaam-alaikum to those he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Kind that Destroys You: an Interview with Nayomi Munaweera
Much of what’s written about South Asian countries charts natural and manmade disasters. One of these, the Sri Lankan Civil War — which claimed the lives of an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Let’s talk about sex (and race, and gender, and intersectionality)
N’jaila Rhee is many things — a writer; a phone sex operator, web cam girl, and former exotic dancer; a nerd; and a self-described “Blasian bitch.” A native of New Jersey and a Rutgers University...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembering in Vinyl
I’m running several minutes late. When I feel the elevator jimmy to a stop and the doors creak open onto WFMU’s fourth floor, I recognize Nate Hun immediately. He’s at a table in the middle of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pearls of Wisdom
When I arrive at Dumpling Galaxy in Flushing, Queens, Pearl Chow has already befriended the waitstaff. “This is Eric,” she says, gesturing to a tall young man standing attentively at her side. “He’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
South Asian Political Clout Rises in Queens
“This is a tale of two districts—a more homogenous one above Union Turnpike and a more diverse one below it,” explains 29-year-old Mohammed Khan as he traces the street with his finger on a giant map...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Education of an Immigration Lawyer
I first met Pertinderjit (Pert) Hora in 2008 when I was leading a city-wide campaign against bias-based bullying as a community organizer at the Sikh Coalition. At the time she was an outspoken teacher...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Write Like a Fugitive
A few weeks before his book, Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the New York Hyperghetto, was released in October, Eric Tang sat down for a brown-bag lunch with staff and interns of the Asian American...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alternative Brown
“I’m literally the only brown girl jumping into pits, flying off stage. And then everyone’s like oh, it’s just Pady,” Padmini Naidu, also known as Pady Cakes, tells me. Pady is a self-proclaimed brown...
View Article‘I Am a Sex Worker’
I met A Lan one hot summer afternoon in front of a bakery on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing. She is an undocumented immigrant, working in a massage parlor in Queens’ Chinatown. I was walking the streets...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Free-Spirited Journey of A Taxi Union Organizer
Javaid Tariq sits in the kitchen of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) office in Long Island City in Queens. With his long grey ponytail, three earrings in his left ear, and a choker necklace,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Giving up on the “American Dream”?
I see them sell stuff on the street – toys, fruits, skirts, shirts, etc. I have heard them speak to their customers, and they hardly speak English. This daily scene plays out on the street of...
View Article