The Universal Asian

FEATURED

Kira Omans Talks About 'Him': Challenging the Reality You Know

“Him” (2024) is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime. Tomorrow marks the close of another AAPI Heritage Month, and the...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Nanchang Project Helps Chinese Adoptees Search For Heritage

As May draws to a close, so does AAPI Heritage Month — a time to celebrate culture, identity, and history. But for adoptees like myself,...

Adoptees

Ella Wu

An Adoptee’s Reaction to ‘Joy Ride’ (2023)

Available in theaters July 7. “Joy Ride” hits like a solid punch to that white kid’s face: satisfying, but maybe not quite right. For...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Kira Omans Talks About 'Him': Challenging the Reality You Know

Entertainment

Nanchang Project Helps Chinese Adoptees Search For Heritage

Adoptees

Angeli E. Dumatol Paints Youth in Soft Shades

Entertainment

Rueben Dass Reveals How He Makes a Murderer

Entertainment

Lies, Spies, and a Guy Who Tries

Entertainment

ADOPTEE VOICES

Kira Omans Talks About 'Him': Challenging the Reality You Know

“Him” (2024) is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime. Tomorrow marks the close of another AAPI Heritage Month, and the...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Nanchang Project Helps Chinese Adoptees Search For Heritage

As May draws to a close, so does AAPI Heritage Month — a time to celebrate culture, identity, and history. But for adoptees like myself,...

Adoptees

Ella Wu

An Adoptee’s Reaction to ‘Joy Ride’ (2023)

Available in theaters July 7. “Joy Ride” hits like a solid punch to that white kid’s face: satisfying, but maybe not quite right. For...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Artificial Habitat

Growing up, I lived in one of those unremarkable suburban neighborhoods everyone has seen and no one remembers. Two-story houses....

Essay

Cynthia Landesberg

IN THE WORLD TODAY

Introducing Studio ATAO’s ‘Food Systems 101’

Studio ATAO is raising funds for their first food education program “Food Systems 101: An Introduction to the Politics of Food &...

World

Ella Wu

Book Review: 'The Global Orphan Adoption System' by Dr. Kyung-eun Lee

"The Global Orphan Adoption System: South Korea’s Impact on Its Origin and Development" by Dr. Kyung-eun Lee is an informative and...

Adoptees

OSH

Living as a Returned Migrant in Korea (Part 2 of 2)

Reposted from Ildaro.com As Koreans from the diaspora who have returned to the motherland we are acknowledged by the government as part...

World

이영숙 Kristin R. Pak

Human Rights: My life as a migrant adoptee, 2018 (Part 1 of 2)

Reposted from Ildaro.com Introduction: As someone who became a migrant through intercountry adoption, Kristin Pak has a unique...

World

이영숙 Kristin R. Pak

ASIANS IN ENTERTAINMENT

Kira Omans Talks About 'Him': Challenging the Reality You Know

“Him” (2024) is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime. Tomorrow marks the close of another AAPI Heritage Month, and the...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Angeli E. Dumatol Paints Youth in Soft Shades

There’s a quiet brilliance to “ A Sky of a Thousand Colors .” What might seem at first like a straightforward mystery — a missing person,...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Rueben Dass Reveals How He Makes a Murderer

“Late one night, I was walking home from the train station…” author Rueben Dass begins, sounding eerily like the opening scene of a...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

Lies, Spies, and a Guy Who Tries

Kam Raslan's “ Malayan Spy ” is the kind of novel that sneaks up on you. It spins espionage, history, and unadulterated humanity into a...

Entertainment

Ella Wu

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FINDING OUR CULTURE

On the Edge of Extinction: 'The Last of the Sea Women'

Now streaming exclusively on Apple TV+. On the rocky shores of Jeju Island, a remarkable culture hangs on by a thread, embodied in the...

Culture

Ella Wu

How Xenia Deviatkina-Loh Is Redefining Diversity in Classical Music

Many people think of classical music as a thing of the past. Its compositions have stood the test of time, holding a unique place in...

Culture

Ella Wu

Bao Vo's Journey from Refugee to Artist

Can you share a bit about yourself and how your Asian identity shaped who you are? Today I am an artist, music producer, and songwriter...

Entertainment

Ana Clancey

Korean Adoption Documents: The print portfolio

The meaningful and meaningless documents that make up the story of my adoption inspired this set of digital composites. The first step in...

Adoptees

A.D. Herzel

LIFESTYLE

Introducing Angela Wu

Angela Wu is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Empowerment Coach who is passionate about de-stigmatizing mental health in the...

Lifestyle

OSH

Choosing Parenthood

“I think, maybe, we should talk about starting a family,” my husband said one day, as we sat on the back porch of a winery north of our...

Lifestyle

Cynthia Landesberg

A #hyphenatedAsians POV: Christine Ha

Christine Ha is a powerhouse of creativity and resilience. She was the first-ever blind contestant and winner of Gordon Ramsey’s amateur...

Lifestyle

Haiku Kwon

Food: Truly colorblind glue

As I walked the streets in the Asian part of Rome near Termini Station, the Asian stores were mostly empty, perhaps as a result of COVID...

Lifestyle

OSH

IN OUR OWN WORDS

Musings of a Middle-aged Matriarch: Finding my tribe

There’s a sea of different people in this world. While everyone is unique and different, there are enough commonalities between us all to...

Essay

Heather Lewis

What It Means To Be Asian in America: Recognizing and breaking the cycle of trauma

The rise in hate crimes against the AAPI community has left many of us questioning not just our identity as Asian-Americans, but how we...

Essay

Vanessa Nguyen

Artificial Habitat

Growing up, I lived in one of those unremarkable suburban neighborhoods everyone has seen and no one remembers. Two-story houses....

Essay

Cynthia Landesberg

Musings of a Middle-aged Matriarch: How do you find joy?

As adoptees, many of us have had to create our own joy. We have to work at joy because it doesn’t come naturally to us. We are too busy...

Essay

Heather Lewis

FICTON & POETRY

Appearances

That night, as she stood alone on the water’s edge, the expanse of the ocean before her felt as dark and infinite as the universe. A soft...

Fiction & Poetry

Samantha Der

Poems

Time Time flies by In the blink of an eye How should I spend my day So many things that I could do But in my bed i just lay Being...

Fiction & Poetry

Lauren Kofalt

Are You Me? The Noodles That Tie Us

I loved my shirt With three pockets of color Gym shoes Blue shorts And black hair That flopped over My gold-rimmed glasses I was ready...

Fiction & Poetry

Samantha Der

Poems

Nothing What can you do when there’s nothing to do The sun shines bright and the sky so blue Yet sitting inside thinking of you It seems...

Fiction & Poetry

Lauren Kofalt