Heroine Complex: A graphic novel with not one, but, two Asian/American superheroines

Cover by Jason Chen

By Karin Chan
Reprinted from AsAm News

AUTHOR SARAH KUHN'S latest book, Heroine Complex, features two Asian/American superheroines who defeat demonic cupcakes and bring wrongdoers to justice in San Francisco. The first book in this trilogy was released this month and explores the dynamics of personal assistant Evie Tanaka and superheroine boss Aveda Jupiter.

Kuhn spoke with AsAmNews about why it is important to depict “Asian girls having fun” in fiction, such as childhood friends and crime-fighting duo Evie and Aveda.

Kuhn, who is half-Japanese, defeated some of her own demons to overcome the pressure she felt to write characters that represented Asian Americans in comics.

She will be featured in some panels at Comic Con, which runs July 21-24 in San Diego. She will be stopping in other cities such as New York City and Salt Lake City this summer and fall.

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The interview follows:

You’ve written on Angry Asian Man that your book is about “Asian Girls Having Fun.” What does that mean to you?

That means they are allowed to do things that protagonists are allowed to do. I felt like a lot of stories about women of color, in those stories, we do tend to be beat down and it’s usually not a super fun time. It’s important to show that Asian American women are worthy of love. They are worthy of being centered and get to do all the same things that white protagonists do.

Sarah Kuhn

What do you and your self-described Asian geek girl gang do for fun?

We do things like see Star Wars: The Force Awakens a million times. We get together and shop a lot for geeky fashion. Sometimes we do things like podcast together. My friend Jenn actually made cupcakes for my launch party. There is a scene with demonic cupcakes and I was dying to see what she would come up with. She also did these cupcakes that were tiny bowls of lucky charms and a frosting that simulated the milk, and said “Heroine Complex” on the handle.

What is the significance of Lucky Charms in the story?

There is something that happened in Evie’s life that had to do with her destructive power that made her realize she wanted control in her life. She starts eating Lucky Charms all her meals to find control.

How does your hapa identity relate to the stories you write?

The main character Evie is hapa, and has my racial identity—she is half Japanese. It comes in the little ways that your identity influences any experience. So growing up, I ate a lot of food that was the ideal “Asian American” food—like a teriyaki hot dog. It’s all very mixed up with different cultures together.

RELATED: Author critiques fashion sense of super heroes

Part of the Japanese side of my family is based in Hawai’i. One of her childhood favorites foods is spam musubi. Spam musubi is one of those foods that is kind of influenced by several different cultures. It’s a classic food for Hawai’i and a lot of Asian Americans.

What are “rep sweats,” and how did you reconcile with them? (via The Toast)

You don’t know what that representation is going to be. It’s very nerve wracking since there aren’t a ton of Asian American properties. I had rep sweats from the creator side. There aren’t many Asian American superheroine starring properties. Other Asian American readers would get excited. I would be excited but still get that sick throw-up feeling because what if I didn’t give them the representation they wanted.

It’s OK to have “rep sweats.” You can’t let them consume you. It’s OK to let your work matter and think about the representation you’re putting out there.

Tell us about the “Difficult Female Friendship” you created for characters Evie Tanaka and superheroine boss Aveda Jupiter (Annie Chang). (via Mary Sue article)

The premise of the book is that Evie is a personal assistant. They have a Devil Wears Prada thing going on. They develop a symbiotic relationship. They are childhood friends. If you don’t work on your friendship, then it can become very unhealthy. They are stuck in the roles they have been in since childhood. Aveda is diva-ish and overpowers her a lot.

Evie has the stronger power, but her personality isn’t what you’d think of as a classic badass superheroine. How does someone grow into that power and use it for good?

What is special about the cover art?

It’s by an artist named Jason Chan. He’s done a lot of book covers. He’s an amazing artist. What I love about it is—he actually wanted to paint the demonic cupcakes scene. It’s exciting and comic-booky. It’s a cover with two Asian/American women and they look different from each other. They look how they are described in the book and their personalities show through. It’s a perfect representation of what is inside.

"Heroine Complex" is the first book in a series. What do you hope to accomplish in the next few installments?

The second book is in the perspective of Aveda, who is the diva boss in the first book. The third book has a different perspective. I really like romance novels. Every book has a new arc, protagonist and couple. I want to explore different perspectives of Asian/American women that exist in this world.

(This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

TGIF FEATURE: Filipina's stories wins prestigious literary prize

PEN photo

Mia Alvar reads from her book after receiving her PEN award ceremonies held on May 20 in NYC.

By Kyung Yoon
Reprinted from AsAm News

MIA ALVAR'S BOOK, In the Country, has had the kind of reception that most first-time authors can only dream about. In April, she won the prestigious PEN Bingham Prize for debut fiction for her collection of short stories about overseas Filipinos, spanning different time periods and countries.

Her book brings to life the stories of Filipino men and women who, like many of her aunts, uncles and her own parents, left their homeland in search of better jobs and opportunities, often to support family members back home. Alvar says she wanted to get beyond the sentimental stereotypes of these overseas workers and delve into their inner lives and motivations.

“These are men and women I grew up with,” she says, “and so I wanted to know more about their love lives and what they did for fun and what made them angry. I wanted to know more than that they send money home. Like everybody, they are more than their job title.”

Alvar’s stories also have a historical context, including the title story of In The Country which is set during the martial law years of Ferdinand Marcos, culminating in the murder of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino and the “People Power” revolution in 1986 that led to his wife, Corazon Aquino, becoming president. But the protagonists in Alvar’s stories are often the everyday working people rather than the history makers, giving readers a personal lens on how historic events affect ordinary citizens.

The settings for the stories are taken from where Alvar grew up: the Philippines, the Middle East and the United States. Born in Manila 38 years ago, she lived in the Philippines until the age of six when her family moved to Bahrain. At the time, she says her family was reeling from the devastating loss of her older brother, who had passed away two years earlier.

“The Philippines was under martial law, people were unsure of their economic future in their country and my parents were also grieving this loss,” recalls Alvar. “So when they had the opportunity to leave and go to Bahrain where an uncle of mine had found work, we took it and followed my aunt and uncle there.”

Alvar’s father found a job with the Ministry of Tourism in Bahrain and her mother worked part-time as a school teacher. After four years, the family moved to New York City when her mother got the opportunity to pursue an advanced degree in Special Education at Columbia University.

Alvar says, “There was always this sense when I was growing up that upward mobility was possible and that education was the way that was very central to their upbringing and they tried to impart that to my generation.”

The Harvard-educated Alvar says that she hope her writing, along with that of other Asian American authors, can be an addition to a fuller American story and not be marginalized on a “special shelf” in fiction.

“Growing up as a kid and looking for books that represented my family’s experience or communities that resembled mine, it was often set aside as a category of its own: Asian American Literature, Immigrant Literature,” Alvar recalls. “And now people are realizing It’s not just Indian American lives or Filipino American lives, it’s everybody’s life because we all live in the same cities and same country.”

In addition to the PEN Prize, In the Country also won the Barnes & Noble’s 2015 Discover Award and was named “One of the Best Books of the Year” by the New Yorker, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, the Huffington Post, Kirkus Reviews and may other publications. Alvar was also recently honored for her contributions to the Filipino American community at the recent Evening in Manila Gala sponsored by the Advancement for Rural Kids and Mahalirka/Jeepney.

Alvar is now working on a full length novel that builds on the themes of migration and diaspora—topics that are clearly close to her heart and experiences.

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The story of the 'comfort women' of the Philippines is waiting to be told

Photo courtesy of M. Evelina Galang

Filipino/American author M. Evelina Galang with three of her "lolas."

THE EXISTENCE of the "comfort women" of Korea and China came to light to Americans in the last couple of years, but the horrible acts committed by men during wartime were not limited to those countries. The atrocities against women were done throughout Asia in those countries where World War II was fought, including the Philippines. The little known story of the Filipino lolas (grandmothers) is waiting to be told.

M. Evelina Galang is one of those story tellers. It has taken the writer, who is also a creative writing instructor at the University of Miami, almost 20 years to chronicle one of the Philippines' greatest traumas. It’s the story of how women finally confronted their nightmare after years of shame and silence; a testament to their courage and their long-buried grief.

In her unpublished manuscript "Lolas’ House: Survivors of Wartime Rape Camps," Galang tells the often overlooked story of the hundreds of Filipina women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. 

A moving article about Galang, a Filipino/American raised in the American Midwest, and the Filipino comfort women, all who are now in their 70s and 80s, was printed in the Huffington Post May 18.

“These ‘comfort women’ were mostly 13, 14, 15 years old. They weren’t really women, they were girls,” Galang said of the victims, who are now so old they’re respectfully referred to as “Lolas,” the Tagalog word for grannies. “They were forced to do labor and raped up to 20, 30 times a day, every single day. The tragedy is colossal.”

“The ‘comfort woman’ issue goes beyond a history lesson, but is in fact an extension of our conversation about women and their bodies today,” Galang said. “This story is happening now. It’s happening in part because we have chosen not to hear the grandmothers. The Lolas’ stories, their experiences in wartime rape camps, and their fight for justice is a legacy to all women. What happened to them is happening now to women in Syria, in Bosnia, in the Congo, and on college campuses in the United States.”

“It seems to me that we have a culture where raping women and girls is not taken seriously,” she added. “We, as a global culture, need to stand up and say ‘No. Stop. Not right.’ Until we do, this history repeats itself. We need to document their stories. We need to understand their place in history. We need to make sure it never happens again.”

“Lolas’ House: Survivors of Wartime Rape Camps” is under consideration with a U.S. publisher. Find out more about the Lolas and other books by Galang at the author’s blog and website.

Click here to read the entire Huffington article, "The Harrowing Story of Filipina Women Enslaved in Japan's Wartime Rape Camps."

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For more news about Asian/Americans & Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.

Vietnamese/American's debut novel about Vietnam War's impact on his immigrant community wins Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction, author Viet Thanh Nguyen.

VIET THANH NGUYEN came to the United States from Vietnam as a 4-year old refugee in 1975 with his family.

Forty years later, he is the winner for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his debut novel "The Sympathizer," reported the Los Angeles Times yesterday (April 18).

Nguyen, a professor at the University of Southern California, is still getting over the shock of winning the highly prestigious and internationally recognized award.

“They say that 'The Sympathizer' really did win the Pulitzer Prize. Unless this is some cosmic virtual reality trick. I’m stunned.”

Here's how the Pulitzer committee described his novel:

A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties. In dialogue with but diametrically opposed to the narratives of the Vietnam War that have preceded it, this novel offers an important and unfamiliar new perspective on the war: that of a conflicted communist sympathizer.

 It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause.

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s astonishing novel takes us inside the mind of this double agent, a man whose lofty ideals necessitate his betrayal of the people closest to him. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.

“I’ve been thinking about the Vietnam War all my life,” Nguyen told a reporter last year. “I started watching things like Apocalypse Now and reading books about the war when I was 10 or 11.”

When his agent encouraged him to write a novel, he knew exactly what he was going to write about.

“I knew immediately that I wanted to write a novel about a spy because I thought a spy story would be a good way to tell this history in an entertaining way. Much of this novel is based on things that really happened, so it was a matter of finding the character that would allow me to string together these events in the plot,” Nguyen said.

From his Facebook page, Nguyen, gives a shout-out to University of California, Berkeley's Ethnic Studies Department in this message he posted upon hearing the news that he had won the Pulitzer:

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2015-2016 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature winners announced

#OSCARSSOWHITE has attracted a lot of attention the last few weeks after the Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts announced its  nominees for the Oscars' acting awards. For the second straight year there were no actors of color among the 20 nominees.

The discussions sparked by the lack of diversity in Hollywood brought attention to the lack of people of color throughout the motion picture industry, especially in the decision making roles that determine which movies will get made and who will be cast in the movies.

Although much of the critiicism has focused on the lack of African American nominees in the movies, the absence of Latinos and Asian/Americans in meaningful roles is even more dire. 

Hollywood is not the only industry where AAPI are rendered almost invisible, the literary world suffers from the same blindness. In order to bring more attention to Asian/American authors, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, has announced the winners of the 2015 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature (APAAL). 

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The awards promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and are awarded to titles published from October 2014 to September 2015 based on their literary and artistic merit, according to the group's press release.

There are five categories for the Awards, each with a Winner and an Honor book. Here are the winners of the 2015 awards:

Adult Fiction

• Winner: Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press)
  Viet Than Nguyen weaves a compelling story of a Vietnamese double agent in his debut novel The Sympathizer. The novel brings humor and a critical eye to the Vietnam War and narratives of Vietnamese refugees.
• Honor: Don’t Let Him Know by Sandip Roy (Bloomsbury USA)
  Sandip Roy blends family secrets, arranged marriages, and culture clash in his debut novel, Don’t Let Him Know.  From the new bride Romola who arrives in the United States to her only child Amit, who discovers a family secret, readers will be fascinated with the interconnected stories about family, friendship, and culture. 

Adult Non-Fiction

• Winner: The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee (Simon and Schuster)
  Dr. Erika Lee, University of Minnesota History Faculty & Immigration History Research Center Director, compiled an astounding 17-chapter single volume of research which falls on the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Lee’s significant centennial plus documentation includes and describes some of the most important annals of Asian American history in the areas of immigration, assimilation, civil rights as well as noteworthy contributions and strides made to the American landscape attributed to Americans of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino Vietnamese, Cambodian, Sikh, Hindu and other Asian ancestry and heritage.
• Honor: Canton Restaurant to Panda Express by Haiming Liu (Rutgers University Press)
  To the Chinese people, food is the aggregator of warm social interaction. Haiming Liu in this new title has documented the story of the social history of a transcultural people by weaving the history of the early Chinese settlers, their assimilation into their adopted American culture with the story of their continually adaptive cuisine which includes the present-day fusion and fast food industry. This intriguing title examines the developmental history of the Chinese up from the mid 1800’s and their commitment to American society while retaining their own unique brand of what it means to have Chinese ancestry.
• Honor: The Good Immigrant: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority by Madilyn Y. Hsu (Princeton University Press)
  The Good Immigrant stands out as an impeccable study which fills a critical void in the literature of Asian America. Its focused research reveals discoveries about a unique group of immigrant whose history has been generally overlooked. It explores into the past and more recent immigration from Asia, such as transnational immigrant student, the intellectual, the entrepreneurial businessman, and etc., which garnered notice of the growing influence of Asian Americans. Until Hsu’s articulate and scholarly endeavor few have found cause to investigate.

Young Adult

• Winner: P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
  P.S. I Still Love You was a contemporary and relatable story to many teens that we as a committee even wished we had a book like this to read and refer to during our teenage years.  Furthermore, Han is able to depict Lara Jean, the protagonist in a very positive and relatable light for not only for other Asians but people in general as well. Lara Jean is able to be both Korean and “normal,” and avoids being typecasted into certain tropes.
• Honor: Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani (Tu Books)
  Ink and Ashes was very interesting and different than what we had read. It was contemporary, but yet the readers will learn a lot about the Japanese histories and superstitions through Claire and her research into her family history which contains links to the Yakuza – the Japanese Mafia.  With suspense, mystery, and a dash of romance, this book has teen appeal and would be suitable for a movie adaptation.

Children’s

• Winner: Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton (Dial Books/Penguin Random House)
  The committee was especially impressed with Full Cicada Moon, praising Hilton’s engaging examination of racial (and particularly, biracial), gender, and social issues, as well as the powerful verse in which it was elegantly told.  The portrayal of the remarkable Mimi—a strong protagonist whose memorable journey is both stirringly and gracefully developed.
• Honor: Blackbird Fly by Erin Entrada Kelly (Green Willow Books/Harper Collins)
  Kelly’s entertaining and refreshing debut novel was enjoyed by the committee.  Of one particular note was the sensitive development of its believable protagonist, the smooth detailing of Apple’s ethnic heritage and her struggles to embrace it, and overall, the hopeful yet not overly didactic message it presents on exploring one’s identity and the adolescent experience.

Picture Book

• Winner: Juna’s Jar by Jane Bahk, illustrated by Felicia Hoshino (Lee & Low Books)
  Juna’s Jar celebrates imagination, while also showcasing cross-racial best friends in modern day Los Angeles. It charmingly captures the adventures and heartache of a little girl—who just happens to be a Korean American.
• Honor: Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael Lopez (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
  Millo Castro Zaldarriaga is a Chinese-African-Cuban girl who dreamed of drumming at a time when only boys were allowed to drum. Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music celebrates music, culture, gender, and the right to dream.

The winners will each receive an award plaque and an award seal on their book at the APALA Award Ceremony on Saturday, June 25, 2016 during the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, FL.

As you can see, there's quite a choice here. There is a lot of Asian/American literature for those of you seeking books that might reflect your experience.

The APALA was founded in 1980 by librarians of diverse Asian/Pacific ancestries committed to working together toward a common goal: to create an organization that would address the needs of Asian/Pacific American librarians and those who serve Asian/Pacific American communities.