Within and Beyond: Indie Magazines and the Asian Diasporic Subject

Abstract

As a resident of New York City during my twenties and early thirties, I lived through a cascade of cultural eras that exemplified America’s complex and oftentimes contradictory character. Certain palpable shifts coincided with major political events: my time in the city was bookended by the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 and Donald Trump’s last year in office in 2020. Other changes were more subtle or cumulative in nature, broader trends that took shape around me as I grew into my adult identity and found footing within various communities. Millennials and Generation Z began to stake positions in public discourse with their idiosyncratic worldviews and economic or political grievances, all while Internet 2.0 developed in step with the proliferation of smartphones and the rise of social media. Amidst this wholesale reshaping of human experience by technology, I started to become aware of the independent magazine as a site of representational discourse and collective identity formation, especially for the Asian American community.