After a year of overseeing The PublicAsian, it is time for me to move on and pass the reigns to Linda and her new co-editor. Along with our incredible staff’s efforts, we’ve transformed the paper into an aesthetically pleasing and engaging outlet for the Asian Pacific American community. From spending countless hours editing drafts to making the journalism school’s New Bubble our second home, we’ve improved our publication with every issue – and I could not be any more proud.
I’d like to thank our editors, photographers, writers and readers for …

Student Government Association President Kaiyi Xie has been in office for a year now, and the multilingual senior said he has learned a lot since he was elected last April.
Former director of student groups, Xie has prioritized student involvement and getting their voices heard. As the university and state’s budgets have been considering cuts, SGA has had to look for new ways to help students.
“There’s been a focus on innovative ways to fundraise,” Xie said. “This year, eliminating secondary funding has helped create a rolling fund, which gives us more …

The story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person born in a labor camp in North Korea to escape, is one that doesn’t seem real.
His story is told in “Escape From Camp 14,” a non-fiction novel by journalist Blaine Harden, who met Shin in South Korea a few years after his getaway. Harden, who at the time was writing a piece on him for The Washington Post, felt that Shin’s story was too important to only be told in an article. The resulting book is a chilling, personal description of life …

All it took was a visit to the Philippines, an encounter with a 12-year-old girl named Can Can and $10 to trigger the idea for Balik Bayan Books (BBBooks), senior Tam Nguyen’s biggest idea yet in the field of philanthropy.
Nguyen’s uncle had woken him at 5 a.m. during his visit in 2009 to Santa Catalina, a small fishing village located at the southern tip of the Negros island. Come down to the boulevard, he had told him.
There, the local fishermen had already been up and about and among them …

An explosion of Vietnamese culture is scheduled to hit the Washington, D.C. area this June in the form of a heritage festival called VietFest.
Visitors will see a fashion show, musical guests, beauty pageant and eat traditional Vietnamese cuisine. The festival, which will be held at George Mason University June 23, will also include dance performances, a martial arts exhibit, along with a photography, Chinese chess, ping-pong and phở-eating contest.
“The whole purpose is to not only celebrate Vietnamese culture, but to celebrate the talent and share it with the community,” said …