by Betty Song
Daily Bruin, University of California Los Angeles
Monday, January 9, 1995
In a city full of ethnic diversity, can one magazine go beyond the “Asian” in Asian American and appeal to a more diverse audience? The answer may lie deep within the heart…of an egg.
Yolk magazine, America’s newest Asian-American publication is the creative brainchild of 1987 UCLA alumnus Tin Yen, and USC alumnus Tommy Tam. The idea emerged from a need for a magazine that would “represent Asian Americans, and be exciting and challenging in its visual content,” said Yen, Yolk’s creative director, who was an art major.
“What’s exciting is that here is a platform where we can have an Asian American perspective from Asian Americans in entertainment and pop culture,” he said.
Although the goal is to present Asian Americans in the mainstream, Tam, Yolk’s chief operations manager, explained that the magazine also hopes to appeal to a wider and more diverse audience.
“We don’t want to be exclusively Asian-read,” Tam said. “We want to push a multi-ethnic look, and be universally appealing.”
Already a good portion of the magazine’s 700 subscribers are non-Asians, Tam said. In fact after reading Yolk, second year undeclared student Michelle Chu said she found the diversity was a strong appeal.
“I liked the magazine. It appeared pretty direct in what it was trying to express,” Chu said and she felt Yolk was trying to stress its uniqueness from other magazines. “It’s uncommon because…there aren’t just Asian models, but it looked very natural.”
Second year biology and chemistry student Byron Cheng disagreed, saying that Yolk’s decision to advertise itself as the magazine for a new “generAsian” may keep some people from picking up a magazine they might otherwise enjoy.
“I think it would get a pretty popular response from people in their college years,” Cheng said. “But if I had a friend who wasn’t Asian, the magazine wouldn’t be something he would pick up for himself.”
Eric Wat, assistant coordinator of community projects at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, admitted that although he could not really judge Yolk after only one issue, he felt that it was lacking in substantive issues.
“What is needed is something more politically conscious, which is harder to accomplish because it doesn’t sell like having Margaret Cho on the cover does,” Wat said.
Cho, a comedian and television actress, was on the cover of Yolk’s September premiere issue.
“But when you look at the political climate in Los Angeles of the United States, there is a significant Asian American population that is disenfranchised and don’t have the information to participate politically,” he continued.
But there are publications like dis-orient Journalzine that deal with more political issues, Yen responded. His publication chose to deal with issues in a different light.
“We have fun things mixed in with more serious issues because we wanted to deal with them, but not in such a preachy way,” he said. The first issue dealt with homelessness, AIDS and the Lynwood shooting involving an Asian American and an African American. “We deal with issues, but they are alongside entertaining and enjoyable articles like things on fashion, or an interview with Margaret Cho.”
Yolk’s second issue is due out in February.