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20 Years of Change On Aug. 23, 1979, Chinese American publisher John Fang brought forth his vision of a newspaper dedicated not only to covering his San Francisco Chinatown, but also the then-nascent and innumerable Korean American, Vietnamese American, Filipino American and other communities being formed around the nation. Two decades later, his vision remains vibrantly alive in AsianWeek, which has brought news of those communities to you, our growing readership, week in and week out for more than 1,000 weeks in a row. Our issues remain in some ways the same as they were in those waning days of the Carter Administration. We continue to strive for equality and for acknowledgment. We continue to decry, for instance, the race-motivated hatred that cost Vincent Chin his life in 1982 and Joseph Ileto his this month. The fact that the goals remain, though, should not obviate the fact that huge progress has been made toward them. Chin’s bludgeoning death at the hands of two laid-off autoworkers succeeded in mobilizing Asian Americans nationwide, including a would-be med student who decided instead to devote her life to politics. And today, Mabel Teng, and with Leland Yee and Michael Yaki, form a politically diverse presence on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Since 1990, there has been an Asian American presence on the BART board in James Fang, and since the 1980s, we have had representation at the state level, from former Secretary of State March Fong Eu to her son, former state Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Matt Fong. This spring, Teng and others organized City Hall’s first celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which debuted as APA Heritage Week three months before AsianWeek first rolled off the presses. Last year, the city renamed a Chinatown elementary school for the first Asian American supervisor in the city: Gordon Lau, who took his seat in 1977. Lau, a tireless advocate of Asian American equality, was unable to see the latest manifestations of his vision unfold; he died last April of heart failure at age 56. John Fang passed away in April 1992 at age 66, while his vision was still young and growing. We wish he could see us today or next year, when we’ll be celebrating our debut into the 21st century with a 21st anniversary bash -- a true coming of age. Still, we know we have done him proud. Fang’s eldest son, James, now presides over AsianWeek; his mother, Florence, heads the parent company that started, in a sense, with her husband’s vision decades ago. The family’s loyalty to John Fang’s dreams have not only ensured our survivability but have boosted his paper to an unprecedented level of journalistic quality and sophistication. Our editorial team reflects the growing span of pan-Asian diversity and a prodigious level of knowledge about topics from biochemistry to law to political science. In our diversity, though, we have in common a belief in the insight that John Fang had two decades ago: that Asian Americans are truly diverse in their backgrounds and their views. And in that light, we have worked each week to give you information that we hope will be useful to you in making up your own mind about any candidate or any issue. Unlike much of the “ethnic media,” we don’t presume to make up your mind for you. Such is our vision, and our future for generations to come.
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