The Machines In Our Brains APA Zinesters Do It Themselves
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By Samantha Kiyomi Witt | Special to AsianWeek

What exactly is a zine, you ask? The basic definition would be something like this: A non-commercial, self-published, not-for-profit, do-it-yourself, underground publication. But it gets a bit more complicated than that. A common myth is that the term “zine” is derived from the word “magazine.” In the eyes of many zine publishers, nothing could be farther from the truth.

In theory, a typical magazine differs from a zine in multiple ways. The term “zine” comes from the word “fanzine,” which originated in the 1930s to describe publications created for science fiction fans. The ’60s started a transformation of ideas through alternative publishing. And in the ‘70s, punk music hit hard with a whole new genre of music-based fanzines.

Today, Asian Pacific Americans are putting out zines on everything from obscure pop culture to critical cultural commentary, showing that this form of expression is truly for the people and by the people.

A magazine, as many zinesters see it, is motivated by money. With advertisements funded by large corporations and even the government, sometimes a magazine’s motives can get blurred. Zines, which are not supported by advertising, can be more free.

As Martin Wong, editor of Giant Robot — a publication focused on Asian and Asian Pacific American pop culture, puts it, “Zines are more personal and more creative than traditional magazines. They don’t try to hit a target market or be the official voice of anything.”

Subversive Character

Zinester extraordinaire Mimi Nguyen was born in Saigon, in 1974. Her father’s brother-in-law worked for the Department of Defense, which enabled her family to relocate to the United States before the fall of Saigon. Bouncing through U.S. military bases in Guam, Hawai‘i and San Diego, the Nguyen family finally found themselves “adopted” by a Catholic family in Crystal, Minn.

After growing up as “refugees, ‘foreign,’ and poor,” Nguyen moved to San Diego where she “spent [her] ‘troubled teens’ discover[ing] punk rock and politics.” Nguyen’s thirst for knowledge brought her to UC Berkeley, where she received her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, to NYU where she attained her masters in American Studies and finally back to Berkeley to work on her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies. Nguyen’s education, political involvement and connection to the punk rock scene brought her into the world of independent publishing. Now a professor of feminist theory and queer and feminist cultural studies, Nguyen continues to write for the zines Punk Planet and Maximumrocknroll, and publishes two of her own zines, Slander and Evolution of a Race Riot.

Nguyen commented, “I think that zines, like any other media outlet, have the potential to question assumptions, to provide information and to deconstruct whatever, hegemony, riot grrrl being the most effective example in recent years. So I think it depends on what you bring to it, the project, the zine, that gives it its subversive character or not.”

Nguyen started creating zines in 1990 after stumbling across a copy of Maximumrocknroll, a punk zine based in San Francisco. “I was listening to some punk rock, but didn’t know where to find zines until I stumbled across the zine review section in the back, and soon after, riot grrrl exploded punk rock with feminist politics,” Nguyen said. Her inspirations include “political punk and riot grrrl,” as well as “critical feminist theorists and activists” whom she’s connected with since her first exploration of politics at the age of fifteen.

In 1992, Nguyen started a punk feminist publication with a friend. As she grew away from the punk scene, she changed the name of the zine to Slant — “a reference to the whole ‘oriental eye,’ but also the gendered myth about Asian women’s anatomy.” Soon after she changed the name to Slander. After ten years of publishing it, Nguyen describes Slander as “not a personal zine or a political zine in the usual sense; it’s more like a critical journal for thinking through the personal and the political, their intersections, their implications, the embeddedness.”

In 1995, Nguyen began creating Evolution of a Race Riot, a “compilation zine around race that was by, for, and about people of color in, around, or on their way out of punk.” This zine took years to finish because of the lack of networking for people of color at the time. Nguyen pioneered the field, helping to create these needed connections. She recently completed a second issue that includes a history and directory of zines by people of color to “further provide that crucial network and hopefully that also very crucial dialogue.”

No Excuses to Anyone

Martin Wong, editor of Giant Robot, started the publication nine years ago with his comrade Eric Nakamura after they met at a punk show. Both graduates of UCLA with backgrounds in publishing punk zines, the duo launched Giant Robot in 1994 “with no budget, no bureaucratic meetings, and no excuses to anyone,” Wong said.

Often Giant Robot has been looked upon as having crossed the blurred line between zine and magazine. When Wong and Nakamura started out, Giant Robot was stapled and folded photocopied pages with a circulation of 240. These days, Giant Robot can be found amongst other mainstream magazines with its glossy cover and tight binding. But despite its appearance, the goal of Giant Robot has stayed the same in its almost decade of existence — to examine the “forgotten, ignored, and unexploited Asian and Asian American culture.”

“We started Giant Robot because no one else was documenting or covering all the cool Asian culture that’s out there. At the time, there were all these great bands from Japan (Boredoms, Shonen Knife, Teen Generate, Guitar Wolf, 5-6-7-8’s, Super Snazz, etc.), Hong Kong movies were really amazing, the Ultimate Fighting Challenge was just starting, and so on,” Wong said, “Since then, we’ve learned a lot about distribution, printing, advertising and hopefully writing. The idea is to make Giant Robot as big as possible without sucking.”

Thirst for a Political Voice

Sabrina Margarita started Bamboo Girl in 1995. The zine is not only a literary publication, but also a showcase for artwork, photography and illustrations related to the APA women’s experience. “I started Bamboo Girl because I was frustrated with not finding publications that spoke to me as a women of color — specifically, an Asian Pacific Islander, Filipina, mixed blood, queer-identified, feminist and outspoken women. Most publications that dealt (and still now deal) with feminism do not focus on women of color, much less on the Asian American experience,” Margarita commented.

Inspiration for a zine sprang out of Maragrita’s thirst for a political voice in the mid-90s. “I had a lot of anger pent up inside of me. At the time, my zine was mainly a venting tool, a place where I write down and let go of my feelings. It was very therapeutic. It still is. But the difference now is that it’s grown and matured, just as I’ve come more into myself, to include that outspoken voice and to connect with other folks who do, or don’t, connect with what I’m saying,” Margarita said. Bamboo Girl has served as a portal for her to meet and hear the different perspectives of her readers.

Margarita’s latest issue, Bamboo Girl #11, features articles on topics ranging from the Katipunan in the United States to destroying Asian male stereotypes and even a section on “Herbal Allies for Crazy Girls.”

The Larger Picture

APAs in the world of zines have focused on themes from fierce political activism to Thai scrabble champions. On a whole, these zines aren’t aimed exclusively towards an Asian American audience. Wong stated that Giant Robot’s readers “don’t have to be Asian, they just have to be interested in Asian and Asian American culture.”

To Nguyen, Slander isn’t specifically APA-oriented either. The larger picture for her publication is “about dialogue and collaboration” between people of color. She commented, “I’m always talking about race and racism, feminism, language and activism … I write about race, sexuality, gender, capitalism, even how we define ‘public space’ in terms of how meanings and relations of power are played out in popular culture and everyday life. I try to do this by writing about how the seemingly small encounters we have everyday—going to the mall, watching drag kings on Ricki Lake, shopping at a tourist spot, shopping for clothes or sex toys —are actually tangled up with ideas about race and gender, with histories of violence and uneven power. I want my readers to apply this kind of critical thinking everywhere, anywhere, including the hour they spend on the couch, watching Maury Povich send a girl to boot camp or Montel Williams wax moralistic about a makeover.”

But, to Margarita, writing the Asian American experience is one way she supports the community. Why an APA zine? Margarita says, “Why not? For me it’s because our voices are still not as validated as other ethnicities, and because we need to hear our own in order to realize our strength. In a world where we are noticed more for blending in and assimilating, it’s nice to be in a space where we are proud to claim our heritage for a change.”

Whether you’re interested in reading about the unequal distribution of power in our country, punk rock, or ramen, it’s almost guaranteed there will be a zine somewhere to put a smile on your face. With tens of thousands of zines in existence across the world, Theodore Sturgeon’s truism might be applied: “Ninety percent of everything is crap, yet that remaining ten percent is worth dying for.”