This article is part of Mochi Magazine’s summer issue on Art — click here to read the rest of the issue.
Almost every night before bed in elementary school, I would frequent my bookshelf, which was lined with the spines of my “Magic Tree House” book collection, worn copies of “Junie B. Jones,” and, soon enough, all eight installments of “Harry Potter.” In a bygone era before iPhones and Netflix, reading had been my go-to form of entertainment, as it represented a way to live vicariously through the experiences of the protagonists in their fantastical adventures. Growing up, I ran with the countless life lessons, edgy comebacks, and witty one-liners that I learned in these books.
But it wasn’t until around sophomore year of high school, when my assigned summer reading was Amy Tan’s iconic “Joy Luck Club,” that I realized I hadn’t actually read a mainstream book in which the protagonist looked like me or shared my family’s cultural traditions and customs. Even then, any classroom discussions and analyses I had participated in about Tan’s work were largely through a white looking glass, often circling relentlessly around tired stereotypes and cliches. There was a reason for this: As of 2019, only 8.7% of all U.S. children’s/YA books featured a protagonist of Asian or AAPI descent.
I sat down with Charles Kim and Stephanie Lim, co-founders of the newly launched publishing house Third State Books, to chat about diversity in the publishing industry, the importance and current state of storytelling, and Asian American representation in books.
The publishing industry is somewhat notorious for being predominantly white in its workforce, as well as in the stories it produces. Although the majority of major publishers are headquartered in New York City, where almost 75% of the city’s residents are non-white, nine out of 10 publishing employees are white. So when we drill down to the publishing process that Asian American (and other POC)…
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