Hyphen's newest journalist

I want to talk about a topic we talked about early on in the semester. What constitutes Asian American literature? Where is the line drawn? Do half Asian half Caucasian writers still count? What about writers who are only one fourth Asian? Does Hyphen magazine have a criteria its writers must meet in order to be published, or can anyone write about their experiences?

My grandmother’s name is Yufei Li. She was born in Hanzhou China, a small village outside of Shanghai. Growing up, there were many pull and push factors in the reasons for her departure from China. Times were rough and the family was struggling to get by in a time when the whole world was feeling the impact of the Great Depression of the United States. A small bright spot in the world was the booming agricultural sector in the Caribbean, specifically Cuba. With a decrease in cheap labor from African countries, companies looked to new sources of cheap labor. Thus resulted the migration of my grandmother’s family to Cuba. But years later when the Cuban revolution began to gain power and become a serious threat to succeed in installing a communist regime in Cuba, my grandmother decided to leave and seek refuge in Central America. First they traveled to Mexico, then Belize, and then finally settling in El Salvador. There my grandmother met and married Silvestre Salinas, my grandfather. Since that day she arrived in El Salvador, my grandmother was completely devoid of her Chinese culture. Part of her family was still in China, another part in Cuba, and only but a cousin with her in El Salvador. She no longer spoke Chinese, instead learning to speak Spanish. Instead of cooking traditional Chinese meals, rice and beans dominated her cuisine. My mother eventually ended up marrying Raul Arteaga, a Salvadorian. As it was, my mother didn’t speak of word of Chinese, and the only tie to China she had were the stories my grandmother would tell her. So for the most part, I felt myself as being 100% Salvadorian. Outside a strong affinity for Chinese food and a couple of Chinese friends during high school, Chinese culture had been absent from my life.

Both of my grandparents are Salvadorian. Both of my parents are Salvadorian. Everyone in my family as far as I know is Salvadorian. I was born and raised in Daly City, a city with an unusually high population of Filipinos. Growing up, most of my friends were Filipino. 80% of my middle school was Filipino. In high school I participated in all of my friends Debuts. Along the lines I even managed to pick up some Tagalog, the most popular dialect spoken by Filipinos. Everything about my life was Filipino, except for the fact that I was born Salvadorian.

So what if both of these backgrounds were brought to the editors of Hyphen magazine? Do both backgrounds constitute Asian American experiences? Or do both backgrounds constitute as something completely different?