AAJA to New York Times: More AAPIs to Consider

March 7, 2007

AAJA sent the following letter to Trip Gabriel, Editor, The New York Times Sunday Styles and Thursday Styles, and Mireya Navarro, Staff Writer, The New York Times. Navarro responded to the letter, indicating the article was not meant to be all-inclusive.

Dear Trip and Mireya,

We at the Asian American Journalists Association read your Sunday Styles cover story "Trying to Crack the Hot 100" with great interest. We applaud you for taking a look at how hard it can be to break into the music industry when you are regarded as "different" or "other."

However, we wondered why some of the most famous musicians of Asian ethnicity were not mentioned in your piece: Norah Jones, Amerie, James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins and Michelle Branch. And, while you mention American Idol's Paul Kim, you neglected to mention 17-year-old Sanjaya Malakar, who is currently on the show and has gotten as much media attention, if not more, as Mr. Kim.

Perhaps it was oversight in some of those cases but we were disappointed to see that no South Asians were mentioned in the piece, which has led us to believe that perhaps the Times only thinks of East Asians as "Asian" -- an unfortunate misconception and exclusion that our group has been working hard to change.

For the record, AAJA uses the term "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders" to embrace all Americans who self-identify with one or more of the three dozen nationalities and ethnic groups in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific Islands.

We would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the topic and welcome any questions that you have.

Best,

Jeanne Mariani-Belding, President, Asian American Journalists Association

Cc: Barney Calame, Public Editor, The New York Times