As a girl, the lure of pop culture publications and teen fashion magazines didn't escape Vickie Nam.
But for the future editor of Yell-Oh! Girls, a new anthology of work by young Asian-American women, the mainstream media directed at teenage girls failed to show images of her own ethnic background.
Nam says her anthology bridges the gap between Asian-American teens and the media that denies them a voice.
And for Penn students Olivia Chung and Alaina Wong, whose work appears in Yell-Oh! Girls, the anthology allowed them to share their voice with a new generation of Asian-American girls.
Chung and Wong read their submissions for an audience of 50 at last night's booksigning at the Penn Bookstore.
At the booksigning, Nam described her experience as an editor of several publications geared toward youth -- especially teenage girls -- where she found representation of minorities to be inadequate.
"We're witnessing a generation that connects to the media very, very differently from when I was growing up," Nam said.
"This project gives girls the rare chance to represent themselves," Nam added. "It's a collective endeavor to resist the media's power to filter our realities."
The collection of 80 pieces showcased in Yell-Oh! Girls comprise the first anthology to give young Asian-American girls space to tell their stories of growing up.
The anthology raises issues beyond those typically addressed in the race-related sections of teen anthologies, where Nam said Asian-American teens' work is generally pigeonholed.
"The point is, Asian-American girls don't only have to talk about race and prejudice," Nam said. The anthology explores issues like body image and family relationships where many of the contributors found they shared common experiences.
In a section of the anthology called "Dolly Rage," dealing with body image, both Chung and Wong addressed issues of identity that stem from growing up within a culture that has a narrow definition of beauty.
Wong's piece, entitled "China Doll," recalls her childhood disappointment on receiving an Asian "friend of Barbie" doll instead of the blond-haired "Princess Barbie."
In "Finding My Eye-dentity," Chung, a College junior, recounts her aversion to her mother's suggestion that she undergo surgery to reshape her eyes.
Both pieces address the painful process the writers went through in realizing that their own features were just as beautiful as those portrayed by pop culture.
Chung said that her own experiences of discrimination while she was growing up made her feel alone, and that being able to read stories of other Asian-American girls might have eased these feelings.
"It developed a kind of self-hate," Chung said.
"If I was a kid and had read these stories, I think I would not have felt so ashamed and so embarrassed and so marginalized as I often did when I was made fun of and when I was pointed out as being different," she added.
Those who attended the book signing had many positive things to say about the anthology.
College freshman Gizelle Gopez said that she identified with, and was comforted by, Chung's poem about racial stereotypes.
"A lot of the people here tonight were saying things like, I always thought I was the only one," Gopez said. "Just reading the book makes you aware that you are normal."
Susan Villari, director of health education, said she was enticed to the book signing by the anthology's section on body image, and was excited to read these accounts from the mouths of the girls who experienced them.
"I think too often people speak for young people, instead of having young people speak for themselves," Villari said.
