a conversation with jeff yang

culture critic, hudson yang’s father, and author of “the golden screen: the movies that made asian america”

while covering the san diego asian film festival, golden guide had the opportunity to talk to jeff yang (@originalspin), who was in town to support the festival and attend a book signing of his new book at a nearby bookstore.

NOTE: this interview has been edited for laughs, length and clarity

GOLDEN GUIDE: can you introduce yourself? what do people know you for?

JEFF YANG: i’m jeff yang, journalist and author, specifically, author of the new book, “the golden screen: the movies that made asian america.” although i’ve spent the past 30 years documenting the asian american experience, in the past half decade, more people know me as the father of hudson yang from FRESH OFF THE BOAT than anything else, and i’m actually really proud of that.

GG: what do you wish people knew you for?

JEFF: (laughs) i’m actually very happy to be known as hudson’s dad. (author’s note: he actually mentions this in all of his social media bios)

GG: what was the transition to becoming known as “hudson’s dad” like for you?

JEFF: it was quite a transformative journey for both of us when that switcheroo occurred—between him being known as my son, and me being known as his dad. but it was actually part and parcel of the way that asian america itself transformed. there was this moment when we were watching my son, randall park, constance wu, and his brothers on screen—[and i realized] that the world was never going to quite be the same again. and part of the reason was, literally, because people—for the first time—were seeing for the first time an asian american family that they could laugh not just at but with. and from that point, i really do think things have never been the same.

GG: so you’re working on a project with hudson right now, ORDER UP, what’s that like?

JEFF: i’ve actually had to get used to spending a lot of time with hudson over the years—it’s made us very close. it’s also made it very much a circumstance where i’ve had to code-switch between being dad and journalist and manager or (dad)ager and sometimes business partner.

GG: how did you come up with the idea for ORDER UP?

JEFF: after FRESH OFF THE BOAT, hudson had to decide what what he was going to do next. one of those things was college, but he wanted to keep on acting. and he wanted to pursue this other thing he had grown to love—cooking. he had played a celebrity chef on tv for six seasons—a good part of his life—but he’d always loved food, both eating it and making it. and, in fact, his college personal statement was about how his grandmother taught him how to cook and appreciate food, because food was the only language they had in common. and the thing he actually very explicitly talked about was how what she did differently from myself or his mother, was let him make mistakes. he would cut himself. he’d burn himself. but because she let him make mistakes, he was able to learn in a different way than anybody else would allow him to do. so when i asked him what he wanted to do next, he said, i would love to do a show exploring this idea of learning cooking, as cooking’s a language, making mistakes, being open to the idea that if you’re going to do 10,000 hours to get good at anything, a lot of those hours are going to be full of screw-ups. (laughs) So, ORDER UP ended up being a show based on his personal statement.

GG: so if you were to summarize what ORDER UP is in a sentence, how would you describe it?

JEFF: ORDER UP is a cooking show that doesn’t laugh at mistakes or ignore them—it embraces them. and hudson’s at the center of it, and he’s great.

movies were important in making me. and i realized movies are just as important in making all of us, as asian americans. the book, as i pitched it back to zander, was going to be about that experience of being in the audience seat, talking not just about how films were made, but how they made us.

GG: so what motivated you to write “the golden screen: the movies that made asian america”?

JEFF: i started writing “the golden screen” almost immediately after completing “rise: a pop history of asian america from the nineties to now,” which i wrote with philip wang (wong fu) and phil yu (angry asian man/we are bruce) as our big pandemic project. i got an out-of-the-blue call from an editor named zander kim, who told me about a dream project he had been wanting to do for a while, a book looking back at all the different films that brought us to here—the movies that were a part of our asian american canon. and i said: “where can i sign up?” i mean, i just wrote this 500-page book, but whatever, (laughs) let’s just jump back into the water. because this is a dream project for me.

GG: and why did you decide on the specific focus on “the movies that made asian america”?

JEFF: movies were important in making me. and i realized movies are just as important in making all of us, as asian americans. the book, as i pitched it back to zander, was going to be about that experience of being in the audience seat, talking not just about how films were made, but how they made us—looking at hollywood films, films from asia, asian american films, and independent films that helped forge the sense of what it meant to be asian american.

the one thing i keep asking myself is, “at what point will we feel finally comfortable—that everything won’t be swept away?” there’s always been this sense of anxiety that every step of progress we make, might potentially be temporary, or fragile. and i guess, i would love for someone from the future to come back and tell me, “no, it’s gonna be okay. you guys are gonna be okay.”

GG: what do you wish someone would tell you right now?

JEFF: the one thing i keep asking myself is, “at what point will we feel finally comfortable—that everything won’t be swept away?” there’s always been this sense of anxiety that every step of progress we make, might potentially be temporary, or fragile. and i guess, i would love for someone from the future to come back and tell me, “no, it’s gonna be okay. you guys are gonna be okay.”

it’s something my close friends and co-host phil yu has always referred to as the “rep sweats” when it comes to content on screen. that’s we always have that sharp intake of breath worrying that if this thing doesn’t show us properly, if this doesn’t work, asian america at large will be harmed. i’d kinda like to be at a point where we don’t have to have that sharp intake of breath anymore. that we could just relax in the embrace of our friends and loved ones.

Please consider supporting Jeff and his book "the golden screen: the movies that made asian america" by purchasing through any of the options in this link.