This interview doesn't surprise me at all. AAs that go into media are typically bright, well-educated, and have lots of opportunities, so it takes a certain set of circumstances and a certain personality to strike out into the creative field rather than pursuing a safer, more lucrative career. Every time I read an interview with an AA journalist or actor or director, I can always see a piece of myself in them.

In Eugene's case, there are three big parallels:

1. Bullying: I was bullied a lot too, and like Eugene, I never entered a self-loathing phase. I was never ashamed of being Korean American. I was just pissed that people could be such racist dicks.
2. Feminism: For some reason, I've noticed that boys who get bullied tend to have a lot of female role models. The first person to ever tell me I was a good kid was a youth pastor I had in 6th grade. Before her, every adult in church ignored me or talked about me under their breath. The teachers and professors who recognized my talent for writing and nurtured it were all women. I don't know why that happens. Maybe we come off as wounded puppies or something and when older women see us, some sort of maternal instinct kicks in, whether biological or sociologically conditioned. All of my most formative mentors have been women and because of that, I am unabashedly feminist. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the same case for Eugene.
3. Media Representation: I'm a journalist that moonlights as a fiction writer, and I've never been interested in writing "Asian American" stories for some the concepts Eugene brought up like white centering. I don't like the fact that a minority writer can only get their big break by writing the "minority experience" story. Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz (who is from the greatest damn state in the Union) talked about this: White people always expect POC novelists to write stories that take them on a sort of cultural safari, so they can oooo and aahhh and how different and exotic we are. It's only recently that writers of color have been making inroads into genre literature like sci-fi, fantasy, and comic books featuring POC characters. I don't want to write Asian American stories. I want to write stories starring Asian Americans.

Eugene's clearly a bright guy. He could've easily gone into finance or consulting, but something has to happen to you for you to risk going into media. It can't be for the money. If that's why you're doing it, you're gonna end up quitting pretty early. Ta-Nehisi Coates said that being a journalist doesn't pay off until you hit your mid 30s to 40s, because by then, the people that get sick of it have left it behind for business school or copywriting. Same case for all media jobs.

I hope there are more of these interviews with AA media figures in the future.