There's a good article down at the LA Times on James Ryu and KoreAm Journal. I like how Ryu has talked about the magazine archiving the Korean American experience - because it's not just telling something through articles and essays, but that archival of what was happening when and where (at least through the lens of the editors) - and it's been a magazine I've known many people to either read religiously or at the very least know about (and which printed it's last issue this month).
When he started the publication, Ryu was creating something his younger self would have wanted while growing up in remote parts of Ohio and Oregon, where there were few Asian or Korean Americans. At the end of its first year, Ryu wrote to readers that KoreAm was "serving the needs of our community by communicating between the Korean- and English-speaking Korean Americans." It was only in hindsight, going through the trove of past issues to put together the last, retrospective edition, that he realized KoreAm's role was "archiving the history" of the Korean American experience, Ryu said.Read it in full.
