100 AZNS Of 2017, Celebrating Asian America, And A Humble Thank You

Friday, December 22, 2017



A team of awesome people including Leah Nichols (Creator & Designer) and Contributors Vicky Chao, Elisa Gyotoku, Suejean Kim, Lindsay Meyer, Binh Nguyen, Maddie Raffel, Andrew Stenson, and Diana Wu--created a new list, based on The Root 100, documenting and showcasing "the immense talents, creativity, and leadership among Asian Americans in 2017". Here's the full description:

100 AZNS is here to document and showcase the immense talents, creativity, and leadership among Asian-Americans in 2017. Heavily influenced by The Root 100, 100 AZNS was born out of initial skepticism that enough Asian-Americans could even fill a list. The result was the compilation of a wildly long list of many hundreds. The following represents only a selection of many who are putting in the work, livin their best lives, and inspiring positive change. Congratulations to this year's 100!!

Here's a link to the PDF for download and here's the link again to the list page.

A Humble Thank You (For The Full List)

There are some great people on this list (all of them) and all absolutely deserve to be on it and have done a lot in 2017 for the Asian American community (and throughout their whole lives) just by doing what they do and being who they are. Check out the list using the links above (as my screenshot is not great...) and you'll see and recognize a lot of people and hopefully you will be exposed to new people in our community too, and be able to read descriptions about some of the things they've done this year!

You know, putting lists together isn't easy. And putting a list together that also looks great with some great design aesthetics? It takes time. It takes effort. And I can only imagine the decisions in whittling down the list.

A big huge thank you for the team who put this together.

And yes - even if it didn't have me in it - I'd still say it - because it's an awesome list.

A Little Surprised

I am humbled and honored that I was even thought of for this list - and I still can't help but wonder if maybe there was a mistake and it got out before a final edit. But, simply because of the alphabet, you will see me in this list at the beginning - and all I can say (except for another thank you) is that thank damn goodness that I only have so many pics out there, and that I at least look somewhat like I won't break any cameras or computer screens...

Thanks again to everyone who put this together and for making visible so many great Asian Americans in such a cool way (because the lettering, the colors, the fonts - the content of it - all of it - it really is amazing)!