If you’re looking for a resume, you can find out more about my work on LinkedIn. I also keep an updated list of book reviews, if that’s what you’ve come here for. Jump down the page for a map of my work and complete list of publications. At the end, you can find a list of my appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist.
Here is a sampling of stories I have written or worked on:
LA Weekly
Feature: Umar Hakim’s Muslim Faith Inspires His Fight for Social Justice — and a Responsible Banking Ordinance
January 19, 2012
The offices of L.A. Voice, where Umar Hakim is in residency, are on the third floor of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles. So when it comes time for Hakim to offer his daily prayers, he finds a quiet room, faces Mecca and turns his thoughts to God.
New America Media
News: Asian GOP Officials Ascend—With Little Republican Help
September 21, 2011
LOS ANGELES—Asian Republican politicians holding local offices around California want to increase their number. They met during the Republican Fall Convention in downtown Los Angles last Saturday to discuss how the GOP can help candidates get elected and court Asian American voters. (This article also ran in Hypen and AsianWeek.)
Huffington Post
News Feature: What Obama Missed in Indonesia
October 19, 2010
In a post-Suharto era, Islamist parties have contested freely in three national elections raising questions, sometimes anxieties, about how this majority-Muslim country will position Islam in its politics.
Mother Jones (Online)
News Feature: Happy Fred Korematsu Day
January 30, 2011
This weekend, American civil rights activists celebrate a new icon: Fred Korematsu, the Japanese-American who resisted placement in a World War II-era internment camp. It’s the first holiday in the US commemorating an Asian-American—and it’s proof to some judges and civil rights activists that a new generation of Asian-American leaders can’t be far behind.
Afaq Al Mustaqbal Magazine (Abu Dhabi)
Book Review and Q&A: Temptations of Power (English)
Issue No. 7, Sept/Oct 2010
A review of The Icarus Syndrome and short Q&A with author Peter Beinart, which was translated into Arabic and edited for length (PDF, Arabic).
UCLA Magazine (Web Exclusive)
Event: The Good Daughter
February 22, 2010
When Jasmin Darznik was naughty as a child, her mother Lili would say, “If you become like the girls here, I’ll go back to Iran to live with my Good Daughter.”
Investigative Report: Colombo’s Secret War on Terror [PDF]
March 6, 2009
Colombo — The Sri Lankan government is on the cusp of achieving what once seemed impossible. Its armed forces are crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the battlefield, having pushed the rebels out of their northern stronghold and surrounded them in a few coastal villages. The administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa hopes that destroying the Tigers’ organization will bring an end to the 26-year civil war that has claimed more than 70,000 lives.
News Feature: Colombo Blacklists Outside Observers (also in the Wall Street Journal) [PDF]
June 5, 2009
In Sri Lanka’s final push to rout the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), information about what was happening on the front lines was hard to come by. The last week of major military action focused on just a sliver of land in the northeast which was still occupied by what remained of the LTTE. But on May 11 the United Nations estimated that 50,000 civilians were still caught between government forces and the rebels. Gordon Weiss, U.N. spokesperson in Colombo, warned the world that the final surge, and shelling from both sides, was a “bloodbath scenario” coming true. And while Sri Lankan government officials decried what they saw as an alarmist and false analysis, international organizations and journalists were not allowed to see for themselves what was happening on the ground.
News Feature: Colombo’s Rough Justice for Tamils [PDF]
September 4, 2009
People mill about an office complex in Colombo, waiting for appointments with lawyers who are crammed into small cubicles. In one corner office, mothers and grandparents, wives and siblings, stream in one by one. Sometimes they have long, convoluted stories; sometimes their stories are very simple. One woman says her son was detained in a police search and cordon operation. Another traveled from London in search of her brother whom she believes is in police custody. One man says his cousin was arrested while buying a SIM card for his cell phone. There is, however, a common thread: They are all Tamils with family members who have been detained without charge.
Miller-McCune Magazine
Feature: UCLA’s New School of Thought
June 23, 2010
A collaboration between UCLA and the Los Angeles school district aims for the kind of bilingual excellence that’s common in Europe.
Zócalo Public Square
Book Review: Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy
March 3, 2010
Demick addresses this darkness and the history that felled a once progressing nation, but Nothing to Envy is particularly compelling when it’s personal. Demick tells stories of North Koreans with whom Americans can empathize. Six real people fall in love, start businesses, and fight with their mothers — all while struggling with hunger and brutal politics and, eventually, refugee life. It is a cinematic book, reminiscent at once of an epic war film and John Hersey’s classic reportage in Hiroshima.
Book Review: What Everyone Needs to Know About China and Burma
April 21, 2010
Think of the What Everyone Needs to Know series as Lonely Planet for the politically inclined — rich context for the diplomat, the observant traveler, or the news junkie.
See a complete list of my nonfiction book reviews.
Reporting on Health
Live Blogging: South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas, in March, 2011
SXSW Interactive: Health Outlook
Mobile Health Applications: The View from SXSW Interactive (Storify)
Health Reform and Insuring the Creative Class
Examining health and Facebook with Aimee Roundtree
SXSW Interactive: A health wrap-up for journalists
Blogging: Interviews, updates and perspectives on the future of health journalism
- Career Profile: Lessons in Joy from Jeff Kelly Lowenstein
- Year of the Blogger: Why Carey Goldberg loves her new medium
- Pitch Perfect
- Why Health Care Professionals Should Write
- A Hot List of Job Opportunities
Read more blog posts about health and media.
The China Beat
Feature: The Best Reporting on the Sichuan Earthquake You’ll Never See
October 25, 2008
Busan, Korea – Pan Jianlin’s documentary about the earthquake that struck Sichuan province on May 12 made a quiet debut on a Sunday morning, at 10 a.m., the third day of this year’s Pusan International Film Festival. With its not-so-great timing and grim title, Who Killed Our Children was a blip on the festival calendar’s 315 films and 85 world premieres. And if you happened to miss the documentary in Korea, it’s possible you will not have an opportunity to see it again.
Book: Contributer to China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
The Great China Roadtrip
Photography/Travel: Stories that aren’t about the Olympics
August, 2009
I joined Anka Lee on his great roadtrip during the 2008 Beijing Olympics — only to avoid the Olympics altogether and get a glimpse of China’s changing cities. The essays and photos were published and seen on Anka’s blog as well as on the website of NBC11 in Northern California. You can see all the photos on my Flickr page.
Asian Geographic
Magazine Feature: Treading Water: A North Jakarta Neighbourhood’s Struggle Against the Flood [PDF]
March, 2008
with photos by Jacqueline Koch
Jakarta — There is a neighbourhood in North Jakarta that stretches from a fish market in the south, and then around the Jakarta Bay to a waduk (man-made lake) in the north. It sits between the West Canal and the Muara Angke River. But it is not the kind of waterfront property that sets Jakarta’s hungry developers drooling.
Asia Pacific Arts
Culture: West by Way of East: Chandni Chowk to China
Jan. 23, 2009
A lot is riding on Warner Brothers’ culture crash Chandni Chowk to China. When the dust and incense clears, the surprise is that everyone leaves unscathed.
Culture/Multimedia: Infected by the Fever
Oct. 19, 2007
In the midst of touring and showcasing their new documentary, Dengue Fever invites APA to lounge in their shed-turned-studio, as the band experiments with beats and explains how Cambodianization breeds musical haikus.
AsiaMedia
Feature/Multimedia: Sixty-two years ago today (via Internet Archive)
Aug. 3, 2007
Steven Okazaki brings the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the present in his new documentary about survivors.
News Feature: Thailand’s former foreign minister looks to the future (via Internet Archive)
Nov. 3, 2006
Kantathi Suphamongkohn says he saw the coup coming, but does not yet know what his next move will be.
Editing: Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election: Tamils explain why they will not vote (via Internet Archive)
Nov. 16, 2005
In this investigative report, winner of first prize in the New Media category from the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), Arthur Rhodes reports on Tamils in the north of Sri Lanka, for whom a ceasefire does not mean peace and an election does not mean change.
UCLA International Institute
News Feature: New Life for Indian Music at UCLA
Oct. 6, 2005
Visiting artists celebrate endowment of the Sambhi Chair in Indian music, bring more than music to courses.
Global Voices
Blogging: Reports and roundups of perspectives from a world of bloggers
- USA: Japanese Civil Rights Icon Fred Korematsu Celebrated
- Sri Lanka: Bloggers react to the death of the LTTE leader
- Sri Lanka: The Pros And Cons Of International Attention
- Sri Lanka: Questions Surrounding Slain Journalist's Death Persist
- Singapore: New rule for cigarettes
- Singapore: The foreign workers moving in next door
ABCDLady
Editing: Brides from Abroad
Nov. 2004
Manu Raju’s report on how immigration laws sanction domestic violence in South Asian American homes, which won a South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) award in the New Media category.
View larger map
Here’s a more complete list of publications I have written for:
- LA Weekly
- New America Media
- Mother Jones (online)
- Huffington Post
- Aafaq Al-Mustaqbal (Arabic language journal published by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research)
- Miller-McCune Magazine
- History News Network
- Zócalo Public Square (Book Reviews)
- UCLA Magazine
- Whole Life Times
- Reporting on Health (live blogging, social media consulting)
- Far Eastern Economic Review
- US-China Today
- Time Out Singapore
- Asian GEOgraphic(PDF)
- The China Beat
- npREADS
- Global Voices
- Asia Pacific Arts
- AsiaMedia
- UCLA International Institute
- AlterNet
- ABCDLady
- Caught in the Backlash
In Spring 2011, I was an invited guest and panelist at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Honolulu for Late Breaking News Panels, including “New Media and Old Dilemmas: Online Protest and Cyber Repression in Asia”. In Summer 2010, I was in conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ian Johnson about reporting across borders in the China Lecture Series at the University of California, Irvine. I have been and will be a panelist in South Asian Journalists Association annual convention in New York City. In 2009, I moderated a panel called “Reporting from Hotspots” and answered questions about my work in Sri Lanka. This year, I will speak about reporting with a fellowship. I also made an appearance on the Asia Society’s “Weekly Fix” podcast soon after my series on the conflict in Sri Lanka was published:
In Sri Lanka, the Net Draws Tighter (mp3)
Presented with the Far Eastern Economic Review
Mar. 17, 2009
As the Tamil Tigers struggle to avoid defeat in northern Sri Lanka, concerns are growing about the fate of civilians trapped in the shrinking war zone. We talk to FEER contributor Angilee Shah about the deteriorating security situation—and the international reaction.
