NEELA BANERJEE was raised in Ohio and has been working as a journalist in San Francisco for the past two years. Her poetry has been published in the Asian Pacific American Journal, Nimrod, and A Room of One's Own. She is a member of the poetry collective: Dhaia Tribe.

CHRISTINE A.T. BEYER is a writer performer dancer activist living in SF. She has been published in various journals, including Calyx, String Town, Crab Creek Review, Jeapardy, and Synapse. Most recently, she read at The Smallest Shoes in Town and Poets Against Rape. Christine graduated from Fairhaven College with a self-designed, interdisciplinary degree: Subversive Arts, Feminism and Multiculturalism. Poetry of the oppressed was central to this study.

OLIVIA BOLER is the author of Year of the SmokeGirl, a novel published by Dry Bones Press (2000). She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her M.A. in Creative Writing from UC Davis. A native of San Francisco, she lives there with her husband.

ANNE CHAO
1. MFA from Claremont Graduate University, CA
2. Born & raised in Taiwan; currently works & lives in San Francisco.
3. Deals with issues of identities in pop culture.

CHARMIN is the next generation of PiNoise Pop bands to emerge from Bindlestiff Studios. Four kids with power pop, punk, and new influences, Charmin sings in both English and Tagalog. Charmin has been very supportive of the Fil-Am communities in the Bay Area.

ELIZABETH/CHING-IN CHEN is the host/co-collaborator of Pusod's Mango Mic and part of the radical Asian writers' collective, Energies in Residence. She was featured at Cafe International, Stanford University, the Living Room, Yakkety Yak, Poets Against Rape and the Women of Color Alliance--Building Film Festival. She also appears in Poetry Television's "Word from the streets." A social activist, she believes Yuri Kochiyama kicks ass.

JANE CHEN, PATTY GALLAGHER, and JANAKI RANPURA are three solo artists who have brought together their individual areas of experience in physical theater, Indonesian dance, and shadow puppetry to create their first original full-length work. Their show, Beneath Sita's Belly, premiered at the San Francisco Fringe Festival just two weeks ago, went on to the Women's Work festival at Venue 9, and most recently was performed at the Seattle Fringe Festival. Their show is currently available for bookings. Janaki Ranpura is a graduate of Yale University and the Lecoq School (Paris, France); Jane Chen is also a graduate of Yale University as well as the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theater; and Patty Gallagher holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Wisconsin.

Born in NYC and raised in New Jersey, SHARLINE CHIANG threw away her accounting degree to become a journalist after college. Photography often helps her to tell stories better than words can, so she has been taking documentary-style photos for six years. Poetry helps Sharline tell stories that cannot be photographed.

ANNE-MAE CHIN is an aspiring filmmaker currently enamored with the experimental documentary form. By day she is Development Assistant at NAATA, by night a serial screening committee addict, participating in the UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival), Women of Color Alliance Building Video Festival, and SFIAFF (San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival) panels. "Post-Neo-De" is her first film that began as an independent study at Brown University.

GARY CHOU is a Chicago native, and recently arrived in SF via way of Austin, TX. In addition to taking pictures, he likes sushi, karaoke, and sunshine.

DEREK CHUNG is a painter, photographer, and digital media artist. He creates online activist media with the Institute for Equity, Ecology, Humor and Art, and co-created the Global Arcade website at a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He also designed the Tactile 12000 DJ software, which was featured in Print Magazine's Interaction 2000.

From an early age, DON N. DAO knew that the visual arts were the means by which he wanted to express himself. Having recently moved to San Francisco, Don has found a great source of inspiration in the Bay AreaÍs rich arts community. His main interests at this time are exploring the use of new materials and techniques.

For the last several years, ENDA has remained in an incomparable class by themselves due to the fact that their emo-tinged, female-fronted poignancy shares equal footing with crunchy guitars and pounding drum work. Enda's varied musical style may lie in the group's racially diverse mix of two men and two women.

KAREN ENG (karen@zukazuka.com) is a 2002 Fellow of the George Washington Williams Fellowship for Journalists of Color, a program sponsored by the Independent Press Association. She has been publishing PekoPeko: a zine about food since 2000.

ESKAPO is a multi-ethnic hardcore punk band from the Bay Area (Oakland, San Francisco, Vallejo). The band borrows influences from Minor Threat, Negative Approach, and Operation Ivy. Eskapo sings in both English and Tagalog.

ETHER COGS - JIN WOO JUNG and SANDEEP JAIN Jin Woo Jung is a computer graphics expert specializing in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). He has worked several years at Silicon Graphics as an HCI associate and received a BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University. Jin currently works in the cryptography industry, and received a BS and MS in Computational and Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University. Both have significant experience in both managing and developing complex graphics projects and are co-founders of Ether Cogs--an organization dedicated to creating large-scale technology-based art projects.

WEI FANG has been working with the most fantastic Bay Area arts organizations for the past three years. To pay the bills, she manages education programs at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. To keep her hand-eye coordination, she dances with Halau Hula Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu. To bask in the glow of talented artists, she volunteers at Kearny Street Workshop as an APAture organizer. In her spare time, she scours Irving Street for the newest, hippest boba drink flavors and pursues her work as a mixed media artist.

GOLDEN PLATE WARRIORS is Michael L. Gadd and Ocie R. Henderson. Mike is a mixtape, party, and battle DJ. He likes chicken, rice, mangoes, and fruit salad. If it weren't for comics and scratching...oh and the taco truck...Ocie would be a dull boy.

ROBERT GUTIERREZ recently participated in Emerge 2002. He had a two-person show at PS122 Gallery in NYC curated by Larry Rinder of the Whitney Museum. Artist-In-Residence at DeYoung Art Center in January 2003.

TRACY HELD is a SF Bay Area native studying local environmental issues and working on the very early stages of comic arts career. She is the creator of two comics, a Chinese fantasy story called "The Knot Witch" and an environmental comic called "Leaving Prints."

GAPA DANCE COMPANY provides a nurturing artistic environment for queer Asian & Pacific Islander dancers and choreographers. The GDC is co-gender & has performed at numerous community events, as well as its own repertory shows. Its repertoire features a variety of dance styles including hip-hop, modern, traditional ethnic and fusion.

GENNIFER M. HIRANO is a visual/performance artist, and a teacher. She uses photography, painting, music, spoken word, singing, comedy, marketing, and electric scooters with horse heads on them.

SASHA G. HOM
Like hearing a joke told painfully slow
more telling than an artist's statement.

ABEER Y. HOQUE is of Bangladeshi origin but was born and brought up in Nigeria (and came to the States in high school). She studied and worked in business for ten years before taking up writing as more than a hobby--but she has written for as long as she can remember. She is currently an MFA in creative writing student at USF concentrating in nonfiction and poetry.

DINO IGNACIO is a 28 year old animator. He was born and raised in the Philippines and studied Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines. Webmaster of www.fractalcow.com, he won the Webby Awards in 1998 for his website "Bert is Evil!" which he later shut down in 2001 when it was linked to Osama Bin Laden. Currently studying at the Academy of Art of San Francisco where he is learning 3D modeling and animation. He is currently working on a bunch of different collaborative projects.

Since 1996 MISAKO INAOKA has been showing her work in the USA, Japan, and Italy. After graduating from RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), Printmaking Dep., in 2001, she moved to San Francisco. In San Francisco she has shown at the Back Room Gallery, Solo show/installation, at Southern Exposure, Element of Temporary 3 Group show, and an upcoming show is at Zedd Fine Art & Design in August. She would like to thank Crissy Field Center and the Church Step.

JEPROKS, INC. spawned from the underground of Bindlestiff Studio. What first started out as popular slang in the 70's from the Philippines, grew to be an inspiration of the type of work that was being done by a group of dedicated artists who provide a rawness and edginess to their works. Jeproks is based out of Bindlestiff Studio, home of the Filipino/American epicenter of the arts, in San Francisco. It is an independent film and video production company made of artists and dreamers striving to pursue their art on there own terms.

HELLEN JO has been drawing since perhaps infancy but she began to draw/write regularly published comics for the Oak Grove High School newspaper, Eagles' Eye. She also drew flyers for school events and continued to draw comic flyers in college for local bands. Also, with a relatively recent introduction to the robust Berkeley zine/DIY comic community, she has begun this year to pursue her own DIY comic endeavors.

SUMMI KAIPA received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1999. She has since published several chapbooks including The Epics (published by Leroy), which explores the events of the Mahabharata alongside autobiographical, political, and popular events. Her critical and creative works have been published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, In These Times, St. Mark"s Poetry Project Newsletter, Fourteen Hills Review, Tinfish, Kenning, Rhizome, as well as many others. Kaipa is also the editor of Interlope, a magazine devoted to innovative writing by Asian Americans. She recently received the 2002 Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize for the project, "Intercept: To Thwart, Cradle, Exchange," promoting Asian American literary artists in the Bay Area.

KAORI KASAI graduated from a Vocational College for illustrators, Setsu Mode, in Shinjuku, Tokyo. When she does art she calms down. The objects and paintings suck all her loneliness and anger. She feels better.

KIÊ'U is a graduate student in the department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. She is currently active in the Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition Against War (APICAW) and on the campaign against Southeast Asian Deportation (SEADep) with APIForce.

KAORU KIM (producer and editor) graduate of UC Berkeley. SUNG H. KIM (director) graduate of UCLA.

SOUDARY KITTIVONG-GREENBAUM's love for writing started with a journal that was given to her on her 8th birthday. Since then she has used writing to explore her everyday thoughts and observations of the world--immediate and far; tangible and intangible; personal and political. Soudary is a founding member of Satjadham, a Lao literary arts group.

Queens born & Jersey bred, LISA KO currently cuts and pastes from a hilltop home in San Francisco. A 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and a 2000 Van Lier Fellow in fiction, her short stories have been published in The Brooklyn Review, Sassy, and The Asian Pacific American Journal. She is a 1998 graduate of Wesleyan University.

A long-time scrabble player and soapbox stander, ANNIE KOH has written for newspapers, magazines, the odd anthology, her website crankygirls.com and her very sporadic zine For Motion Discomfort. Most recently, she adapted her Spam performance piece for publication in the APA Journal food issue. She has dabbled in dioramas since sixth grade, but this is her 1st installation. Obsessed with home and belonging, Annie hit the memory jackpot on a recent trip back to her parents' house.

WILLIAM Y. LAM immigrated here 3 years ago from H.K. Photography is one of the things that he feels strongly about; however, his parent just does not seem to understand this whole art thing going on with him, and often times, his hope for acceptance in these two different cultures becomes the element of his work.

AMY LAM was born and raised in the Bay Area and recently graduated from the USF/CCAC Joint Degree Program, with a BFA in Graphic Design. At USF, she became interested in issues of identity and representation within the Asian Pacific American Community. These are issues that she continues to explore in her personal work.

Striking chords, JULIA LAU sings to stir souls, uncover truths and inspire compassion, peace and love in herself and those around her. Her songs speak to the craziness and beauty of life, people, love and struggles for justice and freedom. Having worked for several years as a community organizer in Chinatown, she now spends her days and nights in a consummate love affair with music.

JEFFREY LEI has been in stand-up comedy for 2 years. Was a finalist of the 2000 Brainwash Comedy Competition, has been at the Punchline, and was the only Asian comic at the 2001 Stanford University's Comedy of Color. Was known as "Oakland's only Asian comic." Usually does Black comedy circuit.

CLAIRE LIGHT is usually a fiction writer. She has been the official Program Manager of KSW for over 3 years and coordinated the first two APAtures. This is her first comic.

DAVID LIM is a San Francisco-based film & sound artist. His works have shown at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Craig Baldwin's Other Cinema, Microcinema's Independent Exposure, Abco Water Proofing, and the Film Arts Foundation. He is also the co-curator of Portable Pirate, an outdoor showcase of experimental film & music.

JENN LIM is still not sure if she found poetry or if poetry found her. She mistakenly walked into the wrong class at Cal in the fall of '94 and her life was forever changed--it was then that she realized the real power behind words and she has embraced it ever since. The class was taught by June Jordan and she eventually became a teacher/student/poet in poetry for the people. Now, she uses those lessons learned and taught to capture the moments of life--however big or small.

THE LOCK AND SHAWL play post-punk music utilizing bass, drums, guitar and the occasional sampler, drum machine or keyboard.

STEVEN LOW is new to the field of solo performance. He recently graduated from SF State with a BA in creative writing. He spends most of his time writing fiction and playing saxophone.

JOYCE LU has worked on and behind the stage and been in and out of school for the past 10+ years. In 1994 she co-founded an Asian Women writing and performance workshop with Tonia Chen and has since led similar projects in Honolulu and Los Angeles. She has an MFA from UHManoa in Asian Performance and is pursuing a PhD at UC Berkeley where she teaches acting. Joyce also likes to dance and is currently working on being upside down.

MEENA MAKHIJANI has been studying the Indian Classical Dance form, Bharata Natyam, since the age of 6. She has studied in the Bay Area, Southern California, and Chenmai, India, and is a company member of Kalanjali, Dances of India under Katherine Kunnhiraman. She performed her Arangetram (solo dance debut) in Los Angeles in 2000. Meena is also the tabla player in the band Asian Crisis.

CHRIS P. MALIWAT has been capturing fleeting moments on the streets at home and abroad since childhood. He made his exhibition debut at APAture 2001 with a series of photographs entitled "In Transit." Previous work includes a grant project for the Stanford Arts and Technology Initiative and an Art in Public Spaces exhibition for CalTrans. Chris will also be exhibiting in October for Open Studios--for additional information please visit www.maliwat.com.

Originally from Los Angeles, JOLIVETTE MECENAS is a writer and photographer who now lives in San Francisco. She is also a lecturer in the English Department at San Francisco State University.

CLAIRE F. MEYLER recently graduated from UC Berkeley with honors in both Art and Art History. This piece is her final assignment in her second of two printing classes. Though she sees herself more as a painter, these classes have made her excited to do more with printmaking.

VINCENT MORA has been doing digital dj mixes on the internet since 1997 under the name "vanishingson."

ANISHA NARASIMHAN is a local South Asian queer immigrant photographer, working in both black & white and color. In the fall of 2002, she will begin graduate studies at the SF Art Institute. Working primarily in documentary photography, she has had several long-term projects covering bay area queer/trans communities of color and the South Asian diasporic population.

THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS are a 4-piece indie/rock/pop/noise band with a punk ethic. In 1998, the band started as a fun thing to do while drinking beers and suddenly started playing guerilla gigs by crashing SF street fairs and entertaining at friends' bbqs. After an amazing response at this year's Pink Saturday, the band has decided to pursue itself further by recording as well as playing legal gigs in clubs. Their motto: rock out with your cock out! Fin.

LY NGUYEN began to create Black and White photography during her last year at UCSC in 1997. She enjoys travel photography and likes to focus on portraits. Ly spends most of her time working at OASIS, a non-profit center for young women in SF that she co-founded. She spends her spare-time creating photos, writing, and cooking.

ANHONI PATEL wakes up in the wee hours of the night to work on her novel, ALL GOOD THINGS DIE IN L.A., as well as a collection of short stories about old people, drugs, and Girl Scouts. She also writes about movies for SFStation.com and The San Francisco Bay Guardian. When she's not writing, knitting, or making soap, she reminisces about hot summers in New York City.

THIEN Q. PHAM is a comic book and visual artist who loves cheese, steak, and artichokes.

DAVID PHAM is a 1st generation Vietnamese American. His art is heavily influenced by "graffiti" and urban/street culture. David has been "writing" (painting) since he was 15 years old. He currently resides here in SF, works and attends full time.

LARK M. PIEN has been drawing comics for a long time. They are fun. It goes well with ice cream coffee and diet coke. Apples on occasion.

DHAIA TRIBE is A San Francisco based multi-cultural writers collective weaving together performance, poetry, and music from around the world in the pursuit of universal harmony and social justice.

THE QUEUE started as a group of artists from Bindlestiff Studio, the epicenter of Filipino/American Arts, based in San Francisco, that wanted to get together to educate themselves in the arena of filmmaking. Folks are encouraged to take on different roles and responsibilities, both in front of and behind the camera, to teach and learn from their experiences through the producing of a targeted six videos for the year. Their goal is to become a professional talent pool of filmmakers that can produce films as individuals or as a team of Filipino/Americans creating quality films. The Queue is made up of a diverse group of filmmakers, producers, directors, writers, actors, editors, graphic artists, etc. all from Bindlestiff Studio. This is their training ground.

WES M. RODRIGUEZ is currently experimenting with various illustrative techniques in creating a sci-fi horror world. His background in spiritual practices also manifests in the ideas.

RAMSEL RUIZ has been making films since he was 7. His 4th short film, produced at 10 years of age and entitled, "Where has my mouse gone?", won an Audience Award at Sundance and was considered in the short film category at the Academy Awards. In 1991, at age 15, his first feature, "Communism is Bad," caused an emotional uproar in Russia that was widely believed to be the impetus sweeping Boris Yeltsin into power. Ramsel currently lives and works in Italy with his Scandinavian wife Dasha, where he frequently talks shit about America with his neighbor, Gore Vidal.

VICKY SCHLEPP has been working with oil paints for about 8 years now. She has developed a style which combines tromp l'oeil and surrealism. The contents of her paintings are taken from images she likes in her surroundings--from plants, to people, to animals...she brings it all together with vibrant colors.

SCRABBEL is made up of 2 multi-instrumentalists who came together in 1999 and played their 1st show at Directions in Sound. Since then, we have released songs in Japan and an album in the U.S. We just completed our 1st US tour, making friends in the music community and doing our best to introduce our music to the public.

SHAMPOO PINAY PRODUCTIONS This production group came about in the Spring of 2002, and is made up of artists from Bindlestiff Studio. Pinaytration is the first film short for the group. It was filmed in 2 days and edited in 10 days. Producers: Omz, Gayle Romasanta, Mark Marking; Written and Directed by Gayle Romasanta; Director of Photography, Omz; Assistant Director, Mark Marking; Starring Lorna Aquino-Chui, Samantha Chanse, Rhoda Gravador, Bernadette Sibayan.

JANET MENDOZA STICKMON is a spoken word artist who has performed at venues in the East Bay. San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle, WA. Among these venues has been Intersection for the Arts and Locus Arts in San Francisco. She explores love, grief, resurrection, education, and her identity as a Filipino-African American woman through spoken word and short one-woman performances. She has produced a self-published poetry book entitled, "Unfragmented" and now is in the process of completing her autobiography.

STRANGELY is four East Coast transplants coaxing smart, wistful rock out of their instruments in a bedroom South of Market. The band first played together by candlelight during a 36-hour power outage in January. After several false starts, strangely debuted at PiNoisePop in August. samantha chanse: vocals/guitar; Titania Inglis: vocals/guitar; Jane Kim: bass; Annie Koh: trap set/pots/pans/cardboard boxes

CHULEENAN SVETVILAS is an artist and writer who lives in Oakland, CA. She is also the editor of Release Print, the membership magazine of Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco.

GAVIN TACHIBANA is a San Francisco-based filmmaker and freelance writer. His master's thesis on Asian American comedians was published in the San Francisco Chronicle last year.

ROBYNN *NONOGIRL* TAKAYAMA continues to explore different ways to experience stories through sound and interactivity., A graduate of the KPFA Apprenticeship program, her work has aired on KPFA's Morning Show and Apex Express and on KUSF's Radio Segue. Nonogirl.com, her personal website integrating text, images, and sound, won a Machete Award for design and content. Her videos have screened at Visual Communications Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film and Video Festival, the Berkeley Women of Color Film Festival, and Kearny Street Workshop's APAture 2001.

Painter and dance CHARLISE TIEE started belly dance four years ago while studying abroad in Germany, rather ironically, as the Bay Area has a large and thriving Middle-Eastern dance community. With a modern dance background from her studies in UC Berkeley's dance department, she continued her belly dance studies under Ultra Gypsy director Jill Parker. As a painter, Charlise has been using oils to explore the representation of gender and mixed ethnic identity since 1998. She combines traditional portraiture with identity politics in an attempt to understand where marginalized and displaced women fit into greater American culture. Her paintings have been displayed throughout the Bay Area.

LIEN TRUONG received her BFA from Humboldt State University, and her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, with an emphasis on conceptually based painting. She lives and works in Oakland, and teaches painting and drawing throughout the Bay Area.

HSIAO-CHEN TSAI was born and raised in Taiwan. She moved to the US 5 years ago to escape her mom's "longtime mothering". Now, she is juggling a few part-time jobs: freelance web/graphic designer, illustrator, window displayer, organic produce seller and waitress at a Japanese restaurant. However, she will always find a way to squeeze in her loving comics and painting. She loves animals, especially monkeys; panicbanana.com will give you a glimpse. She has no pets though.

B. SEIICHI TSUKAMOTO Regular Joe

TED VADAKAN emphasizes mood, color, and personal experience in his work.

TONY VADAKAN graduated with at Bachelor's degree in photography. He has been living in San Francisco for the last 6 years working on his personal fine art photographic work.

ELIZA WEE received her B.A in fine arts from Amherst College in 1992. She has worked as a designer and illustrator since 1993 and served on the board at Precita Eyes from 1998-2000. Her mural experience includes the Chinatown Playground Mural, Cleveland Elementary School's "Frida Kahlo," and the Student Union Mural at City College. At her "Dol Sang" (1st birthday ceremony) her parents were disappointed to note that she grabbed a pen, rather than money.

GRACE M. WOO gained an early appreciation for graphic arts growing up in San Francisco's Chinatown. Old faded pin-up posters hung on the walls of the family association offices. Free calendars from banks and grocery stores seemed to be hung everywhere. Everywhere people carrying pink plastic bags that say "Thank You." They all communicated the wealth found here in the U.S.

XISCØ XERØ is a visual Imagineer with digital Tendencies. His background stems from childhood fantasy drawing to architectural training influences. His work is deeply rooted in the tradition of love and death through the depicted in an architectural language of plan, section, elevation and elevated emotion. With newfound technology, he has been able to establish his animated views with the use of Flash and its movie like qualities. In summary, what he expects most from his visions is "telling the story."

GENE YANG began self publishing comic books in 1996. Since then, he has created a number of works dealing with Asian American identity. He is currently published online at Modern Tales (http://www.moderntales.com).

MARILYN A. YU received a BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997. She has been living and working in SF ever since. Her work has been shown in two previous APAtures, the Galería de la Raza, Yerba Buena Sculpture Walks, Oakland Neighborhood Windows Projects, and other venues.