Eason Bao

“As the Japanese saying goes, you get knocked down seven times but you get up eight times,” Al Muratsuchi told the Rafu Shimpo in early 2016. Two years earlier, he had lost his seat in the California State Assembly by 706 votes. Now he was running to win it back. I never interviewed Muratsuchi. Most people we write about aren’t public figures, but he has spent twelve years in the State Assembly, and he has talked about his life many times in community newspapers, candidate profiles, and...

Yielding to the world, for good reason, is much easier than standing against it. Narratives (which are often true) tell us about the harsh realities of our world: that perhaps hopes are impossible to fulfill; that perhaps your dream career just can’t sustain your life; that injustice is inherent to our human existence. This doesn’t mean one’s existence has to be miserable. Reconciliation is a recurring theme across our essays for good reason: many people are able to come to terms with their...

“At the end of the day,” Eric, a member of Yangzhong, China’s police team says slowly, “my job is to just follow orders.” Maneuvering...