On Friendship

I am a bit embarrassed to say that I don’t keep friends very well. While others — including my mother who immigrated from the Philippines as an adult — can say that they still stay in touch with even their childhood friends, one way or another I’ve always happened to lose my friends throughout life, like leaves that shed from a tree.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t think about them fondly (or unfondly). Being a millennial and straddling the digital divide has meant having so many more opportunities to reconnect and stay in touch. But it also has opened a world that presents us with more people to be friends with and different kinds of relationships — a follower, a digital “friend,” or a swipe right.

I joined Mochi Magazine when I was at the loneliest period in my life (a story for another time). As a staff member, I was able to foster deep and meaningful friendships with current Our Voices Editor Sarah Jinee Park and former Staff Writer Tria Wen, uniting around the launch of the Black Allyship @ Mochi column. As a young mother to a newborn, I also connected deeply with then-Managing Editor Melody Ip about our Bay Area roots and what it means to be Asian American. 

I have been editor-in-chief for a couple of years now, and it is this feeling of warmth and camaraderie with Asian American women that I continue striving to develop for Mochi as a community. Leading with love does not come to me naturally and it’s a struggle to do so every day, but I love seeing and helping Asian American women find their voices and share their thoughts, opinions, and beliefs through writing — a skill that all people can develop and utilize for good — in a world where Asian Americans’ thoughts, opinions, and beliefs are minimized and erased. It’s a special brand of generosity that myself and my colleagues bring to this space, and we invite you to join us — check out our open positions. 

This is all to say that friendships in our community are far from rare but rarely discussed, which is why I am glad that, in this issue, we are doing a deep dive into friendships. From friends in business to friends in film and even being friends with our parents, our staff discussed the basis of these special relationships built on mutual trust, support, and love. 

We also had a great number of guest submissions — evidence that talking about friendships is much needed in these complex times. From the safety and nostalgia a friend can bring in uncertain times to how one can make new friends that align with your values, the guest writers in this issue thought hard about friendships in an Asian American context — and even beyond our country’s borders. 

Cover image via Unsplash by Andrew Moca