Jeff Yang

Jeff Yang (born c. 1967/1968) is an American writer, journalist, businessman, and business/media consultant who writes the Tao Jones column for The Wall Street Journal. Previously, he was the "Asian Pop" columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. He is an expert on Asian American pop culture and is the co-author of RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now (2022) with Philip Wang and Phil Yu and The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America (2023).

Education
Yang graduated from Harvard University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Career
Yang has written a number of books related to Asian popular culture, including Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to the Cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China, I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action (with Jackie Chan), and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence in American Culture, from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism.

In the comics genre, he has written Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology and co-wrote the second graphic novel in the Secret Identities series, Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. He has also written for the Village Voice, VIBE, Spin, and Condé Nast Portfolio.

Yang is also a business/media consultant on marketing to Asian American consumers for Iconoculture, Inc. Before joining Iconoculture, Yang was CEO of Factor, Inc., another marketing consultancy targeting Asian Americans.

Starting in 1989, Yang was the creator and publisher of A Magazine, then the largest circulating English-language Asian American magazine in the United States before it closed its doors in 2002. The magazine grew out of an undergraduate publication that he had edited while a student at Harvard University. Yang was a producer for the first nationally distributed Asian American television show, Stir.

He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and has served on the advisory boards of the Asian American Justice Center, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the China Institute in America.

Personal life
Yang was married to Heather Ying, a physician assistant in cardiothoracic surgery. They divorced in 2013. They have two sons, Hudson and Skyler. Their elder son, Hudson Yang, is a star of the 2015 ABC television series Fresh Off the Boat, based on Eddie Huang's memoir, Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir.