By Oliver Wang
I couldn’t really tell you when I first met Gina Hotta, but only because I ran into her so many times, it’s impossible to untangle the chronology. You could not have been interested in Asian American community and culture issues in the Bay Area in the 1990s and not have crossed paths with Gina. She was seemingly at every event—whether rally or concert—and wherever she wasn’t in bodily person, she was there on the radio or in print. She was so omnipresent that even now, several weeks after her untimely passing, it’s hard to fathom a world where I don’t expect to run into her…and I don’t even live in the Bay anymore.
There are two things about Gina that have stood out for me over the 10-plus years I knew her. The first was her consummate dedication as a journalist. She was a multimedia warrior before the term “multimedia” was that vogue—a skilled host, engineer and writer who wanted to make sure that the larger community was aware of what was happening in both their backyards and across the world.
But perhaps even more impressive was her generous curiosity and open-minded-ness. As my friend Jeff Chang reminisced about her, Gina was a “bridge” between the ‘60s/‘70s Asian American movement activists and a younger hip-hop generation of politically engaged young people. She really embraced the cultural creations of that younger cohort and brought those stories to the airwaves and print readers. I wonder if I will ever be so catholic as I slide into my 40s and 50s.
Mostly, Gina inspired by example. I’ve described her as a mentor to a generation of Asian American journalists not because she directly worked with us, but because her mere presence and prolificness were a revelation of what was possible if we only set out to follow upon what she had built so tirelessly.
