[1] The news organization played an important role nationally[2][need quotation to verify] and in the San Francisco Bay Area as the “Voice of Asian America”.

[9] Realizing the need to provide a voice for this newly emerging Asian Pacific America, John Fang founded the AsianWeek newspaper in 1979 in San Francisco.

[11] Over two years of planning before AsianWeek's pilot issue was published in August 1979, Fang’s brain trust included Chinatown publicist H. K. Wong, writer Charles Leong, former aide to Congressman Phil Burton (and the first Chinese Postmaster of a U.S. city) Lim P. Lee, and society columnist Carolyn Gan.

[14] In a commemorative November 2004 essay celebrating AsianWeek's 25th Anniversary of publication, its president James Fang highlighted its coverage of the killing of Vincent Chin and its role in "in demanding justice for Wen Ho Lee and Capt.

[19][20] The AsianWeek headquarters were located at 809 Sacramento Street in San Francisco's Chinatown, a building that had formerly housed "several different politically active Chinese American newspapers, in particular the Chung Sai Yat Po and the Chinese Nationalist Daily/Chinese Daily Post (Kuo Min Yat Po)" and in 2015 became the WWII Pacific War Memorial Hall museum initiated by Florence Fang.

One of the paper’s most important focus areas for editorial coverage and advocacy was to increase representation of Asian Pacific Islanders in elected office.

[30] As the 1980 U.S. Census results were released, AsianWeek offered extensive editorial coverage in its pages which included special sections full of tables and figures.

It covered topics such as the 2008 Summer Olympics Torch Relay protests in San Francisco to national issues that affect East Asian Americans.

[41] Headquartered in San Francisco, California, AsianWeek dedicated a section to issues and timely news items that are relevant to the Bay Area's East Asian Americans.

Formerly known as "Picky Eater" the column covered price, environment, customer service, cleanliness, menu selection and taste of the Bay Area's most popular restaurants.

AsianWeek published a front-page apology in its February 28 issue, severed all ties with Eng, held various public fora and declared that it was reviewing its editorial policy.

[45] AsianWeek also published in its March 16 issue of "Voices" an article titled "I'm Afraid and Feel Helpless" to tacitly repudiate all of Kenneth Eng's work without making any statements of its own that could add fuel to the fire.