Podcasts about asianness

Asians and Asian Americans are numerous within the classical music industry, but their identities are often politicized and racialized in this Eurocentric musical genre. For the third episode of Obbligato on APEX Express, Isabel Li discusses this intersection with Mari Yoshihara, Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Professor at the Center for Global Education at the University of Tokyo, Japan; author of many books, including Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (2007) and Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro (2019). Tonight's episode features music by Chinese American composer Zhou Tian. To learn more about Mari and her work, please visit her website: https://www.mariyoshihara.com/index.html  Musicians from a Different Shore: https://tupress.temple.edu/books/musicians-from-a-different-shore-2 Dearest Lenny: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dearest-lenny-9780190465780?cc=jp&lang=en&  Transcript  Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.    00:00:53 Isabel Li  Good evening. You're listening to KPFA 94.1 FM. My name is Isabel Li and I'm delighted to be hosting a new edition of Obbligato on Apex Express, which is a semimonthly segment specifically about AAPI identities in classical music. Tonight's guest is someone I have been incredibly excited to speak to because her writings have actually very much informed my studies and research. In fact, her books are exactly about the subject matter of Obbligato. I am honored to be speaking to Mario Yoshihara, Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Professor at the Center for Global Education at the University of Tokyo, Japan; author of many books, including Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music, published in 2007, and Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro, which was published in 2019. Welcome to Obbligato on Apex Express. Mari, how are you doing?  00:01:55 Mari Yoshihara  I'm doing fine. Thank you for having me.  00:01:58 Isabel Li  Of course, my first question for you is how do you identify and what communities are you a part of?  00:02:06 Mari Yoshihara  Oh well, that's actually a little bit complicated I am. I am a Japanese woman who have spent a little bit over well, maybe not more than a little more than half of my life in the United States. Born in New York but raised in Tokyo, educated mostly in Japan, but also earned my graduate degrees in the United States and most of my academic career has been in Hawaii, so I've been in American academia for almost 30 years now, but I also have a dual appointment with the University of Tokyo in Japan. So I split my time between Japan and Hawaii now.  00:02:54 Isabel Li  Can you tell us a little bit about your work and your books? I had a chance to read Musicians from a Different Shore, but how would you summarize your research to someone who might not have read your book?  00:03:04 Mari Yoshihara  So I am a scholar of American studies, which is an interdisciplinary field that has anything to do with America broadly defined. And within that, my area of expertise is about, well, I would say I'm a scholar of US cultural history. US Asian relations, mostly US, East Asian relations, especially in the cultural dimension, cultural studies, gender studies, Asian American studies, etc. And so I have written a number of books, both in English and Japanese, but the one that you're referring to, Musicians from a Different Shore, is a book that I did research for more than 20 years ago and was published in 2007. It's a study of Asians and Asian Americans and classical music. So it was partly historical in that I examined the ways. which Western music, so-called western classical music, was introduced to East Asia and how also East Asians became have become so successful and prominent in this field that is generally considered a white European elite art form, so it was partly historical, but then the rest of the book was based on my ethnographic field work and interviews among Asians and Asian Americans in classical music looking at how well who these people are in the first place and then also how musicians, Asian and Asian musicians themselves, understand the relationship between their racial and cultural identity on the one hand, and their practice of Western classical music on the other, so that was my study.   And then I also wrote another book called Dearest Lenny. It's about—the subtitle is Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro. It's about Leonard Bernstein's relationship with two very special individuals in Japan. And through that story, I interweave an account of various things. For one thing, how Leonard Bernstein became a world maestro and also the relationship between politics and arts, gender, sexuality, art and commerce, etcetera, etcetera. So that was my most recent book published in English and then, I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but I'm currently doing a follow up research on the on Musicians from a Different Shore, taking into account all the changes that have been taking place in the classical music industry in the United States in the past, I would say five years or so especially so that's my that's the abbreviated version of my research.  00:05:55 Isabel Li  That's really cool, and I also want to ask you about these changes, if you can talk a little bit about the classical music world. I feel like classical music is one of those genres that seems to be unchanging on the outside. But as a scholar of classical music, what types of changes have you observed that has influenced how AAPI identities play into this world?  00:06:18 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah, I think especially in the last, I would say, yeah, 5 to 10 years, especially in the last five years, classical music industry in the United, I mean I say specifically in the United States because I don't see the similar kind of changes taking place in Japan where I'm currently located. And I also don't really know the situation in Europe. But the field of classical music in the US is changing. I think most significantly because of movements like the Black Lives Matter movement and also with the onset of COVID and the rise of anti Asian hate, there's been a lot more heightened awareness about how issues of race and also class shapes classical music. So there's a lot more vibrant conversations and debates about these topics in the industry and also in terms of AAPI community, are the biggest changes, the biggest change I'm seeing is that Asian and Asian American musicians themselves are being a lot more vocal and active in issues of race and racism in the field and there I've encountered many Asian and Asian American musicians who have, for instance, you know organized events or organizations, or taken up various forms of advocacy and activism on these issues. So compared to, say, 20 years ago, 20, 25 years ago, when I was doing the original research, I see a lot more kind of, you know, explicit awareness and awareness and articulation of these issues by Asian and Asian American musicians themselves.  00:08:12 Isabel Li  That's really interesting. Just because classical music is also one of those genres, that doesn't seem like a genre that most people explicitly associate with politics or activism. What are some examples of these, like activist movements that you've observed within the Asian American community in classical music?  00:08:32 Mari Yoshihara  So for instance, some Asian and Asian American musicians are are becoming a lot more vocal about the actual like racism or sexism that they have themselves experienced, or that they witness in the industry, like in in schools, conservatories, orchestras, opera companies, etc. Either through the media or you know their own writing, and also like speaking up within the organizations that they work in. So that's one. There are other kinds of advocacy and activism in that they demand more diverse repertoire, and I think the repertoire is in terms of the industry industry changes. That's the area that's changing the most, the the kind of repertoire that many orchestras for instance perform have become a lot more– I mean overall it's still very white, European centered– but in terms of the actual numbers of pieces that are performed, works by living, composers and composers of color, women composers, etcetera. That is significantly increased in the last 10 years and that is, you know significantly to do with the advocacy and activism on the part of, you know, artists of color.  So yeah, so things like that and then, you know, many Asian, Asian American artists are doing their own programming, for instance, like event organizing programming. So yeah, those are the areas that I see changes. I see things happening that I didn't see 25 years ago.  00:10:20 Isabel Li  Definitely. I remember reading your book, and your book has been published since 2007, so a lot of changes have happened since then. But in general, when you did your research at first, what how would you summarize the dynamic of Asian identities, Asian American identities in this very Eurocentric field, it's a juxtaposition of two different cultures and identities that a lot of people also observe in orchestras. There's a large population of Asian and Asian American musicians, conductors just in general. It's a very large population, but yet this identity is still not quite represented in media. It's not quite seen, so talk to us a bit about this juxtaposition and how you observe these dynamics in your research.  00:11:10 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So. The thing is, Asians and Asian Americans are indeed numerically overrepresented in classical music, in the sense that compared to the general public, the the the proportion of Asians and Asian Americans in the overall US population, the number of Asian and Asian Americans in classical music indexed by things like the student body at major conservatories or membership roster of US orchestras, etcetera, Asians and Asian Americans percentage is higher than the general population, right. So in terms of the numbers, Asians and Asian Americans are, quote unquote overrepresented. But those numbers are not reflected in the actual like voice, power and influence that they have in the industry.   So that was my finding back 2025 years ago and I think that's still true today. Also, the thing about Asian, Asian American musicians is that it's a racialized category. They are seeing and treated as Asian. It's this racial category. But their identities and experiences as Asians is not at all uniform, right?   Some of these Asian musicians are Asian Americans, like multi generational Asian Americans whose parents or grandparents or great grandparents etcetera have come to the United States and they themselves are U.S. citizens. So that's one group.   Many Asian musicians working in the United States are people who were born and raised in Asia, places like China or South Korea, Japan, etcetera, and came to the United States as international students to study music, often at the college level, college conservatory level, so obviously these people have very different sense of identity and experience as Asians compared to say, you know 3rd, 4th generation Chinese Americans or 1.5 Korean Americans.   There are other people who live in the United States because they were very talented, very young musicians, and the whole whole family immigrated to the United States specifically for their music education. So Midori, the famous violinist, Midori is a case, example of this, but there are also a number of other, especially among Koreans and Chinese. There are families, the whole family immigrated to the United States when the child was a very promising musician at age 7 or something. So that's one group. They too have a different sense of identity and experience of Asians than the two former groups that I that I talked about.   There are other people who also came to the United States because not because of the music education, but because of their parents' profession, for instance. And they have transnational kind of family ties and you know, they move, they go back and forth between US and Asia, for instance. And then there are also mixed roots families where one parent is Asian and the other is non Asian.   And then there are also Asians who were born and raised in Europe for other parts of the globe and then came to the United States, for either personal or professional reasons.   So in other words, they're all Asians in terms of their racial identity. But what that means is really quite diverse and their experience as Asian and Asian American musicians is also quite diverse. So it's not as if you know, just because they're Asian, they share some kind of experience and identities around which they coalesce. So that's, you know, that was true 20, 25 years ago. And I think that's still true today.  More and more Asian musicians are coming to the United States to study, study or work in classical music, but especially because of this, like new influence, this Asian category is becoming even more diverse. However, because of the COVID, you know the rise of Anti Asian hate during the COVID pandemic, I think that heightened the awareness of, you know, these different kinds of Asians, the heightened awareness that they are Asians. First and foremost, you know, in, in that in the sense of being racialized in the United States. So I have talked with a number of musicians, Asians and Asian American musicians, who did not really, hadn't thought about their Asianness before. It wasn't at the forefront of their identity before, but during this rise of anti Asian hate it they became they basically became more politicized. You know, they had quite a politicized language and awareness to think about race and racism especially against Asians and Asian Americans.  00:16:31 Isabel Li  Yeah, that's a great point. It is a such a diverse group and there are so many different identities, even within just the Asian American framework AAPI, as a label is very, very diverse. And that applies to classical music as well. But I think there's also this social perception of Asian and Asian Americans as a group that also relates to the model minority stereotype that's historically been present and, for example, a lot of people might think of, like a young Asian or Asian American musician as being like a prodigy because they are technically skilled at their instrument, where like these social perceptions that exist both in media and in the culture around us, why do you think that is?  00:17:15 Mari Yoshihara  Well, that as you said, there is a model minority myth and there is a stereotype of Asians and Asian Americans as being very studious and diligent, but also quiet, right? I mean, they just quietly follow, like, obedient, obediently follow the instructions and that translates in the field of music as the stereotype that Asian musicians are technically very proficient but artistically non expressive. I mean, that's a very common stereotype that yeah, you know, practically any Asian, Asian Americans in classical music have been subjected to, you know, quite regularly and frequently. And I think that, yeah, that just comes with the overall kind of racial stereotype of Asians and Asians and Asian Americans in American society at large. And also the fact that, you know, classical music, especially in terms of instrumental performance, it is an area that is, it's something that is, indeed, technically very demanding, right? You need many, many years of disciplined training and a lot of practice. And there is a myth of merit– well, no, not entirely a myth– but there is this this very, you know, dearly held faith in meritocracy in classical music. The idea that if you have the chops you will be rewarded, you will be recognized and you know, no matter what kind of great artistic idea you might have, if you can't play the notes, you can't play the notes. That kind of ethos of meritocracy is particularly strong in classical music because of the technical demands of the genre, and that and that kind of, you know, goes hand in hand with the model minority methods for Asian Americans.  00:19:20 Isabel Li  Definitely. That's really interesting and another part of your book that was quite fascinating to me when I first read it was chapter 3. You talked about the intersection of gender as well as, you know, racial identity in classical music. The chapter is called Playing Gender and you talk about, I think at large don't necessarily associate classical music with a discipline that provides a stable job. It is an art form and there is kind of an uphill battle for artists in a sense like a starving artist myth there. We're not even a myth. Like if there's a starving artist image, whereas the image of a very successful classical musician there's this duality that you also mentioned in one of your other chapters about class. So what really interested me in for this chapter was that there was this intersection of power in classical music of who would go down the path that might not be traditionally as successful. How do you think gender dynamics play into this and how do you think they might have shifted within the last two decades or so?  00:20:20 Mari Yoshihara  Huh. I'm not sure if it has shifted all that much in the last two decades, but as you said, because music I mean, not just classical music, but music. Like, you know, arts in general is a field that is very like economically insecure in terms of career, right?   But at the same time. Classical music is associated with kind of, you know, bourgeois identity and just kind of overall cultivation and so, many Asian, Asian American parents are very eager to send their kids to, say, piano lessons, violin lessons, cello lessons, etcetera. To, you know, give them a well-rounded education and also because it is considered useful tool, you know, when you're going to college and stuff like, you know being, you know, being able to show that you're very talented violinist, for instance, is believed to help your college application.  So there's this, you know, both stereotype and reality that like, you know, places like Julliard Pre-College, very competitive, you know, school, like music education program for kids is filled with Asian, Asian American, you know, students and their parents who are waiting, waiting for them to come out of school.   So there's that. But how gender plays into this is that while both men and women are do study music at a young age. When it comes to, you know, choosing say, college, like what they would, what they would pursue at the college level, far fewer male students tend to choose music as their college major or go to conservatory and pursue it as a as a career. But I think it's both their own choice. And also especially for Asian and Asian Americans, like parental pressure to not pursue music professionally because of, you know, financial insecurity.   So there's that, and also how that plays into the actual experiences of Asian, Asian Americans musicians who do study music is that I have heard from a number of female Asian musicians that either their peers or especially their teachers are doubtful that they are actually serious about music. There is a stereotype that, you know, say for instance, Japanese or Korean female students at Juilliard School, Manhattan School or whatever, they are there because they, you know, they want to study music and then find a good husband and marry, you know, a lawyer or doctor or engineer or something. [laughs] And and not that that doesn't happen. But that's a stereotype of, you know, that's a racialized and gender stereotype that comes from these, you know, gender and class and racialized dynamics.  00:23:35 Isabel Li  And just for clarification, is the classical music world at large still a male dominated field?  00:23:41 Mari Yoshihara  Yes. Oh yes. Definitely. I mean, it depends on the segment of you know, I mean classical music is itself quite diverse. So if you look at, for instance, the string section, especially the violin section of the New York Philharmonic for instance, you will find that like, I think the majority of those violin players are Asian women, perhaps. But if you look at say for instance, the Faculty of Conservatories or music directors and major orchestras and said, I mean still very male dominated.  00:24:23 Isabel Li  Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I like how your book also has so many different layers for each chapter. So Chapter 3 was about the gender intersection with this, with this identity, and Chapter 4, was it Chapter 4, I believe it was about class, Class Notes, and you've already mentioned a little bit about how class plays into the perception of music, how class influences gender even. But there's a statement in there that you said that, “it's misleading to characterize Asian musicians as just coming from the upper middle class.” And it makes sense that people would think of musicians coming from this economic bracket, because classical music is an in and of itself a very kind of expensive undertaking. You need so many lessons, so many instruments. But tell us why this statement would be misleading.  00:25:15 Mari Yoshihara  Because I mean, first of all, most of the overwhelmed, I would say overwhelming majority of the Asian, Asian American musicians that I interviewed come from middle class backgrounds, many of them from so-called like professional executive class backgrounds in, meaning that their parents hold these professional executive positions, right. And that's why they were able to afford advanced musical studies from a fairly young age. They need, you know, sustained and disciplined and often costly, you know, lessons, you know, competitions, etcetera, auditions, travel, etcetera. So that's for sure, yeah.   At the same time, there are also Asian musicians who come from less privileged backgrounds, you know, immigrant families who have, because quite a few. I mean overall Asian American population, many immigrants experience downward social mobility upon immigrating to the United States because of, you know, oftentimes linguistic barriers or you know, or plain old racism. And so you're not Asian families that immigrate to the United States, like, for instance, if the parents have professional positions back in South Korea, oftentimes they become, you know, for instance, you know, small business owners and they experience downward social mobility. I mean, that's a very common scenario. Yeah, so now all Asian, Asian American musicians grow up in a privileged environment.  00:27:06 Isabel Li  Definitely a great point. Now before we move on to some discussions about Mari's research. First of all, thank you for tuning in to Obbligato on APEX Express, we'll be taking a short music break and as mentioned earlier, a great way to increase diversity within classical music is to uplift works by living composers. If you're listening to my first.  00:27:26 Isabel Li  Episode 2 months ago, you'll know that I featured music by Chinese American composer Zhou Tian. I'm happy to say that coming up next is one of Zhou's compositions inspired by a trip to Italy. This is a piece called Hidden Grace performed by the Formosa Trio.  27:45 – COMP MUSIC – Hidden Grace  00:35:34 Isabel Li  That was a piece called Hidden Grace, composed by Zhou Tian for a fascinating instrumentation of flute, Viola and heart coming up for our second piece. In this interview, break another movement by Zhou Tian, the third movement of his double concerto for violin and Viola, called Rendezvous.  35:58 – COMP MUSIC – Double Concerto for Violin and Viola, III. Rendezvous  00:41:09 Isabel Li  Noah Bendix-Balgley on violin, Shanshan Yao on viola, and the Hangzhou Philharmonic, playing the third and final movement of Zhou Tian's Double Concerto for violin and viola. So back to the conversation with Professor Mari Yoshihara.  00:41:25 Isabel Li  As you also mentioned before, you're working on an updated version of Musicians from a Different Shore. Can you talk–I don't know how much you can talk about your, like upcoming projects, but are you using similar research methods to what you've done before using ethnographic field work? You've mentioned the new changing dynamics of classical music in the United States with new waves of activism and awareness. What are some new topics of your chapters that you might focus on? So for your 2007 publication, you talked about your gender and class and how these intersect with identity. Are there any new things that you're drawing upon here?  00:42:02 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So I'm using basically the same research method. I'm interviewing actually some of the same people that appeared in Musicians from a Different Shore. Some people kept in touch with over the years, I've gone back to them and interviewed them to see the trajectories of their careers since the first time I interviewed them. But then I've also interviewed a bunch of other, you know, new musicians that I'm speaking with for the first time. So it's essentially an interview and ethnographic fieldwork-based research.  I told you earlier about I think one of the biggest changes is, as I said before, the activism and advocacy on the part of Asian, Asian American musicians themselves. So I have one chapter about that. Like, what? How? What kinds of advocacy and activism they're engaged in.   Another big change that I'm seeing is that compared to 20 years ago, there are a lot more Asian musicians in the field of opera.  00:43:01 Isabel Li  Ohh yeah.  00:43:02 Mari Yoshihara  Uh. Both as singers. Yeah, many of them singers, but also in other, you know, like for instance opera, you know, pianist for opera or be opera directors, et cetera. There are many more Asians in this particular field than what I saw 20 years ago. And I talked about this a little bit in my first book, but opera is a very particular kind of field within classical music.   How race plays into opera is very different from other areas of classical music because it's a theatrical art form. It's visually oriented, you know art form. And because singers have to be cast in order to, you know, sing on stage. So the racial politics in opera, you know, unfolds very differently from, say, for pianists or cellists or conductors or or composers.   So I now have a whole chapter about opera, especially Madame Butterfly, that this very fraught work, you know, opera that many Asian and Asian Americans have love hate relationships. A lot of pigeon-holing that happens in that through that opera. But also, production of new opera by Asian and Asian American artists, composers, directors, singers, etcetera. So I have a whole chapter about that.   And then I also will have another chapter about, you know, what it means to, you know, sit at the table, basically. Like stand on the podium and sit at the table, stand on the podium. Not only, I mean I will, I will have a whole discussion about Asian and Asian Americans conductors, but not only in that literal sense of, you know, standing at the podium, but like being at the table like in other words, not only, Asian and Asian American musicians playing music that are given to them and they are assigned to them that they're hired to play, but also having a real voice in the organizational and institutional dimensions of classical music industry. So the kinds of people, Asians, who are in these positions more executive positions with decision making power what their experiences are like. I'm going to have a chapter about that.   So those are some of my ideas. I'm still in the middle of the project, so I can't. I can't see the whole picture, but those are some of my current ideas.  00:45:48 Isabel Li  I see. And do you have an idea of when this book will be published or an updated version?  00:45:54 Mari Yoshihara  Well [laughs], my goal rather ambitious goal is to have it published in 2027, because that would be 20 years since Musicians from a Different Shore, so that would be ideal if I can make that.  00:46:08 Isabel Li  Well, yeah. Nice. That's really exciting, definitely. I will also kind of bridge, I guess my part of the research into this part of the interview, since I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about how classical music in general is portrayed in media.   So as I've introduced myself before, I had a back, I have a background in media studies as well as music history and theory. And what was really interesting to me in my senior thesis while I was doing research for that was I coined this term and it could just be loosely associated with the genre of film. But it's the “classical music film.” So think of any narrative fictional film you can think of with a classical musician in there. So it could be like Amadeus, where I think of like Tár. If you watch Tár like a lot of these depictions are quite understandably white and European, but they my senior thesis I've never really seen any depictions of Asian American or Asian classical musicians? I was wondering if you have ever watched a film like that, or could maybe talk a bit about maybe the lack of representation in media, how media plays into how people perceive classical music as a genre as a whole.  00:47:23 Mari Yoshihara  That is a very interesting question. I think you know, because of the stereotype of Asian and Asian American model minority and model minority stereotype often is associated with, you know, violin or piano-playing Asian American kids, I think. Asian, Asian American characters who are, you know, these kind of musical classical music geniuses appear here and there. But the ones that center on such a character as the main, you know, like the protagonist, come to think of it, I'm not sure if I've seen. I mean, I've seen several Korean dramas, you know, character, but those are Korean dramas, not Asian American, so more American works with Asian classical musicians…  00:48:21 Isabel Li  And I think also classical music as a genre is. It's interesting because classical music is also kind of underrepresented. It's not quite in the mainstream. And then one of my final questions for you is I do also want to take a second to acknowledge that your book was actually one of the only books that I could find about this topic. I think there are not that many other books about Asian and Asian Americans in classical music. I think there are a few other books and a few and definitely some papers that talk about this, but what got you interested in this field? And I don't know if you think there's a scarcity of information, but do you think there's relative scarcity of information about this topic?  00:49:01 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So how I got into it is. So I was a pretty serious student of piano when I was a child. That's like, yeah, that really kind of preoccupied my childhood and adolescence. But then I, for various reasons I ended up not going to a music Conservatory and became an academic.   And then once I entered academia and became a scholar of American studies, all I was studying was like race, gender, class. I mean, that's what  we do in American studies. And my first book, which was originally my doctoral dissertation, was a cultural history of orientalism and white women. So that was a study of the intersections of race and gender and to some extent class in American history.   So once I finished that book, I was thinking about what projects to work on next. And I happened to turn on the TV, and it just so happens that the Vienna Phil New Year's concert, conducted by Seiji Ozawa was playing on the TV and that was sort of my “aha” moment because I had always known or, you know, kind of generally aware that Asians and Asian Americans are, if not necessarily overrepresented, but, you know, they're quite numerous, you know. They're present. Their numerical presence is quite notable in classical music that is often associated with white, you know, European culture, elite culture.  So I was kind of curious about that phenomenon, but I hadn't really thought too much about it until I watched Seiji Ozawa were conducting the Vienna Phil. And that's when I thought, well, maybe I can kind of combine my classical music background and my academic training in studies of race, gender, class into this project. So that's when I decided to work on. You know, this topic of Asians and Asian Americans, classical music.  I think the reason that there hadn't been at least a book-length study on the topic until my book is that for one thing, classical music is considered to be kind of a very abstract absolute form of music. This ethos that it is kind of transcends– that it is a universal, transcendental kind of genre, that is sort of above things like politics or race or gender. Like it shouldn't matter that these, you know, individual identity, racialized gender identity shouldn't matter vis-à-vis the universalism of classical music. I mean that kind of ethos is very strong in this particular genre of music. I think that has a lot to do with it.   And also the study of classical music until rather recently, like musicological study of classical music, really tended to be focused on the study of composers and their works, right? It was the textual that, like it, was an analysis of Beethoven Symphony or, you know, Bach Fugues, etcetera. Yeah. It was really focused on the study of the score, the study of the composer's ideas, as reflected in the score, I mean that was the centerpiece of musicological approach to classical music.  And so sort of more sociological anthropological study of the musical practice is a relatively new approach in in the field of musicology. I'm not a musicologist. So that's not how I'm trained. But I think the academic approach to classical music was not very, kind of, open to the kinds of topics that I raised in Musicians from a Different Shore.  00:53:12 Isabel Li  Definitely. I see. And my very final fun question for you is can you name three of your favorite classical music pieces for any recommendations you have for the audience who might be listening, who might be wondering what they will listen to next?  00:53:27 Mari Yoshihara  Well, OK well. Pieces well, because I wrote a book about Leonard Bernstein. I mean, I ended up– I wrote a book about Leonard Bernstein. Not necessarily because I was an avid fan of Bernstein. It just kind of happened this this project. But nonetheless of while I was doing research and writing the book I did listen to a lot of Bernstein. I and I have come to really love Bernstein music and so. And you know, of course, everybody knows West Side Story, but he actually wrote many other pieces that may not be as well known.   Well among the pieces that I like, I like…which one should I choose? I will choose. Ohh well, I'll choose a piece that I learned myself as a pianist.  I learned the piece called “Touches” that he wrote. It was a commission piece for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and it's kind of yeah, it's a chorale and variation. So that's very interesting and very interesting and very Bernstein-esque so well.   I'll OK, as an American study scholar. I'll, I'll stick with American pieces. I like someone Barber a lot. I like Barber “Excursions,” which I also learned to play.  00:55:04 Isabel Li  Yeah.  00:55:09 Isabel Li  Tough question.  00:55:11 Mari Yoshihara  Umm, Mason Bates piece that I also learned, “White Lies For Lomax.” This one was also, I believe…was it commissioned by the Cliburn? But no, maybe it wasn't. Yeah, I think it was commissioned. But anyway, I played it at the Van Cliburn International– the amateur competition of the Cliburn competition.  I did all these. So like Bernstein, Bates, Amy Beach piece I also played. Yeah, I'll stop there. I I wish you had prepped me for that then [laughs]–  00:55:42 Isabel Li  Oh my gosh. Great responses.  00:55:46 Mari Yoshihara  Hard to think on the spot.  00:55:47 Isabel Li  Yeah, I totally get that. Whenever people ask me for my favorite composer, I never have an answer. No, so I totally get it.   Well, thank you so much for your time, Mari. And thank you for your wonderful insights. I'll put the link to your books so that people can learn about your works on APEX Express on kpfa.org. So thank you so much for your time, Mari.  00:56:07 Mari Yoshihara  Thank you.  00:56:09 Isabel Li  As mentioned, please check our website kpfa.org to find out more about Mari Yoshihara, her scholarship, and links to two of her books. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.  00:56:31 Isabel Li  APEX Express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, and Cheryl Truong. Tonight's show was produced by Isabel Li. Thanks to the team at KPFA  for their support. Have a great night.  [OUTRO MUSIC]  The post APEX Express – 09.04.2025 – Obbligato with Mari Yoshihara appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. On tonight's edition of Obbligato on APEX Express, which focuses on AAPI artists, musicians, and composers in the classical music world, host Isabel Li is joined by LA based performer and composer Richard An, who plays and creates new avant-garde music, usually with the ensemble House on Fire, and his music has been performed by the LA Phil and the Calder Quartet to name a few. Join us in our conversation, exploring the possibilities of avant-garde music, raising questions regarding Asian identities in the classical music world, and Richard's insights on art making during a time when Trump's cuts to the NEA are affecting artists and institutions nationwide. Featured Music: Sonatrinas: https://richardan.bandcamp.com/album/sonatrinas i got the electroshock blues: https://rasprecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-got-the-electroshock-blues   RICHARD AN (b.1995) is a performer and composer, born and raised in Los Angeles. Richard plays new music – usually with House on Fire – co-founded the tiny backpack new music series, and has performed with Monday Evening Concerts' Echoi Ensemble, Piano Spheres, The Industry and on Bang on a Can's LOUD Weekend. Richard plays piano and percussion, and has been known to sing, conduct, and teach. Richard's music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Calder Quartet, HOCKET, C3LA, and more. His music has been released on CMNTX Records. Richard has a BM in Composition from USC and an MFA from CalArts. He is on faculty at the Pasadena Waldorf School, Glendale Community College and Harvard-Westlake. He plays taiko and tabla, and makes YouTube videos. Learn more about Richard's work on his website: https://richardanmusic.com/ Richard's social media: https://www.instagram.com/richardanmusic/ If you are in LA and want hear Richard's work, he's playing with House on Fire at the Sierra Madre Playhouse on August 17! https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/event/richardan2025   Transcript Opening: [00:00:00] APEX Express. Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the APEX Express. 00:00:46 Isabel Li Good evening and welcome back to a new episode of Apex Express on KPFA, 94.1 FM. We are bringing you an Asian and Asian American view from the Bay and around the world. I'm your host, Isabel Li, and tonight is a new edition of Obbligato, which explores AAPI identities and classical music. Tonight I'm joined by LA based performer and composer Richard An, who plays and creates new avant-garde music, usually with the ensemble House on Fire, and his music has been performed by the LA Phil and the Calder Quartet to name a few. Join us in our conversation, exploring the possibilities of avant-garde music, raising questions regarding Asian identities in the classical music world, and Richard's insights on art making during a time when Trump's cuts to the NEA are affecting artists and institutions nationwide. 00:01:41 Isabel Li Welcome to the show. Welcome to APEX Express, Richard. My first question for you is how do you identify and what communities would you say that you're a part of? 00:01:50 Richard An My name is Richard An I use he/him pronouns and I'm a second generation Korean American. My parents are both Korean. My dad came from Busan, which is a large city in South Korea, and my mom was born in Seoul and then moved to South America and then made her way up to Los Angeles where they met. And as for identity, like, I think Korean American would be the most accurate one. This is and I think an ever evolving part of first of all my identity and the way that it intersects with my practice and also I think that's the case with many Asian American artists, I mean artists from immigrant families, you know, the the matter of your identity, especially if you feel more distanced from it for one reason or another, is like an unsolved question for everyone like there is no one answer. That works for people and that's a thing that me people like myself I think will be exploring for our entire lives. When I introduce myself to people, I say that I'm a classical musician. And at the very core of it, that is true. That's not a lie. And I am, you know, a part of the classical music community in Los Angeles. But as time goes on, I have noticed and realized. That I tend to align myself more with like the avant-garde and experimental contemporary music communities of Los Angeles, which has certainly an overlap with the classical community, both in practice and historically, but yeah, I I would say those are the sort of two biggest ones, classical musicians and experimental avant-garde, contemporary musicians, whatever label you want to use for that. 00:03:47 Isabel Li Yeah. Some of our listeners might not know what avant-garde music entails. Can you — how would you describe avant-garde music to someone who might not be as familiar with this particular movement? 00:03:57 Richard An Yeah. So avant-garde music, a sort of flippant and joking way to to talk about it is ugly music or music. You know, my dad, for example, wouldn't like, but I think. It's music that either interfaces with elements or confronts facets or issues in music that aren't typical of other kinds of music. The music that you might hear that is labeled of on guard might be noisy or dissonant or uncomfortable, or any kind of, you know, adjectives that are synonyms for noisy or ugly, but I have come to love that kind of music, you know 1. Because of the the kind of questions that they might ask about our perceptions of music and two, because I guess one way to put it is that to be a classical musician, you need to be in a practice room for many hours a day for many years and go to what is unfortunately a college, which is usually very expensive and I guess for lack of a better term, paywalled for like you need to have the kind of resources that allow you to attend a four year undergrad and then a two year masters and then a three-year doctorate. But avant-garde music, contemporary music, experimental music doesn't necessitate that kind of thing. Often those musicians do have a background that gives them some amount of, you know, virtuosity or facility in an instrument. But like some of the best experimental musicians. Alive and some of the best ones that I know have no, like extensive training in a particular instrument and some may not have a degree in music at all. And that's one thing that I in like that separates it from classical music is that. 00:05:44 Richard An Classical music can be, unfortunately a little bit exclusionary. I don't think by any one specific design, but the fact that you need so many hours and very specific instructions from a mentor that necessitate that kind of relationship. But experimental music, I think does a little bit better job of diversifying or making it feel more equitable. 00:06:12 Isabel Li That's a great point, actually. One of my questions following up with that was what do you think is possible with this genre, which you kind of mentioned earlier with perhaps how this genre makes classical music a little bit more equitable for those who are interested in this field. In your experience, composing, what do you think makes the genre special, and how do you go about it? 00:06:35 Richard An One thing that I've noticed about being involved in the sort of contemporary experimental avant-garde music sphere is that it makes me a better listener, and I think other people who attend these concerts will agree. Like for example a large part of this kind of music is drone or repetition or, you know, like long spans of unchanging sound. And if the the sound that is being produced at face value is not changing, well then what do you notice about it? What do you grab on to and one of the most, I think, gratifying experiences is listening deeper and realizing that, ohh, even though you know for example this piano playing two notes for 30 minutes might not like the instructions will say to do the same thing for 30 minutes, but your experience as a human being will certainly change over those 30 minutes, even if the the notes are not like you will notice the slight fluctuations in the way that someone is playing, you will notice the beating patterns in the pitches on an instrument that may not be perfectly in tune, you will note other ambient sounds, you will note like you will notice so much more about the world when you are confronted with the kind of music that you know. You can say it forces you to listen to these sounds but also invites you to listen to these things. And I think that's really, really special. That's not to say that that can't happen with other kinds of music. Or even with classical music. Surely you know there are many, many ways to listen to everything. But I've noticed this within myself. When I listen to long, repetitive drone based music that it really opens my ears and makes me a more active participant as a listener. 00:08:30 Isabel Li It's a great point actually. Part of my work– because I studied music, history and theory in college– was how music can engage various listeners to participate. Have you composed anything that perhaps engages the listener in this more of a participatory setting? 00:08:47 Richard An Yeah. So I guess in order the some of the stuff that I've done to engage the audience, I guess both literally, and maybe more figuratively is, I wrote a piece last year for the Dog Star festival, which is a a contemporary and experimental music festival that is actually happening right now, at the time of this recording. It's a multi week long festival that focuses on music of this type that was founded by people in the sort of CalArts music world. But I wrote a piece for that last year for three melodicas, which are these basically toy instruments that look like keyboards, but you blow into them and you blowing air through these makes the sound happen. It's basically like if you cross a harmonica and a piano together. But I I wrote a piece for three of these, playing essentially the same notes. And because these instruments are pretty cheap, and they're often considered toys or, you know, instruments for children, they're not tuned to the exact way that, like a piano or a vibraphone or an expensive instrument might be. But I wanted to use that for my advantage. For example, if I play an F# on one melodica the same F# on another melodica will not be exactly the same and playing those two pitches together will produce what's known as a a beat or beat frequency. Which is, you know, a complicated, you know, mathematic physics thing, but basically 2 notes that are really, really close, but not quite together will create a kind of third rhythm because the the pitches are so close. Like, for example, if if I play an A at 4:40 and another A at 441, you will notice that difference of 1 Hertz inside of your ears. And that's a really cool phenomenon that happens explicitly because you were there listening to the piece. They don't happen necessarily, you know, like in, in recorded formats like, it's a very difficult thing to capture unless you are in the room with these instruments. And the fact that we had this audience of, let's say, 40 people meant that all forty of these people were experiencing these beat frequencies and another really cool factor of this is depending on where you are located in the room. With the way that the beats will sound in your ears are different and purely by the fact of acoustics like a wave bouncing off of the wall over on your left, will feel really different if you are closer or further from that wall. So not only do the audiences ears themselves, you know, invite these this this participation, but the pure physicality of each listener means that they will have a very slightly different experience of what the piece is, and again like this will happen in any concert. If you're at a classical show, if you're at a rock show if, if you're further from the stage, if you're further to the left or right, you will get a slightly different position in the stereo field that the musicians are playing in, but pieces like what I wrote and many others that exist emphasize this kind of like acoustic phenomena. That is really, really fascinating to listen to. 00:12:23 Isabel Li That's fascinating. And to get a sense of Richard's work, we'll be hearing coming up next. The short excerpt from his album Sonatrinas. This is the duo excerpt performed by Wells Leng, Katie Aikam, Kevin Good and composer Richard An himself. [COMP MUSIC: Sonatrinas (Excerpt: Duo)] 00:17:38 Richard An And so the back story for this piece is this was written for one of my recitals at CalArts. I was planning on playing this piece by Michael Gordon called Sonatra, which is a really, really beautiful and difficult piece for solo piano that I gave myself as an assignment, which I was not able to do with the amount of time. And, you know, like I just didn't give myself enough time to do this thing, so I still had this program of several pieces written with the idea of having this Michael Gordon Sonatra in the middle, but now that that sort of middle part was gone, there was a bunch of pieces about a piece that didn't exist. So in order to fill that hole, I wrote this piece called Sonatrinas which is a cheeky nod to the Michael Gordon Sonatra, but also to the fact that each part of this is kind of a diminutive Sonata form. Everything has a sort of ABA– here's some idea. Here's a different idea, and now we go back to that first idea. Every single part of this has a little bit of that in it. 00:18:51 Isabel Li Yeah, that's fascinating. Even the name itself reminds me of Sonata form in classical music, where it's kind of like an ABA section. As you sort of talked about earlier. And it's really cool that you're adapting this in a more avant-garde context. This is a reminder you're listening to Apex Express. Today we are interviewing composer and musician Richard An. 00:19:12 Isabel Li I think the general question that I have next is can you tell me a bit about what drew you to music and how you got your start in music, how you got introduced to it and what things have inspired you over the years? 00:19:24 Richard An Yeah. So a real quick sort of, I guess, history of my involvement with music is that I started piano lessons when I was pretty young, either three or four years old. I continued that until I was 12 or 13. I decided I really wanted to become a musician. I started taking composition lessons with this composer, AJ McCaffrey, who is really responsible for a lot of what I know and my successes, if you can call it that. He got me into a lot of the music that I am into now and set the foundation for what I would study and what I would write he was one of the instructors for this program called the LA Phil Composer Fellowship program, which back when I was a participant from 2011 to 2013, was a program hosted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic that took 4 high school age students every two years. And you know, they they taught us, you know, everything. How a young composer needs to know how instruments work, how to write a score, how to talk to musicians, how to do everything that a that a composer needs to learn how to do and at the end of this program, after the two years the young composers write a piece for the at the LA Philharmonic. So I was extremely lucky that by the age of 17 I was able to write a piece for orchestra and get that played and not just any orchestra, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you know, undisputedly one of the best orchestras in the world. Right. And then after that I I went to USC for my undergrad and then went to CalArts for my masters. And then here we are now. And that those are sort of the like, you know if someone writes a biography about me, that's what we'll be, you know, involved in the thing. But I really started to develop my love for music in my freshman and sophomore year. In high school I I started to get into more and more modern composers. I started to get into more and more noisy things and a lot of this coincided actually with the passing of my mother. She died when I was 14 and you know that in any human the death of a parent will cause you to reevaluate and rethink aspects of your life. Things that you thought were certainties will not be there anymore. So for me, I stopped taking piano lessons and I sort of went headfirst into composition and which is why my degrees are specifically in composition and not piano. Had my mother's passing not happened, you know, who knows what I would be doing now? Maybe I'm not a composer at all. Maybe I'm not into avant-garde music at all, but because things happen the way that they did, I suddenly took a quick turn into avant-garde music and my involvement there only grew more and more and more. Until you know where I am today, I'm almost 30 years old, so I've been listening to and a participant of this music for maybe 15 years or so and I'm quite happy. 00:22:43 Isabel Li That's awesome to hear. 00:22:45 Isabel Li And perhaps a testament to Richard one's very versatile compositional style and avant-garde music coming up next are three pieces from his album i got the electroshock blues. There are five pieces in the album in total, but we will be hearing three of them. The first one called “feeling, scared today,” the second one, “pink pill,” and the fifth one, “la la.” [COMP MUSIC: i got the electroshock blues: 1. “feeling, scared today”, 2. “pink pill”, 3. “la la”.] 00:36:41 Richard An Earlier last year, I released a collection of live recordings under the title of I got the Electroshock Blues. Electroshock Blues is a song by the band Eels I encountered at a pivotal moment in my life. This was right around the time that my mother passed and this record and this song is heavily centered in grief. The main musician in the Eels, Mark Oliver Everett, was dealing with the passing of multiple family members and people who were close to him so it hit me in just the right way at just the right time. And because of that, this song specifically has stayed with me for many, many years. I found myself coming back to the contents of this song as I was composing and all the pieces on this album, of which there are 5 heavily take material from this song, whether that's words, chords, the melody. I really, you know, take it apart, dissect it and use those as ingredients in the pieces that I have written here and all of these are live recordings except for the first piece which was recorded in my studio. I just sort of overdubbed the parts myself, and there are credits in the liner notes for this album, but I just want to say that. The first piece which is called “feeling, scared today,” was originally written for the Hockett piano duo, which is a duo comprised of Thomas Kotcheff and Sarah Gibson. Sarah Gibson was a really close friend of mine who passed away last year and now this piece which in some way came out of a feeling of grief now has renewed meaning and another facet or aspect of this piece is centered in grief now. Because this was dedicated to Thomas and Sarah. Yeah. So these pieces are all derived from this one song. 00:38:57 Isabel Li That's a beautiful response. Thank you so much. Kind of following along your background and how you got to where you are. How do you think your identity has informed your work as a composer and musician? And this could be– you can interpret this in any way that you wish. 00:39:11 Richard An Yeah, this is a really interesting question. The question of how my identity interfaces with my music. In my art, particularly because no person's answer is quite the same, and I don't necessarily have this figured out either. So for a little bit of I guess for a little bit of context on me, I'm second generation Korean American, but I've never been to Korea and I never went to Korean school. My parents never really emphasize that part of my education. You could call it assimilation. You can call it whatever, but I think they valued other aspects of my growth than my explicit tie to Koreanness or, you know my specific identity as a Korean or Korean American, and because of that, I've always felt a little bit awkwardly distanced from that part of my identity, which is something that I will never be completely rid of. So in in a world and the field where whiteness is sort of the default part you know, particularly because you know, classical music does come from Europe, you know, for hundreds of years, like all of the development in this particular kind of music did happen in a place where everyone was white. So because of that background of where I come from and where my musical activity comes from, whiteness has been the default and still feels like it is. So me looking the way that I do as, an obvious not white person, as a person of color will always have a little bit of an outsider status to the thing. And with that comes the question of what are you bringing to classical music? What do you bring to the kind of music that you're creating? Like for example, the most I think the most well known East Asian composers are people like Toru Takemitsu or Tan Dun, people who will interface with their Asianness, in many different ways, but that often involves bringing, for example, a Japanese scale into your classical composition, or bringing a Japanese instrument into your classical composition. Those are, you know, examples of of of pieces by Toru Takemitsu, and other, you know, very successful. Asian American composers now may do similarly. Texu Kim is maybe someone who can also give insight into this, but nothing about me feels explicitly Korean, maybe besides the way that I look. And besides, the way that I grew up a little bit like I've never been to Korea. What right does that give me as a Korean, to for example, use a Korean instrument or use a Korean scale? I've never studied that music. I've never studied that culture. I in in some arguments I would be guilty of cultural appropriation, because I, you know, have not done the work to study and to properly represent. And for example, like Pansori, if I were to use that in any of my music. 00:42:46 Richard An But then the the the difficult question is well, then who does have the right? Does being Korean give me all the license that I need to incorporate aspects of my identity? And if I am not Korean, does that, does that bar my access to that kind of music forever? Another way of looking at this is, I've studied North Indian Classical Hindustani music for a while. I've played tabla and and studied that music at CalArts and I really, really love playing tabla. It's it doesn't make its way into my composition so much, but it is certainly a big part of my musicianship and who I am and, like, but am I barred from using ideas or aspects of that music and culture and my music because simply for the fact that I am not Indian? Many musicians would say no. Of course you've done your homework, you've done your research. You're doing due diligence. You're you're representing it properly. And many people who study this music will say music cannot go forward if it's not like the innervated and continued and studied by people like me who are not explicitly South Asian or Indian. That's an example of the flip side of this of me using or representing the music from a culture that I am not a part of, but again, am I really Korean? I've never been there. I wasn't born there. I speak the language conversationally. But this is an extremely long winded way of saying that I feel a tenuous connection to my Korean this my Korean American identity that hasn't been solved, that isn't solved and probably will never be completely solved. But I think that's exciting. I think that's an evolving aspect of my music and will continue to be that way as long as I continue to be involved in music and as as long as I continue to write. 00:45:05 Isabel Li Yeah, absolutely. That's a wonderful response. Actually. I was, as I was studying different types of world music and learning how people kind of borrow from different cultures. There is this always, this kind of question like ohh, like which types of musical elements from which cultures can I incorporate and obviously the aspects of personal identity definitely play into that a little bit. And part of my senior thesis in college was studying AAPI artists in classical music, and specifically that there are a lot of Asian-identifying musicians in the classical music world. But as you kind of mentioned earlier, I think classical music is very much still like grounded in whiteness and has this kind of air of elitism to it just because of its roots. How do you think this kind of identity intersects with the classical music world? And forgive me if you've already kind of talked about it before, but it's an interesting juxtaposition between like, for example, musicians who identify as AAPI or Asian in this kind of genre that is very– it's very associated with whiteness. Could you kind of talk about the dynamics of how these two aspects of like culture kind of interplay with one another? 00:46:26 Richard An Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there are ways that I personally feel like I intersect with classical music with reference to my identity, and that also plays with the sort of cultural expectations, like there are stereotypes of Asian musicians, of Asian classical musicians. But there are not necessarily the same the same kind of stereotypes with white classical musicians. A very dominant like stereotype that you'll run into is the young Asian prodigy who practices 10 hours a day and may therefore be labeled as mechanical or unfeeling or, you know, are involved in in this a lot. So much so to the fact to the to the point where to excel an Asian American classical musician or as an Asian classical musician, in general, seems to always carry that stereotype. Like you know, Seong-Jin Cho's success as a pianist may not necessarily be attributed to his musicianship or his skill as a pianist. Because he is an Asian person, an Asian guy. Like how much of his success is because of the perceived tiger mom-ness that he might have existed under? How much of it is attributed to the same type of stereotypes that are labeled like that that label the five year old pianist on YouTube that that is clearly better than I am? Like some of these stereotypes help and some of these don't, but the I think it's undeniable that they exist in a way that doesn't in a way that doesn't carry for white people in the classical music sphere. And I think part of that is that classical music is still rooted in its Eurological identity. I think I'm using that correctly. That's an idea from George Lewis. Eurological versus Afrological. The context that I'm using Eurological right now is specifically in reference to George Lewis, who is a composer, trombonist, and musicologist who, I think coined the two terms to differentiate the roots of different styles of music, and you know, I haven't read enough to confidently say, but classical music is Eurological by example and like jazz would be Afrological by an example and the contexts in which they develop and exist and grew up are fundamentally different, which is what makes them different from each other. And again like this needs a little bit more research on my part. 00:49:23 Richard An Yeah, and because the classical music is so rooted in this thing, I don't believe that the stereotypes that exist for Asian classical musicians exist for white people. And I think that is something that will naturally dissipate with time, like after another 100 years of Asians, and, you know, people of color in, you know, every country in the world, with their continued involvement and innova otypes will disappear like this. You know, it may require certain concerted efforts from certain people, but I do believe that after a while these things will not exist. They'll sort of equalize right in the same way. That the divisions that we make between a Russian pianist and a French pianist and a German pianist, though you know people still do study those things like those aren't really dividing lines quite as strong as an Asian composer or an Indian composer might be. 00:50:27 Isabel Li Thank you for that perspective. I think it's, I think these are conversations that people don't kind of bring up as much in the classical music world and it's great that, you know, we're kind of thinking about these and probably possibly like opening some conversations up to our listeners hopefully. And so my next kind of pivot here is as you know with our current administration, Trump has canceled millions of dollars in National Endowment of the Arts grants, and it's been affecting arts organizations all over the nation. And I was kind of wondering, have you been affected by these cuts to arts programs and what kinds of advice would give upcoming musicians or composers in this era? 00:51:07 Richard An Yeah, that's a yeah, that's a big thing. And like, you know, changing day by day, right. So the Trump administration's effects on my life as a musician is simultaneously huge and also not really that much. So in one way these grant cuts have not affected my personal musical life because I haven't ever received a government grant for any of my arts making. So in one way like my life is the same, but in many, many, many other ways it has changed. Like I am involved with and I work with concert series and organizations and nonprofits that do rely on NEA funding and other government arts based funding. And if they have less money to fund their next season, that means certain projects have to be cut. That means certain musicians have to be paid less. That means certain programs have to change, especially if these funding cuts are aimed towards DEI or quote and quote, woke programming like that is, you know this that will by design disproportionately affect people of color in this field, which already you know, like is in a Eurocentric urological tradition like this is already something that people of color don't have a head start in if the funding cuts are aimed at certain types of programming that will disadvantage already disadvantaged groups of people, well then I don't know, that's even–we're starting even later than other people might be, and you know, like, if a musicians, if a person's reaction to this is despair, I think that's reasonable. I think that is an absolutely, like that's an appropriate reaction to what is fundamentally an attack on your voice as an artist. But I I have for as long as I can, you know, I have always worked under the impression that I will have to do the thing myself, and that's in the piece of advice that I give for a lot of people. You shouldn't necessarily wait for this ensemble to come pick you to play or or to to, you know, commission you to write a piece if you want to write the piece, you should do it and figure out how to put it on yourself. If you want to perform you know music by a certain composer, you should do it and then figure out how to do it yourself. That certainly comes from a place of privilege, like I can do this because I have enough work as a musician to be able to pay for the the passion projects it comes from a place of privilege, because I live in Los Angeles and the resources and musicians and other people who I would like to collaborate with live here, so you know, completely acknowledging and understanding that I I do believe that it's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I think if you're a young musician and are feeling some despair about these funding cuts and you know the many, many, many other transgressions against humanity by this current administration. 00:54:38 Richard An I recommend you just go out and do it yourself. You find your people, you find your community, you pull favors, you work long nights and you do it and the reward will firstly be the good you're putting out into the world and then the the art you're making. But also this will be paid in kind by the community you're building, the musicians you're working with. And the the connections you make like you know I I have, I am currently conducting this interview from a studio space that I am renting out in Pasadena that I have built over the last two years that I do all of my rehearsals and my performances in, and that I, you know, host rehearsals and performances for other people, and this cannot happen and could not have happened without the goodwill and help and contribution from other people. When I say go out and do it yourself, I'm not saying that you as a human being are alone. I'm saying you don't need to wait for institutional approval or permission to go out and do these things. Get your friends and do them themselves. And my optimistic belief is that the support and the work will follow. 00:55:53 Isabel Li Richard, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives and your voice on this show today. And thank you to our many listeners of KPFA on tonight's episode of Obbligato on Apex Express. Which focuses on the AAPI community of the classical music world. There were some inspirational words on arts and arts making by Richard An musician and composer based in Los Angeles. 00:56:18 Isabel Li Please check our website kpfa.org to find out more about Richard An and his work as well as the state of the arts during this period of funding cuts. 00:56:29 Isabel Li We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world, your voices and your art are important. 00:56:41 Isabel Li APEX Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by Isabel Li. Have a great evening. The post APEX Express – 8.7.25 – Obbligato with Richard An appeared first on KPFA.

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States Presumed Incompetent Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award​, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States Presumed Incompetent Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award​, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States Presumed Incompetent Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award​, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States Presumed Incompetent Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award​, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States Presumed Incompetent Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award​, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students' concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students' critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno's groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

This week Mofei and Calvin explore personal stories and experiences of growing up in diverse environments where cultural authenticity is often questioned and scrutinized. Join us as we discuss how we've navigated the pressures of fitting into a specific mold of "Asianness" and the impact this might have on our sense of identity and belonging.

This week in Asian American news: We cover a NYTimes article that profiling some young Asian Americans in Chinatown. Aaron, an organizer in that same Chinatown, has some thoughts. One of the country's oldest unions, United Auto Workers, goes on strike! They get the big 3 manufacturers play whack-a-mole with the plants and boy do GM, Ford, and Stellantis miss every mole. A new Pew study finds that among Asian Americans, those who are young, 2nd gen, and…Democrat? are more likely to hide their culture and identity. We try to figure out why peopl are still coming up with studies like this. The New Yorker drops a bombshell of an interview with Hasan Minhaj that has the internet in an uproar: the man exaggerates in his stand-up! As comedians, we discuss the ethics of lying in one's jokes.  - WHAT'S  POLITICALLY ASIAN PODCAST? -- We're two Asian American comedians talking about politics and the Asian American community to get more Asians talking about politics! Join Aaron Yin (he/him) and Gerrie Lim (they/them) for 45 minutes-ish each week as we discuss current topics and events related to Asian Americans through the lenses of history, class, and advocacy. CHECK US OUT ON SOCIAL MEDIA:  Instagram: https://instagram.com/politicallyasianpodcast/  Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@politicallyasianpodcast  Twitter: https://twitter.com/politicasianpod  Website: https://politicallyasianpodcast.com Support us at https://buymeacoffee.com/politicalasian  COMMENTS, THOUGHTS, OPINIONS, HOT TAKES, FEEDBACK: politicallyasianpodcast@gmail.com  MUSIC by Clueless Kit: https://soundcloud.com/cluelesskit Song title: live now

Gabe is SHOCKED to learn that River is interested in men, which leads to a fun conversation about River's type and the assumptions everyone makes about trans men's sexualities. Then, Gabe has a lot of gripes about how horribly men behave in the men's bathroom. Finally, actor and activist Leo Sheng joins for a vulnerable and smart conversation about how his gender dovetailed with his adoption and his Asianness and not feeling like a "girl attracted to girls" or a "girl attracted to boys." Plus, how was it to be in one of the most healing trans scenes in the L Word: Gen Q?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Evelyn Mok is well known for being the former co-host of the (now retired) Rice to Meet You Podcast and the creative mind behind multiple popular sketches. The Swedish native is also one of the highest-profile comedian of East Asian heritage in the UK, who now spends her time between both countries.Evelyn talked about how the feeling of being "other'ed in Sweden in her childhood prompted her to mimic a near perfect American accent as an escape. She also shared the cadence employed earlier in her comedy career - partially a remnant of getting out of a stage character and partially her understanding at that time of how funny should sound like.This episode also includes Evelyn's reflection on her relationship between stand up (more specifically doing stand up in the UK) and depression and why it can be a complex mix. She has prioritised taking care of her own mental health and is now a in better place again to pursue her love for stand up.---------------------------------Follow Evelyn on InstagramFollow your host Kuan-wen on Instagram and Twitter----------------------------------If you like the episode, please share it and leave a review.For any comments or suggestions, please contact us on Instagram or email comedywithanaccent@gmail.com----------------------------------Episode timeline00:48 Intro (& some chitchat)05:19 Where did Evelyn's get her near perfect American accent from and why was young Evelyn determined to mimic the American accent?08:45 Why ethnic minority immigrants are more likely to try stand up comedy09:55 Can Evelyn's American accent fool native speakers?11:05 When Evelyn's Swedish sound slips13:00 Different Nordic sounds and stereotypes (inc. some Eurovision chat)16:54 Evelyn might not have to explain her accent but needs to address her background - because of her ethinicty - if she wants to mention Sweden21:25 Evelyn's old “cadence” - the way Evelyn used to speak on stage - and the character she used to employ24:58 How “Funny” sounded to Evelyn30:21 Depression; how it affected Evelyn's stand up33:12 From a character to a stage persona to finally be her true self37:44 Evelyn can only manage this American accent41:07 Is Evelyn more fluent in English than in her native Cantonese?41:52 Re-discovering her Swedishness and Asianness -45:15 Looking back on a therapy like—episode47:27 Evelyn's social media---------------------------------Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety and desire. Conceptualizing these feelings as “racist love,” she explores how race is abstracted and then projected onto Asianized objects. Bow shows how anthropomorphic objects and images such as cartoon animals in children's books, home décor and cute tchotchkes, contemporary visual art, and artificially intelligent robots function as repositories of seemingly positive feelings and attachment to Asianness.  At the same time, Bow demonstrates that these Asianized proxies reveal how fetishistic attraction and pleasure serve as a source of anti-Asian bias and violence. By outlining how attraction to popular representations of Asianness cloaks racial resentment and fears of globalization, Bow provides a new means of understanding the ambivalence surrounding Asians in the United States while offering a theory of the psychological, affective, and symbolic dynamics of racist love in contemporary America. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Listen to ASCO's Journal of Clinical Oncology essay, “How Are You, Choi-Seonsaeng?” by Dr. April Choi, a Hematology and Oncology fellow at Tufts Medical Center. The essay is followed by an interview with Choi and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. Choi discusses how navigating US healthcare is similar to acclimating to a foreign country. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: How Are You, Choi-Seonsaeng?, by April Choi, MD (10.1200/JCO.22.02103) It was not until Mr. Yoon's nurse contacted me (an intern eager to flex her Korean skills) for an “agitated patient who is trying to leave the hospital” that his limited knowledge of English became apparent to everyone. Mr. Yoon was sent down to the radiology department for an additional computed tomography scan earlier that day. He had been admitted for partial bowel obstruction secondary to a colonic mass. After his scan was completed, a technician reportedly told him that he was “good to go.” As soon as he arrived back in his hospital room, Mr. Yoon, happily thinking that he was being discharged, began to pack his belongings and changed out of his hospital gown. The nurse, aware of the team's plan for his upcoming hemicolectomy but ignorant of what had transpired downstairs in radiology, interpreted this as the patient trying to leave against medical advice. I ran into his room, ready to de-escalate the situation, only for him to turn happily around and ask in Korean, “how are you, Choi-seonsaeng?” (seonsaeng means a teacher, but here it is used as an honorific for respecting the person to whom it is addressed). His hospitalization was already difficult because of a lack of family support; his surrogate decision maker was a fellow church member of whom he had “asked for a favor.” To add to this, his English was just good enough to cause more harm than good. Had he not spoken any English, more people would have defaulted to using an interpreter. Instead, he knew just enough English to convince his doctors and nurses that he understood his treatment plans, and they would leave his room each morning satisfied when he would smile, nod, and say “no questions.” I could empathize with the struggle that he had in this hospital. As a 1.5-generation (those who immigrated before or during their early teens) Korean immigrant growing up in California, I quickly became an expert in appearing unfazed by something, even if that thing seemed very odd to me at first. Things like adults asking me to call them by their first names. Following my friend into their living room without taking off my shoes. Someone telling me, “I see where you're coming from,” when I had been sitting down and talking to them for the past 15 minutes—I was not coming from anywhere! In most of these situations, my strategy has always been to smile, nod, and try not to say anything that might sound incredibly stupid. I am fairly certain others implement similar strategies when navigating different cultures as they travel in foreign countries. After all, most of us do not harbor the communicative finesse that Anthony Bourdain had while interacting with the locals in Parts Unknown. For many of us immigrants, “smile-and-nod” ends up being the default response in unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations, such as in hospitals. I can attest that this sense of “foreignness,” or “Asianness,” never quite goes away. Although my parents would increasingly comment that I “act like an American,” and even after I had been living in the United States longer than I had in Korea, my Korean-ness stuck around. Sometimes more, sometimes less, very much like the awkward lilt in my English that made people ask, “so where are you really from?” I would prick my own thumb with a needle if I had indigestion because I was told it would get out the bad blood. When I got nauseous, I would make myself jook, or rice porridge, because it was the only thing my stomach could tolerate. I continue to identify as a Korean—maybe Korean American on some days, but never fully just American. On my last day of service, Mr. Yoon was still waiting to get his hemicolectomy. As I explained the general plans involving surgery followed by chemotherapy, he asked if there was any way he could have some jook before his upcoming hemicolectomy. He had been ordering oatmeal, but it “wasn't right.” I could only eke out, “I'll look into it,” before I ran out of his room and straight into the unit's physician's workroom. There I started crying and babbling incoherently to my non-Asian co-intern about jook and how I simply must get some for Mr Yoon. Although crying in a workroom for sleep-deprived and overworked interns might have been a rite of passage in my residency, I cried because it had finally dawned on me that Mr. Yoon was terrified of his diagnosis. This gentleman, who was more than twice my age but still made my day by referring to me as a seonsaeng, had been smiling and nodding his way through the uncertainty of his cancer diagnosis and what was to come. He wanted something he was accustomed to, something he could bank on to make him feel better. For him, like many Koreans I know, it was the jook. Unfortunately, he had no friends or family checking in on him, let alone bringing him food that he enjoyed. For him, finding a way to get some comfort through jook was more important than hearing strangers give reassurances of “everything will be fine” and “we have a plan.” On that day, I was reminded of when I moved to a strange new city for medical school, forlornly eating dinner by myself when instead I could be surrounded by my family and talking about how our day went. I understood the sadness you feel when you are sick and too tired to do anything, but you are cooking your own jook because your mother is not there for you. I empathized with wanting to eat food that you are accustomed to and the distress you feel when you are unable to find it because of where you are or the situation you are going through. In my family, food is both comfort and love; sharing food is how I know I am cared for. For Mr. Yoon, it was not just about food but rather the lack of support he felt during his upcoming cancer treatment. I ended up getting some jook delivered to our hospital that day. I recall muttering something about wishing him an uneventful surgery as I tearfully handed him the plastic tub of jook. Several months later, I was paged to the hospital unit and found Mr. Yoon waiting for me, skin duskier than I recalled but overall appearing well. He told me that on being discharged after surgery, he connected with a Korean-speaking oncologist and completed his chemotherapy. His oncologist told him his recent scan did not show any evidence of cancer. He said he had been meaning to visit me because he wanted to thank me for the jook I had given him before his surgery. We talked for a bit before I had to leave for my afternoon clinic—that was the last time I saw Mr. Yoon. Several years and a worldwide pandemic later, I find myself fortunate to be training in oncology in a strange new city again. I am once again reminded of how difficult adjusting to a new area is and then think about how more difficult it is for our immigrant patients to navigate their cancer treatment. Undergoing cancer treatment is very much like immigrating to a different country. You cannot be 100% sure of what may happen in this new country, and no amount of second-hand information from other people can adequately prepare you for what lies ahead. You do not quite grasp the language, so you smile and nod your way through each doctor's visit and hope things will turn out alright. When you couple this with an actual language barrier, it may feel like being lost in a foreign country without being able to ask for directions. It is important for us oncologists to dig deeper and understand the cultures from which our patients come. Instead of asking if they are eating well, ask what they enjoy eating. Are they able to eat the food they were eating before? Or are they navigating a new diet planned by a nutritionist who does not know the difference between oatmeal and jook? Have we considered what a patient's family does to provide support, on the days when chemotherapy is too rough and the nausea is too bad? We may be surprised to find what is hidden behind the polite nods and small smiles.   Dr. Lidia Schapira: Hello, and welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, brought to you by ASCO Podcasts, which covers a range of educational and scientific content and offers enriching insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all ASCO shows, including this one, at: podcasts.asco.org. I'm your host, Lidia Schapira, Associate Editor for Art of Oncology, and a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Today, we're joined by Dr. April Choi, a Hematology and Oncology fellow at Tufts Medical Center. In this episode, we will be discussing her Art of Oncology article, ‘How Are You, Choi-seonsaeng?' At the time of this recording, our guest has no disclosures. April, welcome to our podcast and thank you for joining us. Dr. April Choi: Good morning. I'm glad to be here. Dr. Lidia Schapira: Well, it's afternoon in California, so, it's wonderful that you are someplace where it's morning. Where exactly are you today? Dr. April Choi: I'm currently in South Korea visiting my relatives. Dr. Lidia Schapira: That's wonderful, and brings us to the heart of your essay, which is a moving narrative that describes your interaction when you were a medical resident, with a patient who is a Korean immigrant. Tell us a little bit about the motivation that led you to write this article and then share it with others. Dr. April Choi: First of all, I'm very happy that you enjoyed this article. It comes from my heart, and I've been meaning to write this article for many years now, actually. And I wrote this piece initially a year after I saw Mr. Yoon again. I think one of the things that I wanted to share with everyone is how difficult it could be as an immigrant to navigate the complexities of the hospital, even if you do speak a little bit of English. And I think the cancer part really complicated his care, and I really wanted to make sure that people who might not have this interaction, because they grew up in the United States, or have never encountered someone who is from a different culture, to be able to experience, second-hand, what it feels like to treat someone who is of the same culture, but might not have the linguistic sophistication or experience working in healthcare system. Dr. Lidia Schapira: You start off the article with a little dose of humor that I found very refreshing - turns out that your patient, Mr. Yoon, is told by an X-ray tech or a CT tech that, "He's good to go." And he interprets that as, "He's good to leave the hospital", only to find that the nurse misinterprets his preparation to leave as, "He's leaving against medical advice." And that's when you enter the story. Bring us to the bedside; tell us a little bit about your interactions with Yoon. Dr. April Choi: I think, in retrospect, it might have been very funny. I do have to say, when it happened, it was a very stressful time for me. I was not in that hospital unit at all until I got this call, when the nurse was very distraught and said, "You need to come to bedside. He is trying to leave, he's agitated, he won't listen." And as I had written in my article, I ran. I ran towards his room because by then, we had developed some sort of a relationship where he would actually ask me, "Oh, what was that other doctor talking about?" So, we had a really close relationship, and when I heard that he was agitated, I couldn't believe it because he was one of the nicest patients that I had seen before. And for me to find out that he was under the impression he was being discharged after all this, I was immediately reminded of my parents, and how they speak enough English, where they can get by, but at the same time, I don't think they would be okay in a hospital setting. And I think that goes for a lot of 1.5 generation, as I talked about in my article, as well as the second-generation immigrants, where they understand everything, but for their parents, it's not the case. Dr. Lidia Schapira: So, let's talk about your parents and our patient here, and then those who perhaps just speak a little to get by. And it's easy to think that in a hospital setting where there's so many time pressures and everybody wants to be efficient, sometimes, things just slip by, and we don't take the time, perhaps, to ask as many questions, because we don't have an interpreter at bedside, or because it takes a little bit more effort. You give these examples so beautifully in your essay. What are you doing now that you're an Oncology fellow, or future Oncologist, to communicate with patients? Dr. April Choi: I actually do a lot of drawings. I think drawing is one of the strongest ways someone can communicate. So, a lot of the times I have my multicolored pen, and I will draw whichever they need to - if it's esophageal cancer, I will draw them where their cancer is located-- right before my vacation, I talked to someone about radiation fields - I will draw little rectangles, and talk about how, no, reradiation is not possible, for example. I do try to use very simple language, and when I say simple, I don't mean to say that they are any less intelligent than we are because a lot of our patients, in their own language, they're amazingly intelligent and they understand everything. But trying to refrain from using things like, "You're good to go", or some examples that people who never grew up in the U.S. might not know about, such as, one of the examples I had done was, "I see where you're coming from", and everyone seems to know that, except for the immigrants. Because, “What are you saying? I was sitting next to you; I was talking to you. What do you mean by you see where I'm coming from?” And those things, I think, people don't stop and think about, but once you say, what is the literal translation for this? And say, “Is this something, if I had heard it for the first time, something you understand?” And just taking that time to say, “Maybe this is not the most commonly used phrase.” And then, using a more direct language can really help the patients who are of limited English proficiency. Dr. Lidia Schapira: You used the expression 1.5 generation, and I know that when we reviewed the article, some of us had never heard that expression. And then, you explained to us that this refers to those who came as teens, or young enough so that they were quick to learn and assimilate into the new culture, but sufficiently grown to really also be firmly rooted in the mother culture. Tell us a little bit about where you are with this, and how this has shaped the way you've approached your life as a medical student, as a resident, and now, as an Oncologist. Dr. April Choi: I think it's impossible to talk about my medical education without talking about how I was brought up. I was actually born in the United States but moved to Korea when I was less than a year old. And I stayed there until third grade when I moved to California for the first time, stayed until fifth grade, and I moved back to Korea until middle school, then I moved back to California to start high school, and I've been here since then. So, this moving back and forth, I think, did create a lot of confusion when I was growing up because the two cultures are very different, and the medical system is also inherently very different compared to Korea. And I come from a place where in Korea you could go see a doctor if you're sick, and when I was living in the U.S., our family didn't have health insurance. So, the first time I saw an American doctor was when I was in high school. And at that time, my brother had dislocated his shoulder, and I remember my mom bringing him to the emergency department, University of California, Irvine. And at that time, she was very polite, she would say, "yes", and smile and nod to whichever the emergency doctor had told her about the dislocated shoulder. But I remember her always turning to me after he left, to say, "What about this? What about the medication?" But she didn't feel comfortable to interrupt this doctor who had come in, and ask about the things that she was worried about - this was her son. He had dislocated his shoulder for the first time. But for her to feel culturally uncomfortable to interrupt them and ask questions, and have all of her questions answered, I think really stuck with me. Dr. Lidia Schapira: I hear a lot of emotion in your voice when you talk about this, and you bring up issues of safety for people who are vulnerable. How are you dealing with this now that you have so much power, as an oncologist whose patients are placing their life in your hands? Dr. April Choi: Honestly, I feel blessed and grateful that I'm in a position where I can change things for the better. I'm currently invested in research looking at Asian-American disparity in cancer patients. And having that opportunity where I have the medical language and knowledge to explain things better for patients who are of Korean-American descent, I think is a very encouraging and powerful motivator for me to continue on. So, I think my career trajectory is for me to advocate for the, you know, Korean-American, as well as the other Asian-American patients who are undergoing the same situation that Yoon and my family were going through. Dr. Lidia Schapira: It's a beautiful story that links your attachment to culture and family, and provides the inspiration that is now driving your career as a researcher, and somebody who really is going to use all their knowledge to advance this field. I imagine your family must be enormously proud, but let's just finish by talking a little bit more about this lovely gentleman, Yoon, and his need for jook, that you've told us is not porridge, is not oatmeal but is comfort food and the comfort food that you felt he needed. Tell us a little bit about that - in how food can provide solace, and all the efforts that you went to, to give that to your patient who you felt was really quite frightened. Dr. April Choi: So, if you search jook and Google, or try to get additional information, they talk about it as if it's the same thing as congee, which is the Chinese version of rice porridge. So, jook actually isn't just made out of rice; it could be made out of combinations, or different proteins. Obviously, rice does play a main factor, but it could be made out of beans, for example, and other ingredients. But the Korean thought is that if you're sick, you need something that's easy to digest and something that's been cooked slowly so that your body doesn't have to do the work. And one of the main things is the jook. We actually have many jook specialty shops in Korea, often close to different hospitals, for example. It's the main food that's served by the hospitals if you're in-patient, although you might have a lot of different Korean food when you're hospitalized here. I think my experience comes from the fact that if you're scared, you want something that you already know, or you're comforted by - almost like a safety blanket. And when someone can't even get the basic food that they're used to eating-- if you're used to eating rice every single meal, and then you plop them down in a hospital that gives you toast for breakfast and eggs, and other ingredients that you're not used to, I don't understand how people can expect to feel at home. Is it just because someone says, "Make yourself comfortable"? It doesn't mean that you have the opportunity to make yourself comfortable if the main food that you eat is not available? And that is something that I wanted to emphasize - that food we think is so easy to arrange for-- we have dieticians, we have nutritionists in the hospital, but we don't really think about patients' comfort that way. And I think it's something that I think about a lot when I'm seeing a lot of the GI patients here, it is a field that I'm interested in. And for people to keep on losing weight, and for us to keep on asking, "Are you eating enough?" I wonder if that's enough because in Tufts Medical Center, where I'm fortunate to be training in, there's a very significant Chinese-American population. And anecdotally, or at least my experience has been that patients will say, "Oh yes, I'm eating a lot", or nod, and smile and say, "Yes". But if you ask the family members, they say, "Oh, they don't eat the things that they used to." And they don't tell us this because they don't want to burden the doctors with less important things. But I do think this is very important, and it's something that we need to really talk about, and try to find ways that we can make them feel at ease, and comfort them while we're maintaining whichever treatment that we are giving for these patients. Dr. Lidia Schapira: So, April, this has been a lovely conversation that reminds us of the importance of good communication, communication across cultures and barriers, and just taking the time to help our patients really feel safe and welcome. April, we have time for one last thought. Dr. April Choi: I do want to say that eventually, many years down the road in my career, I do hope to have a situation where instead of me having to explain Asian-American cancer disparity, that we have an opportunity to say Asian-American cancer diversity; that it's not a matter of someone getting less care, it's more important that we get different types of care - a diverse type of care that's catered towards Asian-Americans. Dr. Lidia Schapira: Well, with that lovely thought, I will leave our listeners until next time. And I want to thank you for listening to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. Don't forget to give us a rating or review wherever you listen. Be sure to subscribe, so you never miss an episode. JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, is just one of ASCO's many podcasts. You can find all of the shows at: podcasts.asco.org. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy, should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Show Notes: Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review. Guest Bio: Dr. April Choi is a Hematology and Oncology fellow at Tufts Medical Center.

This week Esther Sae Lee is joining us to talk about taking risks when you're risk averse, learning to value yourself, how to pivot when your dreams change, and how to start a business like Esther did with Asian Founded! Support small asian owned brands by checking out her website and social channels! xx, Esther, Julie, and Hana ESTHER SAE LEE & ASIAN FOUNDED Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/esthersaelee/ https://www.instagram.com/asianfounded/ TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@asianfounded Website | https://www.asianfounded.com/ BULGOGI POD TikTok | tiktok.com/@bulgogi.podcast Instagram | instagram.com/bulgogi.podcast Twitter | twitter.com/bulgogipodcast JULIE & HANA Julie | tiktok.com/@bejulified Hana | instagram.com/hanakattt all social media + design work + cover art by diana diane - https://www.instagram.com/dammmmndee/ sounds by 808kino contact us at bulgogipod@gmail.com INTRO 1:06 Julie can whistle 2:42 Hana's Getting Lasik 3:20 Breaking out 3:52 Low on Vitamin D 5:55 Julie's IUD 7:33 Julie got rear ended 10:57 Birth Control 13:08 Hana's New York Trip 20:19 The craziest way Hana's been hit on at a club 24:40 Julie's trip to Avila Beach ESTHER, ASIAN FOUNDED 30:50 Esther's Intro 32:11 Cup-a-bug 35:00 Relationship w Social Media 36:40 Esther's reporter and news experience 39:00 The start of Asian Founded 41:11 Being risk adverse 49:47 Undervaluing yourself 52:00 Asking vs Telling 53:13 In my Asianness, I am always trying to be respectful 55:10 Asian Founded's trajectory 58:39 Goal oriented --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bulgogipod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bulgogipod/support

This week, Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim brings some excellent news for bilinguals! Find out how speaking another language makes your brain more efficient, as early as infancy. You do not want to miss this one. GUEST BIO Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Group at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on the neural and cognitive consequences of bilingualism. During her PhD, she was awarded the ThinkSwiss Research Award and Mitacs Globalink Research Award to conduct research abroad at the Institute of Multilingualism in Fribourg, Switzerland. Before her postdoctorate position at Northwestern University, Ashley earned her PhD from York University in Psychology. https://sites.google.com/site/ashleykchungfatyim/ TERMS Mauritian Mauritius Creole Monolinguals Bilinguals Psycholinguistics WEIRD samples MENTIONED IN THE SHOW: The Power of Language - Dr. Viorica Marian TAKEAWAYS: Many immigrants pride themselves on working hard, contributing to their adopted country, and assimilating to the best of their ability. When we move out, our parents can't be responsible for our safety and success anymore. This sometimes helps them relax and shift into a more supportive role rather than actively worrying 24/7. We can't always articulate our need for diversity. Even though Dr. Chung-Fat-Yim never experienced overt racism, moving to a school with more Asian kids was a welcome change. Both Dr. Chung-Fat-Yim and Sherry feel that moving to the U.S. made them more aware of their Asianness and their status as a minority. Sexism is alive and well in academia. If you see your female colleagues' ideas shot down, then applauded when coming from a male, speak up and give the female colleague due credit. Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research is driven by questions posed by people like Dr. Chung-Fat-Yim, whose unique backgrounds help identify gaps in psycholinguistics that are only beginning to be filled. In a bilingual brain, there isn't a switch to use one language or the other. Rather, every language is activated at the same time, and we have to inhibit all of them except the one we want to use. Bilinguals' language processing areas of the brain develop more grey matter and white matter. This translates to better performance on both linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. Bilinguals also process some information faster than monolinguals and can be observed even in infants who have not yet acquired language, but who live in a bilingual household. Some cultures place more emphasis on the tone of voice to detect or express emotions, while others rely more on facial expression. It does not matter at what age you start learning a language, you can reap the benefits of bilingualism as long as you keep practicing and maintain fluency. Using the Duo Lingo app is as effective as doing brain training exercises and leads to improvements in performance in older adults. If you learn a new language later in life, you experience the foreign language effect, where you process things with more emotional distance in the new language than in your native tongue. Instagram | Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter Hosts: Ariadne Mila & Sherry-Lynn Lee

For centuries, mixed-race Asian folks' stories have been mostly told for them rather than by them. They've been weaponized as battlegrounds upon which racial wars are fought and they've been turned into symbols of a supposedly post-racial utopian world. But no longer. As the numbers of folks who self-identify as mixed-race skyrocket, mixed-race Asians are reclaiming their narratives in popular culture, academia, and day-to-day interactions. In this episode, we speak with Aria Binns-Zager (she/her), Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis (she/her/ta), Isabella Martinez (she/her), and Allison Perales (she/her) about the complexity of the lived experience of mixed-race Asianness, shifts and conflicts in mixed-race culture and politics, and what the future of mixed-race identity could look like now that mixed-race folks finally get to shape it. As an accompaniment to this episode, we've created a list of resources for Mixed Asians (mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity, transracial and transnational adoptees) at bit.ly/3MhkQq6. While by no means comprehensive, this collection of resources aims to be a jumping off point for learning and community building. Check out Aria Binns-Zager's podcast “SNITCH!”. Music by REDproductions and Alex_MakeMusic via Pixabay.

Kristina Cho is the creator of the food blog and Instagram feed Eat Cho Food and the author of the cookbook Mooncakes & Milk Bread.Having the opportunity to live in this incredible neighborhood in California gave me some type of resolve, and I was able to feel confident embracing both sides of me. I think if I grew up in California, in some of these different neighborhoods, I would probably feel and be able to fully embrace the Asianness and Americanness more than I am now. But it's a thing I'm continuing to work on through my food, in a way. With each recipe, I'm trying to kind of explore different facets of my upbringing and my life and try to combine these things.Notes and references from this episode: @eatchofood - Kristina Cho on Instagram  EatChoFood.com - home pageMooncakes & Milk Bread, by Kristina Cho (HarperCollins, 2021)“Cecilia Chiang, Who Brought Authentic Chinese Food to America, Dies at 100,” by William Grimes, NY TimesWildcat Canyon Regional Park, Richmond, CACantonese-style Tomato Egg - Eat Cho FoodEastern Bakery - San FranciscoPhoenix Bakery - Los AngelesAli Wong - home pageRuth Asawa - home page=====Produced, hosted and edited by Stu VanAirsdaleTheme music: Sounds SupremeTwitter: @WhatCaliforniaSubstack newsletter: whatiscalifornia.substack.comSupport What is California? on Patreon: patreon.com/whatiscalifornia  Email: hello@whatiscalifornia.comPlease subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you liked What is California?, please rate and review What is California? on Apple Podcasts! It helps new listeners find the show.

Michelle Hy's polyamory advocacy work (@polyamorouswhileasian) on the political intersection between relationships and race, sex positivity, and body neutrality is well known to many. In this episode we discuss: - Michelle's very sudden introduction to polyamory at 18 years old - Misconceptions in mainstream polyamorous narratives - Handling boundaries and expectations with Asian parents - Why my mother is less accepting of my bisexuality than my cousin's lesbianism - Handling fetishisation of Asianness in dating, and where we draw the line between attraction and exoticisation and much more. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOW US: Leanne (@polyphiliablog): Instagram | Facebook | Tiktok | Twitter | Youtube | Patreon | Website | Shop Michelle (@polyamorouswhileasian): Instagram | Website

#47: Disability Pedagogy and Accessibility Advocacy (殘疾教育和無障礙宣傳) Janelle Chu Capwell (朱自立) joins us for a conversation on: - Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley (the SGV) - Being a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in English Composition and Rhetoric - Her research interests: disability pedagogy and hiring student workers with disabilities - Finding and sharing resources for the hard of hearing community at college (ex: CART captioning at Univ of Arizona) - This immersive cultural project ("the Reciprocity Project"): using BiteSized Taiwanese to learn Taiwanese and will be documenting her learnings on her blog (and sharing with us here on the podcast!) - Unpacking the privilege of choosing when to disclose her Asianness and Biracialness Follow Janelle's Reciprocity Project at: https://thistaiwanesehokki.wixsite.com/website Contact Janelle at: thistaiwanesehokkienproject@gmail.com Thank you to Marissa for joining us for the conversation and helping provide captions! Link to video of this episode on YouTube w/captions in English and option to translate into Chinese. Link to full transcript of this episode: Resources: https://otter.ai/ https://www.apalon.com/clipomatic.html https://www.rev.com/ *** Say hi! 來打招呼！ Social media 社群: @twdiaspora on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Show notes 主網頁: www.taiwanesediaspora.com. Email 電子信箱: hello@taiwanesediaspora.com. Support 贊助: https://ko-fi.com/twdiaspora and https://bookshop.org/shop/twdiaspora --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/twdiaspora/support

// Meet Katie Cadamatre (@tigerboomcreative on IG)Instagram / Facebook / WebsiteShow Resources Hello Korea Box: Use code: JANCHI15 to save 15% on your order! In this episode we talk about: Intro and Announcements: 0:00 Katie's Adoption Story: 7:40 What's in a name? 12:57 College Roomate & Exposure to Asianness: 17:55 Going to Korea: 20:25 To Korea w/ Family: 32:23 Hiking in Heels: 35:04 Is Katie's dad a GIANT? 36:37 Who cares about speaking Korean? 37:38 Shifting Identities over time: 39:09 Korean & Italian culture is similar, apparently: 40:50 That good, slow work of self-confidence: 42:35 Talk Tigerboom to me: 45:20 The Tigerboom Janchi Show Collab: 50:53 Korean adoptees take a unique approach to our roots: 55:46 What does Being Korean mean to you? 57:46 Plugs! 1:03:31 ---// Support/Follow the Show! Online at janchishow.comSupport the show at janchishow.com/support Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @janchishowJoin our Group! janchishow.com/afterparty Watch our Youtube Videos The Janchi Show Quick BioWe're three Korean-American Adoptees spread out around the country and each of us are at different stages in life. We'll talk about the Korean-American adoptee experience and learn more about our shared culture, usually with food. And it won't just be the three of us; each week we'll have other adoptees from all over the world joining us to talk about what makes us similar and what makes us unique. So join the party!// Meet the Janchi Boys!Nathan NowackNathan was adopted from Seoul and raised in a small town in Oklahoma by a loving family and adopted sister.  After college in Colorado he later moved to Los Angeles to pursue a digital media career and eventually started 2 photography companies.  He has a wife and 3 kids and has reconnected with his biological family in 2014.Connect with Nathan! Website: http://www.nathannowack.com LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/nathann/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/nowackphoto Patrick ArmstrongPatrick was adopted from Seoul and raised in a small(er than Nathan's) town in Indiana. After dropping out of college, he travelled around, working a variety of jobs before co-founding the All Times Are Local Foundation with his adopted sister in Chicago. He currently lives in Indianapolis with his fiancé and is 7 seconds into his journey of exploring his Korean-American adoptee identity.Connect with Patrick! Website: http://www.alltimesarelocal.org LinkedIn: http://linkedin/in/patrickarmstrong219 Instagram: http://instagram.com/patrickintheworld K.J. RoelkeKJ was adopted from Daegu and raised in Dallas, Texas with his two biological, older siblings and his younger sister, adopted from Russia. He graduated from Greenville College and has served as the Worship & Creative Director at Schweitzer Church in Springfield, Missouri since then. He is married, with no children (yet!), and has been on his journey of discovery since 2015.Connect with K.J.! Website: http://kj.roelke.info/ LinkedIn: http://linkedin/in/kjroelke Instagram: http://instagram.com/kjroelke // Listen to/Watch The Janchi Show on all major platforms: Apple: http://janchishow.com/apple Spotify: http://janchishow.com/spotify Youtube: http://janchishow.com/youtube // Join the Asian Podcast Network: Website: https://asianpodcastnetwork.com/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/asianpodcastnetwork/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asianpodcastnetwork/  // The Janchi Show is produced by Just Like Media: Website: http://www.justlikemedia.com Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/justlikemedia Executive Producer: Jerry WonCreative Director: Michelle NamAudio & Video Engineer: K.J. Roelke

Happy Asian Heritage Month! This week Erin + Erica speak with Tanya Chen, a reporter with BuzzFeed News on Anti-Asian hate crimes and Asian-American identity. Find Tanya on Twitter: @tanyachen Tanya's work on this subject: 1) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/self-defense-weapons-asian-american-women   2) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/asian-women-fetish-racist-atlanta-shootings   3) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/asian-americans-reclaiming-native-first-names -   Connect with the pod: Twitter: https://twitter.com/badandbitchy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandbitchypod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/badandbpodcast/ Email: badandbpod@gmail.com  Stay bitchy.

Jax and Jason discuss their love of Good Girls, The Sound of Metal, and Judas and the Black Messiah. Netflix has discovered Jax’s Asianness, resulting in her viewing of Vincenzo and Minari. And Jason’s discoveries the chasm of difference between The Little Things and A Map of Tiny Perfect Things.

In this episode we discuss the current rise in violence towards the Asian community as well as highlight how this violence and anti-Asian racism is nothing new. We also talk about what it looks like to have conversations about anti-Asianness in Black and Brown communities.   A special thanks to several of our Asian American friends who spoke into this and helped us shape this episode.   Orgs to support/follow: Asian American Christian Collaborative (@aachristcollab) Oakland Chinatown Coalition Stop AAPI Hate (@stopaapihate)   Host: Alethea Lamberson & Matthew Melendrez  Producer: Caleb Dea Social Media & Marketing: Jazzlyn Venkataya Designer: Cameron Stingley   Follow us on IG: @therolldownpodcast   The Roll Down podcast is part of the Chasing Justice Podcast Network. To find out more, visit chasingjustice.com

Dr Michelle Myers is one half the spoken word duo called Yellow Rage. They are two Philadelphia-based Asian American female spoken word poets, made up of Michelle Myers, who holds a PhD from Temple University, and Catzie Vilayphonh. Their poems are self-written and are often based on personal experiences, focussing on social and political issues relevant to the Asian American community and aiming to challenge common misconceptions of Asianness. Dr Michelle Myers is currently a mentor and Professor at The Community College of Philadelphia. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

An Indian girl and Filipino boy walk into a recording studio and make a podcast. A question that lingers between them: is it okay for Asians to talk about race? For the first episode of Influx, Amreen and Kyle delve into questions of Asianness as it pertains to their lives and the stories told by mainstream media. Anchoring the conversation is the book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Korean American poet and writer Cathy Park Hong. A memoir and cultural criticism on the nameless feelings of guilt and erasure embedded in the Asian American experience. For a section in the novel, Hong explores the glorified whiteness of Wes Anderson films. And look, we love the guy but it’s about time that he be dragged for his outright appropriation of Asian culture in a film like The Darjeeling Limited. This episode gets messy and vulnerable. Listen along with love and compassion as we welcome you to this journey with open arms. Thanks for being here with us. — This episode of Influx was recorded and produced in Toronto by Amreen Kullar and Kyle Jarencio in October 2020. You can find them online at @amreenk_ and @fragilekyle. Our intro music is by Boy Garcon and our cover art is by Andrew O’Brien. Read an excerpt of Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/cathyparkhong/cathy-park-hong-minor-feelings-bad-english and we urge you to purchase it from your fave local bookstore. Pirate the Darjeeling Limited? Idk reparations.

How I felt about the Black Pink documentary and some yikes thoughts on being an Asian American woman.

A dilemma we have as BBCs is being torn between British culture and Asian culture. So we decided to put our "Asianness" to the test!⁣ ⁣ In episode 8 "How Asian Are You?" we talk about:⁣

Tony grew up in the U.S., finding solace in his Asianness while often feeling like an outsider. After studying abroad, he began to wonder: was it possible he could find a greater sense of belonging back in his family’s home country? To find out, Tony explores this question with Jacob, a Chinese-American architect who lived as an expatriate in China. Send questions, comments, and episode ideas to goldandgreat@kollaboration.org. Follow Kollab SF: Twitter: @kollabsf Instagram: @kollabsf Facebook: www.facebook.com/kollab.sf Website: kollabsf.org/podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gold-and-great/message

A film's "Asian" because an Asian directed it? Then, Mission Impossible isn't American, since Alibaba Pictures invested in it. ... Say what now? Today, my friends Jacqueline, Crystal and I talk about #OscarsSoWhite and "Asianness" in the acclaimed and multi award-winning Korean film, Parasite (2019). Music credits: Morning Love_Master - LDN calling Audio editing credits to Timothy Belen Resources: Cameron Lee's article: https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/02/the-bittersweet-paradox-of-parasites-oscar-win Alibaba and Mission Impossible: https://www.alizila.com/secret-weapon-for-new-mission-impossible-in-china-alibaba/ How do I tag Dr. Lewis Mayo from the University of Melbourne here?

Subscribe to the podcast here!Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode here:Mina YangMina’s article that became a chapter in her book: East Meets West in the Concert Hall: Asians and Classical Music in the Century of Imperialism, Post-Colonialism, and Multiculturalism. 5:41 – How did Western Classical Music become so prevalent in East Asia? 7:00 – How piano manufacturing in Japan mirrored the rise of the middle class in Europe and how the piano became a symbol of Western gentility, domesticity, and was equated with femininity. 7:35 – How learning Western Classical Music was a way into Western modernity and parity with the West as a way to exhibit middle class status. 9:27 – Anecdotal evidence of why there are so many young, Asian, female violinists in classical music. 12:55 – The stereotype of the “model minority” that East Asians experience in conservatories and the discomfort with the idea of racism again Asians.13:43 – How Asians are perceived as “robotic” and “lacking soul” plus the blatantly racist attitudes against Asians in classical music. How Asians in the US are considered both the model minority and an invisible minority and how racism against Asians is not perceived as problematic as racism against other P.O.C.14:32 – The slippery nature of the implicit bias against East Asians within classical music and the dominant culture; “yes, you are part of [the culture] but then you’re really not part of it.” The experiences of “secondary whiteness.”15:12 – How the emphasis of the myth of the “universal” nature of Western classical music discourages conversations around race and politics. 16:51 – How do we create spaces for difficult conversations around racism again Asians in classical music? 19:34 – How Western classical music was considered a symbol of Western middle – upper class status and how East Asians emulated this as a vital part of attempts at assimilation. 24:11 – How Asians’ participation in classical music reinforces the stereotype of the “model minority”. 24:43 – Far East Movement and how they hid their Asianness and perhaps felt the need to do so to achieve success in popular music. 26:22 – The stereotyping of “Asian bodies” in pop music, Psy, BTS, and Kpop. 27:50 – Yuja Wang and countering the fetishization of Asian women in classical music. The surge of Asians in classical music and how this has the potential to uproot the idealization of Western classical music as “sacred” and exclusive. 30:59 – Finding the balance between tradition and individualism in classical music. How not really being accepted can free you up to be innovative. Why you can’t just practice and expect a career to magically manifest. 32:13 – The tension of leaving behind something that you’ve dedicated so much of your life to. 33:15 – How there’s no “playbook” anymore for classical musicians. 34:21 – How do we create community and support as we seek to pivot from a classical musician’s life or training? 34:54 – How classical music training does not support being improvisational and flexible both in music and in life and how it perhaps does musicians a disservice. 36:40 – Why we should let go of the “conservatory mindset.” 37:14 – How classical music is just part of the musical landscape and is capable of cultural exchange. See Silk Road Ensemble. 37:58 – Why sometimes I’m pissed off by my training but also why classical music training prepares us for diverse paths to career success. 40:43 – Why playing in a professional orchestra can be less fulfilling than one might think. 42:16 – Why there is nothing like a classical music training to teach discipline and work ethic and why classical musicians have all the skills needed to be successful in any number of career paths. Also, why the myth of “sunken costs” can get us stuck. 43:53 – Making space for everything: community, beauty, and balance.

Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well. The weather has changed slightly here in Zhuahi...it feels like LA at the moment, although not a dry. I've been recently falling in love with the tropical breeze here. I am still coming to terms with living in a tropical place as opposed to visiting it temporarily. The past weekend I traveled to Xi'an and learned a great deal of Chinese history given the city's long geographic and historic importance. The silk road starts there and many of China's leader came from or went through Xi'an in their beginnings. I got to see the Terracota Army, which is an 8,000 life-sized army recreated to guard the Qin Dynasty's first Emperor in the afterlife. It was massive and I temporarily made me rethink my own art.Anyway. Today, I am speaking with Sarnt Utamachote. Born in Thailand, Sarnt moved to Berlin in 2014 where he has been rediscovered himself and his ‘essence’ of Asianness within a European culture ever since. He describes himself as a filmmaker-photographer-artist-poet-writer-clubkid-culture enthusiast. Sarnt also organizes Thai film festivals around Berlin and our circles overlapped during my time there. I got to catch Sarnt before I left for China and we talked about navigating cities, k-pop, white queer German filmmakers, and Asian masculinities. I hope you enjoy this.Photo Credit: Jessica Sattabongkot Links Mentioned:* Sarnt's Website* Sarnt's Instagram* Yukio Mishima* Berlinale  Follow Seeing Color:* Seeing Color Website* Subscribe on Apple Podcasts* Facebook* Twitter* Instagram

Chris (born April 24) is well into his career, but has yet to have any songs about adoption or coffee..

In this bonus episode, the Jilted Indians talk about Gurinder Chadha's "Blinded By the Light" a coming of age story about Pakistani-British immigrant family and Lulu Wang's "The Farewell" a story about a family's lie to their dying matriarch. SPOILER ALERTS abound as Miranda and Puja talk about representation, the "Asianness" of these films, and celebrate watching movies written and directed by Asian women. Go see these movies. Special Note: these films inspired a whole Jilted Indian Pod episode on internalized suffering. Show Notes here: https://jiltedindianpod.com/2019/10/29/s3-be3-you-gotta-see-these-movies/ Connect with us @JiltedIndianPod on Twitter and Instagram. Check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JiltedIndianPod Like and Subscribe on your podcatcher of choice. Follow Anju: @FountofSarcasm Follow Miranda: @MirandaGeorge Follow Puja: @Meanrice

Tuesday 28 August 2018with Saranya, Lauren, Ayan 7.00 am  Acknowledgement of Country7.05 am  News headlines  7.15 am Deepanjana Pal, Indian author and writer who is in town for the Melbourne Writer's Festival chats to Lauren about #MeToo and feminism in India.7.30 am  Kara Keys from the ACTU joins Anya to discuss the importance of and need for paid Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) leave and how to push for this to happen in Australia.  7.45 am  Alternative NewsThe team discuss reproductive coercion and how forced pregnancies and abortions and birth control sabotage deny women control over their bodies.Conversation about 'Crazy Rich Asians' - a new film that is raising interesting questions about representation, colourism, and 'Asianness' in the West. 8.00 am  Dr Juliet Watson, Lecturer in Urban Housing and Homelessness and the Deputy Director of the Unison Housing Research Lab at RMIT University, joined Anya to talk about homeless women and 'survival sex' - why this is happening, how this issue affects young women disproportionately and what kind of structural changes we need to see in the housing market to tackle this problem.  8.20 am  Ayan speaks to Laila from The Community Grocer.  Laila shares exciting news about their upcoming crowdfunding campaign.    Songsartist: Macy Graysong: Stillartist: OKENYO Feat. Miss Blanks & Jesswar  song: Woman's World  artist: Mojo Jujusong:  Native Tongue

Sheng Wang came to my apartment to talk about the Asian American experience. Well, he came over to do a podcast, and then I asked him all about Chinatown, and then it just becomes a whole podcast about Asianness.