Podcasts about Grace Lee Boggs

Thomas Jefferson was the masterly author of the ringing and rousing Declaration of Independence as well as a human trafficker and serial rapist. The second president embodies James Baldwin's observation that “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” The US is a settler-colonial colossus whose founders committed one of the most massive genocides in the history of the world—violence in the service of wealth accumulation has been a national calling card from the start. It's also the birthplace of Harriett Tubman, John Brown, Geronimo, Malcolm X, Grace Lee Boggs, and generations of freedom-fighters. The wealth and the power of the US derives from armed robbery, serial murder, stolen land, and forced labor—that's legacy. And we cannot be free without facing the complexity and the hard truth. We're joined in conversation with Jesse Hagopian, one of the most brilliant contemporary voices in education, and author, most recently, of Teach Truth : The Struggle for Antiracist Education, an essential text for these troubled times.

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS. The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students adjusted to a new, distanced reality. For educators of Asia-related topics, these shifts carried unique challenges. Already marginalized within English-speaking curricula, Asia's place in classrooms faced further reductions amidst the chaos of pandemic adaptation. Recognizing this, our Asia Shorts volume, Teaching about Asia in a Time of Pandemic (AAS, 2025), was conceived as a timely response, offering guidance and inspiration during those uncertain times. Almost five years later, the world has moved forward, but the ripple effects of that historic spring are still felt. This supplemental set of open-access essays, edited by Kin Cheung (Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University) builds upon the foundation of the original volume, reflecting on the enduring impacts of the pandemic on education, equity, and how we teach about Asia. One lasting consequence of the pandemic has been the rise in anti-Asian racism. Harassment and violence against Asians, fueled by pandemic-related scapegoating and xenophobic rhetoric, surged globally. In the United States, inflammatory phrases such as “China virus” and “kung flu” further stigmatized Asian communities, exacerbating a wave of hostility. Educators now face the challenge of addressing these injustices while fostering inclusive, empathetic learning environments. The essays in this collection delve into the pedagogical responses to anti-Asian racism, advocating for teaching frameworks that prioritize social justice and counteract harmful stereotypes and complement the important work of the scholars whose work appears in our recent Asia Shorts volume, Global Anti-Asian Racism, edited by Jennifer Ho. Another critical dimension explored in this volume is the necessity of representation. Asian Americans remain underrepresented in both the teaching workforce and teacher education programs, leading to a curriculum that often overlooks the rich cultural and linguistic assets of Asian students and their families. This gap underscores the importance of preparing teachers to adopt culturally responsive practices, ensuring that all students—especially Asian American learners—feel seen and valued in the classroom. These essays also challenge educators to move beyond surface-level engagement with Asia. A case in point is the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American activist whose story offers rich insights into the intersections of race, gender, and political activism. By teaching figures like Boggs through an antiracist, transnational lens, students can develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of complex historical narratives. This approach not only enriches their knowledge of Asia and its diasporas but also equips them with critical tools to navigate and challenge systemic inequities in their own societies. 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

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS. The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students adjusted to a new, distanced reality. For educators of Asia-related topics, these shifts carried unique challenges. Already marginalized within English-speaking curricula, Asia's place in classrooms faced further reductions amidst the chaos of pandemic adaptation. Recognizing this, our Asia Shorts volume, Teaching about Asia in a Time of Pandemic (AAS, 2025), was conceived as a timely response, offering guidance and inspiration during those uncertain times. Almost five years later, the world has moved forward, but the ripple effects of that historic spring are still felt. This supplemental set of open-access essays, edited by Kin Cheung (Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University) builds upon the foundation of the original volume, reflecting on the enduring impacts of the pandemic on education, equity, and how we teach about Asia. One lasting consequence of the pandemic has been the rise in anti-Asian racism. Harassment and violence against Asians, fueled by pandemic-related scapegoating and xenophobic rhetoric, surged globally. In the United States, inflammatory phrases such as “China virus” and “kung flu” further stigmatized Asian communities, exacerbating a wave of hostility. Educators now face the challenge of addressing these injustices while fostering inclusive, empathetic learning environments. The essays in this collection delve into the pedagogical responses to anti-Asian racism, advocating for teaching frameworks that prioritize social justice and counteract harmful stereotypes and complement the important work of the scholars whose work appears in our recent Asia Shorts volume, Global Anti-Asian Racism, edited by Jennifer Ho. Another critical dimension explored in this volume is the necessity of representation. Asian Americans remain underrepresented in both the teaching workforce and teacher education programs, leading to a curriculum that often overlooks the rich cultural and linguistic assets of Asian students and their families. This gap underscores the importance of preparing teachers to adopt culturally responsive practices, ensuring that all students—especially Asian American learners—feel seen and valued in the classroom. These essays also challenge educators to move beyond surface-level engagement with Asia. A case in point is the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American activist whose story offers rich insights into the intersections of race, gender, and political activism. By teaching figures like Boggs through an antiracist, transnational lens, students can develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of complex historical narratives. This approach not only enriches their knowledge of Asia and its diasporas but also equips them with critical tools to navigate and challenge systemic inequities in their own societies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS. The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students adjusted to a new, distanced reality. For educators of Asia-related topics, these shifts carried unique challenges. Already marginalized within English-speaking curricula, Asia's place in classrooms faced further reductions amidst the chaos of pandemic adaptation. Recognizing this, our Asia Shorts volume, Teaching about Asia in a Time of Pandemic (AAS, 2025), was conceived as a timely response, offering guidance and inspiration during those uncertain times. Almost five years later, the world has moved forward, but the ripple effects of that historic spring are still felt. This supplemental set of open-access essays, edited by Kin Cheung (Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University) builds upon the foundation of the original volume, reflecting on the enduring impacts of the pandemic on education, equity, and how we teach about Asia. One lasting consequence of the pandemic has been the rise in anti-Asian racism. Harassment and violence against Asians, fueled by pandemic-related scapegoating and xenophobic rhetoric, surged globally. In the United States, inflammatory phrases such as “China virus” and “kung flu” further stigmatized Asian communities, exacerbating a wave of hostility. Educators now face the challenge of addressing these injustices while fostering inclusive, empathetic learning environments. The essays in this collection delve into the pedagogical responses to anti-Asian racism, advocating for teaching frameworks that prioritize social justice and counteract harmful stereotypes and complement the important work of the scholars whose work appears in our recent Asia Shorts volume, Global Anti-Asian Racism, edited by Jennifer Ho. Another critical dimension explored in this volume is the necessity of representation. Asian Americans remain underrepresented in both the teaching workforce and teacher education programs, leading to a curriculum that often overlooks the rich cultural and linguistic assets of Asian students and their families. This gap underscores the importance of preparing teachers to adopt culturally responsive practices, ensuring that all students—especially Asian American learners—feel seen and valued in the classroom. These essays also challenge educators to move beyond surface-level engagement with Asia. A case in point is the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American activist whose story offers rich insights into the intersections of race, gender, and political activism. By teaching figures like Boggs through an antiracist, transnational lens, students can develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of complex historical narratives. This approach not only enriches their knowledge of Asia and its diasporas but also equips them with critical tools to navigate and challenge systemic inequities in their own societies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS. The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students adjusted to a new, distanced reality. For educators of Asia-related topics, these shifts carried unique challenges. Already marginalized within English-speaking curricula, Asia's place in classrooms faced further reductions amidst the chaos of pandemic adaptation. Recognizing this, our Asia Shorts volume, Teaching about Asia in a Time of Pandemic (AAS, 2025), was conceived as a timely response, offering guidance and inspiration during those uncertain times. Almost five years later, the world has moved forward, but the ripple effects of that historic spring are still felt. This supplemental set of open-access essays, edited by Kin Cheung (Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University) builds upon the foundation of the original volume, reflecting on the enduring impacts of the pandemic on education, equity, and how we teach about Asia. One lasting consequence of the pandemic has been the rise in anti-Asian racism. Harassment and violence against Asians, fueled by pandemic-related scapegoating and xenophobic rhetoric, surged globally. In the United States, inflammatory phrases such as “China virus” and “kung flu” further stigmatized Asian communities, exacerbating a wave of hostility. Educators now face the challenge of addressing these injustices while fostering inclusive, empathetic learning environments. The essays in this collection delve into the pedagogical responses to anti-Asian racism, advocating for teaching frameworks that prioritize social justice and counteract harmful stereotypes and complement the important work of the scholars whose work appears in our recent Asia Shorts volume, Global Anti-Asian Racism, edited by Jennifer Ho. Another critical dimension explored in this volume is the necessity of representation. Asian Americans remain underrepresented in both the teaching workforce and teacher education programs, leading to a curriculum that often overlooks the rich cultural and linguistic assets of Asian students and their families. This gap underscores the importance of preparing teachers to adopt culturally responsive practices, ensuring that all students—especially Asian American learners—feel seen and valued in the classroom. These essays also challenge educators to move beyond surface-level engagement with Asia. A case in point is the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American activist whose story offers rich insights into the intersections of race, gender, and political activism. By teaching figures like Boggs through an antiracist, transnational lens, students can develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of complex historical narratives. This approach not only enriches their knowledge of Asia and its diasporas but also equips them with critical tools to navigate and challenge systemic inequities in their own societies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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. Tonight on APEX Express join host Miko Lee as she talks with Asian American theatre artists with works coming up soon. Miko talks with Sunhui Chang and Joan Osato about their world premiere at the Magic Theatre. She speaks with Ethnotech's Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and finally we hear from playwright Jiehae Park on the world premiere of the Aves at Berkeley Rep. Though we may be immersed in a complicated, challenging and very disturbing world, as Grace Lee Boggs said, “A people exercising their creativity in the face of devastation is one of the greatest contributions to humankind.”     Our Guests discussed: April 2-20, 2025 Magic Theatre The Boiling, a tale of american nihilism tickets, wheelchair accessible Joan Osato SFFILM Cedar Road Iyagi Grant Applications:  sffilm.org/artist-development Ethnohtec May 22 Ethnohtec https://sfpl.org/events/2025/05/22/panel-strong-bamboo-3-part-1 Strong Like Bamboo SF Library Koret Auditorium Free https://sfpl.org/events/2025/05/25/performance-strong-bamboo-3-part-2   Coming Up Next 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.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:00:34] Tonight on APEX Express join host Miko Lee as she talks with Asian American theatre artists with works coming up soon. Miko talks with Sunhui Chang and Joan Osato about their world premiere of the boiling at the Magic Theatre. She speaks with Eth-Noh-Tec's Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and finally we hear from playwright Jiehae Park on the world premiere of the aves at Berkeley Rep. Though we may be immersed in a complicated, challenging and very disturbing world, as Grace Lee Boggs said, “A people exercising their creativity in the face of devastation is one of the greatest contributions to humankind.” So join us on APEX Express as we join some creative conversations.   Miko Lee: [00:01:17] Tonight on Apex Express, we have the collaborators behind Magic Theater and Campo Santo's, world Premier of the boiling: a tale of American nihilism. Welcome playwright Sunhui Chang and video artist Joan Osato.    Joan Osato: [00:01:30] Thank you for having us on, Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:01:33] Yes. First I'm gonna start for each of you with a personal question, which is an adaptation from the amazing Chinaka Hodges. And my question for each of you, and let's start with Joan first, is who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    Joan Osato: [00:01:49] I consider myself a child of immigrants in this country. My lineage Japanese, Japanese American by way of Hawai'i a lot of my lineage is carried by that diaspora, but also by my history at Youth Speaks for a couple of decades. And so I consider that my family also and Camp Santo.    Miko Lee: [00:02:12] Yay. Love that. And then Joan, what legacy do you carry with you?   Joan Osato: [00:02:17] A legacy of resilience and I know how to farm. I like to think of myself as a gardener and a great farmer. so that's the legacy I carry with me.    Miko Lee: [00:02:29] Thank you so much, Joan. Sunhui, what about you? Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    Sunhui Chang: [00:02:36] Well, I'm part of the diaspora, the Korean American diaspora that happened in the seventies. My family immigrated to the island of Guam in 1976, as part of developing the island of Guam. As, you know, the Korean diaspora at that time in the seventies, we were kind of shipped around the world a little bit, for our labor. There's a huge Korean population of workers that also went to West Germany and other places, Guam is not as well known, but it was definitely part of that. So in 76, our family landed on the island of Guam.    Miko Lee: [00:03:11] Wow, that's so interesting. And then what about what legacy you carry with you?    Sunhui Chang: [00:03:16] I think my legacy I have to say is that definitely of the immigrant working class, you know, as with a Korean diaspora, there's some things of, like the East Coast Koreans, as you may know, have a different history of being much more educated whereas kind of the west coast and the Korean diaspora during the seventies towards islands like Guam, we were much more working class. So that is my legacy. I have working class roots that, I never seem to be able to get away from and I don't want to.   Joan Osato: [00:03:47] Shoot. That's the same for me too, my working class roots.   Miko Lee: [00:03:51] So it sounds like you two have some commonalities there and that seem to have flowed over into the creation of this play. Sunhui can you talk about an overview of this brand New World premier, the boiling.    Sunhui Chang: [00:04:05] Simply put, it's a story of a tracker and a tracer, a government team that was formed to track and trace down carriers of the virus called the Boiling. and it actually. starts out as a chase, but what we really dig into is more about, identity, home, what it means to be, what is home and what it means to be, at home, and also, about redemption, you know, through our lives, you know? So it's multi-layered, so it's hard to kind of explain in a log line. but it's a chase story that kind of delves into the characters.    Miko Lee: [00:04:40] And I understand this was inspired by a real news story. Can you tell us about that real news story?    Sunhui Chang: [00:04:46] Oh, yeah. the genesis of this we have to kind of go back to the beginning of the pandemic back to December, 2019. I had just finished a gallery installation in San Francisco and then at the end of that I flew back to Seattle. Now at that period of time, there was this talk that there's this virus that's in China. That might affect us, we're not quite certain, but it could be something that could lead to a global pandemic, but we didn't quite know at that time. But then when I landed in Seattle, March 17th, 2020 was the date that Governor j Insley shut down the state of Washington. So that is a big take 'cause, As you know, we all hunkered down at that point. And then in one of the hunkering down is of course, I was watching the news and one of the news story, happened to come across where they were talking about a Econo Lodge motel that the state of Washington had purchased to turn into a quarantine motel, a voluntary quarantine motel where people who, felt that they were infected could check themselves in, to be evaluated. So the story goes that two people had actually checked into this motel totally voluntarily, but one of them the morning after. And this is captured, with a surveillance video. We actually see this one person walking out of their room at the motel. We see them walk across the street to a gas station with a market. Now the surveillance actually then switches over to the gas station surveillance, which shows him walking to the gas mart, walking inside, making a purchase, and then actually walking out. And then we see another footage of the surveillance that's going from the outside surveillance of the store. We actually see him, walk towards the bus stop, get on a bus. And then just the bus leaves and that is it. And the news story ends with that. They had no idea where this person drifted off to. and for me it just, it had this weird, eerie fascination that just grabbed me. and remember at that time, Seattle was such a hotbed for Covid. It was where the nursing home happened, where so many of the elderly had passed on, and we didn't even wanna secondhand touch a surface, so there was a real heightened sense of alarm that was happening. So seeing this story of this potential infected person just drifting off. And then what made it eerie was that I wanted to see what followed up. So for days after I kept watching the news, what is the follow up? What happened? It was never brought on again. Never. Another mention I. and for me that actually made it even more eerie. So it really sat with me, to the point where I had to actually just write down the first words of my, the first line of my story, the boiling. And the first line was, “Carrier X stepped out of the tightness of his room and breathed deeply the soft drizzle of the Pacific Northwest to cool his body from the growing fever.” So those were the first words that I wrote. and then it was just kind of off to the races 'cause the way I write Miko is that I'm very much organic. I kind of set a story and then I become a vessel of the story. I don't come to the story with agendas or anything of that nature. After the first sentence, it just kind of took a life of its own. So that's it.    Miko Lee: [00:08:18] That is amazing. I did not hear that story. and the real news story. That is wild. That would've sat with me too. Joan, had you heard of that story before being brought onto this project?    Joan Osato: [00:08:29] Well, when we did a reading during the pandemic. I did hear parts of that story, but I think it's also a story that a lot of us can relate to, because like here in the Bay Area, of course, we also experienced severe lockdown. Whereas in other parts of the country, I think that the type of lockdown, although being, you know, trying to be really safe for people also induces this sense of isolation and paranoia. And so wanting to get information about who's getting affected and like, where's it happening? I think that was all like kind of a mini obsession of like. Everyone who experienced the pandemic, you know what I mean?    Miko Lee: [00:09:10] How do you think that pandemic has had an impact on theater and on audiences?    Joan Osato: [00:09:16] Well on the most basic levels, you know, like what theaters are grappling with, just in terms of coming out of and recovering from pandemic, I think everybody understands that, you know, theater in general is struggling because of the changes that happened in terms of, Perhaps what people place importance on the isolation that we went through, the kind of, paranoia about being in groups of people and in space and in community together. And so, that affects, you know, theaters and you can, you can see that since the pandemic some have closed. But I also think that, the effects are also that, groups like The Magic or Campo Santo during the Pandemic, we never stopped working and we just figured out innovative ways to, you know, support artists, do radio plays, do, amalgamations of like filming. And so a lot of us became like very, very adept at different types of media that are theatrically based, like Sunhui's play, but that we had to carry out, like online or, you know, through other types of media.    Sunhui Chang: [00:10:30] I just wanted to add on that is that, the pandemic, you know, there there was definitely things that really affected us as humans in such a negative way, but what I also found admiring was, with Joan and Camp Santo and the artists and trying to find creative ways of, still letting, having an outlet. it really was that the story of the boiling would not have taken place if artists such as Joan and Camp Santo. If they didn't, if they weren't able to pivot and make these kind of online transitions at the moment, such as doing readings and such, cause that's how the story was first brought about. So, in many ways it was hard. But also I do appreciate these artists who have been able to kind of keep going and didn't shut down and kept letting the creative creativity somehow flow. I so appreciated that.    Joan Osato: [00:11:20] Yeah, it was definitely a beautiful thing. And then, you know, Miko, throughout the pandemic, you know, we would have like online viewings of our archives or we would sit with audience members, who were joining us and basically hang out for like three, four hours online. So trying to create the space not only to kind of generate support for artists who are. Completely outta work, but also to, just connect us even though we were. You know, obviously under these conditions where we couldn't see each other in person and it wouldn't have been advisable for us to even try to gather, you know, because, I consider us, you know, in-inside of our community extremely vulnerable. So, you know, just grappling with that tension, was really hard.    Miko Lee: [00:12:09] Yeah. And I kind of hear both of you saying that in those really tough times, there was this push to get more creative, to find more ways of reaching people and, and to look at ways that we can, um, innovate given that, and I'm wondering, given our current political climate where things are changing every hour now. I mean, the first Trump administration, it was kind of every week and now it feels like every hour a new kind of devastating thing is happening. I'm wondering how you both think theater can be used as a tool for social change.    Sunhui Chang: [00:12:41] For me Theater and, and really the arts, what I do love about it, is this really, and I kind of touch upon it with the story and such, and it really hit me during, COVID, during the pandemic, is that it's really for me, what it does is listening.  I know as artists, we love telling our story. We love telling what we see, our interpretations and things like that. but I think what I have really come about with the arts is the fact that I like the other side of it is the listening part, for me with my collaborators, that I have to listen. You know, it's not about just me talking, but just listening. So for me, the theater aspect of it and the art aspect of it is that I hope that, as we go through these tough times, what it really has us doing is listening to each other more. One of the things that I really feel in that way and appreciative of listening is the fact that without listeners, there's no storytelling. Listening is really the foundation of our humanity. You know, I mean, just talking really gets us nowhere. What really makes us move forward collectively is listening.   Joan Osato: [00:13:50] Mm, Sunhui heard that. Yes, I heard that. [laughs] As far as theater and kind of responding to the moment. I think, you know, the type of theater that we embody is always speaking to politics is always speaking to, you know, the culture of the moment and especially it's speaking, because a lot of Campo and the Magic's work is like based inside of, theater companies that live, work, breathe, are about by and for the communities, like in the Bay Area right. So there's just no way of separating the kind of politics from what happens like inside of these plays. For the boiling in particular though, I think there's a lot of stuff that, that people can think about and here inside the play that will resonate with them. One, we're, we're talking about a hypothetical, but it's not really a hypothetical situation about a pandemic, a very, harmful, very urgent, current conditions. You know, when there's no CDC to have, get your information from when there's no public health that's functioning in this country, we can, we can see what happened during the last pandemic and just make that comparison and draw those comparisons, you know, what would happen in the next one. Right. also that, you know, to me and Sunhui, you can totally. speak to this, but to me, Carrier X, the person that represents is this kind of violence and nihilism that exists inside of the, you know, the current, you know, psyche or administration right at this moment. this real like. It's definitely violent to the point of not caring whether people live or die and so I, you know, I think that's very striking about the play and it happening right now as premiering it right now, because I think people can draw a lot of parallels between. Like this personality, this complete disorder that seems to be going on, like not only in American politic, but amongst the large population in America itself. You know what I mean? That kind of disregard.    Miko Lee: [00:16:18] Joan, that is so interesting. I wonder if you both can talk a little bit more about Patient X as this kind of figure of narcissism and selfishness that we're seeing that's happening in our broader politics right now.   Sunhui Chang: [00:16:31] Yeah, Carrier X, he does, you know, he does kind of represent this nihilism of American nihilism, which to me it's really historical and cultural. we could go all the way back to the nihilism of manifest destiny, feeling like we have something to do that it was even, maybe. God's order, you know, a higher order that was given to us. And we have to take on this task and finish the task at no matter what cost, right? By any means necessary in a way. and that nihilism for me, I. historical, but when I see it currently that happens now, is that I see nihilism in the fact that people want to cut off Medicaid, Medicare, these social programs that are not just help people actually are crucial and it's really, it's a survival. So for me, when I see that kind of disregard, yes, it's not this overt violent nihilism, but I do find it to be so nihilistic in the damage that it does to all of us, you know? And I do find That this nihilistic violence, there's two flip side to it. The people who are directly affected, and harmed by it, but also the people who carry it are out, who carry out these acts of nihilism they do get damaged as well. So for me, so yeah, the nihilism, it's taken on a different life, but. It's a part of America and it seems to continuously carry forward through our days.    Miko Lee: [00:18:00] And Sunhui with the intentional characters, the lead being Korean American adoptee, and, the detective being a black woman, and then carrier X being white. Share with me a little bit about the racial element and your intention behind making those characters of those, ethnic backgrounds.    Sunhui Chang: [00:18:20] You know, there was no intention, as I said, I just write very organically. So there was never this thought of, oh, here's the three characters. One's gonna be a Korean adoptee, one's gonna be a black homicide detective, and another's gonna be a white carrier. It was never that I. It's hard for me to explain the process, but those were the characters that just kind of naturally came out. for me, it just felt fitting to it. So, I don't have agendas as I write, as I said, so there was none of that. It was just for me, as a vessel of the story, as a story was coming out, it was just. Oh yeah, this character is this, this character is that, and this one is this. so no intention. But, once those things came alive, then the story kind of, evolves around what's, organically happening. So yeah, there wasn't intent, but at the end of it all, of course, I go, oh, I see what has come about and how the story is so, In hindsight now going, oh yeah, I did this. for me, it feels right in the, in the fact that for me, this is America Miko. To me, I, I don't write with an Asian American kind of pen, or, or a brown person pen for me, I actually first and foremost say I'm an American. There's no way around it. and it's simply put too, is that. I am an American. so for me, these characters are just. Natural. And when I know about me being American and knowing about American history, these characters just naturally fit in, you know?    Miko Lee: [00:19:50] Yep. Thank you so much. I've read that you talk about new Americana theater. Mm-hmm. And also Joan, you were talking about how during the pandemic, you know, everybody's learning new techniques, new ways of storytelling, just because everybody was forced to with the lockdown. Sunhui, can you talk more about what you believe New America Theater is all about?    Sunhui Chang: [00:20:12] For me, the reason why I kind of see it as new Americana theater, first off, 'cause it's, it's American, the stories that come out of me is very American. you know, and I recognize it. And for me, I, it is, this is part of the American fabric, so that's why it's called Americana. And for me, I say it's new. 'cause what's new is the perspective that it's coming out from. perspective, which brings on different characters, a different storyline, you know, different message. So yeah, that's, that's it for me when I refer to it as New America in the theater. It's just that, that it's, it's an American tale that now we've been able to incorporate new voices into.   Miko Lee: [00:20:54] I noticed there's a really large list of collaborators. Of course the two of you, but then there's a lot of other people as well. Can you talk about that creative process, how you all were able to work together, how you made decisions about, oh, this is the part we're gonna use film, this is the part we're gonna use, movement.   Sunhui Chang: [00:21:11] Like I said, it's very much organic. Our third major collaborator is Ellen Sebastian Chang. she is the director of the show, and when me, Joan and her, we first started delving into it, we did. It was just sitting down and talking a lot. Going through the scripts, the different skill sets that we bring in. And really it was through the dialogue miko and of us talking with each other, but also listening to each other. and that was a big part is that as we started listening to ourselves, we came out with this direction.    Miko Lee: [00:21:47] And what would you both like the audience to walk away with after seeing the boiling?   Joan Osato: [00:21:52] I think, you know, as Sunhui talked about this, ritual of deep listening and so, the play doesn't guide anyone towards some natural conclusion that they should have about, you know, it's, it's not saying you, you must believe this, it's really leaving it up to the viewer, the listener, to draw their own conclusions. And, I think that, that people who come to this will be incredibly moved. I think that they will see a lot of parallels with what we're going through now and what we've gone through. And examine there is a kind of shameful history that we all need to grapple with, whether we own it or not. You know, Sunhui had talked about manifest destiny and that being like one of the founding, you know, kind kinds of principles that this country is founded upon. And there are many, many others That I think the play touches on which give pause and, and give the people who are engaging with this, room to think and reexamine their own actions in the world and how they approach it.   Sunhui Chang: [00:23:02] I'll just mention as an aside, you know, some of the things that we're looking at is. Our disconnect from the natural world and how that has impacted the natural world. Right.  I think Joan is spot on in, in that about, yeah, first and foremost, I do find this so important once again to say about listening. I do. I, that is the big thing that I would love is that for us to, if we really wanna truly have dialogues, and especially with people who we disagree with, and there is a lot of disagreement in this world right now. and for me, yeah, to, Get us back to a place where we could really listen to each other and not be in such a place where all we wanted to do is kind of say what we have to say. It's almost this thing of, oh, you know, the other has to listen, the other has to listen. And I really would like it that it becomes kind of more inward that we all say, Hey, it is time for me to listen. And then of course just the fact that when, as we listen to each other, what I do find and what I hope that others find as well, is that we're much more connected and we have so many things that tie us together than separate.   Miko Lee: [00:24:19] Well, thank both of you so much for joining us on Apex Express. Is there anything else you wanna add?   Sunhui Chang: [00:24:24] Just one thing, Miko, one of the elements of this play, is this natural world with birding and I would love to just, one of the big inspiration is that it's just a quote from Emily Dickinson and the quote is, “hope is the thing with feathers.” For me, I would love for people to kind of sit with that and think about that and what that means for us as human beings in relationship to the natural world, you know, and the importance of that.   Miko Lee: [00:24:52] Oh, that's such a beautiful visual image. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate both of you for sharing your time with me.    Joan Osato: [00:24:59] Thank you, Miko.    Sunhui Chang: [00:25:00] Thank you Miko    Miko Lee: [00:25:01] The Boiling is a brand new play, and it's a story of a Korean American adoptee Brian, who's a virologist from the Midwest, and a former homicide Detective v, a black woman who lives in the Pacific Northwest, and they're partnered to do this trace and track from north to south. They're following David, a white nihilistic carrier of a feverish virus called the Boiling. This world Premier Show opens to the magic theater and runs from April 2nd through April 20th. You can get more information about this show, including links to buy tickets at our show notes on kpfa.org/programs/apexexpress.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:25:42] Next we'll listen to an excerpt from The Camp, the first opera on the Japanese American Concentration camps during World War II. The camp premiered from February 22nd to March 2nd, 2025 at the JACCC Aratani Theater in Los Angeles. Composed by Daniel Kessner, who combines modern classical with Japanese instruments, A libretto by Lionelle Hamanaka, directed by Diana Wyenn, with Associate Director John Miyasaki, 11 singers and a 22 piece orchestra conducted by Steve Hofer. The incidents in The Camp Opera were drawn from different camps where over 126,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned to see the many Japanese American groups that supported this project, including JANM, DENSHO and Raf Shimpo see the camp opera.com and if you know a place where The Camp can be performed near you, please contact the campopera.com/support.    MUSIC   Miko Lee: [00:27:53] Welcome to Apex Express. I'm so glad to have Eth-Noh-Tec once again, we get Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang.   Nancy Wang: [00:28:03] Yay. Yes. Hi. Hello. So glad to be here with you Miko.   Miko Lee: [00:28:07] We have been friends and colleagues for, it feels like a hundred billion years. The times that we're in are so complicated right now. But I just wanna first start with the question I often ask people, which is for each of you to tell me who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Nancy Wang: [00:28:27] Well, I am Chinese American, and I am fifth generation on my mother's side. And. So we go all the way back to 1850 when our family first came on a junk boat and started the fishing industry in the Monterey Bay area.    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:28:45] And I am, half Japanese, half Filipino, born in San Francisco, raised in Concord, California, and living in the Bay Area for all my life.   Miko Lee: [00:28:50] And what legacy do you carry with you?    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:28:58] Well, I guess the identity I have as an Asian American, Japanese, and Filipino, um, I embrace all of that. The legacy is, as an artist, a performer. I've dedicated my life to creating works that reflect an Asian American consciousness, social, political, cultural. Both traditional works as well as new modern stories and music as well.    Nancy Wang: [00:29:25] And I was also a psychotherapist, so my work in the arts, whether it's dance, which I started out being a dancer and then a playwright, and then storytelling. I always weave in the healing aspect of what we all need to do in our communities. And so I use my art to also bring solace and bring celebration and bring, Depth and and the breadth of who we are as Asian Americans, as human beings, as part of this world, this country, then this city, so that we can celebrate who we are together.   Miko Lee: [00:30:04] Thank you for that. I hear you talking about activism, Asian American history, who we are and healing. I'm wondering if you could give me an update about what you're working on right now.   Nancy Wang: [00:30:14] Well, we have several things in the pipeline. I, for one, just finished writing and has now published Red Altar, which is the story of my ancestors. Three generations are followed in this book, about how they established the fishing industry in the Monterey Bay area. All the ways they had to reinvent themselves as laws were passed against them. The people try to get rid of them. And it's really a story of courage and determination and persistence, ingenuity and obviously success. Because I'm here. So I'm gonna be doing some more readings and that can be found on our webpage. Right. And Robert,    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:30:55] I am focusing on archiving our work and after working with Nancy and creating Eth-Noh-Tec for the last 43 plus years, we have developed over 200 stories, and we put them on stage. We've written them, some of them are now being written as a compendium of stories. These are Neo-traditional folk tales and myths from Asia. And, people don't know much of this, but I am also an artist, so I'm creating illustrations that depict these stories. That's one project.   Nancy Wang: [00:31:23] Yeah, that's our next book. but what we're really excited about is our second Strong Like Bamboo, stories of resilience in the era of Asian American hate, but it's really broadened beyond Asian American because this year on May 22nd, will be a gathering of Latino and Asian artists and musicians, storytellers, and activists to just sit around and really share our stories, share our music, share our concerns, and to build bridges with each other because it, we will need to increase, our coalitions during this era. It's gotten worse, so we really need to come together.   Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:32:08] and we titled it strong like bamboo because of the Asian anecdote about, you know, one bamboo can snap, but together binding many bamboo together we're much stronger. So it's a call out to the community to bring all of our constituents and broaden that so that we are strong, as people of color.    Nancy Wang: [00:32:25] And of course we're gonna have food, which always brings us all together. But also bamboo can bend. Without breaking, so that's on a Thursday, May 22nd. But on May 25th, I have curated four other storytellers to tell their stories of their racist experiences and how they came through it to a healing place.    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:32:48] There's a gathering of Asian American storytellers, both from the Chicago area and also from the west coast.    Nancy Wang: [00:32:53] And there'll be a panel so they can ask questions and we can have discussions. But after that, the people in the audience will have the opportunity to break up into small groups of three in which they get to share their own stories, their own concerns, and that's really the whole thing is about inspiring people to come through what they're going through and coming out, on the other side with some hope and healing. Because when we share our stories, we lift that particular burden of, say our story about our racist experience. We lifted off our own shoulders and we get to share it. With someone who's listening with compassion and we don't feel alone anymore. It's really a powerful, powerful way to find community connection, relation, and strength.   Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:33:45] And we'll have also in both of those events, resources in earlier years, I was an Asian American songwriter and did a lot of songs of not just identity, but of unity. I'm also gonna be singing a theme song called Bamboo, which is part of the title and also, a work by Chris Jim, famous of the Chris and Joe Asian American Duet from years ago. the one song we're still here, though it was written 30, 40 years ago. It's still pertinent to what's going on now, especially declaring that America is a multiracial, multiethnic, texture of society.   Nancy Wang: [00:34:20] and, in 2026 we're gonna bring on, African-American and Euro-American, storytellers also, so that we really have a multicultural representation of all who we are and how we still will need to come together. I hope things will be better by 2026, but who knows?    Miko Lee: [00:34:39] Thank you so much for sharing about how storytelling can really be a tool for social change. Is there anything else you wanna share with our audience?   Nancy Wang: [00:34:47] Yeah. please come to our strong like Bamboo on May 22nd and 25th is gonna be at the San Francisco Public Library Main Library, both are free to the public May 22nd the Thursday at May 22nd, it's gonna be in Hispanic room,    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:35:05] and what time?   Nancy Wang: [00:35:06] Six to seven-thirty. And on Sunday it'll be in the presentations, the performances in the panel will be in the Koret auditorium, and then small groups will convene in the Hispanic room, which is right next door, and it's got elevators. So no problem, in getting there. Plus Bart and the bus is, it's easy to get there. And so that's what we wanted so that people could feel welcome.    Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo: [00:35:35] And that second show on Sunday Strong like Bamboo will feature our guest artist storytellers, professional storytellers. One of them being a local Eleanor Clement Glass who's half African American and Filipino, talking about her experiences. And then also, two guest artists from Chicago, one of them being Lillian Ji, who is a Japanese American hapa. Then third is, Archie Jun, who is a Thai American gay comedian storyteller who is a total riot. we are really wanting to blend many of our communities together to hear this talent Yes. And to deal with the topics.    Nancy Wang: [00:36:10] So we would love for the LGBTQ plus community to come out as well and support him and feel proud because all of the stories will, will really showcase our strength and our ability to deal with these things and come out the other side. So we are hoping that in the process of telling our pain, but coming out, on the other side, that it will be an inspiration for everyone to keep going during this difficult, very difficult time.    Miko Lee: [00:36:41] Thank you so much for joining me today.    Nancy Wang: [00:36:44] You're welcome. Thank you   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:36:46] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, and online worldwide at kpfa.org.   Miko Lee: [00:37:05] Welcome Jiehae Park to Apex Express. I am so excited to talk to you about the world premier of the aves opening at Berkeley Repertory Theater, May 2nd through June 8th. Welcome to Apex Express.    Jiehae Park: [00:37:19] Hi, Miko. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.    Miko Lee: [00:37:22] I wanna just first start with a personal question, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Jiehae Park: [00:37:31] Hmm. I love the phrasing of that question. I was born in Korea and I came to the states when I was three years old with my parents who came to go to graduate school. And my father's family fled the north during the war. And my mother's family had always been in the south. And I definitely think that who they are and where they came from is a big part of who I am and the questions that I think of. And in a lot of ways, not just, racially and culturally, but also in terms of their interests. They're both scientists. This play deals, I hope thoughtfully with questions of identity and consciousness, that I've always been interested in.    Miko Lee: [00:38:18] And what legacy do you feel like you carry with you from them?   Jiehae Park: [00:38:22] Hmm. I mean, I write a lot about immigrants. This play isn't specifically about that, but in a lot of my previous work, I, I have. have written a lot about immigrants and I feel like my parents, you know, they came to this country when they were in their twenties. They didn't speak the language. They came from a generation of folks and at that time in the country where they were really, they had to be a certain way to survive. And I think that, intensity of work ethic, and the things that you also have to give up in order to get to where you think you wanna be, that question is, is part of their legacy to me. It's a, it's a gift and also something that, like a lot of other immigrants, I think I'm always sort of turning over in my mind and, and trying to look at from other angles.    Miko Lee: [00:39:12] Thank you for sharing. I'm wondering if you can talk to us about, first this title of your, world Premier, the aves. Where did this title come from? What is it about?    Jiehae Park: [00:39:23] So the title is the Latin word for Birds. And, the play there's a mystery that sort of unspools early on. So without, without giving too much away we see this old couple on a bench, on a park bench, and they have clearly been together for a long time and they are having a conversation that seems like a very ordinary conversation. And over the course of the first scene, we soon learn that they are discussing, doing something that will have ramifications throughout the rest of the play. And the aves is a word that I loved because of the association with birds. There, there are birds that make an appearance in this play, in both pedestrian and unexpected ways, in mysterious ways, and hopefully humorous ways. and then the connotation also of Ave Maria and this, this feeling of the sacred, which also infuses the play, which has a lot of humor, but also when I was writing it, I was thinking a lot about nature and the passage of time and this feeling of awe that I get when engage with nature. And I think that word also has those connotations for me.    Miko Lee: [00:40:46] And that sounds like a mystery that people need to come to find out more about. Can you tell us what inspired this work?    Jiehae Park: [00:40:54] I used to live on the northside of Central Park in Harlem, and I had this tiny, tiny little window that looked out, onto the north side of the park. And every day I would sit down to write and through my tiny window, I would see the same man sitting on this bench every day. And as the seasons changed and the leaves changed and the light changed, but still every morning there was the consistency of seeing the same person. And I think I I was thinking a lot about the passage of time and of nature shifting And I think subconsciously I was thinking about getting older myself. This was a time before I had children, but I was starting to become aware of my parents aging and generationally My peers, also our parents were aging and, and starting to have, you know, the complications and the beautiful things that can come with that. So I think all of that was a big soup in my subconscious. and I sat down and I wrote the first scene very quickly and then. I didn't know exactly what the rest of the play was gonna be, but I knew structurally that the first scene would be this old couple and that the second scene would be, a slightly different configuration of, of bodies. But that was hard to be so mysterious, um, and that the nex scene would be a different specific configuration of body. So I was thinking about the age of the bodies that you're watching and the story evolved from that. And I guess I should say that the play is set in a moment sort of best after now. So it's not the present, but it's not the distant future. It's certainly not like hard sci-fi by any means, but I think it uses some tools of speculative fiction. To ask questions that hopefully are illuminating about ourselves now.    Miko Lee: [00:42:59] Interesting. Did you ever talk with the man in the park that inspired this piece?   Jiehae Park: [00:43:05] You know, it's so funny. After the first couple of weeks of watching him, I realized he lived in my building and I hadn't noticed him before.    Miko Lee: [00:43:18] Wow. That's amazing.    Jiehae Park: [00:43:20] And I think that that's also something that. I had been thinking a lot about at the time this question of presence and attention, especially in New York, which is a city that is so loud. I mean, I love, I love New York and there's so many things that I love about New York, but it is such a loud city and it is hard to hear yourself think and, and the quality of attention in any. I was gonna say in any city, but in like any moment in our extremely chaotic world, I mean, especially now, that sort of quiet present quality of attention that I think is so beautiful and so rare, and I associate with, I'm not religious, but, but when I was a kid, I was, and this, this quality of, of sacred space, I think I was, I was really curious about that. And at the time, I think I had also that year gone on a silent meditation retreat. so trying to bring that quality of attention to my ordinary life as a urban citizen, I think was also part of the experience of writing the play. But yeah, he lived in my building and I hadn't noticed him before. And so this question of what do we notice and what do we need to shift in ourselves to notice what's in front of us and has been in front of us.    Miko Lee: [00:44:44] I am hearing you talk about a sense of presence and, and time passing. I'm wondering if that is what you want the audience to walk away with or are there other things that you're interested in provoking with this piece?    Jiehae Park: [00:44:57] As an audience member, when I go to any play, I always hope to leave a little bit different than how I entered and. That shift can be really subtle. In fact, for me as an audience member, sometimes it feels more profound when it is subtle. So on, on like at like a really baseline level. We've been having a lot of conversations with the design team about how to create this. Quality of space that feels different from the mundane so that when we enter the space of the theater, so for our body chemistry changes and that we are being asked by the play to lean in and pay attention perhaps in a way that we're not asked to pay attention, in, in the world outside of that room. And to be able to request that of an audience and share that with an audience. Together, I think is such a beautiful thing. And, and one of my favorite things about any collective experience when, when it all feels like we're breathing together. And my hope is that that's something that we can create, at a, like a biochemical level in our bodies, on a sort of more. Intellectual, emotional, philosophical level. I think there are questions that the play is asking about, what makes us, us and memory and the ability of a person and a relationship to change over a long period of time. And over the course of events that. May require forgiveness. those were certainly things that I was thinking about while I was writing it. So there's also that, that more character relational level of questioning that, that I think, will resonate with people, in different ways depending on where they are in their lives. And then I think especially because, you know, there's a lot of conversation about sandwich generation now, like folks, I. Who have dealt with aging themselves or aging parents and, the complexities and possibilities that can create. I think that there's another layer of the play that stirs up some of those questions as well.   Miko Lee: [00:47:04] Speaking of complexities and possibilities, I understand that you studied music and that you're also an actor and then you also write for Marvel's Runaways. Can you share a little bit about how these different elements impact you as a writer, as a creator?    Jiehae Park: [00:47:20] Yeah, so I started as an actor, which I think a lot of people do, mostly because it's the most accessible thing. Like you can audition for a play. You can't sort of audition to write a play. you can just write a play. But that, I think, came later for me. I don't really perform a ton anymore, although I did love it. and then the shift to television happened eight or so years ago. There's a big movement of playwrights moving into television, during peak tv. And they're very different. there is some shared similarity in storytelling instincts and craft. but the mediums are just really different, so I feel like I get very different things from, from all of them. I feel like I learned being a performer for a long time. As an artist, it's just getting to bump up against people who you think are fascinating and learn from them what you like and what you don't like, and who you wanna be and who you don't wanna be. and from tv I think I learned, To not be so precious. It takes a really long time for me to write a play. and I used to think, oh, I have to go into the woods and like be silent for a month and then like a play will emerge. And like sometimes it happens and it, that feels like a blessing when it does. But in TV, because there's so much money at stake and so much time pressure that you know, when something's due, it's just due and you turn it in. And if it's not perfect, you just deal with it and you make it as good as you can. And I think that there's a certain amount of shedding of perfectionism, which has been really healthy for me. but I do. Love the theater for the ability to spend a long period of time contemplating something and, and making it with a group of people who feel inspiring and we're all moving towards the same thing. and I think there's a little bit more space or a lot more space in the theater for things that may feel. mysterious or more open. whereas in television especially these days with the sort of decline of peak TV, there's an expectation of propulsion. Like overt propulsion, if that makes sense. That is not a criticism like, you know, I also love TV. but it is, it's like the pace of it is different and the ask of it is different than the ask of a play and and the baseline thing of just, you're not in the same room with the people experiencing it that is so special in theatre.    Miko Lee: [00:49:45] How do you go about shifting that mindset for that kind of speed of TV that you're describing versus the kind of longer meditative state of creating theater?    Jiehae Park: [00:49:55] Yeah, I mean, I think there's hopefully a two-way exchange. Because I also think that bringing some of those qualities of thoughtfulness and deliberation to the world of TV within the container, within the boundaries of it, can be incredibly useful. And ultimately a lot of the things that delight people, delight people regardless of the format. So that, like, that feeling of inevitable but surprising, like that's something that is of tremendous value in all mediums, right? I think for me personally, when I write a play. I try to make a space in my life that is a little more still. and I have a toddler now, so that's challenging. But in a way, working in television has been really helpful for that because, you know, I don't have five hours in the middle of the day to, you know, be with myself and listen to the trees. I maybe have like 30 minutes, but to try to drop into that as. quickly and without angst, without like working myself up about it. 'cause that's a waste of time. That's been a useful lesson to learn. Whereas working in television can feel a lot less lonely also than playwriting because in a writer's room, most shows in the states are written in the writer's room, there are few exceptions, and you're with a group of people. And so there's a sort of energetic exchange happening there that in a play only happens much, much later when you're in rehearsal and ideally in production. there's a sort of joyful energy and exchange that can happen in a writer's room, both when you're breaking the story and then ultimately when you're in production. And there's like many, many more people involved. And there's the crew and the cast and you know, all of the technical departments and producers. I feel like you mentioned, Code switching earlier. And, humans are so adaptable and I think we automatically sort of shift our brain chemistry and our body chemistry in response to the environment around us. sometimes very consciously, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes both. so I think a certain amount of that is just, okay, these are the given circumstances. And then, you become who you need to be in that space.   Miko Lee: [00:51:54] Thank you for sharing. Okay. I have one last TV question, which is that given that everybody's in this writing room together and you're, there's kind of a speed that's attached to it, do you feel like things get thrown out more quickly and with less kind of emotion attached to it than in theater?    Jiehae Park: [00:52:10] It's possible. I think it depends on the person. So I just worked on season four of the morning show last year. And there is a real need on that show because it deals with the news to be absorbing what's happening in the world and shifting the story based on that. And so that there has to be a sort of lightness around that. So in that kind of environment, absolutely. but I've also been in other rooms where someone got really attached to an idea, and maybe it was clear that that idea wasn't gonna work out, but there was, there was still like something, in it that wanted to be held onto and, and it may be hung on for a long time. And that process. Also could have happened, like that exact parallel process could have happened in a play. And actually in neither of the situation, is that necessarily a bad thing? Like is there something about that idea that maybe is not the idea itself, like the emotional core underneath it or the deep, deep idea underneath it that is useful? That even if the manifestation of the thing doesn't continue, if the manifestation gets thrown out, but like the real thing that was underneath it was important gets folded in in some unexpected way. I don't think it's a bad thing either way. It just is the peculiarities of any particular process.   Miko Lee: [00:53:22] And it sounds like it's about the people too, right?    Jiehae Park: [00:53:25] Yes, definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I've certainly been in that book where I'm like, oh, I really think it's like this. It's gotta be this, it's gotta be this. And then, you know, two years later, I look at the draft, I'm like, oh, no, no, no. It, it is definitely not that. Like let me take that entire thing out. and it just was in that particular moment, I wasn't ready for whatever reason to let go of that idea. And that's okay. I am now, and then it moves on.    Miko Lee: [00:53:48] We're circling back to the beginning of the conversation about the aves, which is about presence and being in that moment. And where you are in that moment might be, no, this isn't right. And then years later you say, oh yeah, that wasn't right. Or that was right.   Jiehae Park: [00:54:03] Yeah, exactly, exactly. To listen to yourself is a, you know, I, I am, I've been doing this for a long time now and, that is still something that I feel like I always have to learn, that I think just is a human.   Miko Lee: [00:54:15] Yes. The perennial lesson of Yes, intuition. I'm wondering if you could tell our audience why they should go see the aves.    Jiehae Park: [00:54:24] My hope is that if you are curious about a certain kind of experience and attention in the theater, that you'll accept our invitation to this play, which is an unusual play. I don't think that everyone should see this play, just like, I don't think everyone should see any particular work of art, but if the things that we've been discussing, if the sort of vibe that you're getting from this conversation resonates with you, then the experience of seeing this play with a group of people who are also curious about that kind of experience may be something. That is enjoyable for you and would probably therefore also be enjoyable for that audience to be together with you and for the play to be together with you in that space.    Miko Lee: [00:55:17] Thank you so much for spending time chatting with us. Folks can see the aves at Berkeley rep May 2nd through June 8th. Thank you so much, Jiehae.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:55:26] For you Asian American film makers out there: SFFILM announced a new annual filmmaking grant in partnership with Cedar Road. The SFFILM Cedar Road Iyagi Grant is dedicated to fostering bold, original feature film projects that amplify Asian and Asian American perspectives on screen. In Korean, iyagi means “story”—a word that embodies the heart of this grant's mission: to champion storytelling as a powerful bridge connecting people across cultures and perspectives. A link to the grant application will be available in our show notes.    Miko Lee: [00:55:58] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important.    APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.  The post APEX Express – 4. 3.25 – Coming Up Next 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. Grace Lee Boggs said, “History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories – triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally – has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.” In our current chaotic time, it feels like we are intentionally ignoring history. Our lack of awareness feels like a de-evolution, as our education department is gutting, books are banned, and so many American institutions are at risk, it feels as though a critical analysis of history is being ignored.  On Tonight's APEX Express, Host Miko Lee focuses on Wong Kim Ark and the importance of Birthright Citizenship. She speaks with historian David Lei, Reverend Deb Lee and lawyer/educator Annie Lee and activist Nick Gee. Discussed by Our Guests: What You Can Do To Protect Birthright Citizenship Our history is tied to the legacy of Wong Kim Ark and birthright citizenship, and it will take ongoing advocacy to protect this fundamental right. Here are four ways you can stay involved in the work ahead: Invite a friend to attend an event as part of Chinese for Affirmative Action's weeklong series commemorating Wong Kim Ark. Take action and oppose Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship. Learn about Wong Kim Ark and Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship. Sign up to join Stop AAPI Hate's Many Roots, One Home campaign to fight back against Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.   How you can get engaged to protect immigrants: https://www.im4humanintegrity.org/ https://www.bayresistance.org/ Bay Area Immigration: 24 Hour Hotlines San Francisco 415-200-1548 Alameda County 510-241-4011 Santa Clara County 408-290-1144 Marin County 415-991-4545 San Mateo County 203-666-4472   Know Your Rights (in various Asian languages) Thank you to our guests and Chinese for Affirmative Action for the clip from Wong Kim Ark's great grandson Norman Wong   Show Transcript: Wong Kim Ark 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.   Miko Lee: [00:00:35] Grace Lee Boggs said history is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past, how we tell these stories. Triumphantly or self critically metaphysically or dialectically, has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings. I. Well, in our current chaotic times, it feels like we are intentionally ignoring history. Our lack of awareness feels like a de-evolution. As our education department is gutted and books are banned, and so many of our American institutions are at risks, it feels as though a critical analysis of history is just being intentionally ignored. So welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Miko Lee, and tonight we're gonna delve back into a moment of history that is very much relevant in our contemporary world. Tonight's show is about long Kim Ark. There's a famous black and white photo of a Chinese American man. His hair is pulled back with a large forehead on display, wide open eyes with eyebrows slightly raised, looking at the camera with an air of confidence and innocence. He is wearing a simple mandarin collared shirt, one frog button straining at his neck, and then two more near his right shoulder. The date stamp is November 15th, 1894. His name is Wong Kim Ark. Tonight we hear more about his story, why it is important, what birthright citizenship means, and what you could do to get involved. So stay tuned. Welcome, David Lei, former social worker, community activist, lifelong San Franciscan, and amazing community storyteller. Welcome to Apex Express.    David Lei: [00:02:21] Thank you, Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:02:23] Can you first start with a personal question and tell me who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    David Lei: [00:02:31] I'm now on the board of Chinese Historical Society of America. Chinese American History is pretty important to me for my identity and the story of Chinese in America is American history, and that's where I'm at now.   Miko Lee: [00:02:50] And what legacy do you carry with you from your ancestors?    David Lei: [00:02:56] To pass on the wisdom they pass to me to future descendants. But I'm here in America, so I know after a few generations, my descendants won't look like me. Most likely they won't speak Chinese. They're going to be Americans. So. The lessons and values and wisdoms, my ancestors passed to me, I'm passing to America.   Miko Lee: [00:03:30] we are talking on this episode about Wong Kim Ark and as a community storyteller, I wonder if you can take me back to that time, take me back to Wong Kim Ark growing up in San Francisco, Chinatown, what was happening in San Francisco, Chinatown at that time    David Lei: [00:03:48] Okay, this is the end of the 19th century and we have the Exclusion Act in 1882 where Chinese were excluded from coming to America with few exceptions like merchants, diplomats, and scholars. So if you're Chinese and you're a laborer you just can't come. And there were concerns about. Going, even if you were here, there's a process for your return, the documents you will need. But even that was iffy. But for Chinese in general, there was birthright citizenship. So if you were born here, you have citizenship and that because of the 14th amendment. So many Chinese thought birthright citizenship was important 'cause you can vote, you have more rights, less chance that you will be deported. So the Chinese, born in America, right at 1895, formed a Chinese American Citizens Alliance. The concept of being a American citizen was in everybody's mind in Chinatown at that time. The Chinese been fighting for this birthright citizenship ever since the Exclusion Act. Before Wong Kim Ark, there was Look Tin Sing in the matter regarding Look Tin Sing was a CA federal Court of Appeal case. Look Tin Sing was born in Mendocino, so he's American born. He assumed he was a citizen. His parents sent him back to China before the Exclusion Act, and when he came back after the Exclusion Act, of course he didn't have the paperwork that were required , but he was born here. So to prove that he was a citizen. He had to have a lawyer and had to have white witness, and it went to the federal Court of Appeal, ninth Circuit, and the Chinese sixth company. The City Hall for Chinatown knew this was important for all Chinese, so gave him a lawyer, Thomas Den, and he won the case. Then in 1888, this happened again with a guy named Hong Yin Ming. He was held and he had to go to the Federal Court of Appeal to win again, then Wong Kim Ark 1895. He was stopped and. This time, the Chinese six company, which is a city hall for Chinatown they really went all out. They hired two of the best lawyers money could buy. The former deputy Attorney General for the United States, one of which was the co-founder of the American Bar Association. So these were very expensive, influential lawyers. And because Wong Kim Ark was a young man under 25, he was a cook, so he was poor, but the community backed him. And went to the Supreme Court and won because it was a Supreme Court case. It took precedent over the two prior cases that only went to the Court of Appeal.    Now you might think, here's a guy who has a Supreme Court case that says he's an American citizen. Well, a few years later in 1901, Wong Kim Ark went to Mexico to Juarez. When he came back to El Paso the immigration stopped him at El Paso and says, no you are just a cook. you're not allowed to come in because we have the 1882 Exclusion Act. Wong Kim Ark Says, I have a Supreme Court case saying I'm a US citizen, and the El Paso newspaper also had an article that very week saying they're holding a US citizen who has a Supreme Court case in his favor saying that he is a US citizen. However, immigration still held him for four months in El Paso. I think just to hassle. To make it difficult. Then by 1910, Wong Kim Ark had a few sons in China that he wants to bring to the us so he arranged for his first son to come to America in 1910. His first son was held at Angel Island. Interrogated did not pass, so they deported his firstborn son. So he says, wow, this is my real son, and he can't even get in. So this is dealing with immigration and the US laws and the racist laws is unending. Just because you win the Supreme Court case, that doesn't mean you're safe as we are seeing now. So it takes the community, takes a lot of effort. It takes money to hire the best lawyers. It takes strategizing. It takes someone to go to jail, habeas corpus case oftentimes to test the laws. And even when you win, it's not forever. It's constantly challenged. So I think that's the message in the community. Chinese community had push back on this and have pushed for Birthright citizenship from the very beginning of the Exclusion Act.    Miko Lee: [00:09:48] Thank you so much for that. David. Can we go back a little bit and explain for our audience what the Six Companies meant to Chinatown?    David Lei: [00:09:57] From the very beginning, there were a lot of laws racist laws that were anti-Chinese, and the Chinese always felt they needed representation. Many of the Chinese did not speak English, did not understand the laws, so they formed the Chinese Six Companies. Officially known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. most Chinese come from just the six districts from Guangdong Province. They're like counties. However, in China, each counties most likely will have their own dialect. Unintelligible to the county next to them. They will have their own food ways, their own temples. almost like separate countries. So there were six major counties where the Chinese in America came from. So each county sent representatives to this central organization called the Chinese six companies, and they represented the Chinese in America initially in all of America. Then later on, different states set up their own Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, so they would tax their own membership or get their own membership to pay fees. They had in-house lawyers to negotiate with city government, state government, federal government, and they would raise the money. They were the GoFundMe of their days. Almost every month they were hiring lawyers to protect some Chinese, somewhere in America against unfair unjust laws. The Chinese six company was very important to the Chinese in America, and they were the first to really push back on the Chinese exclusion Act between 1882 and 1905. 105,000 Chinese in America after the exclusion Act sued a federal government more than 10,000 times. This is about 10% of the Chinese population in America, sued the federal government. I'm not including state government, counties nor municipalities. This is just the federal government. About 10% of the Chinese here sued and almost 30 of these went to the Federal Supreme Court, and it was the sixth company that organized many of these winning for all Americans and not just the Chinese right. To a public education. Even if you are an immigrant tape versus Hurley in 1885. Then we have the Yick Wo versus Hopkins case that gave equal protection under law for everyone. Now, the 14th Amendment does have this clause equal protection under law, but everybody thought that meant you had to write a law that was equal for everybody. But in the case of Yick Wo versus Hopkins, it was also important that the law is executed and administered equally for everyone. That's the first time where it was made very clear that equal protection under law also means the administration and the execution of the law. So that is the core of American Civil Rights and the Chinese won this case for all Americans. Of course, Wong Kim Ark.    The concept of political asylum, public law 29 was a Chinese case passed by Congress in 1921, and then we have Miranda Act. If you look into the Miranda Act, it was based on a Chinese case, 1924 Ziang Sun Wan versus the US two Chinese were accused of murder in Washington DC They were tortured, denied sleep. Denied food, denied attorneys, so they confessed. But when it came to trial. They said we didn't do it, we confessed 'cause we were tortured and they won in the Supreme Court, but it was a Washington DC case only applicable to federal jurisdictions. So when Miranda came up, the Supreme Court said, well, we decided this in 1924, but now we'll just make it applicable to state, county and municipality. And then of course, as recently as 1974 Chinese for affirmative action helped bring the Lao versus Nichols case. Where now is required to have bilingual education for immigrant students, if there are enough of them to form a class where they can be taught math, science, history in their original language. These and many more. The Chinese brought and won these cases for all Americans, but few people know this and we just don't talk about it.    Miko Lee: [00:15:35] David, thank you so much for dropping all this knowledge on us. I did not know that the Miranda rights comes from Asian Americans. That's powerful. Yes. And so many other cases. I'm wondering, you said that Chinese Americans and the six companies sued, did you say 10,000 times?    David Lei: [00:15:53] We have 10,000 individual cases. In many of these cases, the Chinese six company helped provide a lawyer or a vice.    Miko Lee: [00:16:03] And where did that come from? Where did that impetus, how did utilizing the legal system become so imbued in their organizing process?   David Lei: [00:16:14] Well, because it worked even with the exclusion act, during the exclusion period most Chinese. Got a lawyer to represent them, got in something like 80%. In many of the years, 80% of the Chinese that hire a lawyer to help them with the immigration process were omitted. So the Chinese knew the courts acted differently from politics. The Chinese did not have a vote. So had no power in the executive branch nor the legislative branch. But they knew if they hire good lawyers, they have power in the court. So regardless of whether their fellow Americans like them or not legally the Chinese had certain rights, and they made sure they received those rights. By organizing, hiring the best lawyers, and this was a strategy. suing slowed down after 1905 because the Chinese lost a important case called Ju Toy versus the us. The Supreme Court decided that since the Chinese sue so much, their courts of appeal were tied up with all these cases. So the Supreme Court says from now on, the Supreme Court will give up his rights to oversight on the executive branch when it comes to immigration because the Chinese sue too much. And that's why today the executive branch. Has so much power when it comes to immigration, cause the court gave up the oversight rights in this ju toy versus the US in 1905. So if we go to the history of the law a lot of the legal policies we live in today, were. Pushback and push for by the Chinese, because the Chinese were the first group that were excluded denied these rights. but the Chinese were very organized one of the most organized group and push back. And that's why we have all these laws that the Chinese won.    Miko Lee: [00:18:30] And in your deep knowledge of all this history of these many cases, what do you think about what is happening right now with all the conversations around birthright citizenship? Can you put that into a historical perspective?    David Lei: [00:18:44] So being an American. We always have to be on the guard for our rights. Who would've thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned? So all these things can be challenged. America's attitude change. Civil disobedience, the Chinese are actually, we have on record the largest number of people practicing civil disobedience over a long period of time. In 1892, when the Exclusion Act, Chinese Exclusion Act had to be renewed, they added this. New requirement that every Chinese must carry a certificate of residency with their photo on it. Well, this is like a internal passport. No one had to have this internal passport, but they made the Chinese do it. So the Chinese six company. Says, no, this is not right. Only dogs need to carry a license around to identify. Itself and only criminals needs to register with a state. And we Chinese are not dogs and we're not criminals, so we're not going to do it 'cause no one else needs to do it. So the six company told all the Chinese 105,000 Chinese not to register. 97% refuse to register. In the meantime, the six companies sued the federal government again. Saying the Federal Go government cannot do this. The Chinese lost this case in the Supreme Court and everybody then had to register, but they didn't register until two years later, 1894. So they held. Held out for two years.   Miko Lee: [00:20:31] How many people was that?    David Lei: [00:20:32] About a hundred thousand. 97% of the 105,000 Chinese refused to do this. So if you look at these certificate of residencies that the Chinese were forced to carry. They were supposed to register in 1892. Almost all of them are 1894. Some of them in fact many of them are May, 1894, the last second that you can register before they start deporting you. So the Chinese. Also practiced civil disobedience and the largest incidents, a hundred thousand people for two years.    Miko Lee: [00:21:15] How did they communicate with each other about that?   David Lei: [00:21:18] The Chinese were very well connected through the six companies, their district association, their surname association oftentimes because of. The racism segregation, the Chinese were forced to live in Chinatowns or relied on their own network. To support each other. So there, there's a lot of letter writing and a lot of institutions, and they kept in touch.That network was very powerful. In fact, the network to interpret a law for everybody interpret uh, any rules of business, and. Just how to conduct themselves in America. They have a lot of institutions doing that. We still have them in the 24 square blocks we call Chinatown. We have almost 300 organizations helping the immigrants. Chinese there with language, with how to do your taxes tutoring for their kids. Advice on schools paying their bills and so on. We have surnames associations, we have district associations, we have gills, we have fraternal organizations, and we certainly have a lot of nonprofits. So it's very, very supportive community. And that's always been the case.    Miko Lee: [00:22:42] I'm wondering what you feel like we can learn from those organizers today. A hundred thousand for civil disobedience. And we're often portrayed as the model minority people just follow along. That's a lot of people during that time. And what do you think we can learn today from those folks that organize for civil disobedience and the Chinese Exclusion Act?    David Lei: [00:23:03] It takes a community. One person can't do it. You have to organize. You have to contribute. You have to hire the best lawyers, the very best. In fact, with the Yik Wo versus Hopkins case, the equal protection under law, the Chinese immediately raised 20,000 equivalent to half a million. It takes collective action. It takes money. You just have to support this to keep our rights.    Miko Lee: [00:23:29] And lastly, what would you like our audience to understand about Wong Kim Ark?    David Lei: [00:23:35] Well, Wong Kim Ark, he was just an average person, a working person that the immigration department made life miserable for him. Is very difficult to be an immigrant anytime, but today is even worse. We have to have some empathy. He was the test case, but there were so many others. I mentioned Look Tin Sing, whose adult name is Look Tin Eli. We know a lot about Look Tin Eli and then this other Hong Yin Ming in 1888 before Wong Kim Ark and so generations of generations of immigrants. Have had a hard time with our immigration department. It's just not a friendly thing we do here. And you know, we're all descendants of immigrants unless you're a Native American. Like I mentioned Look Tin Sing, who was the first case that I could find. For birthright citizenship. His mother was Native American, but Native American didn't even get to be citizens until 1924. You know, that's kind of really strange. But that was the case.    Miko Lee: [00:24:50] That's very absurd in our world.    David Lei: [00:24:52] Yes, Chinatown is where it is today because of Look Tin Sing, his adult name, Look Tin Eli. He saved Chinatown after the earthquake. He's the one that organized all the business people to rebuild Chinatown like a fantasy Chinese land Epcot center with all the pagoda roofs, and he's the one that saved Chinatown. Without him and his Native American mother, we would've been moved to Hunter's Point after the earthquake. He later on became president of the China Bank and also president of the China Mayo Steamship Line. So he was an important figure in Chinese American history, but he had to deal with immigration.   Miko Lee: [00:25:39] David Lei, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. I appreciate hearing this story and folks can find out when you are part of a panel discussion for Wong Kim Ark week, right?    David Lei: [00:25:50] Yes.    Miko Lee: [00:25:51] Great. We will be able to see you there. Thank you so much for being on Apex Express. Annie Lee, managing director of Policy at Chinese for affirmative action. Welcome to Apex Express.    Annie Lee: [00:26:01] Thank you so much for having me Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:26:02] I wanna just start with this, a personal question, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    Annie Lee: [00:26:10] I am the daughter of monolingual working class Chinese immigrants. And so I would say my people hail from Southern China and were able to come to the United States where I was born and was allowed to thrive and call this place home. I do this work at Chinese for Affirmative Action on their behalf and for other folks like them.    Miko Lee: [00:26:31] Thanks Annie, Today we're recording on March 17th, and I'm noting this because as we know, things are changing so quickly in this chaotic administration. By the time this airs on Thursday, things might change. So today's March 17th. Can you as both an educator and a lawyer, give me a little bit of update on where birthright citizenship, where does it stand legally right now?    Annie Lee: [00:26:55] As an educator and a lawyer, I wanna situate us in where birthright citizenship lives in the law, which is in the 14th Amendment. So the 14th Amendment has a birthright citizenship clause, which is very clear, and it states that people who were born in the United States, in subject to the laws thereof are United States citizens. The reason. This clause was explicitly added into the 14th Amendment, was because of chattel slavery in the United States and how this country did not recognize the citizenship of enslaved African Americans for generations. And so after the Civil War and the Union winning that war and the ends of slavery . We had to make African Americans citizens, they had to be full citizens in the eye of the law. And that is why we have the 14th Amendment. And that clause of the 14th Amendment was later litigated all the way to the Supreme Court by Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco, like me, two Chinese immigrant parents. When he left the United States, he went to China to visit his family. He tried to come back. They wouldn't let him in. and he said, I am a citizen because I was born in the United States and this clause in your 14th amendment, our 14th amendment says that I'm a citizen. It went all the way to Supreme Court and the Supreme Court agreed with Wong Kim Ark. Does not matter your parents' citizenship status. Everyone born in the United States is a US citizen, except for a very, very narrow set of exceptions for the kids of foreign diplomats that really is not worth getting into. Everyone is born. Everyone who's born in the United States is a citizen. Okay? So then you all know from Trump's executive order on day one of his second presidency that he is attempting to upends this very consistent piece of law, and he is using these fringe, outlandish legal arguments that we have never heard before and has never merited any discussion because it is just. Facially incorrect based on the law and all of the interpretation of the 14th amendment after that amendment was ratified. So he is using that to try to upend birthright citizenship. There have been a number of lawsuits. Over 10 lawsuits from impacted parties, from states and there have been three federal judges in Maryland, Washington State, and New Hampshire, who have issued nationwide injunctions to stop the executive order from taking effect. That means that despite what Trump says in his executive order. The birthright citizenship clause remains as it is. So any child born today in the United States is still a citizen. The problem we have is that despite what three judges now issuing a nationwide injunction, the Trump's government has now sought assistance from the Supreme Court to consider his request to lift the nationwide pause on his executive order. So the justices, have requested filings from parties by early April, to determine whether or not a nationwide injunction is appropriate. This is extraordinary. This is not the way litigation works in the United States. Usually you let the cases proceed. In the normal process, which goes from a district court to an appeals court, and then eventually to the Supreme Court if it gets appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. This is very different from the normal course of action and I think very troubling.    Miko Lee: [00:30:36] So can you talk a little bit about that? I know we constantly say in this administration it's unprecedented, but talk about how there's three different states that have actually filed this injunction. , how typical is that for then it or it to then go to the Supreme Court?    Annie Lee: [00:30:53] Just to clarify, it's not three different states. It's judges in three different states. In fact, more than many, many states, 18 more than 18 states. There have been two lawsuits related, brought by states one that California was a part of that had multiple states over 18 states as well as San Francisco and District of Columbia. Then there was another lawsuit brought by another set of states. and so many states are opposed to this, for different reasons. I find their complaints to be very, very compelling. Before I get into the fact that multiple judges have ruled against the Trump administration, I did want to explain that the reason states care about this is because birthright citizenship is not an immigration issue. Birthright citizenship is just a fundamental issue of impacting everyone, and I really want people to understand this. If you are white and born in the United States, you are a birthright citizen. If you are black and born in the United States, you are a birthright citizen. It is a fallacy to believe that birthright citizenship only impacts immigrants. That is not true. I am a mother and I gave birth to my second child last year, so I've been through this process. Every person who gives birth in the United States. You go to the hospital primarily, they talk to you after your child is born about how to get a social security card for your child. All you have to do is have your child's birth certificate. That is how every state in this country processes citizenship and how the federal government processes citizenship. It is through a birth certificate, and that is all you need. So you go to your health department in your city, you get the birth certificate, you tell, then you get your social security card. That is how everyone does it. If you change this process, it will impact every state in this country and it will be very, very cumbersome. Which is why all of these states, attorneys general, are up in arms about changing birthright citizenship. It is just the way we function. That again applies to re regardless of your parents' immigration status. This is an issue that impacts every single American. Now, to your question as to what does it mean if multiple judges in different states, in different federal district courts have all ruled against. Donald Trump, I think it really means that the law is clear. You have judges who ha are Reagan appointees saying that the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th amendment is crystal clear. It has, it is clear in terms of the text. If you are a textualist and you read exactly what the text says, if you believe in the context of, The 14th Amendment. If you look at the judicial history and just how this clause has been interpreted since ratification, like everything is consistent, this is not an area of law that has any gray area. And you see that because different judges in different district courts in Maryland, in Washington, in New Hampshire all have cited against Donald Trump.    Miko Lee: [00:33:54] So what is the intention of going to the Supreme Court?    Annie Lee: [00:33:59] I mean, he is trying to forum shop. He's trying to get a court that he believes will favor his interpretation and that is why the right has spent the last half century stacking federal courts. And that is why Mitch McConnell did not let Barack Obama replace Antonin Scalia. The composition of the Supreme Court is. So, so important, and you can see it at times like this.    Miko Lee: [00:34:28] But so many of the conservatives always talk about being constitutionalists, like really standing for the Constitution. So how do those things line up?   Annie Lee: [00:34:38] Oh, Miko, that's a great question. Indeed, yes, if they were the textualist that they say they are, this is a pretty clear case, but, Law is not as cut and dry as people think it is. It is obviously motivated by politics and that means law is subject to interpretation.   Miko Lee: [00:34:59] Annie, thank you so much for this breakdown. Are there any things that you would ask? Are people that are listening to this, how can they get involved? What can they do?    Annie Lee: [00:35:09] I would recommend folks check out StopAAPIHate. We are having monthly town halls as well as weekly videos to help break down what is happening. There's so much news and misinformation out there but we are trying to explain everything to everyone because these anti-immigration. Policies that are coming out be, this is anti-Asian hate and people should know that. You can also check out resources through Chinese for affirmative action. Our website has local resources for those of you who are in the Bay Area, including the rapid response lines for bay Area counties if you need any services, if you. See ICE. , if you want to know where their ICE is in any particular location, please call your rapid response line and ask them for that verifiable information. Thank you.    Miko Lee: [00:36:00] Thank you so much, Annie Lee for joining us today on Apex.    Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:36:04] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org.   Miko Lee: [00:36:23] Welcome, Nicholas Gee from Chinese for affirmative action. Welcome to Apex Express.    Nicholas Gee: [00:36:29] Thanks so much, Miko. Glad to be here.    Miko Lee: [00:36:31] I'm so glad that you could join us on the fly. I wanted to first just start by asking you a personal question, which is for you to tell me who you are,, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you.   Nicholas Gee: [00:36:46] I'll start off by saying Miko, thanks so much for having me. My name is Nicholas Gee and I am a third and or fourth generation Chinese American, born and raised in Houston, Texas. And for me, what that means is, is that my great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents migrated from Southern China, fleeing war and famine and looking for opportunity in the middle of the early, like 19 hundreds. And they wanted to start an opportunity here for future generations like me. My people are my family who migrated here over a hundred years ago. who were settling to start a new life. My people are also the people that I advocate with, the Language Access network of San Francisco, the Immigrant Parent Voting Collaborative, my colleagues at Chinese for affirmative action and stop AAPI hate. I think about my people as the people that I'm advocating with on the ground day to day asking and demanding for change.   Miko Lee: [00:37:41] Thank you. And what legacy do you carry with you?    Nicholas Gee: [00:37:45] I carry the legacy of my elders, particularly my grandparents who immigrated here in around the 1940s or so. And when I think about their legacy, I think a lot about the legacy of immigration, what it means to be here, what it means to belong, and the fight for advocacy and the work that I do today.    Miko Lee: [00:38:05] Thanks so much, Nick, and we're here doing this show all about Wong Kim Ark, and I know Chinese for affirmative action has planned this whole week-long celebration to bring up as we're talking about legacy, the legacy of Wong Kim Ark. Can you talk about how this one week celebration came to be and what folks can expect?    Nicholas Gee: [00:38:26] Yeah. As folks may know we are in the midst of many executive orders that have been in place and one of them being the executive order to end birthright citizenship. And Wong Kim Ark was actually born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown, particularly on seven. 51 Sacramento Street. In the heart of the community and local partners here in this city, we're really trying to figure out how do we advocate and protect birthright citizenship? How do we bring momentum to tell the story of Wong Kim Ark in a moment when birthright citizenship is, in the process of being removed And so we really wanted to create some momentum around the storytelling, around the legacy of Wong Kim Ark, but also the legal implications and what it means for us to advocate and protect for birthright citizenship. And so I joined a couple of our local partners and particularly our team at Chinese for affirmative action to develop and create the first ever Wong Kim Ark Week. Officially known as born in the USA and the Fight for Citizenship, a week long series of events, specifically to honor the 127th anniversary of the Landmark Supreme Court case, US versus Wong Kim Ark, which affirmed birthright citizenship for all in the United States.    Miko Lee: [00:39:44] What will happen during this week-long celebration?   Nicholas Gee: [00:39:48] We have several scheduled events to raise awareness, mobilize the community, and really to stand up for the rights of all immigrants and their families. One is an incredible book Talk in conversation with author and activist Bianca Boutte. Louie, who recently authored a book called Unassimilable. And she tells a personal narrative and provides a sharp analysis for us to think about race and belonging and solidarity in America, particularly through an Asian American lens. This event is hosted by the Chinese Historical Society of America. Following. We have a live in-person community symposium on Wong Kim Ark legacy and the struggle for citizenship. There'll be a powerful community conversation with legal advocates, storytellers, movement builders, to have a dynamic conversation on the impact of birthright citizenship. Who is Wong Kim Ark? What is his enduring legacy and how people can join us for the ongoing struggle for justice? And you know, we actually have a special guest, Norman Wong, who is the great grandson of Wong Kim Ark. He'll be joining us for this special event. We have a couple of more events. One is a Chinatown History and Art Tour hosted by Chinese Culture Center, this is a small group experience where community members can explore Chinatown's vibrant history, art, and activism, and particularly we'll learn about the legacy of Wong Kim Ark and then lastly, we have a in-person press conference that's happening on Friday, which is we're gonna conclude the whole week of, Wong Kim Ark with a birthright, citizenship resolution and a Wong Kim Ark dedication. And so we'll be celebrating his enduring impact on Birthright citizenship and really these ongoing efforts to protect, our fundamental right. and the San Francisco Public Library is actually hosting an Asian American and Pacific Islander book display at the North Beach campus and they'll be highlighting various books and authors and titles inspired by themes of migration, community, and resilience. So those are our scheduled, events We're welcoming folks to join and folks can register, and check out more information at casf.org/WongKimArk    Miko Lee: [00:42:04] Thanks so much and we will post a link to that in our show notes. I'm wondering how many of those are in Chinese as well as English?    Nicholas Gee: [00:42:13] That is a fantastic question, Miko. We currently have the community symposium on Wong Kim Ark legacy in the struggle for citizenship. This event will have live interpretation in both Mandarin and Cantonese.    Miko Lee: [00:42:46] What would you like folks to walk away with? An understanding of what.    Nicholas Gee: [00:42:30] We really want people to continue to learn about the legacy of birthright citizenship and to become an advocate with us. We also have some information on our website, around what you can do to protect birthright citizenship. As an advocate, we are always thinking about how do we get people involved, to think about civic engagement intentional education and to tie that back to our advocacy. And so we have a couple of ways that we're inviting people to take action with us. One is to invite a friend to consider attending one of our events. If you're based here in the San Francisco Bay area or if you're online, join us for the book Talk with Bianca. , two, we're inviting folks to take action and oppose the executive order to ban birthright citizenship. Chinese for affirmative action has. A call to action where we can actually send a letter to petition , to oppose this executive order to send a message directly to our congressman or woman. and lastly, you know, we're asking people to learn about Wong Kim Ark as a whole, and to learn about the impacts of birthright citizenship. My hope is that folks walk away with more of an understanding of what does it mean here to be an advocate? What does it mean to take action across the community and really to communicate this is what resilience will look like in our community    Miko Lee: [00:43:44] Nick Gee, thank you so much for joining me on Apex Express. It was great to hear how people can get involved in the Wong Kim Ark week and learn more about actions and how they can get involved. We appreciate the work you're doing.    Nicholas Gee: [00:43:56] Thanks so much Miko, and I'm excited to launch this.   Miko Lee: [00:43:58] Welcome, Reverend Deb Lee, executive Director of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and part of the Network on Religion and justice. Thank you so much for coming on Apex Express.    Rev. Deb Lee: [00:44:09] Great to be here. Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:44:11] I would love you just personally to tell me who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Rev. Deb Lee: [00:44:17] Wow. Well, my people are people in the Chinese diaspora. My family's been in diaspora for seven generations, from southern China to southeast to Asia. and then eventually to the United States. What I carry with me is just a huge sense of resistance and this idea of like, we can survive anywhere and we take our love and our family and our ancestor we gotta carry it with us. We don't always have land or a place to put it down into the ground, and so we carry those things with us. , that sense of resistance and resilience.    Miko Lee: [00:44:56] Thank you so much. I relate to that so much as a fifth generation Chinese American. To me, it's really that sense of resilience is so deep and powerful, and I'm wondering as a person from the faith community, if you could share about the relevance of Wong Kim Ark and Birthright citizenship.   Rev. Deb Lee: [00:45:12] Yeah, Wong Kim Ark is critical because he was somebody who really fought back against racist laws and really asserted his right to be part of this country, his right to have the Constitution apply to him too. I'm just so grateful for him and so many of the other Chinese Americans who fought back legally and resisted against in that huge wave of period of Chinese exclusion to create some of the really important immigration laws that we have today. I wouldn't be a citizen without birthright citizenship myself. Wong Kim Ark really established that every person who is born on this soil has a right to constitutional protection, has a right to be a citizen. And in fact, the Constitution in the 14th Amendment also applies to let equal treatment for everyone here, everyone who is here. You don't even have to be a citizen for the constitutional rights. And the Fourth Amendment, the fifth Amendment, the first amendment to apply to you. And those things are so under attack right now. It's so important to establish the equality. Of every person and the right for people here in this country to have safety and belonging, that everyone here deserves safety and belonging.    Miko Lee: [00:46:24] Thank you so much for lifting up that activist history. as, a person who was raised in a theological setting at a seminary, I was really raised around this ethos of love as an active tool and a way of fighting for civil rights, fighting for things that we believe in. And I'm wondering if you could talk about how you see that playing out in today. And especially as you know, this Trump regime has had such incredible impacts on immigrants and on so much of our activist history. I'm wondering if you have thoughts on that?    Rev. Deb Lee: [00:47:00] Well, so much of the civil rights history in this country, you know, going back to like the activism of Chinese Americans to establish some of those civil rights. You know, it goes back to this idea of like, who is fully human, who can be fully human, whose humanity will be fully recognized? And so I think that's what's connects back to my faith and connects back to faith values of the sacredness of every person, the full humanity, the full participation, the dignity. And so I think, Wong Kim Ark and the other, like Chinese American activists, they were fighting for like, you know, we don't wanna just be, we're gonna just gonna be laborers. We're not just going to be people who you can, Bring in and kick out whenever you want, but like, we want to be fully human and in this context of this nation state, that means being fully citizens.And so I think that that struggle and that striving to say we want that full humanity to be recognized, that is a fundamental kind of belief for many faith traditions, which, you know, speak to the radical equality of all people and the radical dignity of all people, that can't be taken away, but that has to really be recognized. What's under attack right now is. So much dehumanization, stigmatization of people, you know, based on race, based on class, based on gender, based on what country people were born in, what papers they carry, you know, if they ever had contact, prior contact with the law, like all these things. You know, are immediately being used to disregard someone's humanity. And so I think those of us who come from a faith tradition or who just share that kind of sense of, value and, deep humanism in other people, that's where we have to root ourselves in this time in history and really being, you know, we are going to defend one another's humanity and dignity, at all costs.   Miko Lee: [00:48:55] Thank you for that. I'm wondering if there are other lessons that we can learn from Wong Kim Ark, I mean, the time when he fought back against, this was so early in 1894, as you mentioned, the Chinese exclusion acts and I'm wondering if there are other lessons that we can learn from him in, in our time when we are seeing so many of our rights being eroded.   Rev. Deb Lee: [00:49:17] I think that there's so many ways, that we think about how did people organize then like, you know, it's challenging to organize now, but if you can imagine organizing then, and I'm thinking, you know, when Chinese people were required to carry identification papers and you know, on mass they refused to do that and they. Practice, like a form of civil disobedience. And I think we're at this time now, like the Trump administration's telling anybody here who's unauthorized to come forward and to register well, I think people need to think twice about that. And people are, there are many other things that they're trying to impose on the immigrant community and I think one like lesson is like, how do people survive through a period of exclusion and we are today in a period of exclusion. That really goes back to the mid 1980s, when there was, last, a significant immigration reform that created a pathway to citizenship. Only for about 3 million people. But after that, since that time in the mid 1980s, there has been no other pathways to citizenship, no other forms of amnesty, no other ways for people to fix their status.So in fact, we are already in another 40 year period of exclusion again. And so one of those lessons is how do people survive this period? Like right, and left. They're taking away all the laws and protections that we had in our immigration system. They were very narrow already. Now even those are being eliminated and any form of compassion or discretion or leniency or understanding has been removed. So I think people are in a period of. Survival. How do we survive and get through? And a lot of the work that we're doing on sanctuary right now we have a sanctuary people campaign, a sanctuary congregations campaign is how do we walk alongside immigrants to whom there is no path. There is no right way. there is no opening right now. But walk with them and help support them because right now they're trying to squeeze people so badly that they will self deport. And leave on their own. This is part of a process of mass expulsion but if people really believe that they want to stay and be here, how do we help support people to get through this period of exclusion until there will be another opening? And I believe there will be like our, our history kind of spirals in and out, and sometimes there are these openings and that's something I take from the faith communities. If you look at Chinese American history in this country, the role that faith communities played in walking with the immigrant community and in supporting them, and there's many stories that help people get through that period of exclusion as well.   Miko Lee: [00:51:52] Deb, I'm wondering what you would say to folks. I'm hearing from so many people [say] I can't read the news. It's too overwhelming. I don't wanna get involved. I just have to take care of myself. And so I'm just waiting. And even James Carville, the political opponent, say we gotta play dead for a few years. What are your thoughts on this?    Rev. Deb Lee: [00:52:11] Well, we can't play totally dead. I wish the Democrats wouldn't be playing dead, but I think that a person of faith, we have to stay present we don't really have the option to check out and we actually have to be in tune with the suffering. I think it would be irresponsible for us to. You know, turn a blind eye to the suffering. And I wanna encourage people that actually opportunities to walk with people who are being impacted and suffering can actually be deeply, fulfilling and can help give hope and give meaning. And there are people who are looking for solidarity right now. We are getting a lot of calls every week for someone who just wants them, wants someone to go to their court or go to the ice, check-in with them, and literally just like walk three blocks down there with them and wait for them. To make sure they come out. And if they don't come out to call the rapid response hotline, it doesn't take much. But it's a huge act like this is actually what some of the immigrant communities are asking for, who are millions of people who are under surveillance right now and have to report in. So those small acts of kindness can be deeply rewarding in this. Sea of overwhelming cruelty. And I think we have an obligation to find something that we can do. , find a way, find a person, find someone that we can connect to support and be in solidarity with and think about people in our past. Who have accompanied us or accompanied our people and our people's journey. And when those acts of kindness and those acts of neighbors and acts of friendship have meant so much I know like my family, they still tell those stories of like, this one person, you know, in Ohio who welcome them and said hello. We don't even know their names. Those acts can be etched in people's hearts and souls. And right now people need us.    Miko Lee: [00:53:59] Oh, I love that. I've talked with many survivors of the Japanese American concentration camps, and so many of them talk about the people of conscience, meaning the people that were able to step up and help support them during, before and after that time. Lastly, I'm wondering, you're naming some really specific ways that people can get engaged, and I know you're deeply involved in the sanctuary movement. Can you provide us with ways that people can find out more? More ways to get involved in some of the work that you are doing.    Rev. Deb Lee: [00:54:29] I'll put a plug in for our website. It's www dot I am number four, human integrity.org. So it's, iam4humanintegrity.org. We work with families that are impacted facing deportation, looking for all kinds of ways to get the community to rally around folks and support and we work with faith communities who are thinking about how to become sanctuary congregations and how to be an important resource in your local community. The other organizations, I would say sign up for Bay Resistance. They're organizing a lot of volunteers that we call on all the time we're working with. We're, you know, working with many organizations, the Bay Area, to make sure that a new ice detention facility does not get built. They are looking at the potential site of Dublin. We've worked really hard the last decade to get all the detention centers out of Northern California. We don't want them to open up a new one here.   Miko Lee: [00:55:27] Deb Lee, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express and folks can actually see Deb on Tuesday night in Wong Kim Ark Week as one of the speakers. Thank you so much for joining us.    Rev. Deb Lee: [00:55:38] Thank you, Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:55:39] Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. We're gonna close this episode with words from Norman Wong, the great grandson of Wong Kim Ark.   Norman Wong: [00:55:49] So let's fight back. Threats to birthright citizenship will only divide us, and right now we need to come together to continue the impact of my great grandfather's. This is my family's legacy, and now it's part of yours too. Thank you    Miko Lee: [00:56:11] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preti Mangala-Shekar, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tanglao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.    The post APEX Express – 3.20.25- Wong Kim Ark 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. Powerleegirls Hosts Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee host and Ayame Keane-Lee edits a chat about leadership, growth and change during a time of crisis. Listen to Jalena speak with Meng Hua from Tiger Eye Astrology about her path from palm reading to artistry to bazi. Then hear Miko speak with Zen Master Norma Wong  about her new book When No Thing Works. More information about our guests: Meng Hua's Tiger Eye Astrology  Zen Master Norma Wong her new book When No Thing Works Guide to how to hold space about the book   Pathways To Humanity Show 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.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:00:29] Tonight on APEX Express: the PowerLeeGirls mother-daughters team. I'm the editor of tonight's show Ayame Keane-Lee joined by our hosts Jalena Keane-Lee and Miko Lee. Tune in as they interview our guests about Pathways – internal and external journeys we take to connect to humanity. First my sister Jalena speaks with Meng Yu about her journey as a full time artist and practitioner of the mantic arts. Then Mama Miko speaks with Norma Wong, the abbot of Anko-in about her latest book When No Thing Works. So listen in to APEX Express. First up is Jalena's interview with Meng Yu.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:08] Hello, everyone. I am here with Meng Yu, who is a Chinese astrologer from Tiger Eye Astrology. And today we're talking all about astrology and learning from the stars and other elements to help guide our life path and our decisions and choices. Thanks so much for being here, Meng.    Meng Yu: [00:01:27] Thanks so much for having me, Jalena. It's a pleasure to have this conversation with you.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:33] It truly is. and so I'm curious if you could just start us off talking a little bit, you know, about your practice and how you came to the work that you're doing today.    Meng Yu: [00:01:42] I have been a practitioner of the mantic arts for, over a decade and the mantic arts, include astrology, but also divination. So as part of my practice, I also do I Ching or Yijing divination. and it's a kind of circuitous way of how I ended up on this path. I'm also a, a full time artist. and you know, that's kind of how I make my bread and butter. And it's also. In a way, how I approach, Chinese astrology and divination as well, I guess to backtrack a little bit, I always like to start by honoring my teachers and their lineages. So, primarily my teacher has been Master Zongxian Wu, who is my Bazi teacher and also is the lineage holder of, four traditional schools of internal arts. and then I also have a host of daoist teachers who are also artists. their own right, visual artists, martial artists, writers who live in and embody the Dao. these include Lindsey Wei, Dengming Dao, uh, Tamara Jha, Lily Kai. And so, I also want to shout out to my group. Late sixth great aunt as well. My Leo Gupo, who when I was eight years old, she gave me my first introduction to the art of divination through. palm reading. so she actually taught me, sort of an Eastern style of palm reading at a young age. But growing up, other than that, I, was not influenced by, this, form of, wisdom traditions from my heritage. My parents are, both Chinese and they are both, of the cultural revolution generation, which was a mass genocide that occurred in China, right as they were coming of age. So they're very, survival oriented, practical people, you know, from Just historically in China, from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the rise of communism, much of the mantic arts traditions, were basically lost in the cultural landscape. So, how I came to this work, was not really so much through my upbringing as, The search for, I guess, healing in my own life experiences and coming to, sort of critical junctures, and crisis, personal crises in my life where I really sought, alternative, dimensions and ways of, reconnecting to my My purpose and just healing in my life. So I, over a decade ago found myself, in the jungles of Peru, having very close, connections to a shamanistic tradition involving plant medicine, which opened me up to really asking, you know, what are the shamanic and animistic roots. of the wisdom traditions from my own heritage. And this brought me to working with the Yijing, as well as Chinese astrology. So that's, that's kind of a mouthful. It's a bit of a long and complicated story, but that's, that's sort of the bullet notes version.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:05:18] Thank you so much for sharing that. It's perfect because my next question was going to be about, you know, your lineage of healers that you studied under, but I feel like you covered that already really well. So I'm curious, you know, you talked about Bazi and Yijing, could you kind of give us a little bit of a breakdown of these like different modalities and how you use them?    Meng Yu: [00:05:35] Sure, absolutely. so, In the readings that I do for folks, the most popular readings are actually a combination of Yijing divination and Bazi astrology. So to give a little context for both, the Yijing Translates as the book of change or the book of changes it, although it has roots and what we would call, currently ancient Siberia, ancient China, it actually dates back to Neolithic times. Really before, the formation of these nation states. So it's some of our early human ancestors. It's their recorded search for wisdom through the observation of cycles and patterns in nature over thousands of years. as the book of change, as the study of change, it's the oldest compounded record of, the study of time itself. and the Bazi astrology is a modality of Chinese astrology that really came into prominence during the Han Dynasty. the turn of the century, the common era, and, it translates as eight characters. So ba meaning eight and zi meaning character. So there is a element in animal for not only your year of birth, which is what? Folks are mostly familiar with, but also the month, day, and hour. So these are called four pillars. So sometimes the system is called the four pillars of destiny. And we get a look at, these characters that make up one's nature. And the way that I So when I see the two modalities working together, I often give people the metaphor of, you know, say you're in, the ocean of your life and you're driving a boat or a ship. The Yijing is like a weather report. The Yijing gives us an idea of the changes that we are currently in. So are we headed in a storm? is it clear blue skies ahead? What are the conditions of the wind and the waves? And the bazi chart looks at the kind of ship that you are driving. So it could be, you know, a submarine. It could be a sailboat. It could be an ocean tanker. And they all have different conditions. strengths and gifts and flavors of power, as well as certain kinds of limitations and vulnerabilities. And so the bazi chart really looks at these qualities of our nature and encourages us to embrace who we actually are so that we can learn to drive our ship better.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:08:47] Thank you so much for that breakdown and description, and in addition to offering readings, of which I loved, I absolutely loved getting a reading with you, and it was so informative and inspirational, but in addition to these readings and offerings that you have for other people, I'm curious how you use these modalities in your own life, whether it's with your art practice, or just with life choices and changes how do you, use these ways of knowing for yourself?   Meng Yu: [00:09:12] It's very important for me as an astrologer and as a daoist to, to align my life according to the times, these modalities, both the Yijing and Chinese astrology. What they point to at the foundation of their wisdom is the question of what time is it, right? This is where the roots of the tradition come from. It's from telling time, and through understanding time and studying time, we're able to divine When is a good time? what is the right time? And knowing that gives our lives profound meaning and context. so, on the more kind of mundane level, it's adjusting my calendar to observe time with this additional context of living with the seasons. there's actually 24 different seasons, according to the qi nodes of The Chinese lunar and solar calendar. There's also the lunar cycles as well. And these are not simple, mathematical markings. They have, very deep meanings behind them that help us align with the qi quality of the moment. So they give our lives meaning by showing us, is this a time to sow seeds, to be inspired and enlivened like springtime? is it a time of Growing potential, or are we entering a time where we need to, not be accumulating, in terms of harvest, but actually be engaged in shedding, by observing the patterns and cycles of nature, And following the nature of the forces that we find ourselves in, we can align ourselves to live in harmony, and to be in, better alignment with the dao. So that's one way that I see the Chinese calendar providing context for my life. The wisdom of the Yijing has been such a profound. Collaborator in my life. not only in studying and attempting to apply its wisdom, but also has been an incredible creative collaborator for me as an artist. So, one of my favorite things to do is to divine with the Yijing to help make creative choices in my work, and to really treat the Oracle as a collaborator. So I really enjoyed using it in this creative way and as a practice for listening and channeling, which I think is useful for any artist to engage in a meditative practice where, it's not a sense of creativity coming necessarily from you, but actually through you. and that's something that the Yijing through working with it for so many years has really taught me to embody.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:12:19] I love that so much. have you noticed any changes in your life, your energy levels, or your art practice since kind of aligning your life with these forces?    Meng Yu: [00:12:30] Yeah, you know, I would love to say, Oh, everything's just gotten better and better. Now I just live like the perfect artist life. It's that would, that's really not, nothing could be really further from the truth because I think it's really about being in the school of life. You know that this is a form of education and it's a continual form of practice, and, as I've been engaged in it, in over 10 years, every year, the lessons have, there's been more layers of depth and challenge, which I think is, , Something that unfolds sort of dependent on what you're you're ready for. There is a hexagram in the Yijing that Shows you that you are undergoing a massive transition where you're carrying the burden of a really heavy weight . And one of the things you're encouraged to see is to reflect on how, what you are experiencing now is something that would have completely overwhelmed you a year ago or a cycle ago. We are given tasks. And, asked to carry burdens, given what we are ready for. And so, although I would like to say, Oh, it's made my life so easy. I know what to do all the time now. That's not the narrative at all. I feel like there's a kind of profound, I guess maybe meditative experience where I have a little bit more distance now from things affecting me, in an immediate personal way because now I can, refer to. This collaborator, this friend, for advice or allowing me to see where I am in a cycle to reflect what I have exited from, hopefully to be prescient of what's to come, to identify familiar themes and to see, that I'm continuously revolving around, a spiral where Certain points come back that feel very familiar, but it's a couple rungs, deeper, where it's not like just a circle of things repeating, but it's a spiral where there's new layers of depth that, follow familiar themes, if that makes sense.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:15:06] Yeah, that does. and I know you've talked about, too, how it's like a method for communicating with your ancestors and kind of having An additional channel of communication. So I'm just curious about, yeah, that kind of practice of communication and bringing that forward in your work and how that experience has been for you.   Meng Yu: [00:15:28] Yeah. the piece about ancestors is really an interesting one, because I think what the gift of Chinese astrology to me is that it puts The self within a kind of different context where we're encouraged to see ourselves, not as some, definable thing that has innate qualities, but through Chinese astrology, where we see the elements, the animals, the the stars that indicate ancestral influences, the, unfinished business, the karma, the fate of our ancestors that have been given to us. We're encouraged to see the self as just a live kind of wiggly end of 10, 000 dead people. You know, that what makes us who we are is an enormous inheritance. And what we are here to play out in our lives is this dance between fate and freedom. It doesn't mean that we don't have access to creativity in our lives, but that freedom is inherently, explored and discovered through playing with the limitations of our fate. So for instance, in our natal charts, You can see certain hauntings or ghost energies, inherited from ancestors. So for instance, in my personal chart, I have an inheritance called hidden moaning, which shows an ancestor that has not completed grieving and grief work in their lifetime. And so it kind of. imbues my life with unexplainable bouts of sadness. sometimes this can result in, depression, grieving, this like, wailing grief and knowing this in my chart, I'm able to see that kind of sadness is not something that is just mine, meaning, you know, growing up, the question would be like, Oh, why me, or what am I doing wrong? Why do I feel like this? What's wrong with me? When we look at our lives through the context of ancestors, it becomes a lot more relational, meaning your grief, these burdens are not simply yours. They're a call for communication with your lineage and opening up that pathway, that communication itself is how we resolve the fate of our ancestors. by Listening by asking, what is it that they want, our lives are not just lived for us, but our lives are a way for our ancestors to resolve unfinished chi, that they were not able to complete in their lifetimes. So, you know, when I feel these bouts of sadness, I know that it's time for me to open up these channels, that I can sit in meditation, that I can, engage in my creative practice as a way to channel and speak to my ancestors and ask them what it is that they would like to come forth. What messages they have? That they need to share and speak.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:19:11] Wow, you just dropped so many gems and I was like taking notes. I really like that idea of, you know, this dance between fate and freedom and living out our ancestors kind of unfinished business and promises and hopes. And I'm curious also how this practice has impacted or potentially deepened your own understanding of your culture and your relationship to being Chinese or Chinese American or however you identify.   Meng Yu: [00:19:40] Yeah, it's really provided. I feel extremely honored and, you know that I've been able to work with so many amazing teachers and adepts and have been trusted to practice as well as teach these modalities. it has brought me really close to my ancestors in a very intimate way, you know, like I just talked about with hidden moaning, as well as giving me such an appreciation for the wisdom traditions of my heritage. and this really dates back really beyond, again, our understanding of the nation states of, you know, what it means to be Chinese, it actually gives me a lot of respect for what our ancient human ancestors have left behind for us, their legacy, you know, because the roots of this tradition Like I mentioned, it actually goes back 50, 70, 000 years ago to the retreat of the last ice age. And so we're really talking about nomadic hunter gatherers and their survival, how they observed nature, terrains, and sky. Over cyclical time, they survived by following migration routes of animals and celestial bodies that allowed them to engage in an animistic perspective of life, that, all landscapes, including the landscapes of the cosmos, all of nature is sentient. And this. I guess that world view of aliveness of sentience and intelligence, as well as reciprocity and resonance. You know, that all environments and us, because we are innately tied to that, we are nature. You know, that we're in this reciprocal conversation all the time with life, that I think has had the most profound influence on my life, this idea that we're not just caretakers of the environment, but we are the environment. We are all adapting to each other too. The forces around us inside of us that there's this continual movement of cycles and circulation. that I think is really this wisdom core of the tradition that has really made me feel like not just a citizen of my culture and my ethnicity, but really a citizen of this planet, of Earth. from literally, you know, the air that we breathe, down to the food that we eat down to our blood, it's the same movement of circulation that connects us all and this, you know, really informs my, my worldview and my sense of belonging, my sense of, communion with life.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:22:54] I feel like these messages and this kind of information about ancestors, unfinished business, purpose in life. It can be both empowering and overwhelming at times. Like, that was my experience of the reading as well. And we're living at a time where In the US for sure and also globally where there's so much going on and it is a moment that can feel empowering at times but also can feel very, very overwhelming so I'm curious if there are certain ways that you practice keeping the faith in amidst times like these or navigating things that are overwhelming but can be seen as, empowering at the same time.    Meng Yu: [00:23:32] Yeah, absolutely. That's a really fabulous question. you mentioned faith, and I think that's a really interesting concept to dig into because I actually hesitate to use the word faith. I like to use the word trust know that we can develop our existential trust through understanding. Tempo with these. modalities, like I mentioned, there's this, putting us back into time, into rhythm, not just Chinese astrology. I think all ancient calendars does this for us, that they Put us back into an earth based tempo and rhythm and helps us understand that the meaning of our lives come from the context of everything that sustains us. And that this isn't some kind of belief system that you have to be indoctrinated in. It is an observable truth that you can see through observing patterns. and cyclical time. Yin and yang is not some far fetched idea that you have to believe in. It's literally night and day, these are the basic rhythms through which our lives have delineation and tempo and when we develop our synchronicity with this type of regularity and rhythm, we develop a kind of trust. and This trust comes from confidence through observation over time, and because we don't like live outside anymore, we're not really in touch with what our ancestors, the ancients observed and recorded in their calendars. You know, the regularity of movement from observing the sun, the moon, the stars and the seasons. And when we can reunite with that, that actually provides a sense of trust. so, when we engage in these modalities, whether it's astrology or divination, we're, we're reading tempo and even with Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine takes a pulse, you know, it's reading your body as a tempo. It's indicating your rhythm, the quality of your rhythm. So even in our medicine, we are reading our bodies temporally. So this idea of time is so fundamental for me in this idea of trust in alignment with rhythm and regularity. In the Tao Te Ching, which is one of the canonical texts of Daoism, the word for trust, Ching, is used many times and it's about, trust is defined. also as a kind of power. It's defined as how beings attain their actuality, that you need trust in order to grow, that it's part of your process of becoming. And through Daoism and through Chinese astrology, which was very much, informed through Daoism. And we learned that the way to grow our Xing, our trust, is to return our body to the rhythm of the universe. Now that the Daoist cure for our anxieties, which stem from a sense of our independent existence. You know, of our, individuality that is such a small, piece of this enormity. The cure for our anxieties is to identify our singularity, our single body with the body of the whole world. And we do that through aligning our tempo, aligning our rhythm. this is one way that we see the intricate ways that we are all interconnected. And I know I just said some really kind of big abstract things, but, I hope that's making sense.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:27:49] Yes, no, aligning and yeah, the tempo and pace of the world. I saw something recently that was like, you know, the power of treating our own bodies like gardens that we're cultivating and not like machines. And I feel like that's sticking to what you were just talking about, too, of like, you know, we are also. Plants and beings that need to be tended to and taken care of and to see ourselves that way in alignment with like the world and the pace of the world.   Meng Yu: [00:28:16] Yeah, absolutely. I love that plant metaphor because it brings us back in touch with life and life cycles, that seeds are sown in the spring. Leaves are shed in the fall, you know, that. Life force and life energy also needs to have time to retreat and withdraw in the winter. All the chi is going back underneath the ground where it's not visible. All the outward and external energy is going inward. It's going hidden. That's the power of yin. When we observe and practice modalities that have survived, not just one genocide, but many, many genocides over thousands of years, we can start to build of broader understanding of the patterns of the universe, the cycles of time. And this is one way that we can embrace and this work with the realities of what's happening, you know, in the current poly crises of our times in, civilization and ecological collapse, you know, it's important that we come to terms with where we are in cycles so that we do the practice that is needed of the Grieving of shedding the anger and the sadness that comes with this time to not live in denial of it and to learn from our ancestors and how they have survived through these times through the practice and the wisdom of understanding, The cycles of nature, how we renew and, regenerate life, the daoists were really concerned with, what is called immortality, but immortality is not like one person living forever. Immortality is. A broader concept about the continuation of life, you know, how do we live in a way that is truly sustainable, that is self sustaining in Chinese, the word for nature is zhi ran, which means self: zhi ran self fulfilling, self renewing, self sustaining. So embedded in the wisdom of these practices is this sense of aligning our lives, aligning our choices in a way that allows life to continue.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:30:52] Absolutely. Yes. more life and more environments where life can grow and thrive. I'm curious, you know, if anyone who's listening is now really interested in learning more about Chinese astrology, learning more about your work, what would be the best ways for them to start? And then also if there's anything else that you want to share.   Meng Yu: [00:31:11] The best way to find me is to go to my website. I'm not on social media, so, you'll have to get on the web and find me at www. tigereyeastrology.com and from there you can, contact me, request a reading, as well as just read more about, the different modalities that I practice, a little more about myself, and the perspectives that I bring.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:31:38] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up is Miko's interview with Norma Wong.   Miko Lee: [00:32:01] Welcome Norma Wong to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us today.   Norma Wong: [00:32:06] Aloha, Mikko. Thank you for having me.    Miko Lee: [00:32:09] I want to just first start off, you, hold dear to my heart. I just finished reading your book, which I'm excited to talk about, but I just want to start in the very beginning by asking you a question, which is based on a question from the amazing poet Chinaka Hodges. Who are your people, and what legacy do you carry with you from them?    Norma Wong: [00:32:29] Oh, Miko, how much time do you have? my people are people of the Pacific. You know, the people who came, who crossed the ocean, now six generations ago to this place called Hawaii, who are the haka. Nomadic people of China who really traveled all over China came as contract work and my people are the indigenous people of Hawaii, of these islands where I live and where you happen to be right now, on in terms of this interview and, with the indigenous people, the Kanaka Maoli, the native wines of this place. I am blessed to be the ancestors of these two strong strands of people and really, people who have long migrated, irrespective of where they're coming from, where they're going to.   Miko Lee: [00:33:23] That is beautiful. And what legacy do you carry with you from those people?    Norma Wong: [00:33:28] I would say the legacy that I carry is the legacy of remembering food, remembering stories, passing on stories, creating stories into the future so that we may know where it is that we will go to. And I would say that I also carry the legacy of people who can both be with each other and also be fiercely independent with respect to not having to really depend on anything other than their wits, the land that they're on, of the people who are close to them, what the winds may be able to tell them.   Miko Lee: [00:34:11] Thank you so much. I'm very excited. I just finished reading your new book, which is titled, When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, shared purpose, and leadership in the timeplace of collapse. Incredibly long title and incredibly appropriate for the time we live in right now. Can you share a little bit about what inspired you to create this work?    Norma Wong: [00:34:39] Well, I will, I will say frankly that the book would have not been written if not for Taj James and some of your listeners may know who this is. He is a movement leader and activist, who resides in Northern California, but really does a lot of work everywhere. And Taj, actually convinced me over a two year time period, to write this particular book. And I finally did so, because of a question that he asked. The question that he asked is, with respect to the kinds of knowledge that spiritual ways practice and pass on person to person, can that happen quickly enough only with the people who are directly in front of you? Will that happen quickly enough for the times that we're in? And I had to reflect upon that and say, no, because we were in a time of collapse. And so I had to take the chance of writing something that would find its way into the hands of people who were not directly in front of me. And that is, not the ways of the long line of teachers that I have had.   Miko Lee: [00:35:58] Can you talk a little bit about some of the teachers that you've had and how you carry on the legacy of those teachers that you have had, the impact they've made on you.    Norma Wong: [00:36:09] I've been blessed with many teachers, some of whom are in my young time days. I particularly remember a teacher from my elementary school days, Mrs. Trudy Akau. She was, Native Hawaiian and Portuguese and a woman of big voice and grand stature. And Mrs. Akau really wanted every single one of her students to Be able to find voice in whatever ways, that they might, whether it be writing or through reading or speaking, telling stories. So I certainly remember. This is a call. I remember Tanoi Roshi, uh, my Zen teacher. He was born Stanley Tanoi, second generation Japanese American grew up in Hawaii and who became a teacher. in his own right, not only with respect to Zen, but the martial arts and Stanley Tanoy, who we all know is Tanoy Roshi, is certainly considered to be my primary spiritual teacher, for whom it is now my responsibility to follow his line. I would say that there are people that I have worked with. who are my teachers, you know, so John Waiheee, who was the first native Hawaiian governor of Waii, I certainly consider him to be a significant teacher of mine, as do some young people, some people who are younger than I am. I consider them to be my teachers as well.   Miko Lee: [00:37:41] You mentioned your Zen teacher, Tanoue Tenshin Roshi and you quote in the book him saying, the truth is the intersection of everyone's perspective, if we could only know that. Can you speak more about this?    Norma Wong: [00:37:55] We are, as humans, we're, we're very certain that our perspective is the truth, that whatever it is that we see. But even from a biological perspective, science shows that what it is that registers in our mind is only a small portion of what it is that even our biology is absorbing. And so. We have this tendency to have a lens with respect to how we see the world that lens is colored by many things. And so what is actually so is difficult to ascertain. And this is just in terms of what may be right in front of us, let alone that which may come to us on a secondhand basis, and even more complicated by the way people get most of their information these days. Which is not through direct experience, but through information that has been provided by other channels, the vast aspects of social media, for example, the echo chambers of the conversation, in which we take as facts, things that are talked about that have been observed by other people who are analyzing that which someone else may or may not have actually seen by their own eyes. So we're many times removed from the actual experience of things. And so to know the truth, is a complex thing.    Miko Lee: [00:39:28] As you sort of mentioned this, but it feels like we are living, in this time where there's multiple truths, and especially with the propaganda that we're seeing from right wing mindsets that are really resistant to, influence especially around harm, unless they directly experienced that harm. In cases where it feels like this progress is really stalled until those people experience that kind of harm personally, what is the best way for us to intervene constructively?    Norma Wong: [00:39:56] Well, I think the first thing that we have to do is to make sure that we are also not doing the same thing in reverse. You know, which is to say that the aspect of harm, The many impacts that people may feel will be felt differently. So that which I believe has harmed me would seem to you as not being harmful at all. We tend to see harm, not from a meta perspective, but from an individualized perspective. And so to actually come out of the weeds of that and place ourselves In an observer's stance of community more generally, of humans more generally, not within the analysis of that, not within the frameworks of that, but to observe actual experiences is something that needs to happen on the left and the right and the center. the American. Value system doesn't help, which is to say that we live in a very individualized society. Our country was formed on the basis of values that are individualized. Even something that we'd say may be universal, such as human rights, we tend to think of it through an individualized lens. And to come more into the whole of it, to not. view our existence as being either dependent or independent of others, but more from the perspective of being interdependent. And you know, by interdependence, I'm, I mean that the success that we may have is born not only of my efforts, but the efforts of others. And if it is at the expense of someone else's welfare, then it is not interdependent. So that type of existence, you know, which I would describe as a more indigenous way of being, is what our times call for.    Miko Lee: [00:41:55] I'm wondering, you have such an interesting background as working in the legislature here in Hawaii and then fighting for homeland rights, supporting people in Lahaina. I'm wondering how you have combined both your indigenous background and your own. Zen belief system, how that has influenced you politically.   Norma Wong: [00:42:16] Well, if I were to reflect on that question, I would say that I was extraordinarily fortunate to begin my spirit practice at almost the same instant that I was coming up in the political world. And so I. did not see one as separate from the other. In fact, I would say that the fortune of that is that there are many aspects about the introspective nature of spirit work that, you have to interrupt your ego at every instant. And as you might imagine, there are many ways in, in the political world. Where the ego takes on an outsized importance to what it is that you're doing. And so it's an important centering value that you would get from the Zen practice. But to me, A thing that attracted me to Zen is that it is almost inherently indigenous and, by that I mean that the Zen values are based on interdependence of the whole and the whole does not only include humans, it includes other beings in the universe itself. And so, to center your political actions and the ways in which you might grapple with an issue is not to separate the issue from the people and the place, and to take into consideration not only the history of that, but what your actions would mean for the descendants that have not yet been born. And in that respect, there's should be no separation. In fact, there should be a profound way, in which that can hold your political decision making. your political conversation, your political actions within the concepts and the values of people in place.    Miko Lee: [00:44:08] So centering on people and place and our interconnectedness with each other. That's really powerful and so important and I'm going back to your saying we have to interrupt the ego and I'm wondering in times when we're about to see 45 enter into his, second administration and the impact of somebody who is ego full or narcissistic and this divide that we're seeing, how do we hold faith in ourselves to help to interrupt that ego when it's happening on such a national scale?    Norma Wong: [00:44:41] Well, there's a thing about ego, which is to say that My ego can only be interrupted by me. Your ego can only be interrupted by you. Now, strategy is a different thing, but that's not the subject of this interview. But with respect to ego, it's going to be part of the environment. it's going to be part of what exists and it'll be a powerful way in which you would see many egos, playing with each other. That's going to be a dynamic that will occur. So I would say there's a lot of work to do. Especially if we know that the construct of government, irrespective of whether this person or another person is holding this job. is in a place of peril and the institutions generally are having difficulty in this moment. Some people, because of who it is that they are and the ego that they have, will supercharge the collapse. In other words, they will increase the momentum of that collapse. And so, in that increase of the momentum of the collapse, there's a lot going on. To be done to ensure that peoples and communities and places are able to do what may be necessary to effectively sustain themselves and each other in relationship to each other, all of the things that they may have otherwise been dependent on the artificial structure called government. And with respect to ego, for us to understand that we have to have enough healthy ego to believe in our own capacity, to be able to work with each other, to take on this huge task, not only through these next four years, but in a period of time beyond that.   Miko Lee: [00:46:29] And what are some of the practices or frameworks that can help sustain us during this time to come?    Norma Wong: [00:46:35] Certainly the practice of, not running dry, you know, that within every 24 hour cycle, if we are to be at the top of our game, then we have to pay attention to make sure that we have enough rest, that we have the sustenance we need, Remain hydrated. I mean, very simple things to not waste away our time in the internal dialogue that keeps spinning to separate ourselves from the habits that keep us from making decisions that taking on too many things means that no thing that you do will be given the kind of attention that it needs, the kind of focus that it needs. the kind of depth that it requires. And so this is a time of choices, in order to achieve that place of abundance. You cannot have many things on the plate at the same time. So simple choices, with respect to the practices that you have, And once that require the dreaded D word, which is discipline.    Miko Lee: [00:47:43] Mm. One of the things that has arisen a lot within the network that I work in, AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, is a lot of folks, especially young folks, are finding themselves in able to have conversation with family members or elders that, have different political viewpoints what is a good way to go about navigating this tension with people who hold really different political and therefore, in their minds, worldviews than you, but you are connected to?    Norma Wong: [00:48:12] Well, it may not be possible to have a political conversation the question is, are you still in relationship? I think that is the primary question. are you able to meet someone's eyes? Or do you just look away? can you feed each other? I mean, literally, do you know the foods that other people desire or need? Can you make them? Not just buy it and assemble it from the nearest store. Are we tending to each other's needs? Emotional welfare, are we observant of the ways in which we may be getting into a place of need that we're not asking support for. It's like politics should not be. the first conversation you have with someone, it's like that, the first conversations that you would have with people should be one of relationship and of community, and that if you're going to slip into that part where you're going to say, well, because of your politics, I'm going to put you in this room or that room, then the, possibility of us being able to proceed as people is just not going to be possible. The civil rights, as a political movement, succeeded. I believe that as a social change movement, there is still a lot of work to be done. And that we put a little bit too much of a dependence on the wins that we had politically. And then We believed that, because those wins were, that the world would change as a result of that. Hearts and minds were not necessarily changed. And the heart and mind work is the work of community, the work of storytelling, the work of arts, generally. The work of building relationships with people, so that irrespective of the label that they thought that you carry, that you can have a greater understanding of desires and motivations, needs, and ways in which you might be able to be mutually with each other. So we have to start by actually being in relationship with people versus relationship with our ideas. A relationship with points of view and that is something that we may have given short shrift to. And I would say that that's like a Western kind of thing, like, you know, okay, we're going to have a meeting and, let's sit down for a meeting. By the way, we're not going to spend any time getting to know each other. We want to get directly to. Whatever the point of the meeting happens to be, or in the case of family. You know, it's like, families are complicated. One of the reasons why families are complicated is because we are in blood relationship to each other and therefore forever bound. But that does not mean that we have actually done the work to get to know each other. It does not mean that at all.   Miko Lee: [00:51:09] Thank you. I'm wondering if you can, talk about how do we hold on to our work as activists, and kind of the ultimate urgency of what's happening in the world, like I'm thinking specifically, there's a lot of conversations about the new laws that might happen right after the inauguration . And so there's a sense of urgency there. How do we hold on to ourselves but balance that with that sense of urgency.    Norma Wong: [00:51:34] Well, I like to put urgency in a slightly different perspective. Which is to say that the urgency that I see is what is the work that needs to be done to ensure that descendants that are not yet born will be able to live the kind of life that I would hope them to have in a world that would be able to sustain that. And if I put that out, as. What is urgent, then that forces me, in a way that I choose into, to pay attention to. Larger stories, larger work, more extensive aspects of work that also require many more people to be engaged in. And, to begin right now, because it's urgent, you know, for example, if there's a possibility, That the aquifer will become contaminated, and we do not yet know whether or not that will be the case. Then it's urgent that we work to make sure that whatever contaminant is in the ground will not get to the aquifer and therefore, we have to work on that right now. And so that which we may advocate for with urgency will be about the things that are going to be required. For the long haul and not just a defensive reactive, type of action, just to attempt to defend the things that are collapsing around us at the moment caught. In a tighter and tighter action reaction, a kind of way in which we make choices and make decisions, which will mean that the urgent work to ensure that the descendants will be able to have a better life in a sustainable place. will not be done and will not done in time for that to occur.    Miko Lee: [00:53:26] Thank you so much, for pulling that sense of urgency out to a broader perspective. It reminds me of that Grace Lee Boggs quote, what time is it on the clock of the world that we're really thinking about multiple generations and the ancestors to come and not just what the deadline is immediately. Can you talk with us a little bit about the hu, Hu, that you describe in your book?    Norma Wong: [00:53:50] So I think of Hu as, you know, capital H and, small U as like the missing element on the periodic table. Okay. So, you know, the periodic table it contains all of the elements that are supposed to exist in the universe, and I believe that there's an element called the human quotient. The human quotient is the stuff that humans need to have in order for us to actually evolve as the peoples that we're intended to be. And that the earth requires so, you know, among the human quotient elements would be courage, for example, courage being that which we do, even in the face of fear. So there'll be characteristics like that, but even more fundamental than the characteristics, there is whether or not we will access.and hold d center to everything, the collective humanity of who we are and who we need to become. Whether we take that at the center or will we, will we just see people as a series of identities, a series of allegiances to particular flags as keepers and adherence to ideologies. as, generations or genders, will we just see people as categories? And so, this aspect of coming into our humanity, is what I'm referring to as the human quotient. One of the chapters in the book.    Miko Lee: [00:55:27] Thank you so much. Can you tell us what you would love people to understand after reading your book, When No Thing Works?   Norma Wong: [00:55:37] I would want them to understand that the work is a distillation. So it's very concentrated. It's like Malolo syrup, a favored concentrated syrup that is essentially the fruit punch of the islands. You have to add water to it in order for you to get it to a place where it can actually bear fruit and it can be delicious for you. And that water is yourself, your own experience, your own practice, your own hopes, your own purposes. And if you add that to the book, then the book will be your Malolo syrup.    Miko Lee: [00:56:17] Oh, that is such a great analogy. I love that you're talking to it. It's a syrup. And actually there is a tudy guide or it's called navigate, but the resource to help people go through the book and have conversations with family and friends, which I think is so lovely. It's such a great way for people to read the book in community.    Norma Wong: [00:56:37] Yes. The book site is, Normawong.com and, I believe that the Navigate Guide will be available on that site.    Miko Lee: [00:56:46] And I will host a link to all those things on the show notes for Apex Express. Norma Wong, thank you so much for spending time sharing with us about your work. Um, I really appreciate you and the wisdom that you're sharing for multiple generations. Thank you so much.   Norma Wong: [00:57:04] Thank you, Miko. Thank you so much. Please enjoy your day.    Miko Lee: [00:57:09] You too. And I also want to give a shout out to my amazing friend that introduced me to you, Mariah Rankin Landers, whose book, Do Your Lessons Love Your Students? Creative Education for Social Change really influenced me. And she helped provide some of the context for this conversation. So I thank you to Mariah and thank you for spending time with me, Norma. Please check out our website, kpfa.org. To find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.     The post APEX Express – 1.16.25 – Pathways To Humanity appeared first on KPFA.

Step into the vibrant world of Detroit hip-hop and cultural storytelling with Kahn Santori Davison, a writer whose work has become the heartbeat of the city's artistic narrative. From losing his parents in a tragic incident and being raised by his grandparents, to building a legacy as a columnist for The Michigan Citizen and Metro Times, Kahn has spent over 20 years chronicling the evolution of Detroit's rap scene and community resilience. In this captivating episode of Detroit is Different, Kahn shares powerful reflections on his time with Grace Lee Boggs at Detroit Summer, his contributions to the Detroit Institute of Arts, and how hip-hop has transformed into a cornerstone of American culture. Don't miss this intimate and inspiring conversation with a voice that has shaped the stories of a city that refuses to quit. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/detroit-is-different/da4dbf46-8ae7-4703-9f61-0554ebdeb5bc

Can we reimagine new ways living and being? Our guest this week certainly did so. After suffering tremendous loss during the pandemic, including the loss of her son, Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez gave up her tenured faculty position as a full professor at UC Davis to become land steward of Reimagination Farms. Located two and a half hours north of San Francisco, Reimagination Farms takes up Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs invitation to "re-imagine everything." In our conversation, we talk about how devastating loss and heartache can push us to radically change the way we live, and about what it means to take education away from the corporate university to the people."The time has come for us to reimagine everything. We have to reimagine work and go away from labor. We have to reimagine revolution and get beyond protest. We have to think not only about change in our institutions, but changes in ourselves.” - Grace Lee BoggsThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on Twitter at @AcademicAuntie or by e-mail at podcast@academicaunties.com.

Self-care is more than a buzzword - it's a revolutionary act. In episode 15 of Queer Story Time we discuss how healing ourselves individually not only transforms our own lives but also strengthens the collective fight for change and transformation globally. Whether you're a healer, teacher, or advocate, you'll find practical tools to sustain your activism and nourish your well-being. We explore the deep connection between self-care, activism, and community building for queer and trans equity, liberation, and justice. Inspired by leaders like Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Grace Lee Boggs.In this episode, we cover:Why self-care is vital for sustaining activism.The wisdom of Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Grace Lee Boggs.Practices to process emotions, release pain, and connect inwardly, including yoga, meditation, forest bathing, and the Dutch art of "Niksen" (doing nothing).Foundational health habits to feel happier, healthier, and more whole.Takeaway Message:Caring for yourself is integral to showing up fully in the fight for justice. By healing yourself, you contribute to the healing of our entire community and world at large.Work with Me:Feeling stuck in your healing journey? As a yoga & ayurvedic therapist, Buddhist teacher, and soon-to-be naturopathic physician, I offer holistic health coaching to help you thrive.

The wonderful civil rights elder Vincent Harding liked to look around the world for what he called "live human signposts" — human beings who embody ways of seeing and becoming and who point the way forward to the world we want to inhabit. And adrienne maree brown, who has inspired worlds of social creativity with her notions of "pleasure activism" and "emergent strategy," is surely one of these. We're listening with new ears as she brings together so many of the threads that have recurred in this season of On Being: on looking the harsh complexity of this world full in the face while dancing with joy as life force and fuel, and on keeping clear eyes on the reasons for ecological despair while giving oneself over to a loving apprenticeship with the natural world as teacher and guide. A love of visionary science fiction also finds a robust place in her work and this conversation. She altogether shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking — the cultivation of old and new ways of seeing, towards a transformative wholeness of living.adrienne maree brown's influential books include Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Pleasure Activism. More recently, she has published Maroons, a work of speculative fiction, and she co-edited the anthology Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She also co-hosts the podcast How to Survive the End of the World. And, a special heads up: in late summer 2024, adrienne maree brown will publish a phenomenal new book — Loving Corrections.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.______Sign up for The Pause — a Saturday morning companion newsletter to the On Being podcast season, and our mailing list for news and invitations all year round. Be the first to know as tickets go on sale for the On Being 2025 live national conversation tour.

We will celebrated May Day with a service devoted to April's subject for “Lives of the Spirit,” the spiritual activist Grace Lee Boggs. A seminal figure in the urban agriculture movement, a lifelong community organizer, and a philosopher, she believed that social transformation did not come from one big revolution. Instead, it would arrive through many small ones. How might her revolutionary thought inform our own practice?

Mayo es el mes de la Herencia Asiática-Estadounidense y de las islas del Pacífico (AAPI, por sus siglas en inglés) dedicado a celebrar los logros y las contribuciones de los asiáticos y los isleños del Pacífico que residen en Estados Unidos. Esta conmemoración, que se originó después de la acción del Congreso de EE. UU. en 1997, sirve para resaltar la magnitud de las comunidades asiáticas y de las islas del Pacífico, la cual abarca más de 30 países donde se hablan más de 100 idiomas diferentes y donde las experiencias son igualmente variadas. Desde las historias de migración hasta sus historias de resistencia durante la época colonial, el trabajo de figuras prominentes como la Dra. Haunani Kay Trask, Carlos Bulosan, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Pauline Park y Justice Mary I. Yu refleja la resiliencia continua de estas comunidades e identidades. 

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, dedicated to celebrating the achievements and contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders of the United States. Originating after U.S. Congress action in 1997, this commemoration serves to highlight the vastness of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, which spans more than 30 countries where over 100 different languages are spoken, and where the experiences are equally as varied. From the migration stories to their stories of colonial resistance, the work of prominent figures such as Dr. Haunani Kay Trask, Carols Bulosan, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Pauline Park and Justice Mary I. Yu reflects the continued resilience of these communities and identities.  More at www.hsd.k12.or.us

Bianca is a mother, PhD scholar, activist, and author of the forthcoming Unassimilable. She also cohosts her own podcast, linked below. Our conversation weaves in and out from our personal experiences to global issues. We talk about the impact of our traumatic births and identity as mothers in connecting us with mothers in Palestine, and we question how it is possible to resist the systems we are beholden to. Bianca has a specific understanding of the role of academic institutions and reminds us that representation is not liberation. We also talk about decolonial solidarity, colonial wounds, and what it means to create microcosms of care. Throughout the conversation, we return to one of our Asian American heroes — Grace Lee Boggs — who said, “These are the times to grow our souls.” Please enjoy the delightfully thoughtful — Bianca. Bianca's IG Bianca's substack Good Thunder podcast Leah's IG

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. Host Miko Lee speaks with Asian American creatives and Pulitzer prize finalists performance artist Kristina Wong and playwright Lloyd Suh. They reflect on how the covid lock down impacted their work and ruminated on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them.   Show Note Links Kristina Wong's Website Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater (1127 Market St., San Francisco) March 30 – May 5, 2024. Kristina's Radical Cram School  Lloyd Suh's bio The Far Country BY LLOYD SUH at Berkeley Rep. March 8 – April 14, 2024   Show 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.   Miko Lee: [00:00:28] Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Miko Lee and tonight we get to hear from two Asian American creatives. Both are Pulitzer prize finalists who have had their work presented around the country. They reflect on how the COVID lockdown impacted their work and they ruminate on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past to lift up stories that might be missing in history. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them. Tonight, join me as I talk story with performance artist Kristina Wong, whose show Sweatshop Overlord opens at ACT's Strand Theater on March 30th and with playwright Lloyd Suh whose show The Far Country runs at Berkeley Rep until April 14th. First up is my chat with Kristina Wong. Welcome Kristina Wong to Apex Express.   Kristina Wong: [00:01:24] I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.   Miko Lee: [00:01:27] We are so happy to have you as the performance artist, writer, creator of Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord, which will run at ACT from March 30th through May 5th. Yay!   Kristina Wong: [00:01:36] Yes, that's eight shows a week, one body. Just me, everybody. Just me.   Miko Lee: [00:01:43] One woman show. Excellent.   Kristina Wong: [00:01:44] No understudy. I've been looking for an understudy. But apparently the theater doesn't think it works as well if someone else goes around saying they're Kristina Wong. So, I gotta stay healthy. For you!   Miko Lee: [00:01:54] That would be interesting, though. I would actually love to see a multi-people Kristina Wong version. That'd be really interesting.   Kristina Wong: [00:02:02] Yeah. There are enough Kristina Wongs on this planet to do that, but can they do what I do? I don't know.   Miko Lee: [00:02:07] I don't think many people can do what you do. [Kristina laughs] Okay, so I want to start with the question I ask many many people, and this is a big one: who are your people and where do you come from?   Kristina Wong: [00:02:21] My people, so many questions. Well, the people that I was born into, I'm third generation Chinese American, Toisan on my father's side and Cantonese on my mother's side. And we were a San Francisco family. Both my parents were born in San Francisco, went to San Francisco high schools. I went to San Francisco. Now I live in Koreatown, Los Angeles, my alternate Asian universe. I will say that those are the people I was born into. When I was growing up in middle school and high school I was somewhere between a theater kid who also liked making prank calls and was constantly trying to figure out who my people were and what my clique was cause I don't even know if I would totally fit in with the theater kids. And then when I got to college, I discovered radical solo performance work and activism and finally could put, like, words around things that I had been told, “We don't talk about it. You just get really good grades and then just become successful and that's how you deal with that,” you know? But was introduced to interdisciplinary art and naked performers and people putting all their trauma out there in beautiful theater ways. Now as an adult, as I tie it back into the show, Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, my people are the aunties. This community of aunties that I found myself leading for 504 days during the pandemic. I somehow found myself, as many artists did, non essential and running a mask sewing group and needing people to help me sew masks. And a lot of those happened to be aunties, a lot of them were Asian women who had mothers and grandmothers who were garment workers. And we had learned how to sew as survival skills that were passed down to us. And those of late have become my people. And that's the story of the show.   Miko Lee: [00:04:16] Kristina, can you step back for a moment and just tell how that got started? How did Auntie Sewing Squad in the very, very beginning, how did it get started?   Kristina Wong: [00:04:24] March 12th, I was doing what I thought was my last show on earth. For some reason, there was a community college in Sacramento, American River Community College that had not canceled its classes, that had not taken its classes online and I had one last show on the books at 12 in the afternoon. I was doing a show called Kristina Wong for Public Office. I actually ran and served in local office in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where I live and was doing a big campaign rally show about what it meant to run for local office. And the idea was the show was going to tour all of 2020 as we led up to the November 2020 elections. And I sew my set pieces and my props. So you imagine all this American flag bunting made out of felt that I've sewn on a Hello Kitty sewing machine. And so this really ridiculous, like an American flag threw up on the set. Like that was my set. And the show is not going well, the students are very distracted. As it turns out, they are receiving a text in the middle of my show saying we're going online until further notice. So I suddenly have no income. No tour. I'm back in LA. I'm hiding inside my apartment as we all are. Going, “Why did I choose to do this with my life? Why was I so compelled to become an artist? What is my purpose in all this? Why, why did I choose this unessential work?” But then I couldn't feel sorry for myself because there were people who are risking their lives to deliver mail, to work at the grocery store, to go to work every single day at the hospital. And I see this article that I'm tagged in on Facebook saying that hospitals have no masks and are looking for home sewn masks. And the whole culture of mask wearing was so, you know, unheard of at this point and I looked at my Hello Kitty sewing machine and I was like, well I've never sewn medical equipment before. I've sewn my sets. I've sewn a giant vagina costume. I think I can make medical equipment. And I was just sort of called like Joan of Arc to sew. And I made this very naive offer to the internet where I said, if you're immunocompromised or don't have access to masks, I'll get you a mask. I didn't have the materials to do this, but I just offered this because it felt like that's what you were supposed to do in this moment. We were all connected and as strong as our weakest link.   March 20th is when I sewed my first mask. March 24th, I was like, okay, I need help because there's no way. One day when I was sewing nonstop all night, I made about 30 masks. That's not enough to fulfill the list that was exponentially building in my inbox. So I thought, okay, I'll make a Facebook group, and sort of offload some of this work to other people who might be sewing who could help me. And I make the group in a rush. I call it Auntie Sewing Squad. I don't realize our acronym is ASS. I start to add my mother into the group, her friends into the group, all sorts of folks are in the Facebook group. And as it turns out, you can't just start a Facebook group and expect people to just sew, so I, [laughs] so I find myself having to figure out how do we get the materials? How do we teach people how to sew these masks that none of us have sewn before? How do we teach people how their sewing machines work? Because some of them haven't touched their sewing machines in decades. And how do we vet these requests for masks, because a lot of people are panicking in our inbox, and we kind of have to create a system where just because someone's going, “Please send as many as you can,” as many as you can might mean 10 masks, it might mean 300. And are they just panicking right now and they think they need that many masks, or, you know, like, so we just had to make a lot of decisions and it felt like in those first days we were playing God, trying to figure out well, If we've only made a finite number of 15 masks today, who gets them, right? And obviously you're going to look at who's at most risk. So, so this was supposed to just be a two week thing, right? This was supposed to be a thing until the government got the masks off those cargo ships and got them to everybody. This was before masks became a bipartisan thing and a politically polarizing thing. And the group just kept going because we found beyond hospitals there were a lot of very vulnerable communities that could not even afford the cheap masks that were showing up on the market. And we're talking about farm workers, folks seeking asylum at the border, indigenous reservations. We sent a lot to the Navajo Nation and to the Lakota tribe in North and South Dakota. So this ended up going on for over 500 days. It became a community of over 800 volunteer aunties, all sewing remotely, all working remotely. We developed this whole system in which we could respond to the high COVID rates that we were witnessing and to communities that were being adversely impacted, either because they had no access to healthcare or no access to clean water.   Miko Lee: [00:09:03] That's an important one.   Kristina Wong: [00:09:05] Yeah.   Miko Lee: [00:09:06] How many masks did you end up creating?   Kristina Wong: [00:09:08] We ended up sewing in total, what we recorded was 350,000 masks were sewn and distributed. We also rerouted hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment to a lot of those places. The thing is, like, in a crisis, and I have to remind us, even though it was four years ago, because we forget so many of the details, if you saw an article that farm workers were getting hit by COVID, you don't, you're not going to just send a bunch of masks to some address you find online, right? Because not everyone's checking their mail, not everyone might be at that office address, you're not clear who might distribute those masks once they arrive. So we had to do a lot of work in terms of calling and working with other mutual aid organizers and these communities and figuring out like, well, what is the actual impact? How are you getting these masks around and how many can we send you at least to hold you over for a week or two, right? Like, yes, there are you know, hundreds of thousands of farm workers, but we're not sitting on a ton of masks that we just, you know, that come out of our butt and that we just have like we actually like sit down at our sewing machines and cut and sew these things. So—   Miko Lee: [00:10:13] And you had to research and make the connections—   Kristina Wong: [00:10:16] Make the connections. Yeah. And some of those requests shifted into full on other kinds of aid. So the Navajo reservation had volunteer sewing groups, but they didn't have access to sewing supplies. I'm in Los Angeles where we have a garment district and we were looking at a map going, well, in theory, someone could drive round trip across a very long day, you know, to, to lessen the risk of exposure. And so our first truck over wasn't, you know, just a van filled with masks, but a van filled with the supplies that they could use to sew masks. And then we learned that only 30 percent of that reservation has running water. That when multigenerational families were getting COVID, there was nowhere to quarantine, so they requested things like tents to quarantine and buckets to make homemade hand washing stations. First it was sewing supplies, but we did about eight runs back and forth to the reservation during the pandemic to get supplies to those mutual aid organizers who could get it to people. I helped secure like a big soap donation from Dr. Bronner's. It was like, we just thought it was just the masks, but we basically stepped in all of structural racism and systemic you know poverty and all the ways the system was broken and it had already left behind a lot of indigenous communities and people of color who are getting hit like super hard by this pandemic. So ASS, our unintentional acronym, Anti Sewing Squad, that's sort of what we fell into was going from, okay, we're going to make a few masks to full on shadow FEMA.   Miko Lee: [00:11:51] Yeah, not even just sewing squad, but sort of a superhero squad. Let us come in where the government has failed and help where we can. It's incredibly powerful. Thank you for doing that.   Kristina Wong: [00:12:02] Yeah, I don't know if I would have done it again, honestly, even though out of it came this incredible show, but if you told me at the top of this, this is actually going to go on for 500 days, I don't know that I would have done it. Like, it was so exhausting, and that's also sort of a joke in the show, is people kept going, “Oh, you aunties, you're heroes, you're heroes!” and I'm like, oh my god, like, heroes are what you call the people who do the work no one wants to pay for apparently, because [laughs] this is, this is, this is, this sucks. This sucks. Like, we don't want to be heroes. We want our systems that, like, we, we just saw how everything failed us in this moment. Capitalism failed us. The medical system failed us. Just all these things that we're supposed to step in, in these moments of crisis didn't work. What I witnessed and why I made a show about this, is I've witnessed how community steps up and I witnessed how these aunties showed me this generosity I've never witnessed in my life. Like most of the friendships I have in Los Angeles are because someone does something for a living and that, serves me and my job in a certain way, right? They're very transactional relationships. And I witnessed people who I had no idea who they were before this moment, willing to come to my house, brave this very unknown pandemic, to pick up a roll of elastic, to sew for a total stranger, risk their life going to the post office to mail these things, right? And so to me, that's, what's worth celebrating is this opportunity that I think that we all had as humanity to witness that this was our moment to all come together, I would say we lost that opportunity and we've just become resentful and whatever, but I, I feel like Auntie Sewing Squad showed me a glimmer of the generosity that was possible. And for me, that's worth celebrating. And the only reason why I feel like it's worth reliving the pandemic. In a 90 minute show.   Miko Lee: [00:13:54] Every night for multiple nights.   Kristina Wong: [00:13:56] Yes, eight nights a week. What am I doing? The show is so, you know, people are like 90 minutes. So long. It's like, it's because the pandemic was so long. I would have loved to cap this at 45 minutes, but this kept going. It kept going.   Miko Lee: [00:14:09] How many members are there in the Auntie Sewing Squad?   Kristina Wong: [00:14:12] I would say. We had and they were all involved in different capacities. I mean, like some of them may have been involved for all of a week before, they got pulled away by their families or job obligations. But we had about 800 different aunties coming in and out of the group. Not all of them were sewing, some of them were organizing spreadsheets, making phone calls, some of them were driving aunties. We had a huge system of care aunties, led by our Auntie Gail and basically, people who couldn't sew who felt really guilty would [be] like, “Can I send you all a pizza?” Which was really necessary because a lot of these aunties were operating on survivor's guilt, right? Of feeling like, well I have this privilege of being able to stay at home while my mailman risks his life to get, you know, get me the mail. Because it's really hard to go to sleep when you know that you at your sewing machine an hour longer could possibly save someone's life. But we also needed to encourage these aunties to stop and rest. You can't just tell people, okay, sew a bunch of masks and expect them to stay motivated to do it. We had aunties who lost family members to COVID. We had aunties who are falling into their own depression and getting isolated. So much of this group wasn't just about like, while we joke it's a sweatshop, a lot of it was this entire community that supported each other, cared for each other. We'd have zoom stitch n bitches where we'd, you know, the aunties would, I was working out this show on Zoom, never thinking that it was going to premiere off Broadway, to basically just entertain the aunties while they were at their sewing machines. Like we were this whole system this became this weird ad hoc family that supported each other through this very strange time. And that was sort of the staying power of why people stayed involved is because they'd never experienced community like this either, which was just all pure generosity. I feel like I'm describing a cult, and I sort of am, but whatever. It's a cult called ASS, so it's fine.   Miko Lee: [00:15:59] Well, a unique community that came together to address the harm that was happening. It's beautiful. Can you go back in time, roll us back in time, to how you first got politicized? I heard you say that about college, but is there a moment that happened for you?   Kristina Wong: [00:16:16] I think I was always a little politicized. I just never really had the language and education around it. When I was 12 years old in our middle school, there was a science lesson plan contest and we basically prepared a science lesson plan and taught it to another class. And my partner and I, we did something about saving the planet and just doing a deep dive. This is the nineties, right? Like how much we were screwing with our planet. And I think I still don't know that we all know the lesson, but I was like a little Greta Thunberg, you know. I just didn't know how to be an activist. It was like, do I collect cans that are thrown on the street? Like, how do I, how do I do this? Like, how does this equate to actual change? And I think that's, I think we have some more of those tools and we're also cognizant about how frustrating those tools are to implement and see happen. But that's, I think the first time I realized I was an activist and it wasn't until I got to college and was introduced to, I didn't know what Asian American Studies was I was like, what? Why would you study that? Like, what is that? I had no idea that Asian Americans have had a whole political history that has worked alongside the civil rights movement and, I had no idea I could put words to the microaggressions I'd expressed my whole life and that I could actually challenge them as not being okay. I went to UCLA. I feel like that's where a lot of people figure out that they're Asian American. That's also where I began to understand the political power of art. What I had understood of activism before that point was marching in rallies, screaming at people, berating people to recycle. But, you know, it's not sustainable. It's exhausting. It makes people want to avoid you. And it's an emotionally depleting. And so being introduced to artists, just sort of sharing their lives and their lives as having political power to put forward and to put meaning to was really incredible to experience like performers. I think some of the first performers I saw just like put themselves forward and all their flawed ways was actually kind of profound and incredible. That's where I was drawn to making art as my sort of form of protest and activism.   Miko Lee: [00:18:26] Is this where the roots of the Radical Cram School came about?   Kristina Wong: [00:18:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Radical Cram School is my web series for children. You can find it on YouTube. And where that started was one of our producers, Teddy Chow, his daughter Liberty had come home and they, at that point they were living in Ohio where they were one of the few Chinese families there. And the daughter said, “I wish I wasn't Chinese.” And Teddy was like, “Can you go talk to her and her friends and make her proud?” And I was like, “You know what? I said that too when I was a kid.” And so somehow this blew up into us like, well, let's create a web series for kids, specifically for Asian kids, because I feel like Asian Americans and kids don't really. We just sort of, the tools we are offered politically don't really have our face in them. Like, we don't really understand where we fit in a political movement, and how to be an ally to black and brown movements. And I was like, let's do a web series where we gather Asian American kids and it to me was a little tongue in cheek. And I feel like a lot of me being in a bubble of other progressives in Los Angeles feels like I can lovingly poke at this idea of a cram school where we're trying to quickly teach Asian kids about the entire world of what's overwhelming and oppression in the setting. And so that became Radical Cram School which went on for two seasons and was completely decried by right wingers like Alex Jones. So I would say that's a success.   Miko Lee: [00:19:53] I think it is so delightful and funny. It's a little mix of like drunk history with Sesame Street.   Kristina Wong: [00:20:00] Yes. Yes. That's exactly what we were going for and I feel like I'm very lucky at some point in my lifetime. Yes, it didn't happen until college and like post college was introduced to all these incredible Asian American activists, many of us who are still with us right now. And this history and I feel like it's worth sharing.   Miko Lee: [00:20:21] The child that inspired the whole series. Was she actually in it?   Kristina Wong: [00:20:26] Liberty. Yes, she was in it. She's in it. She's both in the first and second season.   Miko Lee: [00:20:29] Was it mission accomplished in terms of having a sense of pride of being Asian American?   Kristina Wong: [00:20:35] I think so. It's always ongoing, right? Like I think pride, you don't, you don't get it once and it stays forever. It's something that we like, as we constantly learn to like love ourselves and appreciate what we have. And we're also part of growing a community too, right? Like, it's not just like, Oh, I'm proud. I found my pride at 13 and it stayed. Like, we always feel like kicked to the curb constantly and challenged. And I think, like for me, this pandemic was a really challenging time for Asian Americans. As we witnessed like the backlash, the hate, like how backwards it was that people would equate. Do you remember early on when people were like, can you get COVID from Chinese food? Like, it was just so like, what happened?   Miko Lee: [00:21:13] I mean, the whole Kung flu virus.   Kristina Wong: [00:21:15] The Kung flu, China virus, like all these these just sort of racist associations with it are like, are constantly challenging to our sense of pride. So hopefully having that web series out there will be these touchstones to remind Asian American kids that we exist. We're here. There's a basis. We're not building this from scratch and we may be recording it from scratch or constantly trying to remember this history into existence. But, to me it's a verb, right? The verb of finding pride is always active.   Miko Lee: [00:21:44] I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about how you, you often in your work play with gender expectations around Asian women from, you know, like you mentioned before sewing on your Hello Kitty sewing machine, which I have a Hello Kitty sewing machine too.   Kristina Wong: [00:21:59] Yes. It's a good machine. I don't know if it's a Janome.   Miko Lee: [00:22:02] It's actually incredibly practical. It doesn't have the bells and whistles, but it works. Yeah but I remember your big vagina MC for Mr. Hyphen America. I can't believe you sewed that on one of those tiny machines. And then, you have this web series about taking down how white men can date Asian women. And then the other thing is your fake porn site. Can you tell us about that?   Kristina Wong: [00:22:23] Oh, that's like That's 20 years of projects you've just named. Well, my very first project out of college, year 2000, still had dial up internet, my friends, was called BigBadChineseMama.com. You can still look it up. And this is before there were search engines, SEOs. And if you look for Mail Order Bride on Yahoo, because Yahoo was the search engine of choice at the time, it showed up in the top 10 search results for Mail Order Bride. Now, you know, if you look for porn, clearly outnumbered, yeah. So that was like my first project. And a lot of that came out of like me being kind of a depressed college kid and trying to use this thing called the internet to research stuff for my Asian American women class. And all I was finding was pornography and was like, Oh my God, [laughs] we have to like intercept this somehow. And like always feeling like I was not good at being a girl, right? Like the standards for being a good Asian girl, were the extremes. It was like Miss Chinatown, Connie Chung, and then these porn stars that would show up, you know, on these Google, on these searches and that was, that's it, right? So a lot of my projects have been about like being awkward out loud and being uncomfortable out loud and leaning into publicly embarrassing myself, but saying that it's my work.   Miko Lee: [00:23:45] And how has your family responded to your work? You grew up in San Francisco.   Kristina Wong: [00:23:49] Yeah. Oh, they didn't like it at first, but they love it now because I'm a Pulitzer Prize finalist, my friends.   Miko Lee: [00:23:54] Oh, how did that feel to get?   Kristina Wong: [00:23:56] So crazy! You know, I entered, anyone can become a Pulitzer Prize contender. Like you just need 75 dollars and then you mail your entry in and the committee reads it. And so six years before I was a Pulitzer finalist, my friend Brian Feldman and I, we entered our respective plays. Mine was The Wong Street Journal, his was a very experimental piece called Dishwasher. His entry was like two pages long and we were up against Hamilton, which ended up winning. And my mother was so excited because she'd only seen my play, you know, like that was the only play she'd ever seen that year. And she was like, “You're going to win. You're totally going to win.” Which was great that I had her confidence, but I was like, probably going to go to Hamilton. And I actually got a press pass, and I went to Columbia College, where they announced the winner just for press in person, and I happened to just be in New York at that time, and I had prepared three speeches. One, if I won, a speech if I was a finalist, and then the speech if I lost. And I read all three speeches outside after Hamilton was declared the winner of the Pulitzer. So that day when they were announcing it, my, that same friend Brian was like, “Good luck today.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And he's like, “They're announcing the Pulitzers.” And then they were announcing it online because you know, it's 2022. And I was like, they're not going to give it to me. I do solo work. I'm an Asian woman. They've never given an Asian woman anything in the drama category and my phone just started exploding at lunch when I was in Chinatown having lunch with some friends and I couldn't believe it. I was just like freaking out and it just feels so dignified, right? And I'm not exactly a dignified person. So I'm like, [laughs] you know, I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to look so good on Tinder. Holy crap, this is crazy.” So it's, I'm still shocked when I look at that by my name. I'm like, this is so weird. But it's just funny because yeah, I entered as a joke six years before, and then I was on the committee the following year reading the applicants. So crazy things happen, folks. Crazy things can happen.   Miko Lee: [00:26:06] I have one more question, which is, you started ASS, Auntie Sewing Squad, in the very beginning when you were making this piece about running for public office. Even though that was created in 2020, you know, we're basically having the same election again.   Kristina Wong: [00:26:19] Yeah, I know. It's a sequel. Why are we in the sequel? I hate sequels.   Miko Lee: [00:26:24] So are you reviving that piece as well?   Kristina Wong: [00:26:27] I did, I have done it a little earlier this year. There have been some requests to maybe do it before November. We will always have elections, so it's a little bit evergreen. I actually had a reality television pilot that didn't get picked up by Trutv. And it was a very self satirizing version of myself that I was going to be playing in this pilot, which was basically satirizing myself as an activist. And it did not make sense once Trump took office to satirize myself, because as it turns out, most of the world have very two dimensional visions of what an Asian American is like and would think that that's who I really was and not get that it was a loving poke at myself. And I think looking at Radical Cram School and how I play myself there can give you a sense of, this won't make sense to everybody. Right. And so I was an out of work reality TV star, and what do you do when you're an out of work reality TV star? You run for public office. So there's a lot of that humor around that era. Just, I think we've just gotten so exhausted with, right? [Laughs]. Like, why, why are these two people still here? Oh my god. This is the best we could do? But there's still a lot of public offices to run for. It doesn't start and end with the presidency or the Senate. The story of the show is like what can happen locally? There are so many local offices that would surprise you. You could literally just go to the meeting and go take the vacated seat and go around saying you're an elected official. For better or for worse, whatever that means. So, but yeah, it did get recorded for Center Theatre Group, but it's not available for streaming anymore. So they did stream it right before the election during the pandemic. And maybe it will have a few more runs right before the election this year, but I'm not sure.   Miko Lee: [00:28:07] Okay, well, keep us posted so that we know. Is there anything else you'd like our audience to know about your upcoming play at ACT, Kristina Wong's Sweatshop Overlord?   Kristina Wong: [00:28:19] I just want to say it's such a special show and I feel very lucky I feel like there's not a lot of this. There's literally pushback in the publishing world and the network TV world where they're like, we do not want you to pitch anything about the pandemic. We are sick of the pandemic. So I feel like this record of this time came under the wire. I'm told it is not annoying as many things about the pandemic are [laughs]. And to me, it's really I find a lot of humor, not at the expense of like how tragic that time was, but in that a group of aunties came together and formed this ad hoc sewing army to protect the country. And, and so this really plays out like a war movie on stage and I think really kind of gives us something to reflect on and appreciate of each other in that moment. And so that's really what I hope brings people out is this need to feel that there's something sort of comforting that we can take from this moment, because I don't know that we got that. I think we just sort of ran from that so fast that we never really reflected. I hope to see everybody at ACT, The Strand Theater on Market, March 30th to May 5th, I believe is when I close. I do shows eight days a week. I do them on weekdays. I do them on weekends. I am living in that theater, folks, and I am living there for you. So please come out. I'll see you. It's Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.   Miko Lee: [00:29:44] Kristina Wong, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And we look forward to seeing the show and learning more about the Auntie Sewing Squad. Thank you so much.   Kristina Wong: [00:29:54] Thanks Miko.   Miko Lee: [00:29:54] This is Apex Express and you are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up, listen to the Radical Cram School where kids learn about the story of Detroit activist and American revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs. This is the project that Kristina Wong was talking about creating to help young Asian Americans have a sense of pride and an understanding of their history. Take a listen to the Radical Cram School.   Radical Cram School: [00:30:43]   Miko Lee: [00:35:24] That was Kristina Wong's Radical Cram School. You can check out more of that on YouTube, which is linked in our show notes. Next up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Lloyd Suh. Welcome award winning playwright Lloyd Suh to Apex Express.   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:41] Hello.   Miko Lee: [00:35:43] Your new show, The Far Country, is premiering at Berkeley Rep through April 14th and we're so happy to have you here.   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:52] Thanks for having me.   Miko Lee: [00:35:53] Okay I'm going to start with a big question, which is who are your people and where do you come from?   Lloyd Suh: [00:35:58] My family immigrated to the United States, from South Korea in the early 1970s. I was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up mostly in the South suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana but I've lived in the New York City area for the past like 25 years.   Miko Lee: [00:36:17] Thank you so much for that. I noticed that many of your plays are based around the Chinese American experience and less on your Korean American background. Can you talk a little bit more about what has inspired your artistic play choices?   Lloyd Suh: [00:36:30] Yeah. In the past, like, almost decade, really, I've been writing about these kind of forgotten or underexplored moments in Asian American history. It's kind of very accidental and almost involuntary. I was doing research on one play and it would lead me down a rabbit hole into reading about a story that I just couldn't shake, that I needed to, you know, get in a room with peers and explore. And so one play would just kind of lead to the next, I was writing a play under commission for the National Asian American Theater Company in New York called Charles Francis Chan Jr. That play kind of accidentally became about the history of the stereotypes that kind of permeate around Asian America to this day, and where those stereotypes came from. And in researching that history, there's just so much more scholarship around now, around Asian American history than there was when I was in school. There was just so much to read, and so much that was new to me. And in the process of researching that play, I came across the story of Afong Moy, regarded as the first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States. And there was something about her story that just haunted me, that I just couldn't shake and I knew I needed to get in a room with peers and like really wrestle with it. So in the process of that play, I was researching the exclusion era and it's unavoidable, right? The way in which the Chinese Exclusion Act and the experience of people on Angel Island really serves as kind of a fulcrum for so much of what Asian America is now, right? It created geographical restrictions, legislative, economic, not to mention cultural and stereotypical. Like, it's just the foundation for so much of what we've had to navigate as this obviously, socially constructed, very important sort of attempt at solidarity that we call Asian America. What that led to was just feeling like I'm just following, you know, I'm just following this impulse. I was doing it kind of subconsciously at first, but once I became aware that I was writing this history, it became really clear that what I was looking for, in total was trying to place myself on this continuum, trying to understand, where have we come from and where are we going and where are we now. The Far Country and another one of my history plays, The Heart Sellers, which is kind of a bookend to The Far Country in a lot of ways. were written largely during the pandemic.   Miko Lee: [00:38:57] Oh, that's so interesting. And so you've sort of been on this pathway, a timeline through Asian American history.   Lloyd Suh: [00:39:05] Yeah. It felt different during the pandemic, like, right. Like, before it was kind of impulsive and it felt very organic and I wasn't always very self aware of that, about how one play connected to the other. But once you know, we were in this moment of deep self reflection just based on what was going on in the world at that time too—a pretty intense reckoning in this country over American history, over, you know, who we build monuments to, over our accounting of what it is to be an American and a contemplation about like who we've forgotten. And so it became just more purposeful in that way. It became just clearer, especially as I started to think about the ways in which, you know, I have aging parents and I have growing children and wanting to understand how do I talk about one to the other? How do I place myself and my parents and my children on this continuum of this long arc of history? That doesn't just go backwards, but, you know, it goes forward as well. That in each of these plays, there's a gesture towards the future, and then thinking about the future and when, you know, when characters talk about the future in these plays, I like to think that for actors who are, who are playing those roles, that they can feel really palpably and recognize that when these characters are talking about the future, they're talking about them. And then when audiences hear them talk about the future, they also could feel the ways in which they mean them.   Miko Lee: [00:40:24] So you're both, as Helen Zia says, lifting up these missing in history moments, trying to tell these stories that haven't been told. Also, I hear you're reflecting a lot during that time of COVID during the lockdown time on how do we rise up our stories? I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the pandemic time and the impact on you as an artist and if the rise in anti-asian hate that really started happening around that time impacted your storytelling.   Lloyd Suh: [00:40:53] Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that whole period was, it was such a bizarre time to be a playwright. I mean, it was a bizarre time to be anything, right? But the idea of writing a play was pretty absurd because there were no theaters, right? And it's like, there's no sense of, hey, when will there be theater again? Right? It just seemed—   Miko Lee: [00:41:15] An unknown, an unknown field, right?   Lloyd Suh: [00:41:17] Yeah, so it was a little silly, right? You're like, oh, your play is due. And you're like, no, it's not [laughs] nobody's going to do anything. Like, why am I writing plays, right? And I think everybody in that time was thinking about, like, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I spend the time on the things that I spend time on? And, you know, our relationship with time was just very different. So very early in the pandemic, I was like, yeah, why am I, why would I write a play? There's no, it just doesn't make any sense right now. But then as I sat with the things that I knew I needed to wrestle with, and just knowing the way I wrestle with things is to write about them, that it felt like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this anyway, even though there's no sense that theater will come back anytime soon. I'm going to do this anyway. And it became an aspirational thing. Like to write a play became aspirational in the sense that it's like, I believe that theater will come back, that we're not all gonna die, that civilization will continue, and that this will matter, right? That what I'm exploring right now, will be meaningful to myself, to my peers and to strangers, in whatever the world looks like then. And so to write aspirationally is pretty, pretty cool. It's different, you know. To be able to write with that aspiration was really valuable. And I think it's part of why and how these plays came to be the kind of plays they are.   Miko Lee: [00:42:40] I appreciate the hopeful side that you are infusing into your plays, given the time that we were in was when many people felt so hopeless. I'm wondering if because you're writing about the immigration station and Angel Island and also the Exclusion Act were, what was happening in the country around, you know, Trump saying Kung flu virus and all the stories about the elders that were getting beat up in Chinatown and, all over the country, the slurs that people were getting. Did that impact or help to inform how you're writing about the Exclusion Act?   Lloyd Suh: [00:43:14] Yeah. I think that reading the news during that time, it's very similar to reading the history, right? You can see where that comes from. I remember during that time, in a lot of news media, tended to make it seem or insinuate that this was new, that this was surprising somehow. Having been immersed in this history, it was frustrating to see the ways in which people, sometimes very smart people [laughs] not recognizing, hey, this is not new. This is ancient. This was there from the beginning. Yeah, of course, that absolutely informs everything. It feels like, yes, I'm writing history, but I'm trying to write out of time. One of the things about writing aspirationally at a time when there is no theater, is you also can't write to a specific time, you know, in the pandemic moment, writing in the pandemic moment you cannot write to the pandemic moment, right? Because you know, oh, this will not be, this is not when these plays will be seen. So you're writing for a kind of a future, right? You're writing for a time that you hope is different, in good ways, but you also acknowledge may be different in, in unpleasant ways.   Miko Lee: [00:44:15] Right.   Lloyd Suh: [00:44:16] But it's also like all of this is out of time, you know, the phenomenon of violence against Asian Americans or against anybody or against a culture is so pervasive throughout history. Right. So, it's not hard to make that or to let that exist out of time. Right.   Miko Lee: [00:44:35] I mean, the violence against the culture is deeply American.   Lloyd Suh: [00:44:38] Yeah. And feeling like it's not something you have to force. It's just something that you have to acknowledge and reckon with on its own terms, which is to say, it's not about 2020. It's not about a particular moment. It's about a long arc of history where these things come from, how they've brewed, how they've festered, how they've lingered, how they've been ignored and forgotten and buried over, and how they might be transformed. How they might be diagnosed, you know, like I think of them as wounds. In a few of these plays, characters refer to, like a sense of historical trauma as a wound, a wound that you can't recognize if you don't know where it comes from. You can't diagnose it and you can't heal it if you can't diagnose it. So part of it is like saying, “Hey, there is a wound.” When I think for a very long time a lot of cultural tradition has been to say, “Push it away, push it away. Move on.”   Miko Lee: [00:45:31] “Keep working. Don't, don't think about it. Just keep working.”   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:33] Yes. Yes. Bury it. And even generation to generation, you don't want to hear those stories.   Miko Lee: [00:45:38] That's right.   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:39] If I have a thesis in any of this, [laughs] it's that, no, we need, you need to know. You know, I think that these characters, this is too early for them to have a name for the concept of epigenetics, but I see it. I see it in tradition, this idea that it does pass down.   Miko Lee: [00:45:54] The trauma through the bloodline.   Lloyd Suh: [00:45:56] Yeah. And so like, if you're going to feel the pain, you got to know where it comes from. If you know where it comes from and if you can deal with it with people, right, with a community on a deep level, then it can be healed. And if you don't, then it never will be.   Miko Lee: [00:46:10] So do you look at most of your plays as a healing modality? Is that what you want from your audiences?   Lloyd Suh: [00:46:15] That's a great question. I mean, I think about that for myself, I would say on a certain level. I mean, I think about it as many things, but that is part of it. Yeah. Like I think about it as I need to understand this. Like, you know, like just thinking about the exclusion era. I felt like, okay, I know I need to write about this because I know we need to make sense of it for myself. I need to understand how it manifests in my life, how it manifests in what is possible for my children, how it manifests in America. So that's part of it for sure for me and for my peers, the people in the room. For audiences, I would say, especially as I've gotten older, I've started to redefine my relationship with audiences in that, like, I had a playwriting teacher once talk about how a playwright's job is to unify an audience. That no matter where an audience comes from, like whatever happened to them that day, they're all coming from different places when they gather in the theater. But through the course of the play, a playwright wants them to become one organism and have the same discoveries in the same moment.   Miko Lee: [00:47:13] Oh, that's interesting. Do you agree with that?   Lloyd Suh: [00:47:16] For a long time I did, but then I had this moment when I was writing a play for young audiences, when I found this really useful tension between like the adults who, you know, thought that the fart jokes were juvenile [laughs] and the young people who would just not understand these references that are there for the adults. And it was kind of cool because you'd feel pockets, different people reacting in different ways. And especially as I was doing some of these early history plays, I found this useful tension between people based on socio location. That Asian American audiences were just naturally responding to different things in a way that was kind of interesting. And so what I realized is if I manipulate an audience so that they're operating as one organism, they're not responding as themselves. They're not responding in as deeply personal of a way, right? So what I want is for people to bring something of themselves to it. Like, no matter what happened to them that day, no matter what happened in the news, no matter what happened in their personal life, that through the experience of watching a play, they can relate something of themselves to what they're watching, and they can bring that into the theater with them. and so, like very purposefully in these plays, I try not to unify an audience, right? Which is to say, I'm not trying to divide them, but I'm also trying to make them respond as individuals.   Miko Lee: [00:48:37] Right, because the first one actually feels like you're trying to get a cult together. Everybody should think the same way and feel the same way, as opposed to individually responding about where each of us are at and how we take in that information of the play.   Lloyd Suh: [00:48:52] Yeah, yeah. And I just find that so much more satisfying because I like to leave a lot of room in my plays, for actors, for directors and designers to personalize.   Miko Lee: [00:49:02] All the other creatives to be able to have their input to put it into their voice.   Lloyd Suh: [00:49:07] Yeah, and just even to make choices like there are moments where you could go many directions like if somebody were to ask me, “Hey, what does this line mean?” I would say, “Well, you know, like, what does it mean to you?” Right? Like it's make it yours. Every character can have secrets that I don't need to know.   Miko Lee: [00:49:22] Oh, you're doing therapy speak with the actors [laughs]. What do you think it means?   Lloyd Suh: [00:49:26] Yeah, I mean, I think it is. It's like making choices, making big choices that allow for any production to be an amalgamation of many people's real personality, their history. Like if I were to go into a rehearsal room and just spend it making everybody do what I already know, I want them to do. Then watching the play is just watching something where I already know what's going to happen.   Miko Lee: [00:49:47] Right. What's the fun in that? [Laughs]. Um, so let's come back and talk about The Far Country, which is at Berkeley Rep right now. Tell us about this play. I heard you saying that each of your plays, the rabbit hole of the journey that one discovered the other, but can you tell us very specifically about The Far Country?   Lloyd Suh: [00:50:07] Yeah, The Far Country is a play that takes place during the exclusion era, about a very unlikely family that spans across a couple of decades navigating the paper son system, and the experience of a young man on Angel Island Detention Center. The journey leading up to that and the journey leading away from it as this very unlikely family tries to build something lasting in America, despite the extraordinary legislative restrictions that were in place at the time.   Miko Lee: [00:50:36] Lloyd, can you speak a little bit more for audience members that may not know what the Exclusion Act was?   Lloyd Suh: [00:50:42] Yes, totally. The Chinese Exclusion Act was legislation passed in 1882, that restricted all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. And this was a period of time when China was, specifically Toisan was ravaged by natural disaster, war, economic disenfranchisement, horribly one sided trade agreements with the West. There was an extraordinary wave of Chinese laborers who were immigrating to the United States in the years preceding. Partially through the gold rush, partially through the opportunity to work on the transcontinental railroad. In the United States, it was a period of such xenophobia and such anger and hatred towards these incoming Chinese laborers that these extraordinarily restrictive laws were passed, the Page Act, prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act. But what also happened is the great earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco destroyed all the government records pertaining to birth records and who was there. So it created this really odd opportunity for Chinese currently residing in the United States to claim birthright citizenship, to claim to have been born in the United States because there was no documentation to prove otherwise. And if somebody was able to obtain birthright US citizenship through that process, they could then bring their children to the United States. And so what it did was it created this system whereby people who had obtained birthright US citizenship could then pretend to have a son or a daughter that they would sell that slot to so that somebody could enter the United States. And so it created these really kind of patchwork unlikely families of people connected only by paper, only by false documentation. And the navigation of that system, ultimately created this very weird community.   Miko Lee: [00:52:32] Expand on that. What do you mean by weird community?   Lloyd Suh: [00:52:36] People who were not able to be themselves, who changed their names, who at least on paper were pretending to be somebody else. Families that were not connected by blood, but pretending to be connected by blood. A community that was almost entirely male, a community that was in the United States, but not really permitted to travel outside of a particular geographical area. This was a community that was constructed in reaction to legislation, in reaction to imprisonment on Angel Island. And in reaction to the horrible conditions of that time. What's remarkable to me is the ways in which they built a community anyway, they built families anyway, they built opportunity anyway, and the resilience of that, the bravery of that, the sacrifice of that, is something that I am simultaneously in awe of, but also feel a responsibility and an obligation to build on to honor, to try and illuminate in some way to try to share with others. But also just to recognize the incredible pain of it, that they gave up everything, like really everything. They gave up their name, they gave up their family, they gave up their identity, in order to pretend to be somebody who belongs. That's the only way to build any kind of future. These were pioneers who did things that it's hard for me to imagine. But I know that they did it for us. Not just us, but for the future, for future generations, for you know, those who come after, and that is very powerful to me.   Miko Lee: [00:54:03] I appreciate that as a fifth generation Chinese American, whose family comes from Toisan, whose grandmother was on angel island under a different name because her husband, my grandfather had bought papers from her great grandfather so that they could not actually be married because on paper they would be brother and sister. So even though she had a legal right to actually be in the U. S., she had to take a whole new name and a different identity on Angel Island. So we all have these complicated stories that are part of our history. Thank you for rising that up and bringing that to the world. I'm wondering what you want the walk away message for folks coming to see The Far Country.   Lloyd Suh: [00:54:49] Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. The only way I can answer it is to go back to what I said before about wanting people to respond personally. Like I think everybody has a history, everybody has a family history, and everybody's is different, but I hope that anybody who watches this play has moments where they can think about their ancestry. About the things they know and the things that they don't know and just change their relationship to that somehow, just really reflect on it and reflect on not just their personal history, but how it relates to their definition of what it is to be an America. To add this really huge, but underexplored moment in American history and add it to their accounting of what it is to be a citizen, what it is to be an American. Cause one of the things about this history, as I'm describing the paper son process, depending on a person's particular relationship with the concept of immigration and depending on a person's political leanings, you know, some might hear my description of that and say, “Well, these are criminals. These are people who abused the system.” And I think that is a part of this history. One of the reasons it's buried. One of the reasons it's not talked about is because there is a sense of shame, societal shame, cultural shame, that these things were necessary, right? Shame is part of it. I don't want to pretend it's not, but I also want to acknowledge that in addition to whatever that sense of shame is, is a sense of pride. A sense of bravery, a sense of dignity, a sense of aspiration, what people were willing to do in order to build something for the future, for us, for their families. So a part of that is like just knowing that many of those stories still are untold, and wanting to uplift and honor, and, acknowledge, the beauty in these pockets that have historically felt painful.   Miko Lee: [00:56:48] Thank you Lloyd Suh for joining us on Apex Express.   Lloyd Suh: [00:56:51] Thanks so much. Appreciate it.   Miko Lee: [00:56:52] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.   The post APEX Express – 3.21.24 Community in Time of Hardship appeared first on KPFA.

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 6. Father Jun is one of our favorite characters on Warrior… so we were so unbelievably excited to have a conversation with Perry Yung! With about 30 acting credits to his name for TV and Film, Perry has also worked on stage and in music. We also love how he merges his activism and beliefs into his acting and music. In this conversation, we talk a little about his love of music, the shakuhachi flute, the SLANT Performance group that he co-founded, his journey as an actor, the special experience on Warrior, his directorial debut with the Stop Asian Hate! Love One Another short film, Grace Lee Boggs (we did an episode on her for S01E04), creative agency, and so much more. Warrior was not renewed by Max (Boo!), but the first three seasons will be released on Netflix on February 16th (Yay!). To get a season 4, it's essential for Netflix to understand what Warrior means to the Asian American community and the world of diverse stories. Supporting Warrior supports stories for all underrepresented groups. So if you have Netflix, please support them on February 16th and beyond! And If you don't have Netflix… maybe you should get it just to watch Warrior.  We begin this episode by talking about the Asian Classical Music Initiative (ACMI), and the upcoming 2024 ACMI @ MSMU International Conference. It's going to be held on April 13th and April 14th, 2024 at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles, and it's open to the public. Please check out ACMI and their upcoming conference. If you're a performer, composer, or scholar, you can apply to present… or you could just attend and learn. For more info, go to www.kuacmi.com/2024-conference-call. Again, please support Warrior when it releases on Netflix! And if you want to see more of Perry Yung, visit his acting site, his Yung Flutes site, follow him on Instagram @perryyungofficial, follow his band Judo Club, and look out for the short film Stop Asian Hate! Love One Another at the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival in Eugene, Oregon Live March 8-10 and Virtual March 11-17 (and hopefully many other places).  If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or social media links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Talking about ACMI and Intro to Perry Yung 02:03 A Conversation with Perry Yung

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. APEX Express celebrates Filipino American History Month. Host Miko Lee is joined by guest Aisa Villarosa. They learn about the origin story of Filipino American History Month with Dr. Emily Lawsin and talk about the critical importance of ethnic studies with Dr. Dylan Rodriguez. We also get to hear music from Power Struggle's Aspirations album. More information from and about our guests Emily Lawsin Filipino American National Historical Society Dylan Rodriguez and his writing:  https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/dylan-rodriguez-part-i-abolition-is-our-obligation https://millennialsarekillingcapitalism.libsyn.com/white-reconstruction-dylan-rodriguez-on-domestic-war-the-logics-of-genocide-and-abolition https://www.blackagendareport.com/cops-colleges-and-counterinsurgency-interview-dylan-rodriguez Musician Power Struggle and their collection: https://beatrockmusic.com/collections/power-struggle APEX Express Episodes featuring subjects discussed in this episode: 11.8.18 – Dawn Mabalon is in the Heart – entire show dedicates to Dawn 11.18.21 – We Are the Leaders – Labor features Gayle Romasanta on Larry Itliong book co-written by Dawn Mabalon   Show Transcript Filipino American History Month 10.26.23 [00:00:00] Miko Lee: Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. This is Miko Lee and I am so thrilled to have a guest co host this night, the amazing and talented Aisa Villarosa. Aisa can you please introduce yourselves to our audience? Say who you are, where you come from, and a little bit about yourself. [00:00:44] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you so much, Miko, and it's a joy to be with you and the Apex Express family. My name is Aisa, my pronouns are she, her, and I'm a Michigan born gay Filipino artist, activist, attorney with roots in ethnic studies organizing and teaching Filipino studies, in the wonderful Pa'aralang Pilipino of Southfield, Michigan. If you ever find yourself at the intersection of Eight Mile and Greenfield near Detroit, stop on by. [00:01:19] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about this episode and what we're featuring in honor of the final week of Filipino American History Month. [00:01:28] Aisa Villarosa: I'd be honored to, Miko. We'll be doing a deep dive into Filipino American History Month today, including its origins and how the month acknowledges the first Filipinos who reached the shores of Morro Bay, California in 1587. We're going to be talking about what this month means in the context of today, how Filipinos are honoring the ongoing struggles for civil rights, for human rights, and we'll be talking to some personal heroes of mine. We'll also be talking about ethnic studies, which shares with new generations, these events and stories of Filipino Americans. [00:02:12] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about ethnic studies. What is the background that we need to know? It's been a big part of our Asian American movement struggle with the fight for ethnic studies. give our audience a definition about what ethnic studies is and why is it important right now. [00:02:29] Aisa Villarosa: That's a great question, Miko. And I really love the definition of ethnic studies offered by the Coalition of Liberated Ethnic Studies. And they have said that this is essentially the knowledge, narratives, experiences, and wellness of Black, indigenous and people of color and their communities so that liberation of all peoples and relations are realized. And when we really break that down, this is the study of collective liberation. Part of why ethnic studies is so important is that this is really a root key to unlocking systemic change against hate. If it's taught in an intersectional approach, it really is a preventative tactic against racism. It's also rooted in storytelling. It's rooted in multi generational learning. And the best thing, in my opinion, with ethnic studies is we see the community as a living classroom. [00:03:32] Miko Lee: And , I know Ethnic Studies is part of your background. You came up as a student of Ethnic Studies. I came up in Women's Studies and Theater Studies not Ethnic Studies, but I took so many Ethnic Studies classes at San Francisco State that really profoundly shaped how I work and live as an activist and artist. Can you talk about how being a Filipino Studies student impacted you in your present day? [00:03:57] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. And oh, Miko, I feel like we would just be nerding out together in a theater or activism class. So thanks for sharing. Quite simply, I wouldn't be who I am without Ethnic Studies and the incredible folks behind this movement, including some voices that we'll be hearing from soon. It is encouraging that even in California, for example, ethnic studies was mandated in high schools in 2021. We are seeing a lot of progress across the nation with more and more school districts, more and more classrooms incorporating ethnic and Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian studies. And yet we also know that passing a law to teach ethnic studies is but one step and this isn't very well known, but ethnic studies is actually under attack. It's under attack from attempts to censor and limit the history and teaching, especially around colonization and militarization experienced by communities. And why this is really problematic is this sort of censorship can keep communities from finding one another, from finding that common ground, from seeing each other in their full humanity. [00:05:18] Miko Lee: Aisa there's so much going on in our world right now with what's happening in Palestine and Israel. And what does this have to do with the work of ethnic studies? [00:05:29] Aisa Villarosa: It has everything to do with ethnic studies, and right now we're seeing some targeting of students and activists speaking out for nonviolence, for a ceasefire, and an end to military occupation in Palestine, in Hawaii, across the world. And these activists and young folks are being targeted really, As Palestinian identity and people endure tremendous loss and mass displacement, why this matters is ethnic studies is living history and ethnic studies challenges us to take stock of moments where we can either be silent, or we can take action, including first steps to understand the history and the narratives behind these conflicts to really unpack the global impacts of colonization. It doesn't matter whether one is Filipino or Asian American or Black or Latinx or Indigenous or from any one of the countless communities living under the impacts of systemic violence and oppression. [00:06:36] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I feel like we could do a whole series on why ethnic studies is so critical and important. But look forward to hearing from two people that are professors, educators, and activists and tell me who we're going to be talking with first. [00:06:51] Aisa Villarosa: We'll be talking first to Ate Emily Lawsin, a poet and an activist. She'll be sharing more about the establishment of Filipino American History Month. And then we'll be talking with activist and scholar Dylan Rodriguez, about Filipino American history in the context of today's struggles against white supremacy, military exploitation, and government violence. [00:07:16] Miko Lee: So let's take a listen to our interviews. [00:07:18] Aisa Villarosa: We are here tonight with one of my dearest mentors, heroes, big sister, a. k. a. Ate, Ate Emily Lawson. Emily, you have, over the course of your career, taught and made a difference in thousands of people's lives, including mine. For folks who are just getting to know you, can you share a little bit about your work and perhaps, you working on right now? [00:07:49] Emily Lawsin: My name is Emily Lawsin and I'm a second generation Filipino American, or pinay, as we say. I was born and raised in “she-attle” Washington and I'm the National President Emerita of the Filipino American National Historical Society or FANHS. I was on the board of trustees for 30 years no longer on the board, but still do supportive work for the organization. It's a completely volunteer run organization founded by Dorothy Ligo Cordova, Dr. Dorothy Ligo Cordova in 1982, I used to teach Asian Pacific Islander American studies and women's studies at different universities across the country in California and other states I was really blessed to be able to teach some of the first Filipino American history courses on different campuses and really utilize our FANHS curriculum in doing that. Now I work for four Culture which is King County's Cultural Development Authority, and I'm the Historic Preservation program manager there. I'm also a spoken word performance poet and oral historian [00:08:59] Aisa Villarosa: and for folks who have not had the privilege of watching Emily perform. You are a powerhouse. And a confession, I have inspirational post it notes around my laptop and I have one post it that says no more moments of silence. It's from a performance you gave, gosh, it was maybe sometime in 2008, [00:09:22] Emily Lawsin: yeah, that's awesome. Oh, thank you. [00:09:25] Aisa Villarosa: Yes. It's come full circle because I have remained a supporter of ethnic studies and part of why I am talking with you today is because October is Filipino American History Month and even breaking down every single word. In that phrase, there was a battle and a journey to even get the national recognition that y'all were able to get especially through your advocacy. So if you could tell the listeners maybe a bit about that journey and even for folks who are newer to the month, what is the difference between, say, heritage and history? [00:10:08] Emily Lawsin: Oh, that's awesome question. Thank you. Yeah, Filipino American History Month was really started by my Uncle Fred Cordova, Dr. Fred Cordova, who was the founding president of the Filipino American National Historical Society, or FANHS. He came up with the idea in 1991 and really wanted to recognize October as Philippine American History Month because the first documented landing of the first Filipinos in what is now known as the continental United States, specifically Morro Bay, California, happened on October 18th 1587. When Lizones Indios or Filipinos who were a crew and a slave slaves really on Spanish galleon ships were sent ashore off the coast of Morro Bay as like a landing party to scout out the area. If you actually look at a Instagram reel that our current FANHS President, Dr. Kevin Nadal made he tells you the history of, why October 18th, 1587 is important and it's not necessarily to celebrate that landing because people did die. But it's to commemorate and to remember that history and that memory where a Chumash Indupinos. Indigenous Filipinos Indupinos is what they call themselves too. They actually were instrumental in creating that moral based site as a historic marker for FANHS. That date is significant for Filipinos because of that first landing. And Then in the 1760s the first communities and families were created in the Bayou of Louisiana. Where these same crew folks or Filipinos jumped ship from those Spanish galleon and were called Manila Men by Marina Espina, who wrote the book Filipinos in Louisiana. Those families that jumped ship, created seven different villages in the bayous of Louisiana and intermarried with the local Creole communities there. Those families are now in their eighth and ninth generations. We wanted to recognize that history as being really the first Asian Americans in what is now known as the continental United States. Uncle Fred wrote the resolution for the FANHS Board of Trustees and they passed it in 1991 with the first observance nationally in 1992. Our FANHS chapters around the country started commemorating Philippine American History Month activities in October. It just grew from there. Institutions, schools, a lot of universities picked them up libraries city governments, county governments, state governments started picking up the resolution to honor our Filipino American history. We say Filipino American history, not heritage because we are a historical society, number one. But Number two, to recognize the history and the contributions of Filipinos to these United States of America. Not necessarily just Lumpia and dances and food. We are more than Ube. That's right. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're more than that, because Filipino American history is American history as well. And so then in the 2000s as our membership was growing And as our conferences were being more and more attended, a lot of our members in Washington, D. C. wanted to advocate and took up the charge from Uncle Fred, right? Uncle Fred asked them, hey, let's try to get this through Congress. And it went. For a few years and didn't necessarily pass as, as a history month until 2009. So 2009 we had representatives present the bill. We mobilized a lot of our members to call their Congress. People and it went through and then subsequent bills happened in 2011 and other years to officially recognize October as Philippine market history month. Barack Obama was the first White House celebration of Filipino American History Month. That meant a really big deal for us in FANHS that it was being recognized nationwide. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also issued proclamations resolutions this year. It's grown as our communities have grown, as our historical society has grown and it has expanded throughout the country and even in the curriculums. So we're really proud of that. [00:15:09] Aisa Villarosa: the success would not be possible, but for intergenerational solidarity, right? Almost being hand in hand with generations past and present and food, food is totally political Ate Em. So, so yes, calling, the great Dawn Maboulon, into the space, many Americans, are taught, unfortunately, by sort of the dominant structures that food is not political, but it's absolutely political, right? And I appreciate you sharing with the listeners the history behind the history, right? That this is both an accounting of the triumphs, the heartache, the fact that Many Filipinos use the term barkata, and when we look at the genesis of the word barkata, that term, which is almost like a friend that is really family, there's a spiritual bond there that was born of Spanish enslavement and colonization. So important that we ground the conversation in this. [00:16:09] Emily Lawsin: Yeah, and I thank you for bringing up my My Kumadre, the late Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon. For the listeners who don't know, we consider her the queen and really was the foremost Filipino American historian of our generation. She passed away in 2018. Dawn was a incredibly gifted scholar was a very good friend of mine. Dawn was also a food historian, a labor historian a women's historian but she was also an activist she was a film producer she was a hip hop head she was a baker. the most incredible ube cupcakes you'd ever have. She was multi talented . Every day I think about how blessed we are to have known her, have her research still with us. I think, carries a lot of us who are close to her forward in the work that we do, but it also is continuing to teach younger generations now. You mentioned the intergenerational nature. That's totally what FANHS is. Dawn and I both came into FANHS as students. I came in as a high school student volunteering in Seattle and Dawn came in to our Los Angeles chapter. She was one of the founding student members of our Los Angeles chapter and then became a trustee and national scholar and was author of several books primarily her book on Little Manila in Stockton. Little Manila is in the heart. Since her death, I think a lot more young folks have mobilized and learned about her great activism to save Little Manila is not only in Stockton, but in other cities and towns all over the country to document Filipino American history through recordings, through music, through art. She's just inspired a whole, new generation because of the great work that she did. She wrote the landmark children's book on Larry Itliong one of the founders of the United Farm Workers Union. It was really the first illustrated children's book on Filipino American history. Gail Romasanta, our friend from Stockton was her co author and really wanted to thank Gail for Carrying forward Dawn's vision and publishing that children's book and her comadre, Dr. Allison Tintanco Cobales from San Francisco State University and Pinay Pinoy Educational Partnerships, created an incredible accompanying curriculum guide. Which a lot of us use at all different levels. The book is supposed to be for like middle school age students, but I assigned it for my college and university students. Because it was such a pathbreaking book. It's so informative and the accompanying curriculum guide really helps teachers and students, even families, engage with the material more and gives you discussion prompts and ideas as well. It is really an example of a researched children's book and grassroots effort to spread that knowledge around. After Dawn died we told Gail the publisher and co author, we're still going to do the book tour. I had promised Dawn that we would do that. I think it was like 20 cities across the country. It was amazing. It's really a testament to the intergenerational nature, the grassroots nature of FANHS. We run totally volunteer up until probably next year. Wow. Next year we'll probably hire our first staff person in 43 years. Because Auntie Dorothy Ligel Cordova has done it as a volunteer executive director. Oh my gosh. [00:20:16] Aisa Villarosa: Just a labor of love and also it's so important to build out the infrastructure so that that is good news. [00:20:23] Emily Lawsin: Totally labor of love. So if y'all are looking for a really worthy donation place, then that is it. Totally tax deductible. [00:20:32] Aisa Villarosa: And our listeners. can check out. We'll have some links related to this episode where folks can support you Ate Em as well as FAHNS. And as you were sharing, I kept thinking, some folks say art is our memory of love. But teaching is also an act of love. As you do as Ate Dawn Allison, so many have done are doing it is an act of love. And yet, Because of the violence of our systems we have book bans, we have attacks on ethnic studies still in 2023. How do you keep yourself nourished? [00:21:12] Emily Lawsin: Oh, such a good question. We had a penialism. Peniaism is a term that Dr. Allison Tintiaco Cabal has created, wow, 30 years ago now, or maybe less, maybe 25, I'm dating ourselves. She says peniaism equals love and pain and growth. That is so true. I believe in writing as my kind of outlet. Write for two reasons, love and revenge. Because what other reason would you write, right? So that's like a therapy outlet. To keep myself nourished, I'm really blessed to have a very loving partner and a very loving family. They nourish me. every day, literally feed me when I'm working late. But also with their love and their kindness and their brilliance. My two daughters are incredibly gifted and brilliant and just really blessed to have them. But also I think when I look at our community. Our Filipino American community specifically and how it's grown and changed through the years. Auntie Dorothy, when I was in college, was my professor and she used to say that our Filipino American community is built on many different layers. We have so many different generations that have immigrated over the years. And so every generation builds upon the other, the next generation. It's all these different layers. And I think that really helped me conceive of What it means to be in community with such a diverse Filipino American population. That education that knowledge has nourished me more than really anything else, because then I could. Always fall back to those teachings that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy gave me. I was very blessed to have grown up on the Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team in Seattle that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy co founded with other families, Filipino American families, as a way to keep Pinoy kids off the streets, right? It taught us our history and our pride, and gave me confidence in being Filipino, right? Being brown, being different. So that has constantly nourished me. My parents and their memory has nourished me because basically the work that we do, whether it's paid or not whether it's art, whether it's performance, whether it's history, writing, activism, or working for the man, making the dollar, whatever. To me, that's all fueled by the ancestors, and they literally plowed these fields before us, right? My uncles were farm workers. They were migrant farm workers. My mother was one of the first Filipino American women to work in the Alaskan cannery as an alaskera. You hear a lot about the Alaskeros or maybe you don't, I don't know. But she was one of the women and that is really. important to me. It's important for my children and others to, to know that history. If I remind myself that we're really doing the work of the ancestors then it's all worth it. It's all really worth it. [00:25:07] Aisa Villarosa: They say we don't know who all our ancestors are, but they know who we are. What you shared is also similar to Kapua, right? This concept that our identities are shared. So thank you for giving us your time and also just sharing what keeps you running on love in each moment. [00:25:32] Emily Lawsin: Absolutely. I just wanted to add a big thank you to you. I'm going to play the interviewer because I am the oral historian. I want listeners to know the good work that you've done. Since you were a student, a mentor activist yourself, an attorney working with youth and now working in the anti Asian violence movement, it's really important. In Philippine American History Month, it's not just about celebration. It is about commemorating the memories of those who've been killed. The memories of those who've passed I know you know about Joseph Aleto the Filipino American postal worker who was killed by a white supremacist on his work route a mile from my house. I was teaching at California State University, Northridge then, and the students said something incredible when they were organizing around that case. They said he was not in the wrong place at the wrong time, because people say that, right? When those kind of what they call random acts of violence happen, it wasn't random at all. He chose to kill Joseph Aletto because he looked like a person of color. He worked for the federal government. So the student at Cal State Northridge said, no, he wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was at his place, at his time, doing his job, just doing his job. The killer, the white supremacist, was the wrong person, at the wrong time. Joseph Aletto did not deserve to be killed like that. After he was killed, his memory was immediately ignored. And it wasn't until his family, his mother, Lillian, his brother, Ishmael, and his sister in law, Dina, stood up and said, “We will not have this happen to another family. We will not be ignored. ” they started a movement Join Our Struggle, Educate to Prevent Hate. And still love equality and tolerance and others, which is an acronym for his, the letters in his name. I totally supported that and love the Alato family for their activism to this day. So I want to thank you. For educating others in the work that you do now, you want to tell that because that's part of Philippine American history. [00:28:17] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you. And especially given our hard and painful moments right now thinking of. The pain felt by both Students and teachers of ethnic studies to many miles away the pain felt by Palestinians, right? There is a challenge and a duty that we have to both see the humanity in ourselves, but also bridge the shared struggles to humanize when we can because the stakes are too high. So thank you for reminding us of that. It was so beautiful to talk with you today. I hope listeners check out the links on our page and can learn more about Atta Emily Lawson's work and the work of FAHNS. [00:29:12] Emily Lawsin: Thank you, Aisa. I appreciate you. Mahal to everybody and Salama. Thank you. [00:29:20] Miko Lee: Aisa, I'm so glad that you're also sharing some music with us tonight. Can you tell us about the musician we're going to be hearing from? [00:29:28] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. I'm honored to introduce my friend and colleague, Mario, a. k. a. Power Struggle, who has been a behemoth in the Bay Area and global music and activism scene for many years. Power Struggle tells the story of The Filipino community, both in the Philippines, as well as connecting the dots to social justice and economic justice in the Bay Area and beyond. [00:30:00] Miko Lee: Coming up next is Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by Power Struggle. Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express, a 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org [00:34:45] Aisa Villarosa: You were listening to Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by the Bay Area's own Power Struggle. I am here tonight talking to the incredible Dylan Rodriguez. Dylan, it is a pleasure to have you on the show with us. [00:35:01] Dylan Rodriguez: I've never been introduced that way. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I decline. I decline all of the superlatives, humbled. I'm very humbled to the conversation. I'm grateful for the invitation. [00:35:12] Aisa Villarosa: Let me, I'll try that again. Here is Rabble Rouser Scholar extraordinaire Dylan Rodriguez. [00:35:18] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, troublemaking, troublemaking's good. Yeah, I'm down for that. [00:35:22] Aisa Villarosa: Dylan, I have to say most folks tuning in are based on the west coast, but you are gracing us with your presence from the east coast. So thank you. Thank you for being on late with us tonight. Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? Maybe starting with what do you do? [00:35:41] Dylan Rodriguez: I'm a professor at the University of California, the Riverside campus. This is now my 23rd year there. Despite multiple efforts, they have not been able to get rid of me yet. And I'm very proud to say that my primary vocation extends significantly beyond my day job. I think perhaps the most important part of What I would say I do biographically is that my life work is adjoined to various forms of collaborative attempts at radical political activity, speculative and experimental forms of organizing and community. I've been engaged in abolitionist Forms of practice and teaching and scholarship and organizing since the mid to late 90s. I'm interested in collaborating with people who are down with Black liberation anti colonialism opposition to anti Black racist colonial state. I've been involved so many different organizations and movements that I lose track, but I think that's, in a nutshell, what I'm about. [00:36:39] Aisa Villarosa: So you're in Your 23rd year the Michael Jordan year, and thank you for sharing with us. It sounds like you are a world builder Grace Lee Boggs often says that how can we build the future if we're not visioning it and working toward it. So thank you for everything you've been doing and In terms of in the classroom, can you talk a little bit about what you teach? [00:37:04] Dylan Rodriguez: I teach a variety of different classes that center the archives, the thoughts, the writing, the poetry, the art of radical revolutionary liberationists and anti colonial organizers, thinkers, and scholars. For example, this right now, for example, right now I'm teaching a graduate class in anti Blackness and racial colonial state violence. And we're reading a variety of people. I'm interested in, in the whole spectrum. of thought and praxis that is attacking the racist and anti Black and colonial state. I teach another class on the prison industrial complex and that's a class I've been teaching for more than 20 years and I teach it from in a in an unapologetically experimental abolitionist position. So I'm interested in stoking and supporting whatever forms of collective and collaborative activity are possible to at bare minimum to undermine The premises of this carceral regime that we all live under and I teach a bunch of other things too, but I think the overall trajectory that I'm interested in is some combination of radical autonomy revolutionary trajectory and also just. As I get older, I become less patient. So I'll say that I feel like a lot of the way I teach all the content what I teach now, whether it's in a classroom or somewhere else is increasingly militantly accelerationist I think that there is a place and a necessity for accelerating, militant opposition and confrontation with this unsustainable, genocidal, civilizational project that we all differently inhabit. I feel like it's an obligation to teach and work within an identification of that context. [00:38:47] Aisa Villarosa: What I heard you say is. You're less patient and it sounds like it's because we are running out of time. [00:38:53] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, we are living. I think we're outta time. I think we're outta time. I'm unprecedented times. Yes, we're out of time and mean as we have this conversation and as I've been saying to anybody that listen to me, these these last several days. We're in a moment of an actual unfolding genocide, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure that those who identify themselves as the left, particularly the North American and U. S. left, have an adequate sense of urgency and honesty about what it means to be in this historical moment. [00:39:26] Aisa Villarosa: I'd love for you to break this down. I wonder if at this moment, there are folks listening who are completely in agreement. There might be some other folks who perhaps are not sure what to think. And some of that, a lot of that is the impacts of colonization itself, right? We are trained to think small culturally, put your head down. You mentioned you teach anti Blackness and as someone who grew up in racially segregated Michigan with a Black and white and Filipino family, people used to joke that we were the United Nations of families. And yet we did not have the words to talk about anti Blackness. We did not. Unpack it in any sort of meaningful way. And we didn't consider what it meant for our Black family members. So for folks listening who are perhaps new to unpacking anti Blackness, unpacking the genocide in Palestine. Can you connect the dots a little bit? [00:40:33] Dylan Rodriguez: I can do so in a provisional way. I have no definitive answers for anybody who hears this broadcast or reads this transcript. So let me just start with that. I don't present myself as having answers really at all. What I have are urgent, ambitious and militant attempts. But let me just say that's where I'm coming from. I believe in experimentation. I believe in collective, collaborative. militant work that, first of all, identifies the very things you just did. So I want to just, first of all, reflect back to you how important, how courageous it is to just use the terms, right? To use the terms, to center the terms of anti Blackness, to focus on anti Blackness is so principled and it is also principled it is a principle and it is principled to focus on anti Blackness as a specific way in which to experience and confront and deal with the civilizational project that is so completely foundationally violent. To name what is happening right now in Palestine by way of the United States and its militarization support of the state of Israel as genocide. That takes some courage on the part of whoever says it, and I think it's a courage that is emboldened when it's a collective courage. So what I'll say about it as a provisional response as a partial response to what you said is that. I think everything that we do in relation to these dynamics to these forms of violence that are so foundational to the way in which the present historical tense is formed around us, meaning genocide of Palestinians displacement genocide apartheid against Palestinians, and this foundational modern structure of anti Blackness that naming those things, and then identifying how it is that it is not an option to develop it. It's principled, political, ideological, spiritual collective relationship, you have to figure out what your relationship is to those dynamics. You have no choice. What I have no patience for are those who would treat these things genocide in Palestine, the global logic of anti Blackness, as if it's somehow optional. As if it's somehow as if it's somehow elective that it's a volunteeristic kind of alternative to deal. You have no choice. You have to figure out, articulate, and hopefully you're doing this in collaboration with other people. You've got to figure out what your position is. And once you do that, things tend to map themselves out because you get pulled in and invited into projects and collective work that actually tends to be really emboldening and beautiful. So I'll say that like wherever you are, whether it's northern Southern California, whether it's I happen to be right now on the East Coast in the state of New Hampshire I live in Southern California. I think identifying those things is the first and most important courageous collective step. [00:43:18] Aisa Villarosa: And turning a little bit to ethnic studies, which we heard previously from Atta Emily Lawson about the power of ethnic studies and if done right, if taught in a liberatory way, it gives us the answers. It helps us bridge gaps that oppression wrought on us, and some would say that's dangerous. Can you share what you have experienced as An instructor as a scholar of ethnic studies in your long career, [00:43:54] Dylan Rodriguez: So first of all, shout out to Dr. Emily Lawson, one of my Thank you. youngest old friends. All respect and all empowerment to everything that she says. So I just I do my best to amplify whatever it is that she's done and said. So I come out of ethnic studies. I got my Ph. D. In ethnic studies. I'm one of the people who was humbled to be part of, I think, the new kind of the most recent revision and reification the newest chapter of ethnic studies, which people call critical ethnic studies. So I've been in, in the ethnic studies project for essentially my whole adult life. I'm now 49 plus years old, so it's been for, it's been a while that I've been involved. So ethnic studies, As far as what it does in the world, I'm going to go the opposite direction that some of my colleagues do, and I don't mean this to contradict them, this to compliment them. I think ethnic studies is productively endangering. I think it is constructively violent. I think ethnic studies is beautifully displacing. That's been my experience with it, and what I mean by those things is this. I'm convinced that if one approaches ethnic studies as something more than just an academic curriculum, if one approaches it as a way to reshape how you interpret the world around you, how you understand history, how you understand your relationship, both to history and to other people, that it should shake you to your foundations. It really should. And the reason I say that is because, for the most part, the ways in which people, especially in North America, are ideologically trained in whatever school systems they experience from the time they enter a language is to assimilate, to accept and to concede to the United States nation building project, which is empire, right? It's a continuation of anti Black chattel. It's all of these things, which we started this conversation with. It's all those things. So what ethnic studies does is it should shake you to your foundations by way of exposing exactly what it is that you have been. In some ways, literally bred into loyalty to so so when it shakes with your foundations, that's an endangering feeling. I've had it so many times in the classroom where I can sense it. I can. And sometimes students, the students who are the most, I think audacious will articulate it that way, right? And they will, they'll sometimes hold it against the teacher, right? Whether it's me or somebody else. And I'll say I feel like I'm being attacked, right? And you know what? I used to be defensive about that, but you know what? In probably the last 15 to 20 years, I tell them, you know what that's how you should feel. Because what's happening right now is that you're experiencing an archive and a history and a way of seeing the world that is it's forcing you to question Essentially some of the most important assumptions that have shaped your way of identifying who you are on this planet and in the United States and in relation to the United States and the violence of the United States. You've never thought about the United States as a violent genocidal anti Black nation building project. Now that we're naming that. Yeah, you know you're feeling a kind of violence through that and ideological violence you feel displaced by that you feel endangered by that. That's all right. That's all right because I'm here with you. You know I'm here with you and we're all in this. At the same time, and the point is to figure out what's going to be the right some people will just disavow it and they'll do their best to fabricate their own return to the point from which they started. And then a lot of other people will never be able to go back to that same place that is the beauty of what I understand to be the best of ethnic studies is it displaces people from this default loyalty to the United States nation building project it disrupts the kind of default Americanism. That seems to shape the horizon of people's political, cultural, ideological ambitions, and it says that there's got to be something on the other side of this that is liberatory, that's a different way of being in the world. That's the best of ethnic studies. And so I do my best to work within that lineage, within that tradition, within that ambition. [00:48:02] Aisa Villarosa: I am thinking about. Adrienne Marie Brown and folks who say subscribe to the Nap ministry, et cetera. And as we progress generationally, we, in some cases, get a more nuanced vocabulary for times to pause, times to recharge you know, COVID 19 name your thing. Is there room in this struggle knowing that essentially we're out of time, right? The timer is going off. Can we rest? And how can we find rest in each other? [00:48:46] Dylan Rodriguez: That's such a hard one. I'll be completely vulnerable with the people that are listening, reading, and experiencing my comments right now. I would be a hypocrite to say That I fully ascribe to any regime that is committed to self care, right? I'd be lying. I'd be lying. I feel like I'm mostly committed to trying to engage with whatever forms of possibility radical possibility are available at my best to the point of getting close to exhaustion and then stopping and taking a rest and just asking people to give me a break and people are very just so let me back up the people who I tend to collaborate with nowadays are incredibly generous. They look out for each other. They give me more of a break than I probably need or deserve. All right, so but I'll say at the very same time with what is. obsessing me is this kind of humble notion that I want to maximize whatever contribution I can make to advancing some form of a liberation and abolitionist and anti colonial and Black liberation project before I walk off the mortal coil. That's it. That's my contribution. I feel honored to be part of that. I don't expect to necessarily see the liberation, the revolution, the decolonization in my lifetime, it's not about that. It's not that narcissistic. I got over that many years ago. So I'll say that with all humility with all vulnerability to people here, and I don't prescribe it. I'm not saying anybody should be like me. To the contrary. I think the lesson that I've learned from a variety of comrades who are much more mature than I am in terms of understanding the limitations of doing work this way and people have exemplified. A version of collective self care that attacks the kind of neoliberal individualized notion of self care that frankly really gets under my skin. They have taught me what my friends at the what [Big Tree & Martine] and I'll send you the link so people can check them out. They're the co founders of Ujima Medics in Chicago. I quote them all the time on this. But they have talked to me more than once about the notion. Of collective and deep responsibility. So I think I would use the term of deep responsibility, rather than self care I would use the term deep responsibility as a way to understand what it means to be in community with people who will make sure that you take the time that you take the space to recharge and pause that people who will recognize your vulnerability and your exhaustion. And make sure that you're able to rest to the point where you will remain a warrior that's effective in this ongoing struggle. And warrior when I say warrior I mean that all different kind of ways, right? There's all different kind of warriors. So I think what Martine and Amika talk about is deep responsibility is the one I would really emphasize because I think it's a notion of collectivity and it means that we're actually looking out for each other. And what it means is that we are pushing each other to care. For ourselves and others are caring for us, maybe in a way. That is wiser than we are capable, than what we are capable of doing for ourselves. And I know, and again, with all humility and vulnerability, I feel like that's what I need from people around me is to be around people who believe in that form of deeper collective responsibility. I'm probably not capable of it, right? That makes me, I know that makes me a bad abolitionist, everybody, but but others have taught me that's my limitation. So I feel like that's where I'm at. [00:52:10] Aisa Villarosa: You're winning the. Award for most honest guest star on this show, Dylan. [00:52:17] Dylan Rodriguez: I have no choice. I have no choice. [00:52:20] Aisa Villarosa: How can people support [00:52:21] Dylan Rodriguez: you? Oh man I don't need support. I don't need support from people. I don't. I don't. I don't I feel like there's so many, there's so many collective organizations and What I'd rather do is if you wanna get in touch with me, I'm happy to do that. People hit me up. I'm on social media, like I'm on Instagram and Twitter. Just look me up. Dylan Rodriguez 73 on Instagram. Dylan at Dylan Rodriguez. On Twitter. I guess it's called X Now. I don't know, I'm gonna jump off those platforms at some point, but for now I'm still on 'em. Email. You can email me at Dylan Rodriguez, collaborate@gmail.com. So that's a cool way to get in touch. So I feel like I'm Profoundly privileged position. Again I get to participate in all different forms of collective work. I have plenty of support. So I don't want people supporting me. What I want people to do is figure out what kinds of collaborative collective collaborative and collective project around them that are seeking autonomy. That's what I want people to do. That's what I want you to support. I want you to support autonomous projects. For liberation revolutionary struggle. And if it if there's decolonization there as well autonomous projects that are not dependent on the state that are not dependent on the Democratic Party that are not dependent on nonprofit organizations, non governmental organizations that don't Rely on public policy reforms. If there are communities organizations around that are seeking to create autonomous forms of power. That's what I want people to support. I think that's what needs to be modeled. That is what is on the other side of this collapsing civilization. Are these forms of autonomy, the sooner that we can begin to participate and experiment and autonomous forms of community that creates autonomous forms of things like justice, freedom, security. You know what I mean? It's secure. Health security, food security, education security, recreation security, the security of joy, collective love, all that stuff. The sooner that we can figure out different models to do that there may be an other side to the collapse of the civilization, which could very well happen in the coming days. I think depending where you are right now, it might be happening now. So that's what I would ask people to do, would be to support something like that. And if not, instigate and create it. [00:54:28] Aisa Villarosa: So appreciate that. And earlier… Off the recording, you and I were talking about something doesn't need to last forever to be successful. There is a molting that is happening now, a shedding, if you will. And so for listeners who are beginning their journey, you've made them feel just a little bit less lonely. So thank you for being on the show with us tonight, Dylan. Do you want to close with any final words for the audience? [00:55:01] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah first of all, thank you for inviting me. I hope we can do this again sometime soon. This is a beautiful few minutes I shared. I do not take for granted that people are listening to this and taking it to heart. So I think the closing words I would offer to anybody who is interested in being engaged with the historical record to which we are speaking. I would just ask you if you're not already involved in some form of collective creative work. Whether it's something you would call a social movement, whether it's formal organization or whether it's something else. I will just ask that everybody here that's listening to this, if you're not already involved in something that's collective that is collaborative and ideally that is radically experimental and willing to look beyond. The horizons that have been presented to you as the farthest possibility. I want people to speculate and to figure out what is beyond the horizons that have been presented to them as the limit. What is beyond that? And I'm talking to artists. I'm talking to poets, scholars, activists, organizers, whoever is here, people who are incarcerated, everybody who's here, like there are so many different traditions that we can attach ourselves to all those traditions are collaborative and collective. So please just be part of a collective. Be part of a collective and for whatever it's worth reach out to somebody who can help you facilitate joining a collective. That's why I left you on my contact information, because for whatever it's worth, if I can play a small role in that, I'm down to do it. You probably don't need me. You probably got somebody else in your life that can help you do that. But do something that is collective, collaborative, experimental. That's my that's what I would leave with people. Yeah, that's the last words I would leave with people. [00:56:38] Aisa Villarosa: Borders are meant to be broken. So thank you, Dylan, for expanding folks vision tonight. Thank you for inviting me. [00:56:47] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. 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. [00:57:11] Miko Lee: Apex express is produced by me. Miko Lee. Along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida. Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hieu Nguyen and Cheryl Truong tonight's show is produced by me Miko thank you so much to the team at kpfa for their support have a great Night The post APEX Express – 10.26.23 – Filipino American History Month appeared first on KPFA.

It may seem odd that an Asian-American woman became a leader in the Black liberation and Civil Rights Movement, but Dr. Grace Boggs deeply understood that our individual liberation is bound up in the liberation of others. Dr. Grace Boggs was a Detroit-based labor activist and organizer known as the founding mother of intersectionality. She used her academic background in philosophy to undergird her organizing work in building cross-racial, intersectional social movements and centering marginalized experiences. As we continue the fight against intersecting and overlapping systems of oppression, Grace's scholarship, activism and vision can lead the way.  On this episode,  Dr. Kesha Moore explores the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs. Host: Dr. Kesha Moore, LDF Guests, Jin Hee Lee, LDF; Dr. Rachel Kuo, University of Illinois, and Emma Lu, Harvard Produced by Keecee DeVenny, Jackie O'Neil, and Kesha Moore 

On this week's episode, hosts jarrett hill and Tre'vell Anderson get into the complex and complicado of “Learning In Public”, similar to what jarrett had to do when he was called in for being fatphobic a few episodes back. The two discuss navigating the pressures that come with making mistakes publicly and why being willing to continue to learn to do better is so important. But first, Tre'vell poses A Tough Question: Is there ever a right time to call the police, in today's climate? And later, jarrett and Tre'vell's Dis/Honorable Mentions and some updates on the summer swimming lesson BOCO we've got cooking up.Mentioned In this EpisodeWe See Each Other The Podcast Grace Lee BoggsDIS/Honorable Mentions jh:HM: Rupaul Andre Charles for Architectural Digest's Open Door M: The WGA Writers Strike TAHM: Trans PromOur Sponsors This WeekBrooklinenBrooklinen makes shifting seasons something to look forward to. Find everything you need for a home refresh, with award-winning sheets, comforters, and all the accessories in between.And to all the LA folks, you can now shop Brooklinen's sheets, towels and more in person at their Santa Monica store.For a limited time, FANTI listeners will get $20 off plus free shipping on orders of $100 or more by using the code FANTI.  Go ahead and @ usEmail: FANTI@maximumfun.orgIG@FANTIpodcast@Jarrett Hill@rayzon (Tre'vell)Twitter@FANTIpodcast@TreVellAnderson@JarrettHill@vivalapalma (Producer Palmira Muniz) @Swish (Senior Producer Laura Swisher)Laura Swisher is senior producer Music: Cor.eceGraphics: Ashley NguyenFANTI is produced and distributed by MaximumFun.org

Powerleegirl hosts Miko Lee & Jalena Keane-Lee, a mother daughter duo Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander heritage month with another special episode of APEX Express. To celebrate the month we're going to be hearing from some incredible activists that we featured in our, “We Are the Leaders” series. We are the leaders was inspired by the famous Grace Lee Boggs quote. “We are the leaders we've been looking for.” Today's show features the following artists, activists and thinkers including: Helen Zia, Anirvan Chatterjee, Sammie Ablaza Wills, Hawane Rios, Yuri Kochiyama, Julia Putnam, Gail Romasanta & Saru Jayaraman.   May 8th Show Transcripts [00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It's time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. [00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We're bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. We are your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-lee the powerleegirls, a mother daughter team. Happy Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander heritage month. And welcome to another special episode of apex express. This is the powerleegirls. I'm Jalena Keane-Lee, and I'm Miko Lee. We're a mother-daughter duo talking today about Asian American native Hawaiian Pacific Islander heritage month, To celebrate the month we're going to be hearing from some incredible activists that we featured in our, we are the leaders series. We are, the leaders was inspired by the famous Grace Lee Boggs quote. We are the leaders we've been looking for. First up we hear from a claimed activist and lawyer helen Zia. [00:01:12] Helen Zia: I call it M I H that we are at so often missing in history. And the only thing that's going to change, that is our voices. We have to restore that history. We have to reclaim that involvement and we have to know that we have nothing to be ashamed about We were not missing it You know we were there and It's just that other people don't know that And so that part we have to do We love this phrase missing in history from Helen Zia. And that's a big part of what we think this month is all about. It's rewriting us into the dominant narratives of history. And of course it's a big mission of our show to make sure that our voices and stories are heard. Not just things from the past from ancestors from movements in the past but also things that are happening in the present and the interconnectedness and connections between The two Next up Anirvan Chatterjee, storyteller, an activist and founder of the Berkeley south Asian radical history. Walking tour tells us about a little bit of history that has long been missing from history. As Helen Zia would say. He talks about interconnectedness between the south Asian and African-American communities. And the importance of knowing about this history and knowing about these solidarities and that this kind of solidarity has existed throughout Time [00:02:36] Anirvan: There's been a lot written about, Points of intersection between South Asian and African American movements for justice. I knew from my immigrant community, that Ghandi influenced Dr. King and through the ways that, Ghandi and nonviolence kind of spread. as part of the civil rights movement, but I think that was pretty much the end of it. those points of intersection kind of stopped and ended there. it wasn't until I started doing a lot more reading, that I realized how little I knew. one of my favorite stories of African American and South Asian solidarities is the story of Bayard Rustin, who a lot of us know as the black gay civil rights activist, who was the architect of the 1963 March on Washington. What I didn't know was, in the 1940's, he was a Quaker, he was a pacifist. He was actually in prison for awhile because he was a pacifist during world war two. while he was in prison, he was thinking and reading about, Solidarity with colonized India and the work of de-colonizing India. And he gets involved with a free India committee in the mid 1940s. he gets out of prison and, he gets involved with things like sit down, protest outside of the British embassy in Washington, D C. just the idea that this skinny black gay activist in the 1940s was part of the global movement for the liberation of my people. it's really different from the sense of what an Indian freedom fighter looks like. I love the idea of being able to claim Bayard Rustin as one of my Indian freedom fighters. On the flip side, in 1964 in, Jackson, Mississippi, Tougaloo college who a historically black college , there was a Pakistani professor named Hamid Kizilbashand an Indian professor Savitri Chattopadhyay. They're teaching on this black college during the height of the civil rights movement, they could use their kind of. Asian immigrant in between kind of a status really interesting ways. for example , they were able to, support their student's work to desegregate a movie theaters by going into the movie theater buying tickets. Cause they were allowed to buy movie tickets. And hand those tickets over to their black students. So when the black students show up, they're like, well, you know, we actually have these tickets and it's just like a small act of every day allyship or being co-conspirator, it's something that actually made a difference for the students. They're able to kind of use their position in ways that are, that are strategically helpful. Now, at one point in time, Hamid Kizilbashand actually gets physically attacked by white racists. he gets pulled out of his car. He's chased down. There was somebody with him who basically calls out to these white racists going, “hang on, hang on. He's international. He's, he's Brown. He's, he's not black.” And he's not beaten up nearly as badly as somebody who's black and his position might have been. for a lot of South Asians, we know we're racist. We know we have deep, complicated anti-blackness in our communities, but I don't think we necessarily know what it looks like to be anti-racist. the story of these two, faculty members at Tougaloo college in 1964, it's a really great story. of what it actually looks like to be anti-racist, we have these stories to also build on that. It's not enough to just critique, and call out, but to also do uplift, just to kind of celebrate more of what it is that we want to see. Jalena: Thanks for sharing that story. And, you know, there's so many Asian American stories, Asian American Pacific Islander stories that are left out of history and even more so queer Asian American Pacific Islander stories. And we really want to make sure that we're uplifting our queer stories and queer ancestors. Next up. We hear from Sammy Ablaza Wills who is a queer organizer and activists and death doula. They tell us about a local bay area story of queer activism that proceeded the Stonewall riots and is a lot less known. So we're so grateful that Sammy Cahn. Bring up this piece that is missing in history Sorry. [00:06:45] Sammie Ablaza Wills: One thing that I will talk about, cause there, there truly is so many examples. is the contents cafeteria rights in San Francisco? many people at least nowadays, familiar or have heard of the Stonewall riots in New York, which happened at the Stonewall Inn. And was a rebellion against police brutality led by Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. A few years prior to the Stonewall riots was, the incident at the conference cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin and conference was a place where many trans people drag Queens and sex workers hung out late night, got food and spent time with one another. And, all of the places where trans folks and drag Queens and sex workers hung out were places where police raids would regularly happen, arresting people for the crime of impersonating a woman or arresting people for the crime of prostitution or arresting people for whatever reason they could think of because they thought of all of these folks as sexual deviance, right. that history has almost been forgotten, but one day at Constance cafeteria, the police came to raid and the patrons of conference cafeteria got fed up and said, we're not going to allow for another raid to happen. And a rebellion broke out in the streets between the trans folks and the drag Queens and the sex workers and the police officers in the Tenderloin. it was from that day that trans folks, drag Queens and sex workers really started a movement for trans liberation and trans justice against police brutality in the city of San Francisco. one of the folks who was active in the Tenderloin at that time is Tamara Ching, a trans API elder who is still alive and living in San Francisco today. She's somewhat of a local legend in trans communities because of all of the work she did in the Tenderloin even though she wasn't immediately present at the moment of competence cafeteria, she continued the legacy of what was started that day for many, many decades for trans people and for sex workers, for people living in the Tenderloin for low income folks. But the work that she did is not seen in textbooks it's not seen in Asian American history courses. the thing that really feels important for me to just state out right, is that LGBTQ history is Asian American, Pacific Islander history and Asian American Pacific Islander history is LGBTQ history because there is no way that either of those movements would have happened without each other. And these movements have not even always agreed. But agreement is not the precipice of history. history shows. What agreements and disagreements have been made to create the present conditions that we're in. When I think the importance of understanding our history, this phrase always comes to my mind and, It's like a, I feel like pretty popular in ethnic studies, but it's, no history, no self. Right. And if we don't know where we were, it's really, really hard to determine where we're going to be going. When I think about all of the history that has existed, that allows me to be alive. I don't see one clear lineage. Right? I see many, many stories. People, people in the United States, people outside of the United States. I see trans people. I see CIS people. I see many people that have worked and had success and built relationships and also people that have made mistakes, like deep, deep mistakes that have set us back or put us in different directions. And. I'm thinking it is incredibly important to know all of that history so we can understand ourselves as part of a larger lineage and also so that we can make new mistakes. Our ancestors and our elders have made mistakes so that we don't have to anymore. We can make new ones. We can try new experiments. We contend continue the best things that worked out. And try new things that can fail in different ways. but we don't need to be recreating the same failures and same mistakes and same hurt every five years or so. I think it's incredibly important as people invested in justice to know our histories so that we can have a more clear idea of where we can go in the future. And then we can look back at our histories, right. Our present. And write our future into existence with all of that context in mind Jalena: Huge. Thank you to Sammy for sharing about tomorrow. Ching has such an incredible trans Asian American activists that we should really all know about and also pointing out the differences throughout history and queer history, Asian American, Pacific Islander history, and that. They are one in the same and both inform where we are today. And they're truly one thing. And I love what Sammy said about, you know, we look back at our histories, right? Our present. And that's what allows us to write our future into existence. And that's what the show, and I dare say this month is all about. Next up we hear from Havana Rios, who is a NATO, Hawaiian activist and protector of the sacred mountain Mona Kath. She talks about. Genealogy ancestral knowledge. And just really builds on this idea of deep sacred knowing and how important that is in our communities These. [00:12:31] Jalena Keane-Lee: do you have any advice for people that don't have you know that history recorded for them or have been cut off from in various ways from their own history and their own ancestral power [00:12:42] Hawane Rios: Somebody always remembered something. It's not that lost and you can remember inside of you. You in your DNA can unlock much wisdom from your own ancestors if you believe it. Call upon your own Kapuna. If you even know the names of your grandparents and your great-grandparents that's a start. Just know where you come from. Find that out. I ask the questions. As the eldest person in your ohana, “What do you remember?” Spend time, even if it's on zoom or facetime right now, because that's what it has to be. Use your time wisely. Talk to anyone in your family that remembers. And if they don't go to the lens you remember. You remember where you come from. Find out the name of your mountain, the mountain that raised you and your ancestors. If you were in living somewhere that is not your original homelands bind that mountain unless you were born on there It's because you were still a part of it that air has fed you that water has fed you know What to think of who the bank have gratitude every single day By learning something new everyday challenge yourself Learn the story of the land that you're on whether you're from there or not And then honor it because that's how we learn how to honor things It's a way bigger out for one second That we're not the center of everything That there's so much around us that gave us like every single day And so Know that your life force It's not for nothing I really hope that she find her way home So yourself it's your lens and see your people into your power You know someday we're going to be the ancestors people seven generations from now they're going to say look at what they did With what they had And then whatever they're going to have is going to probably be 10 times more efficient and amazing than what we had But hopefully we pass out enough For them to not Take advantage of the beauty and the sacredness of this clinic Hopefully we did enough to switch The tides And change the tie ins for the next seven generations to come because the way that we're going We're not going to have anything to leave behind And again we're not here just for ourselves Women especially we are the vessels of the next seven generations even if we don't Bring children into this world And even if we can't bring children into this world we still have the kuleana to do whatever we can to make sure that any person coming into this realm Have a safe place to land That's what we do Jalena: Thank you Havana. It's a great reminder. That history is something that is always in the making and also something that can always be reclaimed. If you have people that you can talk to that you can ask, do that. And if you don't, as Havana said, you can connect with the land. You can know about the waters and the mountains that raised you. And then from there, maybe you can trace back to your ancestral places as well, but there's always a place to start and it helps us think about what are we going to leave? For the next seven generations as she said too. In addition to being a water protector and protector of the sacred mountain Monica. Havana is also a recording artist and release the album together. We rise in 2019. Next up listen to one of her songs from her album together we rise called free the streams. Music Welcome back. You're tuned in to an apex express special for a N H P I heritage month on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and 97.5 K 2 4 8. BR in Santa Cruz. And online@kpfa.org. You just listened to free the streams by Havana Rios from her album. Together we rise Next up, we hear more from Helen Zia, legendary Asian American lawyer, and activists and women who coined the term missing in history. We hear from her about the importance of solidarity and intersectionality [00:18:50] Helen Zia: The Lowest part of the human experience can you know I get triggered by a crisis but actually crisis also brings people together and and history shows that people can overcome quite a lot when they are United When they see the importance of standing together and that you know we are all in this together There's no question We cannot overcome the covert crisis or the pandemic of racism unless we come together And so in the 1980s what happened was Vincent chin was killed We're looking Japanese He was a Chinese American And what made even that racist Attack and hate crime even worse was that his killers who were two white auto workers got off Scott free basically they got probation and fines And the judge said in a city of Detroit he said These are not the kind of men you sent to jail You fit the punishment to the criminal not to the crime In other words well these two white guys don't have to go to jail for beating somebody to death And then what does that mean about who should be punished in a in a city like Detroit which was even then you know about 70% African American So there was a large uproar throughout the city People were just just appalled you know all people of conscience you know said what do you mean You're going to let murderers killers off scott free you know And so so I think it's important to remember in these times when we are in a a very fractured time when you know it's almost like we get the message every day that people can't come together people are just to two divided Well in fact people do come together and we had had many historical periods where people of very different backgrounds came together and in the Vincent chin case you know it was not only Asian Americans and that came together and and remembering that time And then I actually knew the eighties Asian Americans were not together Vincent chin was a Chinese American Chinese community had to come together with the Japanese community which was being targeted and You know the the Southeast Asian and Filipino and South Asian communities I mean they were all separate So the Asian American community came together in a pan Asian movement And so did the allies all around us We knew that we were Too small a community to do this on our own And you know the the various African American civil rights organizations and churches know came out So all of that just like any organizing really took taking time To reach out to each other to sit down and talk and there would be leaders in different communities who would open that door for us And so it was a very very broad based multiracial multicultural United effort to try to do something that helped launch an Asian American civil rights movement And we need that today [00:22:13] Miko Lee: There have been times in our American history where we have fought back, the third world movement in this building of the ethnic studies programs at San Francisco state. And there's been so many others where people have come together. What do you think about like this time right now, of different people of color coming together and helping to reshape the American story, do you feel that's happening? Is that something you can kind of read in the, in the tea leaves based on your experience? [00:22:44] Helen Zia: I do. I believe not only can that happen, but it must happen everybody is under siege and it's very clear that , none of us can solve this alone, no group, whether that's political, racial, you know, sexual orientation. Gender, or political party, none of us can do it alone. It really is going to take everybody working together and to, to kind of, you know, tune out all of the noise, that are aimed to keep us divided. Looking at American society, people of color in California, for example, are already in the majority. if we could unite, we would be in the majority. And then you layer on that, that people of conscience from every color and walk of life are vastly and majority yet we haven't yet come together and this crisis has to be a wake up call for all of us. and you know, California is one of about a dozen States that have already crossed that milestone. within the next 10 years, the entire country is going to be majority people of color. And what does that mean? That means if we just. tune out the messages that keep saying, Oh, you're too divided. You know, the, anti-black views within the Asian community anti-Asian views within the black community, black and Brown versus yellow and white, and dividing, you know, having that narrative divide us continually is just. Serving that purpose to keep us divided. if we came together in what we have in common, we really are the majority and we could really make some change and we have to make change because people are getting sick and dying within our communities. That's the vision, we have to hold on to, I, I do think we'll get there. We have done it before many, many times in, in our history, so, that's, those are the lessons we need to draw from and seek out the unity that we really do have. I would love for the API younger activists today to know that we have such a rich history of activism that goes back to our first days on this continent. they should be proud of that. And to know that they're carrying on a very rich and strong legacy. Forward. when, Martin Luther King and the other civil rights activists were crossing the Pettus bridge, that famous March through Selma, Alabama, they were all wearing leis. I was very sad to see that the movie that just got made about that, show them without the leis. Where did the leis come from? They came from, activists in Hawaii who were supporting that March and many. People many Asian people were also there. That moment in all of our psyches is missing a historical piece, because any photograph of that time, you see , the involvement of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that were there. So we get erased. I want young activists today to know that yes, we have been marginalized erased. We've done a lot to, affect the lives of every American. That was true for the Vincent chin case. That was true after 9/11, the “me too” movement. Women who have survived, sexual harassment or sexual assault standing up at a trial, basing their accuser and saying, this is what that harm did, to me, part of that victim impact statement momentum for that also came from the Vincent Chin the fact that we can, be born in America and be citizens that's because. Of a Chinese American back in the 1800's who took that all the way to the Supreme court. Brown versus board of education, the legal justification for that came from, a Chinese American laundry who objected to be taxed as separate. so that was a Supreme court case to that then was the underpaid underpinnings for, Brown vs board of education. The great grape boycott that was initiated by Filipino American farm workers and then involved Cesar Chavez and the , Chicano farm workers that was initiated by Asian-Americans. We have so many things that we should, we can be proud of, but are MIH missing in history. The only people who are going to have to point that out is us because we've been systematically removed from, from this history. And that's part of the racism that we have to fight too. Asian American activists can be proud of the things that our forebears have done for us and for the whole country. I hope that all of our listeners out there can really take Helen Zia's. He has words to heart. Yes, we've been erased and yes, it's part of our job to write ourselves back into the history of this country and to take pride in the ancestral lineage that we come from and all that. Our ancestors have done to make this country a better place and to give us the freedoms and the protections that we do have today. And of course, there's so much more work to be done. And speaking of incredible ancestors and this lineage of activism that we inherit next up we hear from legendary activists URI coach Yama. [00:28:32] Yuri Kochiyama: That's the year that the us government launched a Chinese exclusion act this act or law rule that Chinese will not be allowed to come into this country again And yet this act went into effect just after the Chinese spent years building the railroad tracks from the police Pacific coast to the Midwest There was only one lone voice that oppose this order the Chinese Exclusion Act this courageous person was a black man The first black then became centered the Senator in Mississippi Senator blanche K Bruce Bruce felt an Exclusion act was an outright show racism There were no other exclusion acts before this was he felt there would surely be more people who would be excluded and send away from him I think the sensitivity to the Chinese was because he was himself black and had experienced many such situations He fought against the bill that himself of course the bill for years and years Chinese were not allowed to come in but we as Asians we must never forget those Trying to assist us in our journey as this lone black Senator did you will not find everything in school textbooks we must dig them and find them ourselves Asian Americans must be more vocal, visible, and take stands on crucial issues. Hopefully Asians will side with the most dispossessed, oppressed and marginalized, remembering our own history. We Asians need to reshape our image from the rather quiet, ambiguous, accommodating uncomplaining, palitable people to a more resolute, sensitive advocate for human worth, human rights and human dignity. Jalena: Thank you. Ancestor activist, Yuri Kochiyama. For those fiery words that are so important to really. Remember, especially this month, not only like we've been saying throughout this episode that we have these pieces of history that are so important that we need to dig up. And remember and talk about and bring to light, but also that we need to take a stand on these issues. We are faced with so many issues today and it's our responsibility to take a stand and to stand inside with those who are the most marginalized and oppressed. Yuri Kochiyama passed away June 1st, 2014, but she was such an incredible bay area. Figure that her whole life always showing up at events and being in community even well into her nineties. And of course she's famous for. Her political views and her close relationship With Malcolm. Some ex. Another incredibly fierce Asian American ancestor, activists who was showing up and extremely active in community well into her eighties. His Grace Lee Boggs. Grace Lee Boggs is a Chinese American activist, philosopher and author who among many other things believe fervently and the power of education and community Next up. We hear from Julia Putnam who studied under grace for a long time in Detroit. And currently runs the James and Grace Lee Boggs school. Where she puts many of james and Grace's activism principles into action in the classroom [00:32:34] Julia Putnam: I was 19 or so I was her intern for a summer. My role is I saw it was helping grace to organize her, study she would have these, cardboard folders that would contain articles that she read over the years or newspapers. And she would label topics and put these articles in newspapers, in those folders. And a lot of the newspapers were yellowing a lot. a lot of the papers were kind of just jammed in there. and I would say, you know, grace, you've written an article on this already, or the newspaper that exists here digitally, we should get rid of these or we can throw these away. And she was very resistant to that. and it was really frustrating because I thought, well, what am I supposed to be doing here? And I came to her one time, really troubled. And I said to her, you know, it feels like we're arguing a lot. And she grinned me and she said, “I know it's great, isn't it we're struggling.” And she said it was such joy. And it helped me understand that for her arguing conflict struggling was not a negative thing. she was saying, as we're learning from one another, we are frustrating one another, which is moving us toward forward. and it helped me to not be so afraid to be in conflict with people that I cared about to be in conflict with people that I trusted. I can have an opinion that is different from hers. And she sees that as okay. Because it means that we're struggling through something. that was really helpful and continues to help me in my work today. [00:34:13] Miko Lee: I love that story. Can you also talk about how she signed her letters? How she did her sign off? [00:34:20] Julia Putnam: She would sign off ” in love and struggle, grace,” that love doesn't come without struggle. and that when we communicate with one another, we are communicating out of love and we are also communicating out of the struggle we have with one another. What do I know There's so many things but what do you feel is the legacy that she leaves behind And obviously with her husband Jimmy too [00:34:42] Julia Putnam: I know that a legacy that she's left to our school Two very important things is when we asked for permission to name the school after her the James and Grace Lee Boggs school she said yes but with the challenge that we would have to as the school founders think beyond what we even believe is possible I am one of the cofounders along with Amanda Rossman and Marisol Teachworth and the three of us together As three women three women of different ethnicities very much love and struggle together and also take it very seriously This idea that we've been indoctrinated as to what school is and when things get hard we will deflect to what we know.as opposed to continue to imagine something different And so we often challenge ourselves with that and challenge our staff and we all challenge one another to are we thinking beyond what we believe it's possible What is the what is beyond the binary that we're being stuck in right now Wo that's the legacy that grace leaves to us that is very important And the other thing is that again the idea of her taking young people seriously and she saw young people as solutionaries she called them people who are able to problem solve to see a challenge and come up with solutions for it And she saw young people as especially creative in their ability to do that And so even on the school t-shirts that kids get there's the the Boggs school logo but on the back it says Solutionary and the kids really take on that identity They take it very seriously They take it very personally often when they come up with a solution to a problem they'll just kind of put their fingers up and just I'm a Solutionary you know I figured it out and and having that identity as young people is has been really important to our school for all of us And I'm wondering if there are thoughts that you feel grace would be teaching right now in this time [00:36:48] Julia Putnam: I think Grace would be highlighting that fact of the young people in the movement their leadership in this movement and their leadership in this time I think she would be encouraging us to listen to young people I think she would be listening to young people And I think that she would say I actually think she'd be very excited by this time heartbroken in the ways that we all are but also excited that we are being forced in this moment to realize that things need to be reimagined We are being forced to use our imaginations for how We stay connected in this time how we educate in this time how we organize in this time how we govern ourselves and how we think about governance in a completely different way than we've ever had to before And I think that's a lot of what she would be excited about that this is That this is the moment where not only do we have to reimagine but we also have to realize that we're the leaders that we're looking for She would often say when we were thinking about the school is that we don't have a lot of leadership around education and certainly not around the education We know that our communities need And so she would say Julia Amanda Mani you all have to imagine this differently yourself You are the leaders that you've been looking for No one's coming to figure this out for you And so we feel as the founders that we with our community of parents and students and community members are beginning to think about how to do this differently and to look to the leadership of young people Thank you so much, Julia, for sharing about how Grace Lee Boggs legacy lives on through the James and Grace Lee Boggs school. And also just about the importance of struggle about love and struggle being one in the same and how. Being able to struggle with love and, you know, to disagree and to have conflict without canceling someone or hating them, but still, you know, in a, in a relationship that is full of a lot of love and not being part of being in community. I think that's really beautiful and that's something that we can all learn from, from Grace Lee Boggs and from Julia and from how they implement that. At their school Jalena Next up, let's listen to another song from Havana. Rio says album together. We rise. This song is called USI and it's focused on the importance of healing. Next up you see by havana rios Song That was UC by native Hawaiian singer and songwriter Havana. Rios from her album together. We rise. Next up we speak with Gail Romasanta who is a Filipina organizer author and community activists This She wrote journey for justice the life of Larry which is a children's book that tells the story of labor activists, Larry Itliong. You could keep going. We have all this information. We have all this history and we need to learn from it. And this isn't the first time at the rodeo. This is not the first time that we've held a picket sign. This is not the first time that we fought for our lives, literally. And we can do it if undocumented. If all of these workers who are migrant workers that no one even thought of that farm workers were even supposed to create unions. And they were supposed to be absolutely expendable. When the Filipinos came here, they were told that the United States was absolutely modern, was the best country in the whole, in the world, just because they were at the time. During this time, the United States was the colony of the United States and when Larry was growing up and so all the instruction he got was English and all the teachers were saying that there's a wonderful country. He comes here. And he's living in these deplorable conditions when it's really hot. They're working outside from light to dark. When they're drinking water, they're all sharing a tin cup. Is that modern? Is that the best country in the world to them? They didn't see that. And for them to be. Seeing kind of the worst of the United States the worst of its conditions and for them to fight and say, I'm going to stay me United States because I love the United States. I love this country and there is hope within us as a community who have decided to stay here, that we can continue to fight and say that we met. That we that we need to our needs get to be met. We need to get, we need to have dignity. We need to have pride in our work. We need to be able to work without pesticides, killing us. We need to have bathroom breaks. We need to have medical insurance. And they asked for all of this and they asked for a raise on top of it. And. And, there's lots of photos. We actually have a photo in the second edition of a riot and you can see, Filipinos aren't getting hit. We don't show the whole picture, but there's some pictures of Filipinos getting hits, hit by the police by batons and things like that. So violence against us is. It's not, unfortunately not new policy is against us, unfortunately is not new. Us being seen as cheap labor and not treated as fully human is not new. And despite that these generations before us were able to find justice. Able to speak to the world. Now this was a global campaign. This was just not the United States. People from all over the world. For instance, during Christmas would give Christmas presents to the farm workers, children. If they were able to. To create this change on a global scale, which is what is happening now. And they can sign those documents for that level that living wage, they can sign those documents to get medical insurance they have, and they're able to. And negotiate for the pesticides that can be used, where they're working. If we can negotiate that if our history was able to negotiate in the face of all that violence and the policies and the judges and the police were on the side of the growers. In fact, when they went on strike, if you look at Marissa or Roy's. Documentary, you can see when the Filipinos went on strike, there's about 2000 Filipinos who went on strike. After they voted the following day, they went on strike. They walked off, they went to work and they walked out the fields. And guess who was waiting for them? Was the police. All the police and you can see the growers just waiting. And they S they try to do this peacefully at first. So they asked at meeting for the growers first, before, and they weren't doing it peaceably, when they were protesting to begin with. But of course the police were waiting for them when they protested. But before that, they invited the growers so that they could negotiate. Rationally and without having to protest and not having to pick it for so long. But the growers never showed up. And what we've been going through as a country has only lasted, we've been going through this a long time. Many people have been doing this have been activists for decades now, or for most of their lives. They know what we're seeing now is oh my God, this is to me. I want to cry. This is something that I could not have imagined. And But it's something that has years and years in history behind it. And for us not to just create from zero, but to continue the arc that has been laid before us of what, the, what the generations before did Specifically during these times. And if you look at all the different movements what can we, what look, what can we learn from them? And a lot of it is you've got to sustain, we've got to strategize and it can't be. It absolutely can be done. . Jalena: Thank you so much, Gail Romasanta for sharing all of that history and all of that knowledge with us. And as she says, we have the knowledge, we have the history, we can do this. It's not necessarily going to be easy, but it is something that we can do. And. It is really important for us to figure out ways to make activism sustainable for ourselves and for future generations to come.While we're on the topic of labor and labor activism. Next up we hear from Saru Jayaraman. Who is an attorney and author and an activist. And. The president of one fair wage and director of the food and labor research center at UC Berkeley. She speaks with us about the campaign she's working on to make sure that restaurant workers are paid a fair and living wage. And the things that keep her hopeful even in times of despair There. I have been organizing in the restaurants many years and prior to the pandemic we had been working for many years on the issue of the sub minimum wage for tipped workers which is a Legacy of slavery It is $2 and 13 cents at the federal level That is the wage for six or 7 million tipped workers in America 70% of whom are women 40% of whom are single mothers struggling to make ends meet to feed their children on mostly on tips Now Was there prior to the pandemic it was a real problem with the pandemic About 10 million restaurant workers have lost their jobs They are in large majority are unable to access unemployment insurance at 60% of them unable to access unemployment insurance because they're being told by state unemployment insurance offices that there are some minimum wage plus tips is too little to meet the minimum threshold to qualify For benefits which means they're being penalized for being paid too little and it's opening up both workers and consumers and even employers to the fact that if the state is telling you you earn too little to qualify for benefits that by the way you paid taxes to get Then probably they were paid too little prior to the pandemic period And so that is an example of how the moment has really revealed that these were untenable unsustainable systems of inequity structural systems of inequity that never should have existed And now are going to create a catastrophe in some ways I think greater than the scale of the great difference Workers are telling us I am terrified and I'm having to choose between my life and my livelihood because the way that unemployment insurance has set up if they have access to unemployment insurance is that you lose unemployment insurance If you don't Take the job You have to be willing to take whatever comes your way If you get offered a job you must take it Otherwise you lose your benefits And so workers are terrified because they're going back to situations where there is no protective equipment Obviously there's still no testing or there's there's no healthcare There's very little con there's no contract tracing I mean it's it's a mess and people are terrified Workers are saying even if my boss did provide me with PP the customers are not wearing it when they come in Certainly they're not wearing it when they're eating so workers are in a really tough situation right now having to choose between their life and their livelihood On the other hand I think it is becoming a lot more obvious to consumers that this is not a tenable situation It's not fair to the workers It's not safe It's not healthy for anybody And so there is a lot of opportunity for change because employers know how Precarious The situation is consumers are wary of employers who don't take care of their workers Suddenly all the things we'd been fighting for a fair livable wage being able to take care of yourself as a worker getting the time off If you need it if you get sick suddenly all of those things have come to the forefront and honestly changes that we never in a million years thought could happen or are happening in our industry because of the pandemic we can reimagine every aspect of our world from the restaurant industry and the way it pays and treats people to our planet and the way that we choose to travel or not travel and the amount of footprint that we each have on our planet. To took the criminal justice system and whether people ever really needed to be locked up in the first place to education. And now the various ways that education can happen. Everything is changing. And it must because both for those young people and for lots of other people, what was normal prior to the pandemic was never normal, never worked. And so rather than going back to normal, I think what I would say to young people right now is join us in. Re-imagining every aspect of our lives and how this pandemic could be the portal that our, that the Roy has said that it is this moment of opportunity to walk into an entirely new world, a re-imagined world in which everything that we've needed all along we can finally achieve. And what are the main things that you'd like to see come out of a new day? Yeah we definitely need our organization is called one fair wage for a reason. We need a livable minimum wage for everybody in the United States who works tipped workers. Who get us some minimum wage right now, incarcerated workers who don't have to be paid the minimum wage because of the exception to the 13th amendment that allows for slavery in the case of incarceration, youth who often don't get the full minimum wage people with disabilities, who often don't get the minimum wage. Fundamentally, no workers should be left behind. Everybody who works in this country deserves to be paid a full, livable, minimum wage by their employer with tips on top of that. Not instead of that that's one piece we obviously need universal health care. That is a given of the moment. We need benefits for workers like hazard pay and sick pay and paid time off. We need a society. Actually thinks of public safety, not in terms of locking people up, but in terms of providing good jobs and good schools for communities that have been long devastated by racial inequities. So those are just some of the things I can rattle off the top of my head that we need in a new deal, but really what we need is a new world. And I, what I really want, I, what I really hope young people can hear is that is totally possible right now. In this moment, there is that opportunity to make everything different and better. And re-imagined Jalena: Thank you so much Saru for sharing your brilliance and these words that are so powerful and impactful. And I hope we can all think about what we can do to make our world better for all of us. , we've had so much incredible activists, thought leaders, ancestors speaking on the show today. These are interviews taken from our series called we are the leaders from Grace Lee Boggs, famous quote. But let's end. Celebrating this month with a little bit of joy. Yes. We have a lot of important issues to tackle. Yes. There are a lot of big problems ahead of us. But we won't be able to do any of it unless we have fun and have some pleasure along the. the way. So lastly, let's talk about some of our, rapid-fire a NHPI question. Okay. What's your favorite food? I think today it is, , kimchi fried rice. Mine is chashu about and strawberry mochi. And favorite fruit. Mango mango. Yeah, no question mango. Whatever book. I, my favorite book of all time is actually not Asian American. , but it's a Mallory book and it's called the bone people. But then recently my favorite book that is by an Asian-American is crying and H Bart, what about you? Oh, crying and HR is really good. woman warrior is one of my favorites. Oh, gee book. Yeah, for sure. Musician. Mine is her or Ruby Abara. Ooh, I think those are mine too. I really love her and Ruby Obara and then also shout out to my friends, raise our Goza, who is a phenomenal musician who is native American and Japanese and Hollis long-wear who is Chinese American and white. Oh, And Rena Rena. Oh, Rena saw. Yama. Yes, Rena. So yeah, I really liked. She's amazing. Film or TV show minds, everything everywhere. All at once. I can't think of a TV show, but movie is definitely everything everywhere. All was. Mine changes day-to-day but I did really like Menotti and parasite. What about artist? , I recently went to now Shima island in Japan. So right now, favorite Asian artists I can think of is Yaya. Kusama. Oh, I do love her work. For me, my favorite, a N H P I artists changes every day and today it would be Ruth Asawa because I'm thinking a lot about weaving and how she weaved these beautiful baskets out of wire. And she really transformed how we think about sculpture. So I love her, the SOA. Who's your favorite ancestor activist. , this changes every day too, but I really feel like I always, always most often think of quotes from Grace Lee Boggs. I was thinking Gracely Boggs too, but I also one. But also Yuri Kochiyama, and just thinking about how radical she was up until the very end and how she would be in her nineties coming to all these community events and still being just as sharp and just as radical and refusing to take anything from anyone. And I really admire that. I feel like a gift that we have of doing this show is so many of the elder activists that we've been able to interview that are still out there making changes. , really utilizing their voice to invigorate the next generation. So I'm thankful that we get to talk to those people and learn from them constantly. Me too. And what a great time, what a great month to celebrate. So happy Asian American native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander month. And thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about these events and our guests. We thank all you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex expresses a proud member of acre Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. A network of progressive AAPI groups. Find out more@aker.org. APEX express is produced by Miko Lee that's me, Paige Chung, Swati Rayasam, Preeti Mangala Shakar, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen and Jalena Keane-Lee. Have a great day The post APEX Express – AAPI Special Programming – We Are the Leaders 5.8.23 appeared first on KPFA.

Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) was an activist who fought for change for over 70 years. Her intersectional organizing work helped create community in one of America's toughest cities – Detroit. This month, we're highlighting Ragers: women who used their anger— often righteous, though not always— to accomplish extraordinary things. History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn't help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should. Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we'll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more.  Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.  Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, and Abbey Delk. Special thanks to Shira Atkins. Original theme music composed by Miles Moran. Follow Wonder Media Network: Website Instagram Twitter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mayo es el mes de la herencia asiática-estadounidense y de las islas del Pacífico dedicado a celebrar los logros y las contribuciones de los asiáticos y los isleños del Pacífico de Estados Unidos. Esta conmemoración, que se originó después de la acción del Congreso de EE. UU. en 1997, sirve para resaltar la magnitud de las comunidades asiáticas y de las islas del Pacífico, la cual abarca más de 30 países donde se hablan más de 100 idiomas diferentes y donde las experiencias son igualmente variadas. Desde las historias de migración hasta sus historias de resistencia durante la época colonial, el trabajo de figuras prominentes como la Dra. Haunani Kay Trask, Carlos Bulosan, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Pauline Park y Justice Mary I. Yu refleja la resiliencia continua de estas comunidades e identidades.  Los estudiantes de la Escuela Primaria Free Orchards estuvieron muy contentos este abril, gracias a una propuesta de subvención de Hillsboro School Fundation que fue escrita por el maestro de Educación Física Dan Waterman y otorgada en mayo de 2019. La subvención fue solicitada para que los estudiantes de cuarto grado recibieran lecciones de natación y de medidas de seguridad en el agua durante el mes de abril de 2020. Sin embargo, debido a la pandemia, la implementación de la subvención debió ser suspendida hasta este año. Finalmente, el lunes, 10 de abril de 2023, se llevó a cabo la primera de las nueve lecciones que se brindarán a los 46 estudiantes de 4.º grado de Free Orchards en el Centro Acuático y Recreativo de Shute Park. Los estudiantes son trasladados en autobús escolar al club los lunes, martes y jueves, donde se ponen sus trajes de baño y participan en una lección de natación de 30 minutos dirigida por un instructor certificado. Muchas gracias al Sr. Waterman por su gran iniciativa, a Hillsboro School Foundation por su generoso apoyo, incluidos los trajes de baño para los estudiantes que los necesitaban, y a Nike School Innovation Fund por proporcionar las toallas de baño para los estudiantes. Nuestra actualización del bono es sobre la eficiencia energética. Como resultado de las inversiones del bono en equipos que promueven la eficiencia energética, el distrito celebró el Día de la Tierra recaudando hasta ahora $5 millones en incentivos de programas estatales (que se destinan al fondo general) y ahorros continuos de energía en nuestras instalaciones. Lea más en la última edición del boletín de primavera de Una Mirada al Interior de las Escuelas de Hillsboro. La publicación de Noticias de la Semana se elabora y se envía por correo electrónico a las familias y a los miembros del personal de HSD cada semana durante el año escolar. Por favor, agregue esta dirección de correo electrónico a su lista de «remitentes seguros» para asegurarse de recibir siempre la publicación más reciente. Además, por favor no deje de agregar a sus enlaces favoritos el sitio web de nuestro distrito (hsd.k12.or.us) y la página del año escolar 2022-23 (hsd.k12.or.us/202223schoolyear) para mantenerse informado sobre lo que está sucediendo en nuestro distrito y en las escuelas.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, dedicated to celebrating the achievements and contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders of the United States. Originating after U.S. Congress action in 1997, this commemoration serves to highlight the vastness of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, which spans more than 30 countries where over 100 different languages are spoken, and where the experiences are equally as varied. From the migration stories to their stories of colonial resistance, the work of prominent figures such as Dr. Haunani Kay Trask, Carlos Bulosan, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Pauline Park and Justice Mary Yu reflect the continued resilience of these communities and identities.  During the month of May and integrated into the curriculum throughout the school year, we celebrate our AAPI community intentionally and honor their gifts, cultures, diverse histories, and continued contributions to the Hillsboro School District and our nation. In our schools and classrooms, we take time to explore the rich history and culture of people who are AAPI. We continue to teach, learn and unlearn, reflect on and even condemn the violence and hatred that has been directed at the AAPI community. We work to rebuild our classroom communities as we elevate the stories, contributions, and experiences of the AAPI communities with love, empathy, and inclusivity. Our featured students are Free Orchards swimmers! Students at Free Orchards Elementary School were in for a treat this April, thanks to a Hillsboro Schools Foundation grant proposal that was written by P.E. teacher Dan Waterman and awarded in May of 2019. The grant called for fourth grade students to receive swimming and water safety lessons in the month of April 2020; due to the pandemic, however, implementation of the grant was on hold until this year. Finally, on Monday, Apr. 10th, 2023, the first of nine lessons for Free Orchards' 46 fourth graders took place at the Shute Park Aquatic and Recreation Center. Students are bussed to the Center on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays where they change into swimwear and participate in a 30-minute swimming lesson led by a certified instructor. Many thanks to Mr. Waterman for his great idea, to the Hillsboro Schools Foundation for their generous support - including swimsuits for students in need - and to the Nike School Innovation Fund for providing towels.  Our bond update is on energy efficiency. As a result of bond investments in energy-efficient equipment, the District celebrated Earth Day by garnering $5 million so far in state program incentives, which go to the general fund, and continuing energy savings in our facilities. Read more in the latest issue of our District newsletter: A Look Inside Hillsboro Schools. Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: hsd.k12.or.us and the 2022-23 School Year page: hsd.k12.or.us/202223schoolyear to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

This week we're covering Scavengers Studio's SEASON: A Letter to the Future, where a bike riding journey to make an apocalyptic scrapbook had us examining the connectedness of all things and turning to the teachings of Octavia Butler, Grace Lee Boggs, and Renata Price's excellent review for Waypoint to wrap our heads around its poignant, heartwrenching message. Join us in the space between storytelling and memory as we explore this incredible game! 0:58 - Patreon shoutouts and intros11:58 - Scavengers Studio's 2019 controversy and accountability updates24:25 - SEASON discussion and deep dive (Note: While we don't have a spoiler section this week, mild spoilers are included in the discussion, with the intent of illustrating the worldbuilding, themes, and mechanics of the game.) 1:27:41 - Wrap up and Side QuestSide Quest https://esii.org/The Emergent Strategy Ideation InstituteEmergent strategy is a path that invites us to think about change as a constant state of being and how to align and direct it towards that which affirms and creates more life. ESII is a portal for people who are transforming from the current paradigm of racial capitalist, patriarchal, power-over, scarce and disconnected existence into one that is adaptive, relational, resilient, post-capitalist, feminist, BIPOC-centered and full of possibility. We invite people into a liberatory experience, giving people in movement both theoretical offerings to help them learn emergent strategy, and practice ground to help them embody it. The Institute developed out of adrienne maree brown's obsession with writers, thinkers and organizers Octavia Butler, Grace Lee Boggs, Charity Mahouna Hicks, and Margaret Wheatley.About Pixel TherapyNew episodes every three weeks! Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) and subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod

Saving our democracy isn't just about registering people to vote, ending gerrymandering, and so on. It's about getting back to the basics of living together well through micro, everyday moments. To kick off season four of the show, Baratunde talks with writer, activist, and fellow Virgo adrienne maree brown about how we can learn to practice democracy in every space we're in and how our small, civically-minded behaviors in society create a culture that isn't easy to shake. Stay till the end to hear questions from our live audience.    SHOW ACTIONS Internally Reflect - Make a plan to share your power What communities are you a part of right now, from the smallest to the largest, the most local to the most global? Build that list in your mind. In which of these communities do you play some role in decision-making and resource allocation? Can you think of ways to bring others into those decisions more? In other words, can you think of ways, even and especially small ways, to bring more democracy to your existing communities? Become Informed - Study the work of Grace Lee Boggs & Octavia Butler adrienne was mentored by Chinese American philosopher, writer and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Learn more about Boggs in the documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs.  Explore the power of fiction to affect our vision of what's possible by reading adrienne's book, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. And her newest book, Fables and Spells. You should also read the Parable Series by Octavia Butler to see why adrienne is so obsessed with this writer. Most books cited in the show are available on our Bookshop.org page.  Publicly Participate - Practice collaborative ideation Return to the communities you identified in the personal reflection. It could be your household, classroom, office department, or group chat. Within one of these groups, have members identify some challenge you feel is hurting or impeding the group. Then ask folks to imagine what things would be like years out if this challenge were fully resolved. How would they feel? What would they be able to accomplish? Write this down in short form, perhaps a corny movie trailer to make it fun. “In a world, where none of us carries student debt…” or “In a world, where everyone in this house is able to access the bathroom for as long as they need without preventing others from doing the same…” It doesn't have to be super serious. The point is to try, with others, to imagine a better future. If you don't have someone to play with, try this by yourself but look for ways to share your ideation with others, maybe in an email to a friend or a post on social media.    SHOW NOTES  Read the poem Home by Warsan Shire and check out the book Brave Community: Teaching for a Post-Racist Imagination by Janine de Novais.  Find How To Citizen on Instagram or visit howtocitizen.com to join our mailing list and find ways to citizen besides listening to this podcast!  Please show your support for the show by reviewing and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords and helps others like you find the show! How To Citizen is hosted by Baratunde Thurston. He's also host and executive producer of the PBS series, America Outdoors as well as a founding partner and writer at Puck. You can find him all over the internet.    CREDITS How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Rowhome Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart. Allie Graham is our Lead Producer and Danya AbdelHameid is our Associate Producer. Alex Lewis is our Managing Producer. John Myers is our Executive Editor. Our Mix Engineer is Justin Berger. Original Music by Andrew Eapen and Blue Dot Sessions. Our Audience Engagement Fellows are Jasmine Lewis and Gabby Rodriguez. Special thanks to Joelle Smith from iHeartRadio and Layla Bina.  Additional thanks to our live audience voices Allison M., Janine D., and Carole W. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are in a time when we are all bearing witness to the intersecting social issues impacting our societies today. Responding to Grace Lee Boggs' question, 'What time is it on the clock of the world?" activist and scholar Deepa Iyer reminds us that our time is NOW. She reminds us that when we are part of a bigger strategy, we can create change. This episode puts a spotlight on Iyer's social change ecosystem framework, with an invitation to deepen our commitment, strengthen our focus, and elevate our interconnectedness as we collectively co-create a just and equitable world.

Today we talk to Elizabeth, a health coach and nurse practitioner about how we can prioritize our health AND improve our performance. We talk about how health and running performance are not always complementary, how prioritizing our overall health can improve our performance, and how focusing on only performance can sometimes jeopardize our health. You are going to love this conversation. Thanks for joining us, Elizabeth! About Elizabeth: Elizabeth Knight lives and runs in Portland, Oregon. When she's not on the trails in Forest Park, she works as a nurse practitioner and owns an integrative health coaching practice, Flower Power Health, where she works with runners. She's passionate about science, inclusivity, and helping people approach their bodies with kindness and curiosity. A few of her favorite things are dogs, rock and roll, and pizza. Find her on instagram @flowerpower.health, and find free tools including a holistic training log at flowerpower.health/runners Elizabeth is: A certified integrative health coach who works with runners A practicing nurse practitioner in primary care (DNP; clinical practice doctorate) A scientist focused on gender and cardiovascular health (PhD in nursing science) A runner! Elizabeth Knight (she/her)elizabeth@flowerpower.health flowerpower.health “Transform yourself to transform the world.” -Grace Lee Boggs

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. This episode highlights a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of. It was hosted at the East Wind Bookstore in Berkeley, CA. Ko Kim of “We are the Gems” joined us in a conversation about books people enjoyed reading growing up and later Innosanto Nagara is interviewed by Miko Lee.   This book club event was so sweet and so lovely, and admittedly was very eye-opening for me as someone who has quote unquote graduated from children's books, but more about that later. We came up with a list of books people enjoyed reading growing up!   AACRE Thursdays is monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here.   APEX Express is 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. Miko's Favorite AAPI Children's Books (live from East Wind Books in Berkeley) With author Ko Kim All books written and illustrated by AAPI authors/artists unless noted Ko Kim Ko Kim's Book We are Gems attached is the watermarked PDF only for the AACRE community. Board Books A is for Activist Counting on Community  Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors The Story of Rap    Picture Books It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way biography on artist Gyo and the impact of the Japanese American incarceration during WWII Drawn Together. A boy and his grandfather draw and talk story. Deals with intergenerational drama and imagination. Check out a lesson plan for this book I helped develop with Agency By Design in Oakland Juna's Jar Juna goes on adventures and collects things. Good STEAM book. Check out this lesson plan for this book by Agency By Design in Oakland Dad Bakes -Formerly incarcerated Cambodian dad bakes with his daughter The Paper Kingdom – Janitor parents take their son to work at night and he imagines a kingdom.  A Friend for Henry – Focused on Henry, a young boy with autism The Ugly Vegetables – Chinese family grows Chinese vegetables and daughter is embarrassed and longs for the neighbors flowers, until mom makes soup that everyone longs for. Whoever You Are – Mem Fox's beautiful book about our diverse world (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message) The Paper Crane – A paper crane transforms a town (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message) The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination – a young woman, who is going blind reimagines the NY subway   Positive Body Image Eyes That Kiss the Corners – a girl learns to love her Asian eyes Eyes that Speak to the Stars – a boy learns to love his Asian eyes Happy to Be Nappy – a child learn to appreciate her black hair Laxmi's Mooch – a girl learns to appreciate her body hair (mustache)   Global First Laugh–Welcome, Baby!  Indigenous writers share Navajo story about baby's first laughter ceremony. Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America picture book about protests Bread, Bread, Bread, Families, Houses and Homes  White writer Anne Morris photo compilations showcase commonalities around the world.  We March African American writer Shane Evans picture book about 1963 March on Washington Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness White writer talks about privileged. This is the book for your white friends kids who want to use a book to spark a family conversation about racism.   Audience Recommendations of Children's Books  Book Recommendations with Links Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost by Birkjaer — https://enchantedlion.com/all-books/coffee-rabbit-snowdrop-lost It Might Be An Apple, Yoshitake — https://bookbugsanddragontales.com/product/9780500650486 Julian is Mermaid by Jessica Love — https://jesslove.format.com/julian-is-a-mermaid His Own Where — https://www.nationalbook.org/people/june-jordan/  Dragon Hoops by Gene Yang   — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626720794/dragonhoops Little One or We Sang You Home by Richard Van Camp — https://www.orcabook.com/We-Sang-You-Home American Born Chinese by Gene Yang — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250811899/americanbornchinese In the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo — https://janekuo.com/book/in-the-beautiful-country/ Hush by Min Fong Ho — https://www.bfbooks.com/Hush-A-Thai-Lullaby Rob Liu Trujillo — http://work.robdontstop.com/ Who Turned on the Sky by Marielle Atanacio —  https://www.bymatanacio.com/ Juna and Appa by Jane Park  — https://www.leeandlow.com/books/juna-and-appa A map into the World  — https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/17915 A Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen — https://solrad.co/refugee-fairytales-the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyen   All these below you can buy at East Wind Bookstore! Lunchtime with Samnang  Our Little Kitchen by Tamaki   A Place Where Sunflowers Grow  When the Cousins Came by  Playing at the Border: A Story of Yo-Yo Ma  A Different Pond by Thi Bui    Places to buy your books:  https://www.asiabookcenter.com/  aka East Wind Bookstore  https://diversebooks.org/resources/ https://socialjusticebooks.org/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states  https://www.learningforjustice.org/ Transcript: AACRE Children's Book Club [00:00:00] Swati: Good evening everyone, and happy Thursday. This is Swati Rayasam, your very special guest editor for tonight's episode of APEX Express. Tonight we're going to listen in on a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of. [00:00:55] Swati: This book Club event was so sweet and so lovely, and [00:01:00] admittedly was very eye-opening for me as someone who has quote unquote graduated from children's books, but more about that later. I wanted to also flag for listeners that because this was a hybrid event, there are some weird bumps and pops as a result of the recording that impact the audio quality just a bit. Hopefully it's not too distracting, but whatever you may not be able to fully hear, we've tried our best to capture in either the transcript or the show notes. [00:01:29] Swati: Now, without further ado, I'll pass you along to Miko over in Children's Book Landia, AKA East Wind Books in Berkeley. Stay locked in!  [00:01:43] Miko Lee: We are thrilled to be here and every time we talk about getting a book, of course where you go to buy that book is here in Berkeley at East Wind Books or online. So we are thrilled to see you all and as some of you know, initially today [00:02:00] was gonna be with Innosanto Nagara and I sent stuff out on Ino and then just, we had this whole last minute mix up. We're gonna showcase some of his books, but instead, B was amazing to recommend Ko Kim. And then I learned about Ko's book, which was just so exciting. So we're gonna start off just with Ko reading through the book and having you all ask questions of Ko, and then Ko and I are gonna talk about our favorite AAPI children's books so that you all can get your gift ons for the holidays and for baby stuff that's coming up. [00:02:33] Miko Lee: There's so many. When I was growing up, I was longing for books that represented our community and now there are so many that represent our intersectionality, our diversity, our specific communities. So there are so many things that we will share with you soon. [00:02:51] Miko Lee: But first, I wanna take a moment to just introduce Ko. We are so happy that she joined us last minute. She worked with two amazing illustrators, Christine [00:03:00] Yoon and Andrew Hem and co grew up 10 minutes from the US Mexico border and like so many of us just felt invisible in school. She didn't see herself in textbooks and in bookshelves or anywhere. And that isolation motivated her to become an educator, a public school teacher in title one schools. So she got the traditional education with a masters at Stanford, but keeping it real in the community with low income students showcasing what progressive education can be about. And I'm gonna now throw it to Ko. Thank you Ko, so much for joining us. [00:03:37] Ko Kim: Wow. Thank you Miko, for that introduction. I wanna carry you everywhere I go, and just have you introduce me. Cuz, that was such a beautifully done one. And I just wanna say thank you everyone for the honor of being here. I love community. I love learning in community. I really want this to be a learning space, so before we begin, it sounds like from the audience, I heard a lot of folks saying they like picture books. They're looking [00:04:00] for more resources, they have nieces and nephews in their lives or a baby on the way. [00:04:05] Ko Kim: So I wanted to share a quick resource. I'm sure a lot of you follow Bookstagrammers on Instagram. There is a whole ecosystem of children's book Instagrammers. Some of them are Berkeley native slash assistant principal Shuli who runs Asian Lit for Kids. [00:04:21] Ko Kim: And then there's also my story books who's based in Southern California. Just a little heads up there.  [00:04:27] Ko Kim: So as Miko mentioned, I created a book with Christine Yoon and Andrew Hem called We Are Gems: Healing From Anti-Asian Microaggressions Through Self Love and Solidarity. What a title. Christine Yoon is by the way, an ER doctor who's also an artist, Andrew Hem started off as a street artist and now his work is seen globally and his murals are in over, I believe 10 countries.    [00:04:50] Ko Kim: Andrew identifies as Cambodian American. Christine and I identify as Korean American, and I think context is important here because I think stories in our own voices are really important. [00:05:00]  [00:04:59] Ko Kim: We are Gems shimmering with wisdom handed down from our Asian and Asian American elders. You may face cuts and scrapes called microaggressions, but like those before you, your inner luster will blaze if placed in shared liberation. Shared liberation is solidarity with our Black and Indigenous neighbors against systemic racism, lost traditions and behaviors that harm people with African and Indigenous roots from classrooms to courtrooms, only through solidarity will we glisten. [00:05:32] Ko Kim: So when people ask you where are you really from? Reply that you are at home as long as you hold sacred the air, water, soil, animals and plants. Reply that you are at home when you honor Indigenous elders. Then ask in return, how are we taking care of all that has life? When Indigenous youth and elders resist polluting pipes, how do we respond? [00:05:56] Ko Kim: Our liberation is bound to the life and dignity of Indigenous [00:06:00] peoples. When they advise you to speak up, tell them to listen closely, our voices have been roaring for generations. Then ask, how intently do you listen to the hopes and dreams of Black activists leaders? For seven decades, Grace Lee Bogs rallied for fair wages and housing alongside Black community organizers [unclear] introduced civil disobedience to the Highlander Folk School, helping Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. prepare for the fight for freedom. Our liberation is tied to Black joy. When people try to commend you with, you are unlike the others. Reply that you're not straining yourself toward the dull cast of saying this and tell them, I am blooming as myself under the light of the divine and the glow of our grandmothers, our liberation is self love. [00:06:49] Ko Kim: Thank you so much. [00:06:51] Miko Lee: So thank you Ko for sharing your new book with us. I wanna open it up to see if anybody has any questions for [00:07:00] Ko And while you're thinking about those questions, I wanna just ask Ko to tell about what inspired you to create this work. [00:07:06] Ko Kim: Yeah, two things. One, I'm an auntie to many nieces and nephews, and it pained me to not see our voices represented on the bookshelves. Public school teacher as well, former public school teacher and it really pained me cuz I would see my students experiencing microaggressions, but it'd be hard to process that with them. Lastly 2020 during shelter in place a man holding a tray of sushi started to say all the racial slurs at me at a grocery store and came so close to my face, I felt the spit on my cheek. And I was like, oh, great, I'm gonna get COVID and verbally assaulted today. And when that happened, there were children around who witnessed that, and the educator in me was like, in pain. Made me wonder, okay, here's this episodic explosive event, how are caregivers and explain that to their children and then the other thought I have [00:08:00] had was what about the everyday racism that Asian American face? Right? How are we helping caregivers, teachers, parents talk about everyday anti-Asian racism? [00:08:11] Miko Lee: I just wanna point out that Ko also has a presentation that she does in schools. So if you know teachers that are interested in that, she has a whole presentation, reads some of the book and then breaks down who is Grace Lee Boggs, what is the background. So it's really helpful. And also talking about not just the times we are in right now with the microaggressions that our community are facing, but who are our solidarity leaders historically and who are people that are working in the community now. So does anybody else have a question for Ko, the author in the space? [00:08:44] Paige: Hi, Ko, thanks for reading your story, and I'm really sorry that a person assaulted you verbally.  [00:08:50] Paige: I, I was looking at the title and wondering if there was any association with the TV show where they're like all gems and then they like sing [00:09:00] songs. Stephen Universe.  [00:09:00] Ko Kim: I'm just gonna lie and be like, yes. I, I planned that . No, there isn't, but I actually pulled a lot of my teacher educator friends. To think about how could we self love our and love our Asian Am AAPI children? And that's what I came up with. But, great question, Paige.  [00:09:23] Miko Lee: And Ko, you did a non-traditional method for publishing. Can you share a little bit about that and why you chose that route?  [00:09:30] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share that cuz I do know there's someone in the audience who talked about possibly writing a children's book of their own. [00:09:37] Ko Kim: So I think we use the tools we're most familiar with, and I'm really used to reaching out to mutual aid, through my community. I'm sure this is something that everyone knows a lot of public school teachers fund their own libraries, fund their own field trips, right? And so I often reached out to my community to help fund those activities, resources , and I had no connection to the publishing world. [00:10:00] So I did this unconventional way and I made sure to recognize the folks in my community that made this book possible. If you look at the very back, their names are listed on the Kickstarter. I also, maybe I was like creeping on fans, people that I really like, but I DMed a bunch of authors on Instagram and asked them for some advice. And Innosanto Nagara has also been very gracious in that process. I have no idea if he remembers that I DMed him, but he gave me some really good tips. He himself started off as a Kickstarter, as you know, and his book was picked up by [00:10:33] Ko Kim: Seven Story Press.  [00:10:36] Jasmine: Thanks. I'm curious, Ko if you've read this book with your students and your nibbling, how have the kids received it?  [00:10:46] Ko Kim: It's really interesting. I thought only middle grades or like upper elementary children would be interested in this, but I actually presented this to a bunch of high schoolers in Hayward and there was a huge response from them. They loved [00:11:00] it. I think we do this false age designation where we're like, oh, by the time you're 18 you don't like pictures. Which is not true, right? Like if the look at the popularity of TikTok, it's such, such a visual medium, right? People rely on visuals and I think art is actually a great activist tool and way of being. And so, I've seen K through 12, a lot of warmth about the images. I had one Jamaican American teacher email me and say, these things happen to me all the time and I brush them aside, and this book helped me heal. I had another teacher in the audience write me that they went to therapy after the book reading, which I think is a great next step. I'm all about healing ourselves. Thanks for that question, Jasmine. [00:11:49] Miko Lee: Thank you. Anybody else with questions for Ko?  [00:11:52] Paige: I have another question related to the topic, we were reading the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead in college my [00:12:00] freshman year. And I remember someone asked in class like, how early is it to talk about these things? Like kind of how you're talking about the age of what you had imagined, the children reading the book. And my teacher was like, I don't think sixth grade is that early for this book. And that book it was really, it's quite violent , so I was just, yeah. How were you thinking about that when you were writing this book? Can you say more about thinking about the violence, about introducing that to children?  [00:12:29] Ko Kim: Yeah, for sure. I did try really hard to be age appropriate, if you notice. I intentionally focused on microaggressions and not the explosive physical violence just cause I know our children, they can't handle things, but it has to be done in a way that's scaffolded. There's that piece of it, but I also wanna cite, a really well known Instagram Spanish educator, she goes by the woke Spanish teacher. She co-wrote an academic article with a college professor in education. [00:13:00] It's called The Myth of Teaching Social Justice to Elementary School Students. And it kinda debunks some of the ideas that our children cannot handle these experiences because it's fact of the matter is they are experiencing these racialized moments and they're turning to adults to make sense of this, or turning to each other to make sense. Right? And it feels weird to just neglect that and wish them good luck versus addressing it and centering their lived experiences.  [00:13:28] Miko Lee: The other person I'd shout out in that vein is that woke kindergarten, and that's an amazing educator who's introduces all these topics with kindergarten students and recognizing that the world we live in, you have to, because that's the only way that we can create children that understand a greater sense of justice in the world. They do such amazing work, check out their website and they've done teach-ins and.  [00:13:55] Miko Lee: Other questions for Author Ko Kim? [00:13:57] Ko Kim: Bring it. Everyone. Just give me the questions.[00:14:00]  [00:14:02] Tran: Hey Ko, this is Tran! How are you?  [00:14:04] Ko Kim: Oh my gosh. Can I just take a moment to thank you for being such a model to me? When I was at UCLA? I was such an undergrad. I was such a poop head and you really helped me understand, solidarity. [00:14:14] Tran: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Small world that we went to college together and now you're a children's book author. That's amazing. so I'm actually a mom to a toddler, and so of course making sure that I have a library of books that he can see himself, in and relate to, right. And not just like Asian American, but other like BIPOC books as well. And I actually didn't know about this book until this event, so I'm really glad, that y'all are hosting those events. So now I know about it and added to my collection, but I was curious, Ko do you have, other ideas for books that you wanna do in the future? Are you planning on doing more books? Cause I'd love to hear if you are.  [00:14:55] Ko Kim: Yes. Oh my gosh. I do wanna create an ethnic study series for children. [00:15:00] I've been toying with the idea of debunking the American Dream myth, just trying to figure out how to do that in a way that's accessible to young readers. Another one I've been toying with is the idea of how do we talk about the anti-Blackness that does exist in the Asian American community, even though we do have a long history and legacy of solidarity with, Black folks. I've been toying with those and have been drafting. Thank you Tran. [00:15:24] Miko Lee: Exciting coming soon, Ko Kim's latest work. Yay. [00:15:28] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. Coming up is Ka BJ or Puzzle by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. [00:16:00] [00:17:00] [00:18:00] [00:19:00] [00:20:00] [00:21:00]  [00:21:45] Swati: That was Ka BJ by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. And now. Back to the children's book club with Miko [00:21:57] Miko Lee: We can start talking about some of me and Ko's [00:22:00] favorite books that you all can have access to. I wanna first talk about who we talked about in the very first place, who was a mentor and was supposed to be here today. Innosanto's work A is for Activist, people often ask me, what children's books I get, I as a few of you mentioned love children's books. I personally try to never keep adult books because I read 'em and I pass 'em on to other people or I'm a big library person, but the only books I buy all the time are children's books because I like the art, the vibe, what it's about and my go to little kids, like when somebody first has a baby, are these books, A is for Activist and Counting on Community. And I like them because they're board books, which kids can chew on, but they're also like teaching their alphabet books. But they're teaching. Our values about activism, about community, about movement, about growth, and about where we are in our world. The other thing I wanted to mention is the other Ino book for [00:23:00] older kids, to the question about, when do you start introducing social justice concepts? You start as early as possible. And with my own kids, you start when they're babies, you start teaching sign language. So you're talking about different access to learning and understanding. But then as we know, people grow and they get more sophisticated and they want more information. So actually this is one of, Ino's more recent books. It's called The Wedding Portrait the under title is the Story of a Photograph and Why we Sometimes Break the Rules, and this would be good for like fourth graders because it breaks down how critical it is for us to take action. So it talks about from the Dakota pipeline to nuclear weapons to the farm workers boycott and it breaks it down in a way that's accessible and understandable and really brings it home for older kids that want a little bit more information. So I will follow up with all these books linked [00:24:00] and how you can buy them along with a bunch of others that we might not talk about, because literally I came in here 45 minutes ago and just pulled things off the shelf that were interesting. But I have a whole list of other go-tos. Ko, What are some of your favorites? Or anybody here? What are some of your, like right when somebody's gonna have a baby, books that we give people? What are your go-tos? [00:24:21] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share some, but I would love to hear from the folks first.  [00:24:25] Miko Lee: Anybody have some go to children's books that they just love getting every time?  [00:24:31] Jasmine: I bought the book Julian is a Mermaid. It's a really beautiful book about this little kid and it's kind of magical and like just exploring gender in different expansive ways.  [00:24:42] Miko Lee: Thanks Jasmine for sharing that , I really like the artwork on that too. [00:24:47] Ko Kim: I wanna say everyone likes all categories of books. I understand that. And if you so happen to wanna focus on that topic of gender identity, sexual orientation, there's actually a really cool mobile children's Book Bus. [00:25:00] Maybe you've heard of them. It's called Out and About and they're based in the Bay Area and they have the most beautiful lavender school bus full of books. [00:25:09] Tori: I just read a picture book called Coffee Rabbit, Snow Drop Lost, I think it's Danish, perhaps it's in translation. But it's about dementia and the relationship between a grandchild and grandparents. And it like made me cry in just a couple of minutes that it took to read it, which I wasn't expecting. It was very powerful.  [00:25:29] Miko Lee: I'm not familiar with that book. I love it when books break things down in a way that helps to bring an issue to light.  [00:25:39] Paige: I also read this in college. I only read two children's book as a child, and one of them is actually my favorite The Giving Tree. When I was little I was like, why am I so sad reading this book? It's so sweet and this tree loves this little boy. And then it felt like when I read that book, it reminded me of my relationship with my parents, like, why do my parents love me so much? [00:26:00] And then, the second book I actually read in college was His Own Wear by June Jordan, it's so beautiful. I love June Jordan. So I would definitely get that for your babies. [00:26:11] Miko Lee: Anybody else wanna share some? [00:26:14] Tracy: I'll just share some thematic books that I can't remember the names of them. But as a child since I grew up in San Francisco I got exposed to a lot of books around Chinese folklore about the moon festival and like where the moon festival came from, and the woman who ended up in the moon and like the moon goddess. And it's like the shape of a rabbit. So I really loved thematically those kinds of books that taught me about my culture, but through like children's books, but then in terms of an actual book name, I don't know what range we're doing, but because I read a lot of graphic novels, I really loved everything Gene Yang has done, like American Born Chinese. And his latest book is Hoop Dreams and it's about him being a teacher in Oakland at a private high school. And I love, love, [00:27:00] love, everything because it breaks down a difficult topic. So the one about him being a teacher in Oakland was about the different students who are on a basketball team there and their backgrounds. You learn about each of the students, whether they're Black, Asian, or Arab, learn about their specific kind of stories and the ups and downs they have and how like basketball kinda brings them together.   [00:27:25] Miko Lee: I'm so glad. Gene I love him. A local person. And there actually, as some of you might know, making a whole TV series based on ABC and the Monkey King thing. So I, I really appreciate his work. There's a ton of graphic novelists we could talk about that I also adore, so we could go down that road. Ko what about you?  [00:27:46] Ko Kim: Yeah, I just wanna thank everyone. I'm learning a couple new title. So there's a book that was published this year by Julia Kuo it's called Let's Do Everything and Nothing. Maybe you're familiar with this book.[00:28:00] I love it shows the intimacy and affection between a mother and a daughter in each page. And the illustrations are stunning. I never knew burnt orange and navy blue can make me cry but it made me cry in this book for sure and then I know folks are familiar with this book from 2018, Drawn Together. I love it because just like Julia Cole's book, it talks about the affection between family members, but this one kind of centers a common grief that a lot of AAPI families have where there's a generational language, cultural difference between grandparents and their grandchildren. It talks about bridging that gap. [00:28:36] Miko Lee: Can I add to that one? So I love that book and I actually, um, built a curriculum on that book, which I'm sending to you, and it's linked and I did it with an organization in Oakland called Agency by Design and During the Pandemic, we put together kits for all Title One School Kids in Oakland that included that book and then all the art supplies you could to make on it because it's about imagination and bringing imagination alive. [00:28:59] Ko Kim: [00:29:00] Miko That's, that's amazing. How can I get my hand on a kit?  [00:29:05] Miko Lee: I don't, I don't know if they're remaking the kits right now, but you could get your hands on the curriculum and I will say we intentionally made the kits very accessible. So basically even if you didn't have the kit, you could pull it from things at home or have free access. whenever I'm making an arts inclusive kit, I try and make it with high quality supplies, but then also just things you can get from your house. So it makes it more accessible to everybody.  [00:29:30] Ko Kim: Great to know. And then I have two other titles  [00:29:33] Ko Kim: I'm so glad I was recommending ABC American Born Chinese. This book breaks down what does it mean to acclimate versus assimilate to American culture, right? And that's a huge heavy topic for adults alike. And in fact, Minh Le the author and illustrator of that book he just posted on Instagram under the campaign of Books Save Lives how reading this book in college really helped him stay afloat. [00:29:57] Ko Kim: And then the last middle grade [00:30:00] recommendation I have is called, In the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo this came out in June, 2022. She's a local Bay Area author and artist actually and each chapter is pithy and painfully beautiful it digs into the richer life of an Asian female protagonist in Southern California. It was very healing. And in talking to Jane she was talking about how this book was supposed meant to also be healing for the caregivers reading the book as well. So I couldn't put this book down. I finished it in one sitting. [00:30:31] Kenny: So I got this as a gift from my newborn coming in it's called Hush and it's a very simple book, it goes through different animals and just the different sounds that other languages make to represent those animals. And I think it's just really fun to go through that and learn all the different noises that they make. And it's a story about a mom who's just telling all of these animals to be quiet cuz the baby is sleeping just something that I feel like is cool to [00:31:00] introduce to my son since he's gonna be half Thai.  [00:31:02] Miko Lee: I wanted to throw out some more artist based ones because I think one of the things is sometimes we just get it. For me, I feel like having raised two artists and realizing the importance of art and life, bringing that into our young people is so critical and I love how Drawn Together does that in terms of inter generations. And really talking about intergenerational trauma. There is an another book about an artist, it's about Gyo Fujikawa, who is an amazing artist, and it's called, It Began With a Page and it outlines what is in an artist's imagination and how they create things, how they use and bring the world alive. And there's another one called The Sound of Colors, A Journey of the Imagination by Jimmy Liao and it is about a blind woman and it's the colors that she sees while she's blind and how she navigates through the world. And [00:32:00] it's just such a mix. It's so beautiful. The other is a lovely book about an artist, a kid, whose parents work as janitors in San Francisco and they're low income workers. And because they don't have childcare, they take their kid with them and they're Asian American and the kid uses their imagination while their parents are working. It's just such a good book talking about imagination and labor. Do you have some more? Should I keep going or does anybody wanna throw some out here? [00:32:30] Ko Kim: I wanna shout out a longtime author illustrator named Rob he's one of the organizers of the sixth annual Children's Social Justice book Fair.  [00:32:37] Miko Lee: He's also works with Janine Youngblood on this, collaborative that is around trying to publish BIPOC voices, but it's very, very small, they don't have like huge budgets. There are a lot of children's books that have curriculum that go with them. So I don't know if some of you're interested in that, especially during our time of, COVID-y time when people have had to shelter in [00:33:00] place and stay home. Sometimes having activity books for single kids are really great.  [00:33:04] Miko Lee: This is one that's about Filipino mythology and culture, Who Turned on the Sky, and it comes with this whole coloring and activity book. The book actually has a whole series of different, Filipino mythology and culture, and I think Tracy was talking about that earlier about how we grow up learning some of these things around culture. So that's one that actually comes with a curriculum. And then this other one, a really sweet one. Called Juna and Appa which is a Korean girl, and it's about her and her father. And it has magical realism in it. And it's again about emotions and intergenerational work. And this also has a curriculum. This was another project I did with Agency by Design that comes with a whole series of questions that young people can do for doing interviews with their elders. Even if you can't write, it's how do you draw an interview process?  [00:33:57] Tracy: Ko you mentioned earlier about this [00:34:00] idea of, we should talk about race as early as possible with kids, but, as educator scaffolding is important, I would literally love to hear your ideas of ways we can scaffold learning. I'll give you an example, I have a bunch of children's books that I gave to my sister to give to her kids. And then she took out three of 'em and was like, these are not appropriate for the kids. And I was like, oh, what do you mean by not appropriate? And I didn't get into it, but I was like, she's actually a math teacher, so she also understands scaffolding. so I'm really interested in your ideas of scaffolding and what that means to introduce material at the right level.  [00:34:39] Ko Kim: Yeah that's a great question cause I think sometimes the work of Social Justice, I tend to leave out the joy of social justice work sometimes. Cause I get so serious and bogged down. I forget that social justice work, it means wellness for me, wellness for us. Wellness for all of us. So you're right, it has to be age appropriate. Teaching for Justice has really great lesson plans and [00:35:00] they pair books. It goes by grade level. And then as you get to higher grade levels people's history, you know, the Howard Zinn open resource lesson plans also have a great one. I think it, to your point, it's really important to introduce a topic where folks are at. Cause that's also true for adults, right? Just because you're an adult doesn't mean you're ready for that topic either. There's a lot of pre-work and scaffolding that has to happen regardless of our age and reading skill. Yeah. Did that help answer your question, Tracy?  [00:35:32] Tracy: Yeah. Thanks for the resource. I think that like some of the principles you're sharing is like meet people where they're at and I used to be an environmental educator and my framework I use with kids and adults is appreciation, education, action. So it's like no one's gonna wanna take action on something that they don't appreciate first. So once you feel the joy, like you said, then you learn more about it. Also, you don't wanna learn about anything you don't really like. So it's like you appreciate it, you like [00:36:00] it, you bring joy, then you learn more and then there'll be those like desire to learn. [00:36:04] Tracy: Then you actually wanna take action. It's really hard to get people to take action if they don't really appreciate or understand. So you're reminding me that is a framework, but, the meeting people where they're at is if they're already past appreciation, then maybe they're ready for an education or action book. [00:36:21] Miko Lee: And the only thing I would add to both of your great words is partly part of our work is to just show representation and to show different types of AAPI voices in this context. For instance, this is a lovely book called, a Map Into the World, and it's not, you know, Political, but it's about a Hmong girl and how she feels and how she walks through the world. And then there's another book that I was just introduced to, which is, Incarcerated Dad. I have it in my stacks of books around here, but it's a dad who is Cambodian and he's [00:37:00] incarcerated and it doesn't make a big deal about his incarceration. How great is that? It's about a dad who bakes, but the dad was formerly incarcerated. So just to show this representation is also a political act, right? We are saying that there are many different types of people within our community. Our community is broad. They come from different places, they have different experiences. So that doesn't have to be overly like we are being political , but it's really saying, look, our community is diverse. [00:37:30] Miko Lee: On the same vein I have stacks of children's books around me by the way that I put into categories. So I was going like, food is such an easy fit in for people because, we're looking within the network about narrative power, right? And there's all this research that, what's the number one thing people think of with Asian people? They think of food. Okay? Some people think that is such a drag. Why is it just around food? Why is it on Christmas? You know, everybody's eating at the Chinese restaurants, right? But there's a way to use that to our [00:38:00] advantage. It can be an in for people to understand culture. And so there are tons of books that are just about food and about culture. [00:38:10] Paige: I wanna just mention Magic Fish. I read all the recent children's books that I know in the last three years, or like the last three to five years. That book is so pretty. Like the art is so emotional. [00:38:23] Miko Lee: Yes. Beautiful. Lovely book. We haven't been talking enough about the graphic novels, so I love this. This is such an amazing book.  [00:38:33] Miko Lee: This author, Grace Lynn has a bunch of books. Both picture books and board books. This one's called Dim Sum for Everyone, it's really cute. The artwork is quite adorable. She actually has another one that I love that's called The Ugly Vegetables, and it is about how her family grows traditional Chinese vegetables in her neighborhood and the kid hates it because everybody else grows flowers. And then at the end of [00:39:00] the season, the mom cooks the most amazing bitter Melon Soup, and all the neighbors smell the food and they all come and they wanna have the food. And so the whole neighborhood has celebration together over food and they bring flowers. So again, it's using food as a road in. There's also these great books about cultures coming together and making food together that are just titled by like bread or rice and all the different people around the world that eat bread and rice in the ways in which they do that. This one it's called Lunchtime with Samnang, and it's about learning, imagination, exploration, and about this kid's favorite Cambodian dishes as he hears tales from his grandfather. [00:39:43] Miko Lee: I think back to Tracy's original question around, how do you introduce hard topics, the first thing I was saying was representation, which I think is really critical. And then I think the other part is introducing some kind of like soft more deeper threads. [00:40:00] And so this is one that actually talks about a Rohingya, which are the oppressed minority peoples in China. And it's about a kid and his love of this bird. And so you could look at this as this allegory, right? About the oppression of peoples. Or you could read it as a boy and his bird. So you could take it multiple ways and have as in depth conversations as you want to have. But it really depends on who's the reader, right? And what are they reading with it? And there's a few more that are like this. There's a really good one. There's a few good ones about the Japanese, internment that I think, helped to tell that story. Like this one, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. And it's really sweet and the art is quite lovely and it just tells about the Japanese incarceration, through a lens of a young girl. And I will say, what I find remarkable about this is there's a lot of books about the Japanese incarceration, a lot of children's books. [00:41:00] Almost all of them are about a boy or a male's perspective. Boys play baseball, boys go fishing, boys do this. So this is specifically about a girl and what she goes through and the lens that she leaves the world. I will say to you all, that I am incredibly biased. I raised two daughters and because I felt like the world is always introducing them to male writers and particularly white male writers that the only books I ever, ever read to them were written by BIPOC women, some men, but usually BIPOC women. and so I think it's also about the intentionality when you're picking children's book out about what you want to be able to share with your young people.  [00:41:44] Miko Lee: Any other questions or thoughts? Oh, let me share one more one that I just saw, which was so fun. I love this one because this is an intersectional one and it's about a Japanese American and family, but their cousin is African American [00:42:00] and it's about when our cousins come. And so it has the family. And there this author has written a bunch like this I have them all at home. They're all about growing up in the inner city. And it's really this Blasian experience. What is it like to be Blasian and to be living in the inner city? So I think that's really fun. And what do we have to teach each other about our different cultures and how are we creating a new kind of Blasian culture?  [00:42:26] Miko Lee: While we have a two more min, few more that's left is, many folks know about Yoyo Ma and his amazing work and how he does this work playing at the borders. The author Johanna Ho, who wrote it, and she's written a lot of other lovely books. But there's a great breakdown too, and if you wanted to do this with your young person, you could also play that actual music and see some of the real videos. So there's a way of reading the book, but then taking it to the next level and really showing with your young people how a book can push you off into additional learning. [00:42:57] Miko Lee: This one Eyes that Kiss in the Corners is [00:43:00] another about body affirmation. You know, a lot of us grow up with like slanting eyes or those stereotypes. And this is about just appreciating your body. Loving your body.  [00:43:09] Ko Kim: And Johanna Ho has a male version of that one. Eyes stare into the sky, I think. Cause I think it's different, right? For how that topic is addressed by gender. [00:43:21] Paige: Jasmine, you were gonna say something?  [00:43:25] Jasmine: Something I'm curious about, and maybe we'll need to write the book for, but a book for kids who are mixed white and Asian, around understanding their white privilege specifically, yeah.  [00:43:39] Miko Lee: Ooh, that would be good. Jasmine. There was a bunch of books with half white kids, but nothing, I haven't seen anything. Ko have you seen anything about white privilege? Jasmine? There you go. There's your opening. Take it, write it.  [00:43:55] Ko Kim: I'm here for a jasmine. I would love to see that. [00:44:00]  [00:44:00] Miko Lee: Love that. thank you all so much. You know, last book club we talked about Thi Bui's book and I just wanted to point out Thi's Children's book, A different Pond. This is a amazing, Caldecott honor book, which is like the best that you can get in Children's book Landia. And it is just a really beautiful. It was written by a different author, but Tui illustrated it and is really about a boy and his dad and, their relationship. Tui has two more children's books, one actually that she wrote with her son and, another one with the author of the Sympathizer Viet Thanh and his son and they co-wrote them. Okay. We have one minute left. Thank you so much everybody for joining us. Thank you Ko Kim and all of you for joining us today for our AACRE Book Club on children's books. Thank you all. Have a great rest of your day and a lovely weekend.  [00:44:52] Swati: Hey folks, Swati here. Miko was so bummed about not being able to have Innosanto Nagara come [00:45:00] to the children's book club but lucky enough she and Inno were able to sit down for a bonus interview! So we're going to play that for you now. [00:45:09]  Miko Lee: Welcome Innosanto Nagara to APEX Express. [00:45:12] Miko Lee: We had an AACRE book club event and I was talking about your brilliant books. As I was saying that my go-to gifts for people that I have bought many time is A is for activists and C is for community. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started writing those? [00:45:33] Innosanto: Thank you so much. Well I wrote a as for activist because I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my child. You know, I live in this community, cosent community and my son was the youngest of eight to be born into our community and I'd been reading children's books to children for quite a while. And as you know, when you have kids, you read these books to them [00:46:00] often over and over and over again. And some of those books you love reading over and over and over again. And sometimes, not so much , but that's what they want, so you do it. But, when my own kid was born, I realized I was gonna be reading all these books to my kid over and over and over and over again, and I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my kid over and over and over again. So I wrote A is for Activist .  [00:46:22] Miko Lee: And that was your first book?  [00:46:24] Innosanto: Yes. I had no, aspirations towards becoming a children's book author at that point, my idea was I was just gonna write this to share with my kid, and once I had written it and I was illustrating it, I thought, well, maybe you'll print out, Maybe a dozen or maybe even a hundred and get them out as presents to friends and community members. And I found out that it turns out to do a proper board book, you couldn't only print, a couple hundred. I had to actually print a couple thousand. And so I went into this whole process of trying [00:47:00] to figure out how to finance it and, I had this idea that it was gonna be a five year project and I was borrowing money from friends and family that I would pay back over time and I would put it on a credit card if at the end of the five years it didn't pay off. [00:47:14] Innosanto: But as it turns out, I underestimated how many other people wanted a book just like this. And it took off on its own. And, the rest is history.  [00:47:22] Miko Lee: So you self-published A is for Activist?  [00:47:24] Innosanto: Yeah. The first time around I self-published it. I had two pallets of books in my living room, in our community living room and every morning I was packing up books to drop off at the post office and every evening I was getting all the labels printed and all this stuff. [00:47:41] Innosanto: So it became a bit of a second job.  [00:47:45] Innosanto: What then happened was after we sold it out, all the books, I had to decide whether I was gonna reprint them myself and keep on doing this. Or if there would be a publisher that wanted to take it on. And I think at that point it was actually 3000 books were sold. I thought that was good proof of [00:48:00] concept and a lot of the bookstores were saying, yeah, you should approach this publisher or that publisher, they'll be really happy to publish it a lot of people want this book. [00:48:08] Innosanto: But as it turns out, at the time, self-publishing was seen as the kiss of death for books and no publishers would want to take on a book that had already been self-published. but that's changed since then and one of the publishing companies that changed that as Seven Stories press, they had published, What Makes A Baby by Corey Silverberg, which was originally self-published. And they were realizing that the fact that something was self-published did not make it something that they couldn't produce and distribute more broadly. And so they actually took on A is for Activist as well. And all my books have been published by them ever since. [00:48:45] Miko Lee: That is so interesting. Almost like filmmakers and TV shows that have come off of social media accounts it's just changing the industry in a way.  [00:48:54] Innosanto: Yeah, I think there's been some experiences where the industry is opening its mind a little bit. [00:49:00] Publishing has always been a hard to break into industry with a lot of gatekeepers that represent particular demographics and what they think makes a good book. And I think, one of the positive things that's come out of people being able to do things like self-publish and Put your work out in the world without going through those gatekeepers, is that we're discovering that there's actually a lot of missed opportunities, a lot of really good things that have people are producing that perhaps those experts have somehow, missed. [00:49:37] Innosanto: And I think that's been the case in all kinds of media and music as well. So some people like, Maya Christina Gonzalez, who has been working on this field for a long time. She is the author of numerous books on multiculturalism and Gender, and she's pretty much decided to really promote self-publishing to try to fill the gap [00:50:00] of the missing number of books by and for people of color in America. [00:50:08] Miko Lee: Who's that?  [00:50:09] Innosanto: Maya Christina Gonzalez. OG has been doing it for a long time.  [00:50:12] Miko Lee: Love it. So I also think it's amazing that you've stayed with the same publisher all of these years and your latest book. The Wedding Portrait, I loved discovering that and one of the things we were talking about at the book club is at what age and how do you start to talk with kids about difficult topics? And I really think the wedding portrait really delves into that. Can you share with our audience what the book is about and what inspired you to create it? [00:50:42] Innosanto: Yeah, the wedding portrait. Is essentially about direct action and civil disobedience. And why sometimes to make change and pretty much all the time to make change. It requires breaking the rules. And for kids that can be a complicated Topic because they're being told [00:51:00] to follow the rules all the time. [00:51:01] Innosanto: And so much of schooling and so much of life is learning how to play by the rules. And yet to make change, we have to be able to identify the times and places when we break the rules. And so that, that book, it came out a few years back right when trump was elected, so we were all expecting that there would be a lot of rule breaking that was gonna have to happen on our side. And I guess to answer your question as to when, it's gonna be different for different kids depending on what their experience is and what their life situation is. But, the main question here is who is talking to kids about difficult subjects, right? They will be talking about difficult subjects amongst themselves in a schoolyard. They're gonna be seeing things on tv, they're gonna be talking to other adults, teachers, and so on. And so the question of how do you approach difficult subjects with [00:52:00] kids, it's really a question of who do you want to have had those conversations with them first and through these processes, through the times that we're living in. For me I think it's when they start having questions and when they start wanting to have these conversations, there's really not a time that's too early to be able to address their concerns and question. [00:52:22] Miko Lee: Thanks. So talk to me about your latest book.  [00:52:24] Innosanto: Since the wedding portrait there's been a few I did a middle grade book called M is for Movement, which is set in Indonesia. The way that I talk about my books is, A is for Activist is about the issues, counting on community is about how we live. my night in the planetarium, is about art and resistance and colonialism, and of course I say they're about these, but those are sort of the underlying themes. But, My night in the planetarium is about a kid. Me, it's a true story about how growing up under the dictatorship in Indonesia and an experience that I had,[00:53:00] the wedding portrait is about direct action civil disobedience. So it's about tactics and it stems from a personal experience when my partner, I got married, we went and did a direct action civil disobedience action, and there's a photograph of that but the broader context of the book is these vignettes about the different types of direct action and civil disobedience and tactics that have been used throughout the history of social justice movements. M is for Movement is kind of like bringing all those things together. And that one's actually fiction, but it's about overthrowing the government for children. And that's a middle grade chapter book. And then after that I did, Oh all the things we're for, which is very dear to my heart because it's a lot of these other books are about direct actions civil disobedience, protests, the things that we're fighting against. But I think it's really important to also talk about the things that we're for and the solutions and [00:54:00] the better world that we can envision in terms of democracy, in terms of human rights, in terms of environmental justice. And I feel like we have lots of solutions, but we tend to focus on the problems. And it's important to have a vision of the possibilities in order to be able to be motivated to fight for change. And then the last book, I didn't write it, but I illustrated it was written by my friend, Mona Damluji, and it's called Together. And that's also board book format. And it's a bit of a poem about, You'll have to read it, but, the theme that I think comes up a lot when we're talking to children about social change is the idea of collective action. But she does it in a way that, that I found really exciting because there's a lot of really good stories about people coming together to make change. But she does it in a way that is, poetic and accessible. [00:54:55] Miko Lee: Very exciting. I have M is for movement right by my side here, and I really appreciate you [00:55:00] going into middle school, which I think was a new venture for you, right? To write for middle school age?  [00:55:06] Innosanto: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, all my books have followed the age of my kids, I basically write for him. [00:55:13] Miko Lee: Does that mean you're gonna be working on a high school book coming soon? [00:55:16] Innosanto: That's always a possibility.  [00:55:19] Miko Lee: I also appreciate oh, the things we are for that you're talking about the irresistible future because it's hard we get bogged down in the problems without mm-hmm. imagining the beautiful future. So thank you for that.  [00:55:32] Innosanto: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And you know, I do believe in protest and confronting injustice, and so it's not an either or, but I do think that we do need both especially for those of us who've been in this fight for a long time, I think having the vision is important as well as having the willingness to fight against the problem. [00:55:52] Miko Lee: Absolutely. It's a yes and  [00:55:54] Innosanto: yeah. Yeah.  [00:55:55] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for spending some time chatting with me. I always sure look [00:56:00] forward to hearing your voice and I so appreciate your art and your contributions. Thank you, Inno.  [00:56:05] Innosanto: Thank you so much for having me. [00:56:07] Swati: Thank you so much to Miko for holding this amazing AACRE book club event. the children's book hour. Thank you to Kim Ko for subbing in last minute and being completely lovely. And thank you to, Innosanto Nagara who came in for a surprise interview. I loved being able to hear about children's books that impacted everyone, children's books that they love, and children's books that they still hope to write. [00:56:33] Swati: I absolutely agree that you know, no matter how old you are, you are never too old for a picture book, especially if it has a good message. There were of course, a ton of books mentioned in the show today, and even more that weren't mentioned. We'll drop a full list into the show notes with links, so please feel free to go to kpfa.org/program/apex-express to check [00:57:00] that out. And of course, as always, we hope that you buy small and local for your nibbling and yourself. [00:57:06] Swati: Finally, thank you so, so much to East Wind Books now and for always for co-hosting these events with AACRE and allowing Miko a chance to get lost in your shelves and emerge with these treasures. We really hope that you enjoyed these recommendations and strongly encourage you to share your own recommendations with us.  [00:57:25]  Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. 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. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.   The post APEX Express – 12.22.2022 – Children's Books at East Wind Bookstore with Ko Kim appeared first on KPFA.

I'm donnie l. betts. "Now I've been very lucky in my life to meet some of my artistic and scholarly heroes. People like August Wilson, Sonia Sanchez, Grace Lee Boggs, and Oscar Brown Junior. Next on the Eclectic, I sit in conversation with another one of my creative idols. He is the co-creator of the Immersive Theater experience Theater of the Mind as well as Here Lies Love and American Utopia. And he is the founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the Talking Heads.... I welcome the amazing David Byrne!" theateroftheminddenver.com/about David Byrne is the founder and in-house headline writer of Reasons to be Cheerful, and the founder of the Arbutus Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to re-imagining the world through projects that inspire and educate. Reasons to be Cheerful is the Arbutus Foundation's first project. In conjunction with the premiere of the immersive production Theater of the Mind, co-created by creator of the Broadway hit American Utopia, David Byrne, and writer Mala Gaonkar, Byrne has created a series of seven lenticular artwork images in five editions and a short piece of new music to coincide with the production. The Eclectic is a companion podcast to Destination Freedom Black Radio Days that features interviews with difference makers, artists, authors, bold thinkers, and people we love who get stuff done. Produced and hosted by donnie l. betts of No Credits Productions, LLC. Follow @nocreditsproductions on Facebook and Instagram, and @donniebetts on Twitter. #Blackradiodays #socialjustice #destinationfreedomblackradiodays #donniebetts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Host Miko Lee speaks with two women professors Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez about their approach to education, activism, motherhood and moving forward.   Show Transcript A Tale of Two Professors Story [00:00:00] Swati: Tonight on APEX Express, we have a piece highlighting the work of two professors with a lot in common, both Filipino scholar, activists, and grieving mothers who are approaching their work in similar and different ways. Listen in on Miko's interview, exploring both of their amazing backstories, their current work and where they see their futures. Also editorial side note Miko and Robyn's audio got a little funky at times. So it might be a little bumpy. [00:00:59] Miko Lee: Welcome Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez to APEX express. Dr. Robyn is the first Filipino American to serve as chair of the UC Davis Asian American Studies Department, the first one in 50 years. She also became the founding director of the Bulosan Center for Filipino studies and has authored so many books. Dr. Celine scholar filmmaker, and the new Dean of the Division of Arts at UC Santa Cruz. You worked at my Alma mater San Francisco State University in the School of Cinema. You were a professor of Asian-American feminist film and media studies at UC Santa Barbara. I mean, you've, you've been like through the whole California system. We are so happy to have you on APEX express. I believe you were the first Asian-American Dean in this position. And how does this feel for you to be at UC Santa Cruz during this work? [00:01:51] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As the first woman of color Dean at UC Santa Cruz, as well as the first Asian American woman. Of course, it feels weighty, to hear that the lived experience of it is very much about prioritizing subjugated knowledges, making sure that we have an abundance of voices and abundance of traditions and knowledges that we are teaching so that students can really have access to you know what they want to study as well as be situated, and a long tradition of inquiry and method. It's really wonderful to be at the helm of a division that really takes seriously, people who want to practice art, people who want to study art historically, critically theoretically and we all have defined. Our role, and helping to make this world A place where everyone has a role, [00:02:48] Miko Lee: and art is just being part of who you are that it's just part of being human. Um, Robyn, I want to go way back and talk with you about when you first became politically active. [00:02:59] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I would say that the beginnings of my political activism started when I was in either my freshman or sophomore year of high school. And it started with a letter. I was concerned about what we now call racial profiling of young Filipino American men in my neighborhood. I grew up in Union City, California in the east bay. And there was a supposed kind of gang problem in Union City and I recall young boys really in our neighborhood at school, who I thought were being unfairly targeted, not only by police, but also mistreatment really from other authority figures at school, I felt really concerned about that and wrote a letter. I was encouraged by my mom to express my opinions or my kind of concern about how my peers are being treated by writing a letter. And so I wrote the letter and I addressed it to the mayor of Union City, the chief of police, and the superintendent of the school district. And in the letter, I expressed how I felt that my peers were being unfair ly treated and proposed that they introduce what I was calling, multicultural education. The idea I thought was that if our teachers and authority figures really understood us better, and at the same time, if we encountered a stories and histories of our community that somehow this so-called gang problem could be somewhat addressed. So that was my first, I think, kind of a political act or act of activism. And I would then go from there really getting involved in electoral politics. And then after that when I'm in college is really when I started to get more involved in other kinds of organizing work community organizing work. [00:05:10] Miko Lee: I love that. What do you think, was it your parents' upbringing or your peers? What do you think rose up your feisty nature to be able to write back to the school board at such a young age? [00:05:22] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I think it was a couple of things. I think one was actually my mother modeling a modeling sort of letter writing in particular as a mode of calling out issues of inequity or injustice and what had happened and I remember this very clearly. I think it probably was my earliest observation or experience of racism and it was at church. I just remember I grew up Catholic and somehow I just remember sitting in the pew and fidgeting and sort of halfway listening to the priest's sermon and I recall the priest saying something about how Filipinos were not contributing sufficiently enough to the parish. And I remember that very clearly. And I remember feeling that tension rise because there's so many people in mass who are Filipino and I could feel, my mother bristling at that. My father, I just, the tension was just so palpable. My mother was feeling after mass talking about how insensitive the priest had been. Didn't quite say racist, that it was just really wrong and a mis-characterization of the Filipino community. And she was going to write a letter and address it. And I remember observing that and that had a real impact on me. I think the influence again, via my mother is the fact that my middle name, which actually translates into ‘to be angry' comes from an ancestor on a maternal ancestor. It was a made up name by one of my ancestors who decided to change his name to Magalit it as an expression of defiance against the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines and actually ended up joining the anti-colonial revolutionary cause himself. And so that was that's an important story that is passed on through my mom's, through my mom's family. We're very proud of that revolutionary history. I was always very proud of it always insist on using my middle name everywhere and anywhere. And so I think there's also that, that, that feeling, or I think I was encouraged to, we were encouraged to really be those people who would be critical of any circumstances where people are oppressed, exploited, marginalized. Even my father. Growing up he would tell me, you're so fortunate that I left the day before martial law was declared in the Philippines, because otherwise I would have been, I would have stayed and I would have been part of the movement to topple the dictatorship. And I wouldn't be able to be here and be your dad. And I recall to, with my father he drew really a hard and fast lines between himself and people in the community, even friendships would think, he walked away from friendships if he felt a friend was sympathetic to the dictatorship. So there's just all of these ways that might. Both, exhibited as anti-authoritarian kind of, the sort of critique of structures of power that I grew up with and I observed and was inspired by. So I think that's what explains why I would end up doing what I did as a freshman in high school. [00:08:39] Miko Lee: Wow. The power of being angry, built into your DNA and your name and your love it. We love to hear that. Dr. Celine What do you think Drove you into ethnic studies [00:08:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: I came to the United States with my family, in the early to mid eighties and I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was one of three Filipino Americans in my high school of 3000 people. And the others were my siblings, and education for me was really sanctuary, like being at school because there was food because we were so poor and, we were the center of our worlds, my multicultural set of friends and I loved, learning about my new country, and when I moved to Berkeley as an undergrad, there were many questions that I had, like, why is it that, my parents, even though they were hyper educated in a way, had to work low wage jobs, as immigrants and they had to work two jobs and they were never around then why was I, and my sister, we were 14, 13 years old. We were already working, in order to help put food on the table for our large immigrant family. So I had so many questions. What was this about, why are we here? And. I loved ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, it was a way to really understand subjugated knowledges, and it was really understanding why we no longer ate together as a family because my parents had to work. At UC Berkeley, ethnic studies was such a wonderful place because it was an interdisciplinary approach to history, to cinema, to literature. It was the time where so many amazing people were there. Not only was it Trinh Min-ha, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. I learned in their classrooms and also created my own classrooms by becoming an activist, because there was so much in our experiences that I needed to see on paper. Like what it means to walk around with a large Asian American family, what it means to, grow up with a white mom, but be seen as a woman of color, like your closest intimate as this white woman who may or may not see you. So these were stories that my classmates were telling me. We did a lot of organizing, you know, a woman of color magazine named, ‘Smell This', a woman of color film festival, a woman of color retreat. We were really trying to figure out how can we be effective advocates in a world, using our education, using the power and weapons of our education in order to, make significant, impactful cultural contributions that will change the world. And I realized I wanted to really capture the historical moment of how there were so many women of color writing professors there, Maxine Hong Kingston, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. Were all there and we were all doing spoken word and poetry slams, and the tradition of women of color literature, with ‘This Bridge Called My Back' Audrey Lorde, Chrystos, Pat Parker and more, this was a vibrant, legacy growing all of us, all of these books were seeds, and I came up with the name, ‘Smell This' in the hallways of the co-op in which I lived in at the time. I think I didn't even really think about it sexually, even though, I'm a sexuality scholar and I'm a porn study scholar, I really didn't. I really thought of it as a multisensorial experience that you enter when you are exposed to writing. That's so truthful, that's so brutal and it's confrontation with, what it means to be a multiply subjugated person, just walking down the street, for me at the time you're growing up as a young adult and you're blossoming, your interests are blossoming, your sexuality is blossoming, and so it was for me, just this multi-dimensional kind of growth, and I wanted this name to assert that multisensorial experience of what it means to grow up in a world. And at the time, give yourself the permission to say my voice is important, my perspective is important, and that's why I called it that. I think somewhat innocently. And I remember just being on Sproul Plaza, blasting, hip hop music, and just roping in as many women of color as we could, to contribute to the magazine. And we had these gigantic parties and we had the band Yeasty Girls perform. And so we had these legendary epic parties that were all about validating the cultural production of a women of color. [00:13:13] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I suppose you know, that early act of defiance or that act of resistance writing that letter was the beginnings of my journey towards ethnic studies .I think intuitively I knew that there was something problematic about the fact that I grew up in a predominantly community of color and that there was and most of the students, most of my peers were people of color. And yet most of the figures of authority, teachers, administrators were not people of color. And that the books that we were reading typically had scant mention of our community. So there's some, I think intuitively I knew that that could not be right. When I. First took an ethnic studies course after I transferred to Santa Barbara, my third year after a stint at community college. We're actually, I first encountered sort of women of color writers. But it was a class where I was introduced to This Bridge Called My Back, very important anthology by a co-edited by Cherrié Moraga. So that, was sort of my initial foray into kind of women's studies and ethics studies and then by my junior year at UC Santa Barbara, I had this opportunity to take all these classes to class and Chicano studies, a class in Black studies, but the class that really set me on this path toward academia was a class by Dr. Diane Fujino, it was her very first quarter teaching at UC Santa Barbara and Asian-American studies as an assistant professor. It was really the first time I had encountered a Asian American woman professor who also was unapologetically an activist. And that class seeing her just really changed my life. I was so inspired by Diane by what she was doing in the classroom, which she was inviting us to do students, I felt really challenged and really important in good ways by her and I thought, I think that's the way that I want to that, that's what I want to do. I knew I wanted to choose a career of service, I wasn't quite sure what that was going to be. I thought being a lawyer might be it then I changed my mind, then I thought, oh, maybe I should work as a lobbyist for some of these progressive causes. And then I changed my mind thought I even wanted to be an elected. Maybe then changed my mind. And then professor seemed like something that I could get into. I love learning, I love reading, I love research, I also got introduced to other options that could have been a possibility of me being a labor organizer, so yeah, professor felt like a potential way to actually be at the university lectern, but also to be able to write books that students might be able to encounter in other university classrooms and, Diane embodied this very real possibility for me and I chose to follow that path. She represented and continues to represent to me an approach to Asian-American studies that I want to see more of, I think that As much as Asian-American studies was born out of these movements for liberation, the Ethic Studies movement, the Third World Liberation Front, the Asian-American movement, Black Power movement. I think there is a way that I feel as if Asian American studies and Ethics Studies more broadly has become so institutionalized. And I understand that, some of the reasons for this hyper, this institutionalization of Asian-American studies or Ethnic Studies had everything to do with just the backlash against it and just survival. I think that to survive different kinds of decisions were made such that Asian-American studies are at the end, even ethics studies as a field, had to look and feel more the other disciplinary and interdisciplinary formations in the university and less this insurgent site for knowledge production and dissemination that it it had started off as, and Diane for me, always felt like, still feels like one of the few scholars who continues to see Asian-American studies and Ethnic Studies as the site for insurgent knowledge production and dissemination, as the site where we as scholars use our platforms use our training use the kinds of resources we have access to, to amplify the issues of our communities and to also work in partnership with the community in trying to reimagine everything as Grace Lee Boggs invites us to do, to do the critical work of the thinking and the dreaming and strategizing to achieve a better world for all of us. We created a scholar activist affinity group or section is what we call it. And then we'd, frequently organized panels where we would invite activists to come and engage our colleagues because, we recognize that activists and organizers are also thinkers and theoreticians who have really important frameworks and analysis of the world. And that we as scholars could benefit just as much as we as scholars are, doing full-time work and kind of thinking and teaching that we can also extend different kinds of insights to our organizer colleagues. [00:18:42] Miko Lee: For folks that want to hear more about this. There's actually an entire APEX express episode that covers a reading done by both Robin and Diane at Eastwind Books. Last year you both received a mentorship award. Can you share about how important it is to be a mentor and how you combine being both a mentor, an activist. And a scholar. How do you combine those elements? [00:19:12] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: you know, Mentorship is so important to me, I think on one hand, I benefited from mentorship clearly, I wouldn't have even been able to pursue this path, this career path if I hadn't had a mentor like Diane, Dr. Fujino to not just exist, but actually to see who cultivated a relationship with me who was willing to take the time to help me understand the world of academia which was a world that was completely foreign to me. Dr. Fujino, along with other mentors that I had as an undergraduate really helped guide me. On one hand I got research experience. So they both, they all helped me gain a real understanding of what an academic life actually feels like. I knew I wanted to be a professor, but I didn't quite know what getting a PhD would require and getting a PhD requires research and I needed the research experience and they guided me through that process by giving it to me helping me to cultivate my own research questions and carry out my own research project. And all of that not only exposed me to this world to confirm for me that yeah, absolutely that is a path I want to pursue. And they were very frank and honest about what kinds of challenges I might face. I don't know that I fully understood some of their kind of cautionary kind of tales about academia. It took having to actually get into a program and go through it for me to fully understand what I think they were trying to advise me about, and namely that is just, the elitism of academia the ways in which, you know, academia can be limited especially if you're a kind of an activist or committed to social justice and that there are ways that, academia isn't always necessarily the place for that sort of work. Mentorship was so valuable for me individually, and then as I finished my doctorate the mentors I had, helped me just provide that emotional support. Even sometimes it's not even about the nuts and bolts of how do you do research and how do you finish a dissertation? It's simply just supporting you and making you feel like you belong in a space that makes you feel like you don't more often than not. And so just having that community of support was important from mentors. But, there are still too few people of color as more senior professors, a lot of my mentors were my peers who were just a couple of years ahead of me, and I vowed that, as soon as I was in a position that I would be that person who would throw the gate open and keep it open and and support people. But I also approach mentorship in in my own sort of way. I think, I have always tried to be just very transparent with my students about what, the challenges of academia can feel like for a woman of color, for a person of color. I also, I had a child when I was in grad school. So that also created other challenges that other people didn't necessarily have to have. And I, I wanted to be able to, again, to support women who might make choices in graduate school, around, having families or, all of that so mentorship is so vital I think to ensuring that academia continues to be open to alternative voices and particularly folks of color like academia sometimes it's like a long hazing process. I feel like this isn't any different than being in a fraternity or sorority, I feel like, it's all just this huge hazing process. It's not fully transparent about what goes on and nobody really wants to let on. And , that prevents us from moving forward. You get stuck in grad school, you end up not finishing your doctorate and, dropping out or you get a job, but then you can't get tenure. And there's just so much that I feel like is so shrouded in secrecy sometimes about academia and I wanted to be able to be that person if I got through that, I would keep the gate wide open and give folks, as much information as possible and support in, moving forward and through through academia and all of the hoops that, you have to jump to get to a place where I am now. [00:23:24] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Mentorship and activism to me are all so interrelated. When I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad, and I think you can say this about the UC system as a whole, it's usually an experience of disorientation when you get different kinds of pressures around you saying that your history is unimportant. Your voice is unimportant. Your perspective is unimportant, and this is why ethnic studies exists. And this is why programs like the minority summer research program and various other programs are designed. So as to lift up people who otherwise feel like they don't belong and they don't deserve to study, and they don't deserve the time that is the gift of mentorship. And so I was given the gift of mentorship by so many faculty members who really looked me in the eye and said, what did you make of this material that you read? And to say that, my perspective based on, the knowledge I was learning, the methods I was learning mattered really meant that we could have important places in the world as cultural thinkers, as people who can make an intervention in how we interpret things that we experience. That's what criticism is about. I think a lot about how 88% of critics are white. It means that even the material that we looked at are dissected from such a limited demographic, what a rip off. What would it mean if cultural critics were more diverse, what a robust enriching debate that would be more, and so when a student walks into my office, for the past 20 plus years of teaching, I wanted to share that gift of mentorship to let them know that the university needs their perspective in order for it to do its job. Because if we hear from too few people, then we don't know as much as we should. If it's true that over 90% of the most popular films are made by white men. And it is true, according to the Annenberg Studies at USC and UCLA, then what we know about love, marriage, sexuality, immigration, families more, comes from such a limited place. And it takes away from our understanding of each other. It becomes such a limited imprisoning understanding of each other. If we don't hear from more people, and people who are really critical people who say that, what we shouldn't know, we should know, and the university is a place to dig up those stories. And so for me as a Dean, it's not only about the mentorship I give, but the structures of mentorship that we implement. I think we all need mentors, even for me as a Dean, I have mentors who are Presidents, mentors who are Provosts, so that I have a better understanding of the institution. And I think about this a lot for my, for the faculty in my division. I hope that everyone has a network where you run your ideas by, because you only become stronger for it. You, you have a larger perspective of how institutions work and what your strengths are and then you realize, oh my goodness, all those people who gave me that time. What a big deal that was, that they recognized that you were worth the time that you were worth, the space and the knowledge, and I recognized how good it felt, to be the recipient of that. And then once you start doing it, you realize that. Oh, it's so amazing to be able to give it back, because you're really shaping the next generation. I learned so much from them. That's really the goal for me, not only am I a Dean, but I'm also a grieving mother. And I think a lot about that, about how. All of us are going to confront inevitably, the death of a loved one and so I think about. What our students are doing is really, preparing to have a role in the world that a significant, that really takes advantage of their passion, their strength, their commitment, so that they can, find a purpose that will enable them to get through, this inevitable pain. [00:27:24] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing that. That really makes me think about your latest film, the Celine Archive, which is such a beautiful personal documentary that, combined so much of your pain and also just uncovering this history of Filipina American. I wonder if you can talk more about what inspired your film. [00:27:45] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: So in the mid nineties, 1994, through 1996, I believe around that time the community historian Alex Fabros was teaching a Filipino American history class, Filipino American experience class. There were about 200 students who were going through that curriculum and they found the story that he had grown up with about a Filipino American immigrant woman who was buried alive by her community in the 1930s Stockton Jersey island area. I myself was discovering the story at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. And I made this film, in the era of the Me Too and Time's Up movements and really wanted to dig deeply into our capacity to suppress the violent experiences that women undergo in our communities. There's so little known and studied about Filipino American history in our curriculum K through 12. And when we do hear about it, we primarily hear men's stories, the late great historian, Dawn Mabalon and talks quite a lot about this and like her and like many other historians and community organizers, cultural workers and the Filipino American community. I wanted to amplify her story. So as to invite us to think about our female past and how Asian American women continue to endure violent silencing we see this, especially, today, not only in the Atlanta shootings, but in the murder of Christina Yuna Lee in New York. [00:29:32] Miko Lee: Can you share a little bit more about how you decided to weave both. Adding this Filipino woman's story into our broader awareness but also weaving in your personal story, sharing a name with the woman who was murdered and your personal story of your tragedy in your family. How did you decide to weave those stories together? [00:29:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You know, when people undergo. An unexpected, very sudden death of a loved one, in my case, it was the death of my eight year old son from a common virus that attacked his heart, and in the case of Celine Navarro in the 1930s, she was abducted tortured and punished by her community, supposedly for committing an act of infidelity. Even though she was undergoing violence for quite some time within the community. The death happened, very suddenly her family did not know what had happened or where she was. So when you undergo a sudden and unexpected death, the meaning of your own life, really comes to the, fore. You become, I think, intensely alive because your loved one cannot have their life. So the question then emerges, what do you do with your life? And I had to turn to making the film as an act of creativity in the face of devastation, you know, my own demise because the death of a child. Could really have meant my own death, even though I was still alive. And in the act of filmmaking, you're really bringing together a community, in my case, it's bringing together not only community historians and Filipino-American scholars in the academy, but also my students, I think I opened up a way of speaking with my students that acknowledged, the pain that they also undergo, and it became for us a collective effort of looking into history and I'm making it come alive by becoming close to Celine Navarro's family. So when the articles first came out about her, it became such an affirmation of this unbelievable thing really did happen and we carry it with us. This is something that flows, within multiple generations of her family. And it's a question for me I think that I really think about a lot, like my son was eight, but he had a community, he had a huge impact in our own family about the way, he lived this life. So the question for me was how do you remember someone you love, who died but continues to live almost like in a very physical way, I feel his presence. And so I. Take the love that I continue to feel for my son and use that to make something in this world. I'm so happy to be alive, to be able to make this film. For example, that I can make this gift through the film for Celine Navarro's family, but then also to invite Filipino American women to say, you can be the center of your own story, and that your story is multilayered and it's worth investigation, because of course, what I found out in digging up Celine Navarro's story was that she herself was a very courageous woman who spoke up against domestic violence, that led her to testify against men who were protecting another violent man. I can't even imagine what that was like, and so to be able to pull up that story and to ask the question that began the film where are Filipino women in American history? I wanted to start the movie in that way because I want everyone to care about Filipino women so I wanted that to also be a courageous act that honored the subject of my film. [00:33:21] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I'm one, just so sorry for the loss of your son. And so appreciative of the fact that you utilize your grief to funnel it into a beautiful work of art. Thank you so much for that [00:33:34] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You're welcome and I also wanted to say, that my new film 80 years later, is about my family on my husband's side. It explores the racial inheritance of Japanese American family incarceration during World War II. As you may know, this year is the 80th anniversary of executive order 9066 that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans, and my film shows. Conversations between survivors and their descendants as they continue to grapple with their legacy and I asked the question, how do we care for our stories? What stories do we feel responsible for carrying or admonishing or living? What is that ongoing legacy and how do we live it? [00:34:23] Miko Lee: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. That's very exciting. So much of what you're saying around adding women's stories are hidden stories. How we care for our stories. It reminds me of a Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio talks about this idea of Koana, which is a Hawaiian word for many perspectives that we have all these layers. For so many white Americans, we see all those different layers, but for our people, for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, we don't get the multitude of stories. I'm wondering if you cover some of this in your upcoming book, The Movies of Racial Childhoods: Screaming, Self Sovereignty in Asian America. [00:35:05] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Yes. So my new book that's forthcoming from Duke University Press “The Movies of Racial Childhoods” it's motivated by two very powerful forces that I can't deny. The first is it's a book that really explores who my son would be now, if he were alive, I think about, the independence of one who was in middle childhood, one who is in adolescence, when my son died, I was so stunned by the world that he owned apart from me. When you think about a child, you think, oh, I control what they're exposed to, who they talk to, but when they're in school, they meet so many people and they create their own world. So I found out things that I didn't know, that how he was the judge of handball in the recess, world, so if something happened, he would adjudicate what was fair or unfair. I had no idea that he was doing this, and he had been doing it for years. And when I look at the films that I'm studying, I'm always stunned by, how the subjectivity of people of color are eclipsed. So that's the second motivation of the book is when I think about childhoods, you always think about an innocent kind of white childhood. Oh, they don't work because they're children. But we think about people of color from the beginning they, they work, they enslaved children had to work and they had no right to play for example, when you're looking at the scholarship of, African-American childhoods, so what does it mean to talk about an Asian or Asian American childhood? Like people say, oh, there's going to represent our family. So you're forever a baby, in that vision. But there's also this premature, adultification that co-exists with this intense infantilization and you also see the college admissions process. It's oh, you can't play around because you have to get into an amazing school. Therefore you have to disavow play and you have to become, the future lawyer of America while you're 12, and you can also see this in the, sexualization of youth as well. So I'm trying to figure out, know those two questions. I've just finished the book and hopefully it'll be out next year. [00:37:16] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX Express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. [00:37:28] Miko Lee: Dr. Robyn is the academic elitism that you talk about why you founded the Women of Color, Non-binary People of Color Scholars Inclusion Project? [00:37:36] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, absolutely. , I could tell you stories about my experiences of just racism in academia. So WACSIP or the Women of Color Scholars Inclusion Project, it's really a space primarily for those who identify as women of color or non-binary of color, both graduate and faculty. And it's really meant as a safe space for us to be able to convene and support one another. It started off as simply a support group where we could all gather from across campus and all the various places where we are. If you're a woman of color, a non binary, a person of color, the likelihood is that there's just always one or two of you in a particular department or program, and so part of what we wanted to simply do is just get everybody together from across campus, in a space that felt safe where we could literally break bread with one another and be very honest with one another and transparent about what we were struggling with. There is a way that sometimes you feel like you're being gaslighted or you're not really certain that what you've experienced is actually some form of racism or sexism. And sometimes all you need is just, a space where people who have experienced what you've experienced can just affirm that yes, your experience is a real thing and it's not okay and we're here to simply be there as support. We also would organize more formal programs, of course organizing people to come and provide tips and tricks, I guess, to approach teaching and how to, negotiate the challenges of teaching, but especially sometimes the challenges of teaching as women of color. Teaching about race and gender and sexuality as women of color and, contending with sometimes the undermining of our authority as professors in the classroom or by our peers. We'd also organize more formal workshops like that. Writing workshops even, to provide folks with support on publishing because that adage, publish or perish is a very real thing when you're at a major research university, if you do not publish, you cannot secure tenure, you cannot move up in the academic kind of pecking order. So yeah, that was what the intention of the space was, is to create this space of support and it was also to engage as we could in institutional change, trying to document our collective experiences and offer up recommendations to higher ups around shifts that needed to happen to transform institutional culture. That is the piece that was always the struggle. And perhaps what's fed into my frustration with academia, among many other things, but we were successful in providing a space of support for one another. To what extent these groups that I've founded, helped to really shift institutional culture less clear. [00:40:20] Miko Lee: I'm wondering, because WACSIP was has been focused on networking around Critical Race and Ethnic Studies has the anti- CRT fervor that sort of going on by right wing propaganda. Has that impacted your work? [00:40:34] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah, I think anti-CRT fervor it's interesting. I don't know, to what extent that actually has impacted my work at the university in the sense that I feel as if academia has been effectively anti-CRT and anti-Ethnic Studies for a very long time. And it doesn't have to be articulated in the ways that the current movement that's engaged primarily at banning CRT in the K through 12 levels, it's never taken that kind of vitriolic kind of tone at the university, but we know it by the failures of investments, in our departments, in faculty of color who do work on race. So we've been dealing with, I feel like I, along with my colleagues who do this sort of work, we've been subject to “anti- CRT” campaigns at the university level for quite some time now. But again, how they've manifested has been in the form of, a failure of investments whether it's we can't get new hires, we can't get funding support for our research, whether we're not being recruited to take leadership positions, how many times have I been in conversation with people administrators who I know barely encounter women who look like me, on the faculty and can never get my name right. Or know who I am at all. This is just what we're contending with. So in some ways, what's happening outside the university doesn't affect us because we've already been under attack certainly it doesn't help us either. [00:42:09] Miko Lee: Dr. Celine You have so many things in the works right now at the same time. How are you balancing all this? [00:42:15] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As Dean, I have to take care of so many people not to take care of the institution, and I think a lot about how there's very few Asian-American women in this role and I think a lot about how, we live such a intensely sexualized, life. There is that force of sexualization that I've felt growing up, throughout my childhood, throughout my early adulthood and as a full grown woman, this intense sexualization, and I don't think that's compatible with our understanding of who is a leader. There's an amazing book by Margaret Chin called “Stuck”, which identifies how very few Asian Americans there are in C-suites, but also in executive leadership roles, but just stunning considering how many Asian-Americans are in these, leading higher ed institutions, but so few of us are leaders of higher ed institutions, right? So it's important, every day to think about how I'm refashioning, what is a popular understanding of what leadership looks like. It is one that is a compassionate and empathetic. And also, how I have to take care of myself through it because you're so in service of others. And I actually go to my own work in order to always remember what is the purpose of my life? What is it that I am protecting in the enterprise of the university, which is, the freedom to inquire. With courage about the most challenging issues of our day, so yeah, it's working out for me, going to my own work, even in the most demanding moments of leadership. It's a reminder, you know what I want to make sure our faculty and students and staff have access to, which is, the excellence of inquiry and debate that is truly available in the university unlike other places, in our world right now you have so many reactionary uneducated, superficial perspectives, but what we do in the university is so special. The seminar is so special where you come into a room and you would have read, material deeply, closely together. You figure out the questions that you have that have been asked by generations before you, you stand on the shoulders of people who have done the work in order to produce your own. There's no greater pleasure. So I'm so happy to be the guardian of that, I'm so happy to lead the arts division that UC Santa Cruz, because that is our enterprise and what's amazing about it is that it produces beautiful work, impactful work, needed work in our world today. I think about empowering every single voice, in our university and to be open, to be surprised by it. And I think the abundance of voice, doesn't just mean the background, that you carry the cultural inheritances that you're trying to grapple with, but it's really also working with people who are different from you, across class, across nation, across region, to see what you can come up with together. And so the students really feel like, oh my God these films are really going to make an impact, and so I think a lot about what we can do on university campuses that really train the next generation of students to be ready for a truly, multiracial world, in 2045, we're going to be a majority people of color country, and so our students need to be educated as, as widely and broadly as possible not only in terms of what they know, but also how they take care of themselves. And we're doing so much here. That's so exciting we're saying these are the people who are coming to this campus and trying to figure out their voices, trying to learn their craft. And what we're going to do is to give them a space in order to get. share their experiences, whether it's with policing or prison abolition, the university is a place where we can do all of that. [00:46:11] Miko Lee: Robyn, I've heard you talk about being a people's professor. Can you share what that means? [00:46:17] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Sure for me, people's professor it means that the university pays me, but I work for my community. And what that means is that I have always seen my work, whether it's my research and scholarship, you know what I decide to research who I'm writing for when I do, when I write what I teach, how I teach it what I do, but recognizing kind of the stature that comes with being a university, professor, all of my research, my teaching, how I move in the world is driven by and rooted in my community organizing and activist commitments. It comes out of my personal interest, true, but I've been very attuned, always to the issues that emerge in the organizing spaces that I am part of. I've always been a member of a community organization wherever I've been. So I have commitments, it's not simply that I have my ear on the ground and I see issues that pop up in the media. I have commitments, I'm part of the community, I joined organizations, I know what our communities are grappling with and all of that is always shaped my research agenda and found its way in my teaching. That's what I mean by people's professor that, my allegiance is not to the university, my allegiance is not even to my career and advancing my career. It's really to, using my skills, using my training, using my platform to advance the work of social justice. I think that's the role I feel like I want to play. That's why I entered academia to begin with. [00:48:00] Miko Lee: So your next iteration of the people's professor after you leave UC Davis next year, will be the School for Liberating Education. [00:48:09] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: The School for Liberating Education is quite simply a platform that allows anybody in the community to be able to access Ethic Studies knowledge, I think it's just so vital and healing and transformative to take Ethnic Studies courses. And yet, as you mentioned earlier, we are under attack. We've had many important Ethnic Studies victories, but there've been sufficiently forces who've managed to water down the kind of curriculum that many of us who fought for Ethnic Studies and continue to fight for Ethics Studies really want. And so among the things that the pandemic offered us is new kinds of technologies to connect virtually and, I myself, was taking virtual courses as part of my own healing process in the wake of the loss of my son in August of 2020. And it occurred to me that, these courses were amazing for my own healing journey and that I could possibly use these same platforms that were helping me to be able to offer Ethnic Studies to a broader audience of folks, especially in a context where Ethnic Studies or CRT was being viciously attacked. So yeah, that's really what it started off as, and in its first phase it's been a series of online courses first in, Asian American studies, which is really in my wheelhouse, and in Filipinx Studies specifically, I'd like to expand even more of the offerings that dive deep into the Chicanx experience and Latinx experience the Black experience, Native studies, Native and Indigenous studies and interracial kind of examinations as well, just in terms of the online courses. I guess the 2.0 version of this School for Liberating Education is the courses that I'm hoping to offer here on site at the new farm that we've just purchased. We want to be able to host intensive learning retreats and kind of educational workshops that center land-based and Indigenous knowledges. So in other words, either doing in-person short courses that are somewhat based on the current offering of courses online or extensions of them or just kind of new courses. There's a lot of new work in advancing healing justice that I also want to help to organize and curate here at the farm. Definitely want to center these land based and Indigenous knowledges and I'm super excited about the possibilities of what I can do as a people's professor outside of the space of academia outside of also the space of, the politics of it all and here. We're just at the beginnings of setting up the farm proper we're beginning to break ground because we have some seeds in the ground. I have my Hmong father and mother-in-law are helping us and already passing on generations of wisdom about the land and how to till the land and how to, just be in community with the land, just, in the work that they've been doing and helping us to cultivate it, but yeah, this is the next phase and I'm just really excited about the possibilities for learning that I can extend, but also for myself, I don't see myself as only being the professor actually in this space. I see myself more as an organizer and a curator who has some knowledge to impart, but also as somebody who can gathered together other people with other forms of expertise. [00:51:27] Miko Lee: It's a combination of a lot of your wheelhouse, a lot of your strengths as an educator and doing cross solidarity work and bringing in this sense of connecting to the land and healing and wellness. It's very beautiful. I'm looking forward to learning more and we will post a link to School for Liberating Education in the show notes for APEX Express. You spoke about healing and wellness. And I know 2020 was a really hard year and I am so sorry for the loss of your son. I really appreciate how you are turning that just tragic loss into a powerful foundation. Can you speak about the foundation and what that's all about? [00:52:08] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm still struggling. The healing process is ongoing for me. And people often talk about how there are different kinds of losses one can experience, and I've experienced a lot of those kinds of losses. I've lost a dear grandparent, my grandmother who helped raise me, I've lost a parent. I lost my father in 2014. And all of those losses, hurt in deep ways, of course, but there is something acute about the loss of a child. And though, he was a young man so full of promise though, just at the young age of 22 to have lost his life. And the foundation is an opportunity for me to ensure that his legacy and everything that he was so passionate about and that he lived and fought and died for lives on. And, so the Amado Khaya Foundation is meant to be a space that will support the causes that , was so passionate about. Clearly indigenous people's struggles, that's where he spent the last few months of his life, he was serving the Magguangan and Maduro in the wake of terrible typhoons that had hit the island. He was also very passionate about Ethnic Studies, that was an issue he was very involved in before leaving for the Philippines. He was passionate about housing justice. He really came of his own as a community organizer and activist. And I want to just ensure that, the work that he started can continue, but I also want to center mental health and wellness in the work that Amado Khaya does because he really acutely understood the ways that community organizers and activists hold the collective trauma of our people. His father who I am no longer with, was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. Had really experienced the violence of the apartheid regime was witness to the violent clashes between activists and the police and the state, and that had a major impact on Amado's father. And deep mental health impacts that Amado recognized, so that's something I really want to also center in the Amado Khaya Foundation is not just continuing to support the organizations or the issues he fought for, but to support the mental health and wellness of organizers themselves, who are doing all this great work and kind of providing them the support and care that they also really require to continue the work of social justice and among the things that we've we've done through Amado Khaya, we're still finishing up our 501c3 process. But we have a home that we purchased in honor of Amado called Amado's Kaia, which translates into Amado is home. Kaia actually also means home in Zulu. But we have a home that we offer as a gift to organizers as a sanctuary refuge for rest. We've been able to get some grants and in the process of setting up a digital media lab, Amado was a aspiring filmmaker. So we want to be able to also use media film in particular, which was what he was passionate about, and video as a way of also supporting activists causes. Part of what I'm also hoping that Amado Khaya does , and this is what the connection comes back to the school, I'm very inspired by Grace Lee Boggs, so Re-Imagination Lab is the social enterprise that holds all of my kind of entrepreneurial initiatives and the idea is that we want to get to a place where we generate a surplus revenue that we would reinvest into Amado Khaya, other non-profits. Somebody who's worked in alongside nonprofits we know how much our, a nonprofit organizations struggle to hustle for funding. And they're often beholden to foundations, that, oftentimes relate to non-profits in what amounts to a very colonized and very white supremacist, relationship and which constrain the kind of work that nonprofit organizations can do in service of the community. And so I want to be able to get to a place where Amado Khaya will either draw sufficient donations from individuals or revenues from Re-Imagination Lab so that we can help fund movements without constraints so they can do the work that they need to do without any limitation. I think that there are a lot of us who are trying to figure out how do we redistribute resources in our community and not have to be beholden to foundations that may very well be responsible for creating the very problems that nonprofits are forced to have to address. [00:56:56] Miko Lee: Dr Robyn, the people's professor. Thank you so much. Dr. Celine thank you both for turning your grief into positive action and thank you for just continuing to share your work with by and for the broader community. I really appreciate what you're doing. [00:57:12] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. 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. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. The post APEX Express – 11.3.22 – A Tale of 2 Professors appeared first on KPFA.

The co-hosts discuss Andrew's new essay, “Dunayevskaya's 1953 Letters: Transcending Vanguardism & Spontaneism.” Andrew sets out the political and organizational context of two letters that Dunayevskaya wrote to her co-leaders in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, CLR James and Grace Lee (Boggs), in May 1953, on Hegel's “Absolute Idea” and “Absolute Mind (Spirit).” He argues that she was dissatisfied with the Tendency's withdrawal from public politics and the spontaneist direction in which James and Lee were taking it after its break from vanguardism, and that the letters work out a different direction that transcends both vanguardism and spontaneism. Brendan and Andrew also discuss Dunayevskaya's charge that James and Lee's direction amounted to dumping all responsibility on the masses, and whether Hegel's conception of Absolute Spirit is actually relevant to radical politics––and, if so how. Current-events segment: The Trumpist Threat within the Military, the FBI, and the Secret Service.

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black and Asian solidarity with Dr. Zaneta Rago-Craft founding Director of the Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Dr. Z identifies as multiracial and tells us some about her own Asian ancestry. She speaks here as both a DEI expert and from her personal experiences as a woman of color in the academy. This is Part II of our series on Black and Asian solidarity. We find this to be a necessary ongoing conversation, at the moment, with the rise of Anti-Asian hate that has emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an expansive history of Black and Asian solidarity as illustrated with the life-long collaboration between James and Grace Lee Boggs, Robert Williams and his travels to China, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s friendship with Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh. 

“What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we'd be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown's voice on On Being, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of seeing, to move towards a transformative wholeness of living.--In this time of new suns here at On Being, we are in learning mode — listening to the world, and listening to you.Would you take a few minutes to visit onbeing.org/survey and answer a few questions that will help us know who you are and how On Being can accompany you in the time ahead?We would be so grateful…

“What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we'd be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown's voice on On Being, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of seeing, to move towards a transformative wholeness of living.--In this time of new suns here at On Being, we are in learning mode — listening to the world, and listening to you.Would you take a few minutes to visit onbeing.org/survey and answer a few questions that will help us know who you are and how On Being can accompany you in the time ahead?We would be so grateful…

This episode finds David co-hosting with producer, Elisabeth (who is also actively auditioning for the role of third Imagine This Podcast host). They begin by reflecting on pivotal arts teachers and the impact they had in their lives, their favorite Thornton Wilder plays, and the concept of not having a backup plan in life, lest we end up following the path of least resistance or finding a moment to “exit stage left”. Beginning around 12:00, Sarah reflects on a pivotal art experience at Turner Hall Ballroom in high school and the “art hangover”—and sense of possibility it instilled in her. The group discuss how artists coalesce human experiences as the “antenna” of society. Throughout her artistic journey, Sarah learned to shift her practice out of the confines of the traditional art world, and to create without preconceived notions of how her artwork and creative process will manifest. Sarah is wary of archival artworks, believing that things like paintings that last forever are “not where joy lives,” but rather, joy comes from the spark of communal discovery. Sarah draws a comparison between public art-making and teaching, both of which she sees as avenues of conducting conversations. Throughout the conversation, Sarah shares philosophical insights about artmaking. Instead of creating art as an experience for herself, Sarah wishes to instill in viewers, students, and neighbors experiences of connection, learning, and reflection and empower them to embrace their role in culture-building. She values how the practices of being a good neighbor and being an artist run parallel-- both of which she draws upon in her work at the Newline Community Café. Follow https://www.sarahgailluther.com/ (Sarah Gail Luther): At https://www.newline.cafe/ (Newline Café) and https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/dog-days (get your dog drawn at Dog) https://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/dog-days (Days at Lynden) 416 Ephemera https://www.mamkpace.com/ (Performing Arts Curriculum Experience) “https://www.thorntonwilder.com/the-long-christmas-dinner (The Long Christmas Dinner)” “https://www.thorntonwilder.com/the-skin-of-our-teeth (The Skin of our Teeth)” “https://www.thorntonwilder.com/blog/2019/2/28/pullman-car-hiawatha-is-a-metaphorical-train-ride (Pullman Car Hiawatha)” https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS558 (Thornton Wilder: A Wisconsinite,) and a fellow Obie https://www.sfusd.edu/school/ruth-asawa-san-francisco-school-arts (Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts) http://www.andrewswant.com/ (Andrew Swant) “https://www.powells.com/book/the-next-american-revolution-9780520272590 (The Next American Revolution)” by Grace Lee Boggs

Episode 149 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Respect", and the journey of Aretha Franklin from teenage gospel singer to the Queen of Soul. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode available, on "I'm Just a Mops" by the Mops. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Also, people may be interested in a Facebook discussion group for the podcast, run by a friend of mine (I'm not on FB myself) which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/293630102611672/ Errata I say "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby to a Dixie Melody" instead of "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody". Also I say Spooner Oldham co-wrote "Do Right Woman". I meant Chips Moman. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Aretha Franklin. My main biographical source for Aretha Franklin is Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, and this is where most of the quotes from musicians come from. I also relied heavily on I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You by Matt Dobkin. Information on C.L. Franklin came from Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America by Nick Salvatore. Rick Hall's The Man From Muscle Shoals: My Journey from Shame to Fame contains his side of the story. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom is possibly less essential, but still definitely worth reading. And the I Never Loved a Man album is available in this five-album box set for a ludicrously cheap price. But it's actually worth getting this nineteen-CD set with her first sixteen Atlantic albums and a couple of bonus discs of demos and outtakes. There's barely a duff track in the whole nineteen discs. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start this episode,  I have to say that there are some things people may want to be aware of before listening to this. This episode has to deal, at least in passing, with subjects including child sexual abuse, intimate partner abuse, racism, and misogyny. I will of course try to deal with those subjects as tactfully as possible, but those of you who may be upset by those topics may want to check the episode transcript before or instead of listening. Those of you who leave comments or send me messages saying "why can't you just talk about the music instead of all this woke virtue-signalling?" may also want to skip this episode. You can go ahead and skip all the future ones as well, I won't mind. And one more thing to say before I get into the meat of the episode -- this episode puts me in a more difficult position than most other episodes of the podcast have. When I've talked about awful things that have happened in the course of this podcast previously, I have either been talking about perpetrators -- people like Phil Spector or Jerry Lee Lewis who did truly reprehensible things -- or about victims who have talked very publicly about the abuse they've suffered, people like Ronnie Spector or Tina Turner, who said very clearly "this is what happened to me and I want it on the public record". In the case of Aretha Franklin, she has been portrayed as a victim *by others*, and there are things that have been said about her life and her relationships which suggest that she suffered in some very terrible ways. But she herself apparently never saw herself as a victim, and didn't want some aspects of her private life talking about. At the start of David Ritz's biography of her, which is one of my main sources here, he recounts a conversation he had with her: "When I mentioned the possibility of my writing an independent biography, she said, “As long as I can approve it before it's published.” “Then it wouldn't be independent,” I said. “Why should it be independent?” “So I can tell the story from my point of view.” “But it's not your story, it's mine.” “You're an important historical figure, Aretha. Others will inevitably come along to tell your story. That's the blessing and burden of being a public figure.” “More burden than blessing,” she said." Now, Aretha Franklin is sadly dead, but I think that she still deserves the basic respect of being allowed privacy. So I will talk here about public matters, things she acknowledged in her own autobiography, and things that she and the people around her did in public situations like recording studios and concert venues. But there are aspects to the story of Aretha Franklin as that story is commonly told, which may well be true, but are of mostly prurient interest, don't add much to the story of how the music came to be made, and which she herself didn't want people talking about. So there will be things people might expect me to talk about in this episode, incidents where people in her life, usually men, treated her badly, that I'm going to leave out. That information is out there if people want to look for it, but I don't see myself as under any obligation to share it. That's not me making excuses for people who did inexcusable things, that's me showing some respect to one of the towering artistic figures of the latter half of the twentieth century. Because, of course, respect is what this is all about: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Respect"] One name that's come up a few times in this podcast, but who we haven't really talked about that much, is Bobby "Blue" Bland. We mentioned him as the single biggest influence on the style of Van Morrison, but Bland was an important figure in the Memphis music scene of the early fifties, which we talked about in several early episodes. He was one of the Beale Streeters, the loose aggregation of musicians that also included B.B. King and Johnny Ace, he worked with Ike Turner, and was one of the key links between blues and soul in the fifties and early sixties, with records like "Turn on Your Love Light": [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn on Your Love Light"] But while Bland was influenced by many musicians we've talked about, his biggest influence wasn't a singer at all. It was a preacher he saw give a sermon in the early 1940s. As he said decades later: "Wasn't his words that got me—I couldn't tell you what he talked on that day, couldn't tell you what any of it meant, but it was the way he talked. He talked like he was singing. He talked music. The thing that really got me, though, was this squall-like sound he made to emphasize a certain word. He'd catch the word in his mouth, let it roll around and squeeze it with his tongue. When it popped on out, it exploded, and the ladies started waving and shouting. I liked all that. I started popping and shouting too. That next week I asked Mama when we were going back to Memphis to church. “‘Since when you so keen on church?' Mama asked. “‘I like that preacher,' I said. “‘Reverend Franklin?' she asked. “‘Well, if he's the one who sings when he preaches, that's the one I like.'" Bland was impressed by C.L. Franklin, and so were other Memphis musicians. Long after Franklin had moved to Detroit, they remembered him, and Bland and B.B. King would go to Franklin's church to see him preach whenever they were in the city. And Bland studied Franklin's records. He said later "I liked whatever was on the radio, especially those first things Nat Cole did with his trio. Naturally I liked the blues singers like Roy Brown, the jump singers like Louis Jordan, and the ballad singers like Billy Eckstine, but, brother, the man who really shaped me was Reverend Franklin." Bland would study Franklin's records, and would take the style that Franklin used in recorded sermons like "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest": [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest"] And you can definitely hear that preaching style on records like Bland's "I Pity the Fool": [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "I Pity the Fool"] But of course, that wasn't the only influence the Reverend C.L. Franklin had on the course of soul music. C.L. Franklin had grown up poor, on a Mississippi farm, and had not even finished grade school because he was needed to work behind the mule, ploughing the farm for his stepfather. But he had a fierce intelligence and became an autodidact, travelling regularly to the nearest library, thirty miles away, on a horse-drawn wagon, and reading everything he could get his hands on. At the age of sixteen he received what he believed to be a message from God, and decided to become an itinerant preacher. He would travel between many small country churches and build up audiences there -- and he would also study everyone else preaching there, analysing their sermons, seeing if he could anticipate their line of argument and get ahead of them, figuring out the structure. But unlike many people in the conservative Black Baptist churches of the time, he never saw the spiritual and secular worlds as incompatible. He saw blues music and Black church sermons as both being part of the same thing -- a Black culture and folklore that was worthy of respect in both its spiritual and secular aspects. He soon built up a small circuit of local churches where he would preach occasionally, but wasn't the main pastor at any of them. He got married aged twenty, though that marriage didn't last, and he seems to have been ambitious for a greater respectability. When that marriage failed, in June 1936, he married Barbara Siggers, a very intelligent, cultured, young single mother who had attended Booker T Washington High School, the best Black school in Memphis, and he adopted her son Vaughn. While he was mostly still doing churches in Mississippi, he took on one in Memphis as well, in an extremely poor area, but it gave him a foot in the door to the biggest Black city in the US. Barbara would later be called "one of the really great gospel singers" by no less than Mahalia Jackson. We don't have any recordings of Barbara singing, but Mahalia Jackson certainly knew what she was talking about when it came to great gospel singers: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand"] Rev. Franklin was hugely personally ambitious, and he also wanted to get out of rural Mississippi, where the Klan were very active at this time, especially after his daughter Erma was born in 1938. They moved to Memphis in 1939, where he got a full-time position at New Salem Baptist Church, where for the first time he was able to earn a steady living from just one church and not have to tour round multiple churches. He soon became so popular that if you wanted to get a seat for the service at noon, you had to turn up for the 8AM Sunday School or you'd be forced to stand. He also enrolled for college courses at LeMoyne College. He didn't get a degree, but spent three years as a part-time student studying theology, literature, and sociology, and soon developed a liberal theology that was very different from the conservative fundamentalism he'd grown up in, though still very much part of the Baptist church. Where he'd grown up with a literalism that said the Bible was literally true, he started to accept things like evolution, and to see much of the Bible as metaphor. Now, we talked in the last episode about how impossible it is to get an accurate picture of the lives of religious leaders, because their life stories are told by those who admire them, and that's very much the case for C.L. Franklin. Franklin was a man who had many, many, admirable qualities -- he was fiercely intelligent, well-read, a superb public speaker, a man who was by all accounts genuinely compassionate towards those in need, and he became one of the leaders of the civil rights movement and inspired tens of thousands, maybe even millions, of people, directly and indirectly, to change the world for the better. He also raised several children who loved and admired him and were protective of his memory. And as such, there is an inevitable bias in the sources on Franklin's life. And so there's a tendency to soften the very worst things he did, some of which were very, very bad. For example in Nick Salvatore's biography of him, he talks about Franklin, in 1940, fathering a daughter with someone who is described as "a teenager" and "quite young". No details of her age other than that are given, and a few paragraphs later the age of a girl who was then sixteen *is* given, talking about having known the girl in question, and so the impression is given that the girl he impregnated was also probably in her late teens. Which would still be bad, but a man in his early twenties fathering a child with a girl in her late teens is something that can perhaps be forgiven as being a different time. But while the girl in question may have been a teenager when she gave birth, she was *twelve years old* when she became pregnant, by C.L. Franklin, the pastor of her church, who was in a position of power over her in multiple ways. Twelve years old. And this is not the only awful thing that Franklin did -- he was also known to regularly beat up women he was having affairs with, in public. I mention this now because everything else I say about him in this episode is filtered through sources who saw these things as forgivable character flaws in an otherwise admirable human being, and I can't correct for those biases because I don't know the truth. So it's going to sound like he was a truly great man. But bear those facts in mind. Barbara stayed with Franklin for the present, after discovering what he had done, but their marriage was a difficult one, and they split up and reconciled a handful of times. They had three more children together -- Cecil, Aretha, and Carolyn -- and remained together as Franklin moved on first to a church in Buffalo, New York, and then to New Bethel Church, in Detroit, on Hastings Street, a street which was the centre of Black nightlife in the city, as immortalised in John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun": [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "Boogie Chillen"] Before moving to Detroit, Franklin had already started to get more political, as his congregation in Buffalo had largely been union members, and being free from the worst excesses of segregation allowed him to talk more openly about civil rights, but that only accelerated when he moved to Detroit, which had been torn apart just a couple of years earlier by police violence against Black protestors. Franklin had started building a reputation when in Memphis using radio broadcasts, and by the time he moved to Detroit he was able to command a very high salary, and not only that, his family were given a mansion by the church, in a rich part of town far away from most of his congregation. Smokey Robinson, who was Cecil Franklin's best friend and a frequent visitor to the mansion through most of his childhood, described it later, saying "Once inside, I'm awestruck -- oil paintings, velvet tapestries, silk curtains, mahogany cabinets filled with ornate objects of silver and gold. Man, I've never seen nothing like that before!" He made a lot of money, but he also increased church attendance so much that he earned that money. He had already been broadcasting on the radio, but when he started his Sunday night broadcasts in Detroit, he came up with a trick of having his sermons run long, so the show would end before the climax. People listening decided that they would have to start turning up in person to hear the end of the sermons, and soon he became so popular that the church would be so full that crowds would have to form on the street outside to listen. Other churches rescheduled their services so they wouldn't clash with Franklin's, and most of the other Black Baptist ministers in the city would go along to watch him preach. In 1948 though, a couple of years after moving to Detroit, Barbara finally left her husband. She took Vaughn with her and moved back to Buffalo, leaving the four biological children she'd had with C.L. with their father.  But it's important to note that she didn't leave her children -- they would visit her on a regular basis, and stay with her over school holidays. Aretha later said "Despite the fact that it has been written innumerable times, it is an absolute lie that my mother abandoned us. In no way, shape, form, or fashion did our mother desert us." Barbara's place in the home was filled by many women -- C.L. Franklin's mother moved up from Mississippi to help him take care of the children, the ladies from the church would often help out, and even stars like Mahalia Jackson would turn up and cook meals for the children. There were also the women with whom Franklin carried on affairs, including Anna Gordy, Ruth Brown, and Dinah Washington, the most important female jazz and blues singer of the fifties, who had major R&B hits with records like her version of "Cold Cold Heart": [Excerpt: Dinah Washington, "Cold Cold Heart"] Although my own favourite record of hers is "Big Long Slidin' Thing", which she made with arranger Quincy Jones: [Excerpt: Dinah Washington, "Big Long Slidin' Thing"] It's about a trombone. Get your minds out of the gutter. Washington was one of the biggest vocal influences on young Aretha, but the single biggest influence was Clara Ward, another of C.L. Franklin's many girlfriends. Ward was the longest-lasting of these, and there seems to have been a lot of hope on both her part and Aretha's that she and Rev. Franklin would marry, though Franklin always made it very clear that monogamy wouldn't suit him. Ward was one of the three major female gospel singers of the middle part of the century, and possibly even more technically impressive as a vocalist than the other two, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson. Where Jackson was an austere performer, who refused to perform in secular contexts at all for most of her life, and took herself and her music very seriously, and Tharpe was a raunchier, funnier, more down-to-earth performer who was happy to play for blues audiences and even to play secular music on occasion, Ward was a *glamorous* performer, who wore sequined dresses and piled her hair high on her head. Ward had become a singer in 1931 when her mother had what she later talked about as a religious epiphany, and decided she wasn't going to be a labourer any more, she was going to devote her life to gospel music. Ward's mother had formed a vocal group with her two daughters, and Clara quickly became the star and her mother's meal ticket -- and her mother was very possessive of that ticket, to the extent that Ward, who was a bisexual woman who mostly preferred men, had more relationships with women, because her mother wouldn't let her be alone with the men she was attracted to. But Ward did manage to keep a relationship going with C.L. Franklin, and Aretha Franklin talked about the moment she decided to become a singer, when she saw Ward singing "Peace in the Valley" at a funeral: [Excerpt: Clara Ward, "Peace in the Valley"] As well as looking towards Ward as a vocal influence, Aretha was also influenced by her as a person -- she became a mother figure to Aretha, who would talk later about watching Ward eat, and noting her taking little delicate bites, and getting an idea of what it meant to be ladylike from her. After Ward's death in 1973, a notebook was found in which she had written her opinions of other singers. For Aretha she wrote “My baby Aretha, she doesn't know how good she is. Doubts self. Some day—to the moon. I love that girl.” Ward's influence became especially important to Aretha and her siblings after their mother died of a heart attack a few years after leaving her husband, when Aretha was ten, and Aretha, already a very introverted child, became even more so. Everyone who knew Aretha said that her later diva-ish reputation came out of a deep sense of insecurity and introversion -- that she was a desperately private, closed-off, person who would rarely express her emotions at all, and who would look away from you rather than make eye contact. The only time she let herself express emotions was when she performed music. And music was hugely important in the Franklin household. Most preachers in the Black church at that time were a bit dismissive of gospel music, because they thought the music took away from their prestige -- they saw it as a necessary evil, and resented it taking up space when their congregations could have been listening to them. But Rev. Franklin was himself a rather good singer, and even made a few gospel records himself in 1950, recording for Joe Von Battle, who owned a record shop on Hastings Street and also put out records by blues singers: [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "I Am Climbing Higher Mountains" ] The church's musical director was James Cleveland, one of the most important gospel artists of the fifties and sixties, who sang with groups like the Caravans: [Excerpt: The Caravans, "What Kind of Man is This?" ] Cleveland, who had started out in the choir run by Thomas Dorsey, the writer of “Take My Hand Precious Lord” and “Peace in the Valley”, moved in with the Franklin family for a while, and he gave the girls tips on playing the piano -- much later he would play piano on Aretha's album Amazing Grace, and she said of him “He showed me some real nice chords, and I liked his deep, deep sound”. Other than Clara Ward, he was probably the single biggest musical influence on Aretha. And all the touring gospel musicians would make appearances at New Bethel Church, not least of them Sam Cooke, who first appeared there with the Highway QCs and would continue to do so after joining the Soul Stirrers: [Excerpt: The Soul Stirrers, "Touch the Hem of his Garment"] Young Aretha and her older sister Erma both had massive crushes on Cooke, and there were rumours that he had an affair with one or both of them when they were in their teens, though both denied it. Aretha later said "When I first saw him, all I could do was sigh... Sam was love on first hearing, love at first sight." But it wasn't just gospel music that filled the house. One of the major ways that C.L. Franklin's liberalism showed was in his love of secular music, especially jazz and blues, which he regarded as just as important in Black cultural life as gospel music. We already talked about Dinah Washington being a regular visitor to the house, but every major Black entertainer would visit the Franklin residence when they were in Detroit. Both Aretha and Cecil Franklin vividly remembered visits from Art Tatum, who would sit at the piano and play for the family and their guests: [Excerpt: Art Tatum, "Tiger Rag"] Tatum was such a spectacular pianist that there's now a musicological term, the tatum, named after him, for the smallest possible discernible rhythmic interval between two notes. Young Aretha was thrilled by his technique, and by that of Oscar Peterson, who also regularly came to the Franklin home, sometimes along with Ella Fitzgerald. Nat "King" Cole was another regular visitor. The Franklin children all absorbed the music these people -- the most important musicians of the time -- were playing in their home, and young Aretha in particular became an astonishing singer and also an accomplished pianist. Smokey Robinson later said: “The other thing that knocked us out about Aretha was her piano playing. There was a grand piano in the Franklin living room, and we all liked to mess around. We'd pick out little melodies with one finger. But when Aretha sat down, even as a seven-year-old, she started playing chords—big chords. Later I'd recognize them as complex church chords, the kind used to accompany the preacher and the solo singer. At the time, though, all I could do was view Aretha as a wonder child. Mind you, this was Detroit, where musical talent ran strong and free. Everyone was singing and harmonizing; everyone was playing piano and guitar. Aretha came out of this world, but she also came out of another far-off magical world none of us really understood. She came from a distant musical planet where children are born with their gifts fully formed.” C.L. Franklin became more involved in the music business still when Joe Von Battle started releasing records of his sermons, which had become steadily more politically aware: [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "Dry Bones in the Valley"] Franklin was not a Marxist -- he was a liberal, but like many liberals was willing to stand with Marxists where they had shared interests, even when it was dangerous. For example in 1954, at the height of McCarthyism, he had James and Grace Lee Boggs, two Marxist revolutionaries, come to the pulpit and talk about their support for the anti-colonial revolution in Kenya, and they sold four hundred copies of their pamphlet after their talk, because he saw that the struggle of Black Africans to get out from white colonial rule was the same struggle as that of Black Americans. And Franklin's powerful sermons started getting broadcast on the radio in areas further out from Detroit, as Chess Records picked up the distribution for them and people started playing the records on other stations. People like future Congressman John Lewis and the Reverend Jesse Jackson would later talk about listening to C.L. Franklin's records on the radio and being inspired -- a whole generation of Black Civil Rights leaders took their cues from him, and as the 1950s and 60s went on he became closer and closer to Martin Luther King in particular. But C.L. Franklin was always as much an ambitious showman as an activist, and he started putting together gospel tours, consisting mostly of music but with himself giving a sermon as the headline act. And he became very, very wealthy from these tours. On one trip in the south, his car broke down, and he couldn't find a mechanic willing to work on it. A group of white men started mocking him with racist terms, trying to provoke him, as he was dressed well and driving a nice car (albeit one that had broken down). Rather than arguing with them, he walked to a car dealership, and bought a new car with the cash that he had on him. By 1956 he was getting around $4000 per appearance, roughly equivalent to $43,000 today, and he was making a *lot* of appearances. He also sold half a million records that year. Various gospel singers, including the Clara Ward Singers, would perform on the tours he organised, and one of those performers was Franklin's middle daughter Aretha. Aretha had become pregnant when she was twelve, and after giving birth to the child she dropped out of school, but her grandmother did most of the child-rearing for her, while she accompanied her father on tour. Aretha's first recordings, made when she was just fourteen, show what an astonishing talent she already was at that young age. She would grow as an artist, of course, as she aged and gained experience, but those early gospel records already show an astounding maturity and ability. It's jaw-dropping to listen to these records of a fourteen-year-old, and immediately recognise them as a fully-formed Aretha Franklin. [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood"] Smokey Robinson's assessment that she was born with her gifts fully formed doesn't seem like an exaggeration when you hear that. For the latter half of the fifties, Aretha toured with her father, performing on the gospel circuit and becoming known there. But the Franklin sisters were starting to get ideas about moving into secular music. This was largely because their family friend Sam Cooke had done just that, with "You Send Me": [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "You Send Me"] Aretha and Erma still worshipped Cooke, and Aretha would later talk about getting dressed up just to watch Cooke appear on the TV. Their brother Cecil later said "I remember the night Sam came to sing at the Flame Show Bar in Detroit. Erma and Ree said they weren't going because they were so heartbroken that Sam had recently married. I didn't believe them. And I knew I was right when they started getting dressed about noon for the nine o'clock show. Because they were underage, they put on a ton of makeup to look older. It didn't matter 'cause Berry Gordy's sisters, Anna and Gwen, worked the photo concession down there, taking pictures of the party people. Anna was tight with Daddy and was sure to let my sisters in. She did, and they came home with stars in their eyes.” Moving from gospel to secular music still had a stigma against it in the gospel world, but Rev. Franklin had never seen secular music as sinful, and he encouraged his daughters in their ambitions. Erma was the first to go secular, forming a girl group, the Cleo-Patrettes, at the suggestion of the Four Tops, who were family friends, and recording a single for Joe Von Battle's J-V-B label, "No Other Love": [Excerpt: The Cleo-Patrettes, "No Other Love"] But the group didn't go any further, as Rev. Franklin insisted that his eldest daughter had to finish school and go to university before she could become a professional singer. Erma missed other opportunities for different reasons, though -- Berry Gordy, at this time still a jobbing songwriter, offered her a song he'd written with his sister and Roquel Davis, but Erma thought of herself as a jazz singer and didn't want to do R&B, and so "All I Could Do Was Cry" was given to Etta James instead, who had a top forty pop hit with it: [Excerpt: Etta James, "All I Could Do Was Cry"] While Erma's move into secular music was slowed by her father wanting her to have an education, there was no such pressure on Aretha, as she had already dropped out. But Aretha had a different problem -- she was very insecure, and said that church audiences "weren't critics, but worshippers", but she was worried that nightclub audiences in particular were just the kind of people who would just be looking for flaws, rather than wanting to support the performer as church audiences did. But eventually she got up the nerve to make the move. There was the possibility of her getting signed to Motown -- her brother was still best friends with Smokey Robinson, while the Gordy family were close to her father -- but Rev. Franklin had his eye on bigger things. He wanted her to be signed to Columbia, which in 1960 was the most prestigious of all the major labels. As Aretha's brother Cecil later said "He wanted Ree on Columbia, the label that recorded Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Percy Faith, and Doris Day. Daddy said that Columbia was the biggest and best record company in the world. Leonard Bernstein recorded for Columbia." They went out to New York to see Phil Moore, a legendary vocal coach and arranger who had helped make Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge into stars, but Moore actually refused to take her on as a client, saying "She does not require my services. Her style has already been developed. Her style is in place. It is a unique style that, in my professional opinion, requires no alteration. It simply requires the right material. Her stage presentation is not of immediate concern. All that will come later. The immediate concern is the material that will suit her best. And the reason that concern will not be easily addressed is because I can't imagine any material that will not suit her." That last would become a problem for the next few years, but the immediate issue was to get someone at Columbia to listen to her, and Moore could help with that -- he was friends with John Hammond. Hammond is a name that's come up several times in the podcast already -- we mentioned him in the very earliest episodes, and also in episode ninety-eight, where we looked at his signing of Bob Dylan. But Hammond was a legend in the music business. He had produced sessions for Bessie Smith, had discovered Count Basie and Billie Holiday, had convinced Benny Goodman to hire Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton, had signed Pete Seeger and the Weavers to Columbia, had organised the Spirituals to Swing concerts which we talked about in the first few episodes of this podcast, and was about to put out the first album of Robert Johnson's recordings. Of all the executives at Columbia, he was the one who had the greatest eye for talent, and the greatest understanding of Black musical culture. Moore suggested that the Franklins get Major Holley to produce a demo recording that he could get Hammond to listen to. Major Holley was a family friend, and a jazz bassist who had played with Oscar Peterson and Coleman Hawkins among others, and he put together a set of songs for Aretha that would emphasise the jazz side of her abilities, pitching her as a Dinah Washington style bluesy jazz singer. The highlight of the demo was a version of "Today I Sing the Blues", a song that had originally been recorded by Helen Humes, the singer who we last heard of recording “Be Baba Leba” with Bill Doggett: [Excerpt: Helen Humes, "Today I Sing the Blues"] That original version had been produced by Hammond, but the song had also recently been covered by Aretha's idol, Sam Cooke: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "Today I Sing the Blues"] Hammond was hugely impressed by the demo, and signed Aretha straight away, and got to work producing her first album. But he and Rev. Franklin had different ideas about what Aretha should do. Hammond wanted to make a fairly raw-sounding bluesy jazz album, the kind of recording he had produced with Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday, but Rev. Franklin wanted his daughter to make music that would cross over to the white pop market -- he was aiming for the same kind of audience that Nat "King" Cole or Harry Belafonte had, and he wanted her recording standards like "Over the Rainbow". This showed a lack of understanding on Rev. Franklin's part of how such crossovers actually worked at this point. As Etta James later said, "If you wanna have Black hits, you gotta understand the Black streets, you gotta work those streets and work those DJs to get airplay on Black stations... Or looking at it another way, in those days you had to get the Black audience to love the hell outta you and then hope the love would cross over to the white side. Columbia didn't know nothing 'bout crossing over.” But Hammond knew they had to make a record quickly, because Sam Cooke had been working on RCA Records, trying to get them to sign Aretha, and Rev. Franklin wanted an album out so they could start booking club dates for her, and was saying that if they didn't get one done quickly he'd take up that offer, and so they came up with a compromise set of songs which satisfied nobody, but did produce two R&B top ten hits, "Won't Be Long" and Aretha's version of "Today I Sing the Blues": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Today I Sing the Blues"] This is not to say that Aretha herself saw this as a compromise -- she later said "I have never compromised my material. Even then, I knew a good song from a bad one. And if Hammond, one of the legends of the business, didn't know how to produce a record, who does? No, the fault was with promotion." And this is something important to bear in mind as we talk about her Columbia records. Many, *many* people have presented those records as Aretha being told what to do by producers who didn't understand her art and were making her record songs that didn't fit her style. That's not what's happening with the Columbia records. Everyone actually involved said that Aretha was very involved in the choices made -- and there are some genuinely great tracks on those albums. The problem is that they're *unfocused*. Aretha was only eighteen when she signed to the label, and she loved all sorts of music -- blues, jazz, soul, standards, gospel, middle-of-the-road pop music -- and wanted to sing all those kinds of music. And she *could* sing all those kinds of music, and sing them well. But it meant the records weren't coherent. You didn't know what you were getting, and there was no artistic personality that dominated them, it was just what Aretha felt like recording. Around this time, Aretha started to think that maybe her father didn't know what he was talking about when it came to popular music success, even though she idolised him in most areas, and she turned to another figure, who would soon become both her husband and manager. Ted White. Her sister Erma, who was at that time touring with Lloyd Price, had introduced them, but in fact Aretha had first seen White years earlier, in her own house -- he had been Dinah Washington's boyfriend in the fifties, and her first sight of him had been carrying a drunk Washington out of the house after a party. In interviews with David Ritz, who wrote biographies of many major soul stars including both Aretha Franklin and Etta James, James had a lot to say about White, saying “Ted White was famous even before he got with Aretha. My boyfriend at the time, Harvey Fuqua, used to talk about him. Ted was supposed to be the slickest pimp in Detroit. When I learned that Aretha married him, I wasn't surprised. A lot of the big-time singers who we idolized as girls—like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan—had pimps for boyfriends and managers. That was standard operating procedure. My own mother had made a living turning tricks. When we were getting started, that way of life was part of the music business. It was in our genes. Part of the lure of pimps was that they got us paid." She compared White to Ike Turner, saying "Ike made Tina, no doubt about it. He developed her talent. He showed her what it meant to be a performer. He got her famous. Of course, Ted White was not a performer, but he was savvy about the world. When Harvey Fuqua introduced me to him—this was the fifties, before he was with Aretha—I saw him as a super-hip extra-smooth cat. I liked him. He knew music. He knew songwriters who were writing hit songs. He had manners. Later, when I ran into him and Aretha—this was the sixties—I saw that she wasn't as shy as she used to be." White was a pimp, but he was also someone with music business experience -- he owned an unsuccessful publishing company, and also ran a chain of jukeboxes. He was also thirty, while Aretha was only eighteen. But White didn't like the people in Aretha's life at the time -- he didn't get on well with her father, and he also clashed with John Hammond. And Aretha was also annoyed at Hammond, because her sister Erma had signed to Epic, a Columbia subsidiary, and was releasing her own singles: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Hello Again"] Aretha was certain that Hammond had signed Erma, even though Hammond had nothing to do with Epic Records, and Erma had actually been recommended by Lloyd Price. And Aretha, while for much of her career she would support her sister, was also terrified that her sister might have a big hit before her and leave Aretha in her shadow. Hammond was still the credited producer on Aretha's second album, The Electrifying Aretha Franklin, but his lack of say in the sessions can be shown in the choice of lead-off single. "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody" was originally recorded by Al Jolson in 1918: [Excerpt: Al Jolson, "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody"] Rev. Franklin pushed for the song, as he was a fan of Jolson -- Jolson, oddly, had a large Black fanbase, despite his having been a blackface performer, because he had *also* been a strong advocate of Black musicians like Cab Calloway, and the level of racism in the media of the twenties through forties was so astonishingly high that even a blackface performer could seem comparatively OK. Aretha's performance was good, but it was hardly the kind of thing that audiences were clamouring for in 1961: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody"] That single came out the month after _Down Beat_ magazine gave Aretha the "new-star female vocalist award", and it oddly made the pop top forty, her first record to do so, and the B-side made the R&B top ten, but for the next few years both chart success and critical acclaim eluded her. None of her next nine singles would make higher than number eighty-six on the Hot One Hundred, and none would make the R&B charts at all. After that transitional second album, she was paired with producer Bob Mersey, who was precisely the kind of white pop producer that one would expect for someone who hoped for crossover success. Mersey was the producer for many of Columbia's biggest stars at the time -- people like Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, Julie Andrews, Patti Page, and Mel Tormé -- and it was that kind of audience that Aretha wanted to go for at this point. To give an example of the kind of thing that Mersey was doing, just the month before he started work on his first collaboration with Aretha, _The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin_, his production of Andy Williams singing "Moon River" was released: [Excerpt: Andy Williams, "Moon River"] This was the kind of audience Aretha was going for when it came to record sales – the person she compared herself to most frequently at this point was Barbra Streisand – though in live performances she was playing with a small jazz group in jazz venues, and going for the same kind of jazz-soul crossover audience as Dinah Washington or Ray Charles. The strategy seems to have been to get something like the success of her idol Sam Cooke, who could play to soul audiences but also play the Copacabana, but the problem was that Cooke had built an audience before doing that -- she hadn't. But even though she hadn't built up an audience, musicians were starting to pay attention. Ted White, who was still in touch with Dinah Washington, later said “Women are very catty. They'll see a girl who's dressed very well and they'll say, Yeah, but look at those shoes, or look at that hairdo. Aretha was the only singer I've ever known that Dinah had no negative comments about. She just stood with her mouth open when she heard Aretha sing.” The great jazz vocalist Carmen McRea went to see Aretha at the Village Vanguard in New York around this time, having heard the comparisons to Dinah Washington, and met her afterwards. She later said "Given how emotionally she sang, I expected her to have a supercharged emotional personality like Dinah. Instead, she was the shyest thing I've ever met. Would hardly look me in the eye. Didn't say more than two words. I mean, this bitch gave bashful a new meaning. Anyway, I didn't give her any advice because she didn't ask for any, but I knew goddamn well that, no matter how good she was—and she was absolutely wonderful—she'd have to make up her mind whether she wanted to be Della Reese, Dinah Washington, or Sarah Vaughan. I also had a feeling she wouldn't have minded being Leslie Uggams or Diahann Carroll. I remember thinking that if she didn't figure out who she was—and quick—she was gonna get lost in the weeds of the music biz." So musicians were listening to Aretha, even if everyone else wasn't. The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin, for example, was full of old standards like "Try a Little Tenderness": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Try a Little Tenderness"] That performance inspired Otis Redding to cut his own version of that song a few years later: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"] And it might also have inspired Aretha's friend and idol Sam Cooke to include the song in his own lounge sets. The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin also included Aretha's first original composition, but in general it wasn't a very well-received album. In 1963, the first cracks started to develop in Aretha's relationship with Ted White. According to her siblings, part of the strain was because Aretha's increasing commitment to the civil rights movement was costing her professional opportunities. Her brother Cecil later said "Ted White had complete sway over her when it came to what engagements to accept and what songs to sing. But if Daddy called and said, ‘Ree, I want you to sing for Dr. King,' she'd drop everything and do just that. I don't think Ted had objections to her support of Dr. King's cause, and he realized it would raise her visibility. But I do remember the time that there was a conflict between a big club gig and doing a benefit for Dr. King. Ted said, ‘Take the club gig. We need the money.' But Ree said, ‘Dr. King needs me more.' She defied her husband. Maybe that was the start of their marital trouble. Their thing was always troubled because it was based on each of them using the other. Whatever the case, my sister proved to be a strong soldier in the civil rights fight. That made me proud of her and it kept her relationship with Daddy from collapsing entirely." In part her increasing activism was because of her father's own increase in activity. The benefit that Cecil is talking about there is probably one in Chicago organised by Mahalia Jackson, where Aretha headlined on a bill that also included Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and the comedian Dick Gregory. That was less than a month before her father organised the Detroit Walk to Freedom, a trial run for the more famous March on Washington a few weeks later. The Detroit Walk to Freedom was run by the Detroit Council for Human Rights, which was formed by Rev. Franklin and Rev. Albert Cleage, a much more radical Black nationalist who often differed with Franklin's more moderate integrationist stance. They both worked together to organise the Walk to Freedom, but Franklin's stance predominated, as several white liberal politicians, like the Mayor of Detroit, Jerome Cavanagh, were included in the largely-Black March. It drew crowds of 125,000 people, and Dr. King called it "one of the most wonderful things that has happened in America", and it was the largest civil rights demonstration in American history up to that point. King's speech in Detroit was recorded and released on Motown Records: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Original 'I Have a Dream' Speech”] He later returned to the same ideas in his more famous speech in Washington. During that civil rights spring and summer of 1963, Aretha also recorded what many think of as the best of her Columbia albums, a collection of jazz standards  called Laughing on the Outside, which included songs like "Solitude", "Ol' Man River" and "I Wanna Be Around": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Wanna Be Around"] The opening track, "Skylark", was Etta James' favourite ever Aretha Franklin performance, and is regarded by many as the definitive take on the song: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Skylark"] Etta James later talked about discussing the track with the great jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, one of Aretha's early influences, who had recorded her own version of the song: "Sarah said, ‘Have you heard of this Aretha Franklin girl?' I said, ‘You heard her do “Skylark,” didn't you?' Sarah said, ‘Yes, I did, and I'm never singing that song again.” But while the album got noticed by other musicians, it didn't get much attention from the wider public. Mersey decided that a change in direction was needed, and they needed to get in someone with more of a jazz background to work with Aretha. He brought in pianist and arranger Bobby Scott, who had previously worked with people like Lester Young, and Scott said of their first meeting “My first memory of Aretha is that she wouldn't look at me when I spoke. She withdrew from the encounter in a way that intrigued me. At first I thought she was just shy—and she was—but I also felt her reading me...For all her deference to my experience and her reluctance to speak up, when she did look me in the eye, she did so with a quiet intensity before saying, ‘I like all your ideas, Mr. Scott, but please remember I do want hits.'” They started recording together, but the sides they cut wouldn't be released for a few years. Instead, Aretha and Mersey went in yet another direction. Dinah Washington died suddenly in December 1963, and given that Aretha was already being compared to Washington by almost everyone, and that Washington had been a huge influence on her, as well as having been close to both her father and her husband/manager, it made sense to go into the studio and quickly cut a tribute album, with Aretha singing Washington's hits: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Cold Cold Heart"] Unfortunately, while Washington had been wildly popular, and one of the most important figures in jazz and R&B in the forties and fifties, her style was out of date. The tribute album, titled Unforgettable, came out in February 1964, the same month that Beatlemania hit the US. Dinah Washington was the past, and trying to position Aretha as "the new Dinah Washington" would doom her to obscurity. John Hammond later said "I remember thinking that if Aretha never does another album she will be remembered for this one. No, the problem was timing. Dinah had died, and, outside the black community, interest in her had waned dramatically. Popular music was in a radical and revolutionary moment, and that moment had nothing to do with Dinah Washington, great as she was and will always be.” At this point, Columbia brought in Clyde Otis, an independent producer and songwriter who had worked with artists like Washington and Sarah Vaughan, and indeed had written one of the songs on Unforgettable, but had also worked with people like Brook Benton, who had a much more R&B audience. For example, he'd written "Baby, You Got What It Takes" for Benton and Washington to do as a duet: [Excerpt: Brook Benton and Dinah Washington, "Baby, You Got What it Takes"] In 1962, when he was working at Mercury Records before going independent, Otis had produced thirty-three of the fifty-one singles the label put out that year that had charted. Columbia had decided that they were going to position Aretha firmly in the R&B market, and assigned Otis to do just that. At first, though, Otis had no more luck with getting Aretha to sing R&B than anyone else had. He later said "Aretha, though, couldn't be deterred from her determination to beat Barbra Streisand at Barbra's own game. I kept saying, ‘Ree, you can outsing Streisand any day of the week. That's not the point. The point is to find a hit.' But that summer she just wanted straight-up ballads. She insisted that she do ‘People,' Streisand's smash. Aretha sang the hell out of it, but no one's gonna beat Barbra at her own game." But after several months of this, eventually Aretha and White came round to the idea of making an R&B record. Otis produced an album of contemporary R&B, with covers of music from the more sophisticated end of the soul market, songs like "My Guy", "Every Little Bit Hurts", and "Walk on By", along with a few new originals brought in by Otis. The title track, "Runnin' Out of Fools", became her biggest hit in three years, making number fifty-seven on the pop charts and number thirty on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Runnin' Out of Fools"] After that album, they recorded another album with Otis producing, a live-in-the-studio jazz album, but again nobody involved could agree on a style for her. By this time it was obvious that she was unhappy with Columbia and would be leaving the label soon, and they wanted to get as much material in the can as they could, so they could continue releasing material after she left. But her working relationship with Otis was deteriorating -- Otis and Ted White did not get on, Aretha and White were having their own problems, and Aretha had started just not showing up for some sessions, with nobody knowing where she was. Columbia passed her on to yet another producer, this time Bob Johnston, who had just had a hit with Patti Page, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte": [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte"] Johnston was just about to hit an incredible hot streak as a producer. At the same time as his sessions with Aretha, he was also producing Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, and just after the sessions finished he'd go on to produce Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence album. In the next few years he would produce a run of classic Dylan albums like Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and New Morning, Simon & Garfunkel's follow up Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Leonard Cohen's first three albums, and Johnny Cash's comeback with the Live at Folsom Prison album and its follow up At San Quentin. He also produced records for Marty Robbins, Flatt & Scruggs, the Byrds, and Burl Ives during that time period. But you may notice that while that's as great a run of records as any producer was putting out at the time, it has little to do with the kind of music that Aretha Franklin was making then, or would become famous with. Johnston produced a string-heavy session in which Aretha once again tried to sing old standards by people like Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. She then just didn't turn up for some more sessions, until one final session in August, when she recorded songs like "Swanee" and "You Made Me Love You". For more than a year, she didn't go into a studio. She also missed many gigs and disappeared from her family's life for periods of time. Columbia kept putting out records of things she'd already recorded, but none of them had any success at all. Many of the records she'd made for Columbia had been genuinely great -- there's a popular perception that she was being held back by a record company that forced her to sing material she didn't like, but in fact she *loved* old standards, and jazz tunes, and contemporary pop at least as much as any other kind of music. Truly great musicians tend to have extremely eclectic tastes, and Aretha Franklin was a truly great musician if anyone was. Her Columbia albums are as good as any albums in those genres put out in that time period, and she remained proud of them for the rest of her life. But that very eclecticism had meant that she hadn't established a strong identity as a performer -- everyone who heard her records knew she was a great singer, but nobody knew what "an Aretha Franklin record" really meant -- and she hadn't had a single real hit, which was the thing she wanted more than anything. All that changed when in the early hours of the morning, Jerry Wexler was at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals recording a Wilson Pickett track -- from the timeline, it was probably the session for "Mustang Sally", which coincidentally was published by Ted White's publishing company, as Sir Mack Rice, the writer, was a neighbour of White and Franklin, and to which Aretha had made an uncredited songwriting contribution: [Excerpt: Wilson Pickett, "Mustang Sally"] Whatever the session, it wasn't going well. Percy Sledge, another Atlantic artist who recorded at Muscle Shoals, had turned up and had started winding Pickett up, telling him he sounded just like James Brown. Pickett *hated* Brown -- it seems like almost every male soul singer of the sixties hated James Brown -- and went to physically attack Sledge. Wexler got between the two men to protect his investments in them -- both were the kind of men who could easily cause some serious damage to anyone they hit -- and Pickett threw him to one side and charged at Sledge. At that moment the phone went, and Wexler yelled at the two of them to calm down so he could talk on the phone. The call was telling him that Aretha Franklin was interested in recording for Atlantic. Rev. Louise Bishop, later a Democratic politician in Pennsylvania, was at this time a broadcaster, presenting a radio gospel programme, and she knew Aretha. She'd been to see her perform, and had been astonished by Aretha's performance of a recent Otis Redding single, "Respect": [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Respect"] Redding will, by the way, be getting his own episode in a few months' time, which is why I've not covered the making of that record here. Bishop thought that Aretha did the song even better than Redding -- something Bishop hadn't thought possible. When she got talking to Aretha after the show, she discovered that her contract with Columbia was up, and Aretha didn't really know what she was going to do -- maybe she'd start her own label or something. She hadn't been into the studio in more than a year, but she did have some songs she'd been working on. Bishop was good friends with Jerry Wexler, and she knew that he was a big fan of Aretha's, and had been saying for a while that when her contract was up he'd like to sign her. Bishop offered to make the connection, and then went back home and phoned Wexler's wife, waking her up -- it was one in the morning by this point, but Bishop was accustomed to phoning Wexler late at night when it was something important. Wexler's wife then phoned him in Muscle Shoals, and he phoned Bishop back and made the arrangements to meet up. Initially, Wexler wasn't thinking about producing Aretha himself -- this was still the period when he and the Ertegun brothers were thinking of selling Atlantic and getting out of the music business, and so while he signed her to the label he was originally going to hand her over to Jim Stewart at Stax to record, as he had with Sam and Dave. But in a baffling turn of events, Jim Stewart didn't actually want to record her, and so Wexler determined that he had better do it himself. And he didn't want to do it with slick New York musicians -- he wanted to bring out the gospel sound in her voice, and he thought the best way to do that was with musicians from what Charles Hughes refers to as "the country-soul triangle" of Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. So he booked a week's worth of sessions at FAME studios, and got in FAME's regular rhythm section, plus a couple of musicians from American Recordings in Memphis -- Chips Moman and Spooner Oldham. Oldham's friend and songwriting partner Dan Penn came along as well -- he wasn't officially part of the session, but he was a fan of Aretha's and wasn't going to miss this. Penn had been the first person that Rick Hall, the owner of FAME, had called when Wexler had booked the studio, because Hall hadn't actually heard of Aretha Franklin up to that point, but didn't want to let Wexler know that. Penn had assured him that Aretha was one of the all-time great talents, and that she just needed the right production to become massive. As Hall put it in his autobiography, "Dan tended in those days to hate anything he didn't write, so I figured if he felt that strongly about her, then she was probably going to be a big star." Charlie Chalmers, a horn player who regularly played with these musicians, was tasked with putting together a horn section. The first song they recorded that day was one that the musicians weren't that impressed with at first. "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)" was written by a songwriter named Ronnie Shannon, who had driven from Georgia to Detroit hoping to sell his songs to Motown. He'd popped into a barber's shop where Ted White was having his hair cut to ask for directions to Motown, and White had signed him to his own publishing company and got him to write songs for Aretha. On hearing the demo, the musicians thought that the song was mediocre and a bit shapeless: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You) (demo)"] But everyone there was agreed that Aretha herself was spectacular. She didn't speak much to the musicians, just went to the piano and sat down and started playing, and Jerry Wexler later compared her playing to Thelonius Monk (who was indeed one of the jazz musicians who had influenced her). While Spooner Oldham had been booked to play piano, it was quickly decided to switch him to electric piano and organ, leaving the acoustic piano for Aretha to play, and she would play piano on all the sessions Wexler produced for her in future. Although while Wexler is the credited producer (and on this initial session Rick Hall at FAME is a credited co-producer), everyone involved, including Wexler, said that the musicians were taking their cues from Aretha rather than anyone else. She would outline the arrangements at the piano, and everyone else would fit in with what she was doing, coming up with head arrangements directed by her. But Wexler played a vital role in mediating between her and the musicians and engineering staff, all of whom he knew and she didn't. As Rick Hall said "After her brief introduction by Wexler, she said very little to me or anyone else in the studio other than Jerry or her husband for the rest of the day. I don't think Aretha and I ever made eye contact after our introduction, simply because we were both so totally focused on our music and consumed by what we were doing." The musicians started working on "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)", and at first found it difficult to get the groove, but then Oldham came up with an electric piano lick which everyone involved thought of as the key that unlocked the song for them: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)"] After that, they took a break. Most of them were pleased with the track, though Rick Hall wasn't especially happy. But then Rick Hall wasn't especially happy about anything at that point. He'd always used mono for his recordings until then, but had been basically forced to install at least a two-track system by Tom Dowd, Atlantic's chief engineer, and was resentful of this imposition. During the break, Dan Penn went off to finish a song he and Spooner Oldham had been writing, which he hoped Aretha would record at the session: [Excerpt: Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man"] They had the basic structure of the song down, but hadn't quite finished the middle eight, and both Jerry Wexler and Aretha Franklin chipped in uncredited lyrical contributions -- Aretha's line was "as long as we're together baby, you'd better show some respect to me". Penn, Oldham, Chips Moman, Roger Hawkins, and Tommy Cogbill started cutting a backing track for the song, with Penn singing lead initially with the idea that Aretha would overdub her vocal. But while they were doing this, things had been going wrong with the other participants. All the FAME and American rhythm section players were white, as were Wexler, Hall, and Dowd, and Wexler had been very aware of this, and of the fact that they were recording in Alabama, where Aretha and her husband might not feel totally safe, so he'd specifically requested that the horn section at least contain some Black musicians. But Charlie Chalmers hadn't been able to get any of the Black musicians he would normally call when putting together a horn section, and had ended up with an all-white horn section as well, including one player, a trumpet player called Ken Laxton, who had a reputation as a good player but had never worked with any of the other musicians there -- he was an outsider in a group of people who regularly worked together and had a pre-existing relationship. As the two outsiders, Laxton and Ted White had, at first, bonded, and indeed had started drinking vodka together, passing a bottle between themselves, in a way that Rick Hall would normally not allow in a session -- at the time, the county the studio was in was still a dry county. But as Wexler said, “A redneck patronizing a Black man is a dangerous camaraderie,” and White and Laxton soon had a major falling out. Everyone involved tells a different story about what it was that caused them to start rowing, though it seems to have been to do with Laxton not showing the proper respect for Aretha, or even actually sexually assaulting her -- Dan Penn later said “I always heard he patted her on the butt or somethin', and what would have been wrong with that anyway?”, which says an awful lot about the attitudes of these white Southern men who thought of themselves as very progressive, and were -- for white Southern men in early 1967. Either way, White got very, very annoyed, and insisted that Laxton get fired from the session, which he was, but that still didn't satisfy White, and he stormed off to the motel, drunk and angry. The rest of them finished cutting a basic track for "Do Right Woman", but nobody was very happy with it. Oldham said later “She liked the song but hadn't had time to practice it or settle into it I remember there was Roger playing the drums and Cogbill playing the bass. And I'm on these little simplistic chords on organ, just holding chords so the song would be understood. And that was sort of where it was left. Dan had to sing the vocal, because she didn't know the song, in the wrong key for him. That's what they left with—Dan singing the wrong-key vocal and this little simplistic organ and a bass and a drum. We had a whole week to do everything—we had plenty of time—so there was no hurry to do anything in particular.” Penn was less optimistic, saying "But as I rem

In episode 93 of Thanks, I Hate It!, Brittany and Windsor celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with another excellence episode. Brittany talks about Anna May Wong, Grace Lee Boggs and Queen Lili'Oukalani. Windsor discusses Dr. Margaret Chung, Tammy Duckworth, and George Tekai.Join us as we celebrate just a few of the many amazing Asian American/Pacific Islanders.

Tara Rin Burke is a biracial non-binary Japanese Mystic who leans deeply into the wisdom of elemental magick and metaphor to connect. They are claircognizant, clairsentient, and clairaudient, and enter into relationship with these gifts through a lense of neuro-divergence and recognizing that so much of the way they live their life travels across timelines. Tara roots their personal folklore and mythological senses through seasonal folklore rooted in both Gaelic and Shinto based cosmologies where they track ancestral veneration, lineage tracking, and understanding the complexity, nuance and particularities of being of Irish, Slovak and Japanese descent. A forever student of practical magick making magick accessible regardless of entry point & introduction, Tara roots their studies within the framework of animist studies which in earlier years were guided largely in part by Laura Blakeman and Aquarian Witch Connie Bender. They have felt continued wisdom teachings and offerings on de-centering the white-centric spirituality complex and honoring earth-magick and wisdom dreams honored by BIPOC folks across the Diaspora, through listening and being in appreciation of the impact of the mystical throughout culture and across time. They deeply credit the work of Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, Jewelle Gomez, Mary Oliver, Grace Lee Boggs, and Ursula K. Le Guin, as offering them a way to see worlds beyond the ones we're living in, and to see new futures through their knowing that something exists beyond our scope of current lived realities. Their deeper understandings of time-travel comes from their love of science fiction and the imaginal landscapes of Anime, ASMR, collective organizing spaces, and understanding the pathways of dreams. Tara believes deeply in the body's wisdom to hold informational coordinates for who we are and who we are becoming. TO WORK WITH TARA: find them through Instagram, their Patreon Hearth, and their website which, as a neuroemergent witch, is in the process of transmutation. RESOURCES SHARED BY TARA IN THIS EPISODE: Jade T. Perry; Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes and the book "Women Who Run with the Wolves;" David Whyte and the poem "Turn Sideways Into Light;" "Tales of Japan: Traditional Stories of Monsters and Magic;" "The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore;" "Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch: True to the Heart" SUPPORT THIS PODCAST ON PATREON FOLLOW NICK ON INSTAGRAM BOOK A READING WITH NICK (thru 5/31/22) "In Search of Tarot" theme music written and recorded by AJ Ackleson.

The squad heads to our movement sister city for this episode of One Million Experiments with the Detroit Safety Team, led by Curtis Renee and John Sloan III. The organization, which was birthed out of creating anticarceral safety processes for the Detroit-based Allied Media Conference, builds a network of community-trained safety practitioners across the city, providing a pathway toward communities that are self reliant—where it is understood that we have the capacity to rely on ourselves and our community to stay safe and handle harm productively. We talk about the evolving definition of safety, learning from communal evaluation, how the pandemic disrupted movement work, and much more. SHOW NOTES Support the work of Detroit Safety Team - https://www.redefinesafety.org/donate Learn more about Detroit Safety Team - https://www.redefinesafety.org/our-vision Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs - http://boggscenter.org/ Ron Scott - https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/11/30/ron-scott-detroit-activist-dies-68/76555556/ Allied Media Conference - https://amc.alliedmedia.org/ Subscribe to One Million Experiments - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/one-million-experiments/id1589966282 Explore all of the Experiments - http://millionexperiments.com/ Submit your Experiment - millionexperiments.com/Submit-a-Project Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

The squad heads to our movement sister city for this episode of One Million Experiments with the Detroit Safety Team, led by Curtis Renee and John Sloan III. The organization, which was birthed out of creating anticarceral safety processes for the Detroit-based Allied Media Conference, builds a network of community-trained safety practitioners across the city, providing a pathway toward communities that are self reliant—where it is understood that we have the capacity to rely on ourselves and our community to stay safe and handle harm productively. We talk about the evolving definition of safety, learning from communal evaluation, how the pandemic disrupted movement work, and much more. SHOW NOTES Support the work of Detroit Safety Team - https://www.redefinesafety.org/donate Learn more about Detroit Safety Team - https://www.redefinesafety.org/our-vision Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs - http://boggscenter.org/ Ron Scott - https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/11/30/ron-scott-detroit-activist-dies-68/76555556/ Allied Media Conference - https://amc.alliedmedia.org/ Subscribe to One Million Experiments - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/one-million-experiments/id1589966282 Explore all of the Experiments - http://millionexperiments.com/ Submit your Experiment - millionexperiments.com/Submit-a-Project Subscribe to AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

The interconnectedness of the mind and the body is important to note within sports and daily life. When there is a disconnect between the body and the mind, there can be problematic consequences. It is important to recognize when an athlete, or any human for that matter, is struggling with their mental health. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness and it should not be portrayed in a negative light. Mental health concerns are real and addressing these concerns should include a holistic approach, prioritizing both the mind and body. Let's make sport a positive vessel for implementing a beautiful change within society to support athletes and their mental health, alongside their physical health. Resources: Crisis hotlines, alternatives to 911 for mental health emergencies, and help in creating a safety plan can be found here: https://www.csueastbay.edu/shcs/counseling/options/crisis-support.html Online mental health screenings can be accessed here: https://www.helpyourselfhelpothers.org/ Skate Like a Girl is the organization that Kim Woozy, the host, is involved in. Read up on this organization here: https://www.skatelikeagirl.com/about.html You can get involved with the organization that backs this podcast, by visiting the Center for Sport and Social Justice's website: https://www.csueastbay.edu/cssj The Oakland Roots is special and one key aspect in creating their enriched environment is Nurtured Roots, in supporting and developing athletes on and off the field: https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/nurtured-roots/ Led by Lisa Bonta Sumii, AthMindset was created to balance an athlete's physical and mental health, to balance the whole ecosystem that supports the whole athlete: https://athmindset.io/about/ Trauma-Sensitive Youth Development Focused Coaches training can be located here: https://www.up2us.org/ Naomi Osaka talks about mental health: https://time.com/6077128/naomi-osaka-essay-tokyo-olympics/ Simone Biles speaks out about mental health: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjHQ5TgyPuc&t=171s Kevin Love addresses his own mental health journey: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/kevin-love-mental-health The Black Panther Party originated in Oakland and set the stage for many other activist movements in the future: https://www.visitoakland.com/blog/post/black-panther-party/ Authors that influenced Dania to express herself include: Grace Lee Boggs, Bell Hooks, James Baldwin, and Paolo Freire. She suggests athletes read books on liberatory theory to have agency on their general health. Battle Cry by Jason Wilson is a suggested book, particularly for colored athletes to find healing. A documentary that serves as a resource to witness the creativity and redirection of athletes who are dealing with significant mental and community health crises: https://futbolistas4lifefilm.com/ Lisa's AthMindset podcast on the SportsEpreneur podcast platform: https://sportsepreneur.com/se-podcast/ Guided meditations: https://plumvillage.app/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAybaRBhDtARIsAIEG3kn9ERoee2jzvWj6c5z2v-l2hYOYgMEUcRaGLSaDkZOgBmGjeTqPLGEaAj7VEALw_wcB Inner Engineering is a technology for well-being derived from the science of Yoga: https://www.innerengineering.com/sadhguru?gclid=Cj0KCQiAybaRBhDtARIsAIEG3klSSAbllzAsALF9HVnF4XLNh0m0g8QZNs2fhtFD5mBbS-V1xwTNhOQaAoQJEALw_wcB

These are the stories of leaders of color who carry the legacies of those who built the movement to end gender-based violence. They carry on the fighting spirit of giants who have moved on from this work like Sojourner Truth, Grace Lee Boggs, bell hooks, Ida B. Wells, Audre Lorde, and Yuri Kochiyama. We talk about the ways they have been harmed by this world while trying their hardest to keep their passion for the movement alive. Consider this our love letter to them and to aspiring leaders of color looking for belonging, inspiration, and affirmation.This series is supported by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). [This podcast tile uses modified images of: Alice Walker from The American Library Association, Angela Davis from Columbia GSAPP, Audre Lorde from Esla Dorfman, bell hooks from Alex Lozupone (Tduk), Grace Lee Boggs from Kyle McDonald, Ida B Wells: Public Domain, Patricia Hill Collins from Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil, Sojourner Truth: Public Domain, Yuri Kochiyama from Kochiyama family/UCLA Asian American Studies Center.]

In this episode, we explore place-based education (PBE)—the pedagogy behind it, and how it works in practice. We talk to Ethan Lowenstein, Director of the SE Michigan Stewardship Coalition about the impact being rooted in place can have on a child's education. We also speak to Julia Putnam, Amanda Rosman, and Marisol Teachworth of The James and Grace Lee Boggs School, a K-8 school on Detroit's east side that "immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities, and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum." And in the plot twist of the season, we learn that Casey taught art at the Boggs School for a year. Want to learn more about James & Grace Lee Boggs? This article from Yes! Magazine featuring Julia Putnam & The Boggs Center are excellent starting points.

On the Season 3 premiere of Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast, Western States Center Executive Director and Race Forward Senior Fellow Eric Ward joins us to ground and center us, and you, our listeners, in our racial justice work! Update: Hiba is back from sabbatical, and now Chevon is taking her well-deserved time off, and in the meantime, Dennis is back to fill in!  Hiba and Dennis open the episode with a short recap of recent happenings –– the Delta COVID-19 variant, Climate Change/flooding in NYC, the ongoing fight over critical race theory being taught in schools, and refugee resettlement efforts triggered by global events.  Holding all this, Dennis and Eric have a conversation inspired by Grace Lee Boggs' quote “what time is it in the clock of the world”, and what it means for the hurdles we are facing as racial justice practitioners.  Eric also discusses the urgent work of racial equity, how work towards a multiracial democracy is the alternative to the spread of white nationalism, the case study of the city of Portland, and extremist backlash and insurgencies, and how we can use that backlash as fuel to carry us forward in our work to “12:02AM”.  Resources (by order of mention) Here's Why The Gap in COVID-19 Vaccines Continues to Widen (via Colorlines) https://bit.ly/3EkrHvR Overlapping Disasters Expose Harsh Climate Reality: The U.S. Is Not Ready (via The New York Times)https://nyti.ms/3992pSX IPCC 2021 report: How bad will climate change get? (via Vox)https://bit.ly/3ll7kGc How the Scare Over Critical Race Theory Will Hurt Black Children (via Colorlines)https://bit.ly/3CkPmut The battle for Mekelle: Ethiopia's civil war over Tigray goes on – in pictures (via The Guardian)https://bit.ly/3hxHo9m Inside the effort to resettle thousands of Afghans in the United States (via CNN)https://cnn.it/396mvNQ Guide To Counter-Narrating The Attacks On Critical Race Theory (via Race Forward)https://bit.ly/3tKCg6H Eric K. Ward  Western States Centerwww.westernstatescenter.org “Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism.” (via Political Research Associates) https://bit.ly/3lJhzV9 “The Struggle That Unites Us.” (via Oregon Humanities) https://bit.ly/3hB2jrZ Twitterwww.twitter.com/bulldogshadow Instagramwww.instagram.com/bulldog_shadow  Bulldog Shadow (Spotify) About Race Forward:  Race Forward catalyzes movement building for racial justice. In partnership with communities, organizations, and sectors, we build strategies to advance racial justice in our policies, institutions, and culture. Race Forward imagines a just, multiracial, democratic society, free from oppression and exploitation, in which people of color thrive with power and purpose. Follow Race Forward on social media Follow us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/raceforward Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/raceforward Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/raceforward#RaceAnd: Our Present, Our Future http://bit.ly/raceandopofevent Building Racial Equity (BRE) Trainings  www.raceforward.org/trainings Subscribe to our newsletter:www.raceforward.org/subscribe Executive Producers: Hendel Leiva, Cheryl Cato BlakemoreAssociate Producer/ Editor: Kendy Solis 

A Dove Tale: Grace Lee Boggs was an Asian American activist, writer and leader spending much of her life working in Detroit, Michigan advocating for Asian Americans, African Americans, Vietnam veterans, workers' rights and the environment. Ms. Boggs, fostered Dr. King's vision of “beloved communities,” striving for racial and economic justice through nonconfrontational methods. As Detroit's economy and population declined sharply over the years, Ms. Boggs became a prominent symbol of resistance to the spreading blight. Grace once wrote "We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems: not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.”

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Asian American History 101 Podcast! Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the U.S.! In recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, co-hosts Gen & Ted Lai discuss the incredible life of activist Grace Lee Boggs. They talk about her life, how she was influenced by Dr. King, her impact on the civil rights movement, and her lasting legacy as an Asian American activist. The final segment of this episode provides information on the Asian American organization, Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Want to learn more? Visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or https://linktr.ee/AAHistory101 for social media. Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email us at info@1882media.com.

This week we bring you a two part series on the American black radical tradition. Joined by educator and activist Kazembe Balagun we discuss some of the fundamental questions of black marxism and revolution leading to the current day. In this episode we talk about the Haitian revolution, Harriet Tubman, WEB Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Harry Haywood, CLR James and the Johnson Forest Tendency, James and Grace Lee Boggs, DRUM, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the Black Panther Party. Many of the texts in question can be found in the Communist Research Cluster Black Radical Tradition reader: https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/black-revolutionaries-in-the-united-states/ Other referenced texts: CLR James and Grace Lee Boggs - Facing Reality https://libcom.org/files/James%20-%20Facing%20Reality.pdf Finally Got the News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FarGHAO7h-c Excellent analysis of Huey P Newton's conception of intercommunalism: https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-the-late-theorizations-of-huey-p-newton-chief-theoretician-of-the-black-panther-party/ https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-1974/ Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation by Angela Davis - https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/davispoprprblli.html Viewpoint Mag reader on whiteness: https://www.viewpointmag.com/2020/08/05/beyond-guilt-and-privilege-abolishing-the-white-race/ Closing song: Joe L. Carter - Please Mr. Foreman

♡ SUPPORT THIS PODCAST ♡ In today's episode, Gina offers listeners a number of ways to help thrive during the "stay at home order" we are nearly all subject to in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic. Listen in for easy to use tools to help limit your anxiety during these trying times. Episodes mentioned in today's show 353: GRATITUDE AS A HEALING SALVE https://www.theanxietycoachespodcast.com/episodes/353-gratitude-as-a-healing-salve?rq=gratitude 459: 10 WAYS TO GREATER GRATITUDE AND PEACE OF MIND https://www.theanxietycoachespodcast.com/episodes/459-10-ways-to-greater-gratitude-and-peace-of-mind?rq=gratitude To learn more go to: http://www.theanxietycoachespodcast.com Join our Group Coaching Full or Mini Membership Program  Learn more about our One-on-One Coaching What is anxiety? Quote: A revolution that is based on people exercising creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of mankind. -Grace Lee Boggs