Podcasts about Hmong

Question? Comment? Send us a Message!Sean and Dane are back!! The guys recap their weeks and give updates on life! They review the results of the Badgerland Bag Brawl, dramatically read the best posts of the week and discuss random topics along the way!! Then ACL Top 100 rookie, YuePheng Yang joins the show fresh off hitting the biggest shot of his life! They discuss his journey, why the Hmong community is flourishing in the game and draft “Best frozen Treats”!!!!BIG ASP Cornhole Patreon page:4 Tiers to choose from!! Come join our growing community and get insider info, become an active participant in show content, be eligible for bag giveaway's, find our VIDEO of the interviews and more!!https://www.patreon.com/bigaspcornholeDraggin Bags!!-The “Power Draggin” might be the best bag we've ever thrown!! And we suck…imagine how good they could be in your hands….https://dragginbagz.com/Airwolf Athletics-Rep a brand that is built for players by veterans!! If you aren't rocking Airwolf gear…WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?https://airwolfathletics.com/Big Asp Merch!!!! Polos, Tees, Jerseys, shorts and more!!https://jamapparel.net/collections/new-the-big-asp-cornhole-podcast-collection-by-jamSupport the show

Khiav Dim 6. This is a daily reading from the Hmong Bible by Lo Lee. Season “36“ Episode “6“ from the book of “Exodus“. Enjoy. Disclaimer. God's word the Bible is an important part of those who follows him and it can change the life of those who take it seriously. The intention of this audio recording is to spread the word of God to anyone who understand Hmong. This audio can be downloaded and is only for personal use. It is not to be copy, edit in any shape or form, commercialize, upload to the internet, or change in any way. All background music is provided by Anchor and Pixabay at pixabay.com that this podcast creator has the right to use. Thank you for your interest in The Hmong Bible and may you be change as you listen to the word of God.

Guest Speaker Chue Thao shares his testimony and the story of how the Gospel came to the Hmong people. His theme is "Harvest Faithfully". The Scripture passage today is Isaiah 55:10-11.

Books written or translated into Hmong are relatively rare. It's estimated there are no more than 1,000 different book titles in Hmong. A new initiative called the Untamed Roots Collective is trying to change that in an effort to sustain and revitalize the language.This weekend, Untamed Roots Collective is launching self-published books in Hmong from more than a dozen authors. Kha Yang Xiong is an author and leader of the project. She joined MPR News host Nina Moini to share more.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is one of many airports nationwide that has been forced to cancel flights starting Friday due to staff shortages amidst the government shutdown. We hear how upcoming travel plans may be impacted. Women go through a big physical and mental change in midlife, but experts think that menopause is not talked about nearly enough. MPR News reporter Dan Gunderson is retiring after nearly 40 years of storytelling out of Moorhead. We look back at his illustrious career.Many Minnesotans are trying to dodge the glum mood that often comes with darker days in the winter. We get some tips.Plus, books published in Hmong are relatively rare. We talk to someone who's changing that.The Minnesota Music Minute was “Push and Pull” by Jaedyn James. The Song of the Day was “Spandrel” by Jacob Pavek.

Khiav Dim 5. This is a daily reading from the Hmong Bible by Lo Lee. Season “36“ Episode “5“ from the book of “Exodus“. Enjoy. Disclaimer. God's word the Bible is an important part of those who follows him and it can change the life of those who take it seriously. The intention of this audio recording is to spread the word of God to anyone who understand Hmong. This audio can be downloaded and is only for personal use. It is not to be copy, edit in any shape or form, commercialize, upload to the internet, or change in any way. All background music is provided by Anchor and Pixabay at pixabay.com that this podcast creator has the right to use. Thank you for your interest in The Hmong Bible and may you be change as you listen to the word of God.

Shared decision-making in pediatrics requires partnering with families and helping them align their values with the medical facts. Having an understanding of these values can help clinicians partner with parents and align towards a treatment plan that is best for the child. On this episode of A Question of Ethics, Dr. Wolfe talks cultural consultant and expert Shaman Tou Ger "Billy" Lor to discuss how Hmong culture and spirituality influence family medical decisions.

Hello Creeps and Peepers! Welcome to one last Halloween revisiting of a few of my favorite Nightmare Fuels as we lead up to tomorrow's special new Halloween Nightmare Fuel release. Today, we look back (or take a first look if you're new!) at a story set in San Francisco, where a monster from Hmong horror lore, the Night Hag known as Dab Tsog, shows the young members of one Hmong family how it is anything but harmless superstition.This episode is scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with headphones to get the full effect of all the creepy background noises!Thanks to AMC's FearFest for sponsoring this Nightmare Fuel re-release!  Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Scared to Death ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Wes Craven's 1984 horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced Freddy Krueger, a dream-stalking slasher who kills teens in their sleep—kills that become real—and was inspired by a chilling true epidemic of Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS) among Southeast Asian refugees in the late 1970s–80s. A young Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975–79, ~2 million dead) resettled in the U.S., tormented by nightmares of being chased, resisted sleep for days, then died mysteriously in bed with no autopsy findings; the CDC documented over 100 similar cases of healthy young Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian men dying overnight. Locally explained via folklore—like the Philippine batibat hag or Thai widow ghost suffocating victims—these deaths were later linked to Brugada syndrome, a genetic heart arrhythmia triggered by stress, heavy meals, or PTSD, though the "hundred years' enigma" remains unsolved, blending real trauma with cinematic terror.   Sources: Brugada syndrome: MedlinePlus Genetics. (n.d.). https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/brugada-syndrome/ Chaloemthanetphong, A., Choowongkomon, K., Worrapitirungsi, W., Thangsiriskul, N., Sathirapatya, T., Sukawutthiya, P., Noh, H., Kanhar, A. A., Varrathyarom, P., Lertparinyaphorn, I., Natthasumon, N., Bongsebandhu-Phubhakdi, S., Auvichayapat, V., & Vongpaisarnsin, K. (2025). SCN5A missense variants and their contribution to deaths in Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS). Forensic Science International Genetics, 76, 103237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2025.103237 www.history.com/news/nightmare-on-elm-street-real-inspiration-hmong-death   www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/movies/freddy-krueger-nightmare-on-elm-street-anniversary.html   Join The Dark Oak Discussion: Patreon The Dark Oak Podcast Website Facebook Instagram Twitter TikTok Youtube This episode of The Dark Oak was created, researched, written, recorded, hosted, edited, published, and marketed by Cynthia and Stefanie of Just Us Gals Productions with artwork by Justyse Himes and Music by Ryan Creep

  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 Host Miko Lee speaks with spouses of detained refugees. We hear about the similarities and challenges of Hmong and Nepali speaking Bhutanese refugees. We also speak with Asian Law Caucus' Aisa Villarosa about the ongoing campaigns for freedom that ALC has been leading along with a host of other community based organizations. Join us: November 3, 4pm Pacific time, 7pm Eastern Time, Join us for “We Belong Here, Bhutanese & Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness” a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. bit.ly/WBH-2025   TAKE ACTION Rising Voices campaign for Lue Yang Mohan Karki's GoFundMe   And please help support these organizations working to support detained and deported folx: Asian Law Caucus Asian Refugees United Ba Lo Project in Vietnam Collective Freedom in Vietnam & Laos Asian Prisoner Support Committee & New Light Wellness in Cambodia November 1–2, people nationwide are joining the Disappeared In America Weekend of Action to stand up for immigrant families and defend due process. Actions include protests at Home Depots, candlelight Freedom Vigils, and Day of the Dead events honoring lives lost to detention.     We Belong! Transcript Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express.This is your host, Miko Lee. Today we're talking about detentions and potential deportations and the atrocities that the Trump administration is creating in our communities.We originally recorded this episode a month ago, and today is October 29th. 2025 and I have with me Aisa Villarosa a lawyer with Asian Law Caucus, giving us an update in the cases that we're talking about. Welcome Aisa Apex Express. Aisa Villarosa: Thanks so much, Miko. Miko Lee: Tonight we're gonna be talking with two spouses of detained folks. One is a Nepali speaking Bhutanese community member, and the other is Hmong community member. In the time since we recorded this, there has been a big update with Lue Young's case, and I wonder if you could provide us with that update. Aisa Villarosa: Miko since we last spoke, due to some really hard fought campaigning, both behind the scenes and drawing upon allies across Michigan and really across the country. Lue Yang, received a successful pardon from Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We actually received word shortly before Lue Yang was set to be placed on a very large deportation flight. Once we got word of the pardon, it was off to the races for the legal team to quickly draft some emergency motions for Lue Yang and to realize the power of the pardon before the deportation. Miko Lee: Can we back up for a moment and give for an audience a sense of what that means? Lue Young was incarcerated at a detention facility, which Trump has called the FedEx of detention facilities in, Louisana, and explain to us what happened to him and the other members that were suddenly pulled together onto an airplane. Aisa Villarosa: When these removal flights happen, there's so much confusion, there's so much fear that families undergo, and often it's due to the perseverance of the families that we honestly even know where folks are. Shortly before what we call final staging happens, someone is moved from, in Lue's case, a facility in Michigan to a facility like Alexandria in Louisiana where the planes do take off  from. Families typically look up their loved one on something called the “ice detainee locator.” What's challenging is when final staging starts. Often that person completely disappears from the detainee locator or information gets a bit scrambled. Because ICE has a bit of a sealed box as far as even telling families where, their loved one is. Families are either left to guess or rely on each other. So for Lue Yang and the pardon what is critical for folks to know is that as powerful, as rare as a pardon is, I can't stress how extraordinary this is in these very difficult times. A pardon does not instantly, allow someone to say, walk out of an ice facility. There's, numerous legal filings that need to happen. That is why , the team was so up against the clock. Miko Lee: So let's break this down a little bit around a pardon. What does a pardon mean in our current system? Because as a lay person, you think, oh, they're pardoned. That means they're free and they can go home and be with their family. Tell us a little bit about what a pardon means in our legal system right now. Aisa Villarosa: A pardon is different from a criminal expungement, which folks might be familiar with. In Lue's case, for example, when Lue was younger, he successfully expunged this record, in criminal court. The challenge is that immigration court, is basically the entity that issues something called a “final order of removal.” This document, is basically what powers deportation for folks. An expungement does not get at the final removal order. However, a pardon has that more direct link. The pardon has the weight of what we call “vacating a conviction.” To explain more legalese and hopefully folks can stay with me. A final order of removal is an immigration court order document where , it gives ice the power to do all these deportations We're seeing for the refugee community that Lue Yang belongs to. Often these are quite old orders, and so sometimes a loved one might be detained and they might not even realize that they have a criminal conviction or a final order of removal. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for breaking that down. So we described how he was pulled off the plane that was going for his deportation. Tell us where Lue is at right now. What is happening with his case? Aisa Villarosa: The call to action very much remains what it has been, which is we're calling to bring Lue home. At the moment, Lue is in a facility in Louisiana. Our hope is that Lue can return to Michigan. There is also a call to release Lue on a supervised release. The other component of the legal journey for Lue is something called a motion to reopen. Basically this is how the full weight of the pardon is realized. The motion to reopen calls on the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen Lue's case, because years ago he got that final removal order, so when someone gets that order, typically their immigration case is closed. This petition says, Hey, he got a pardon. Please reopen Lue's case because the underlying conviction that led to the final removal order. Has been pardoned, right? We are hoping that this motion to reopen will be heard in front of the Board of Immigration Appeals, that we can get a great result and that as the campaign calls for that, Lue can come home. Miko Lee: I know lawyers like you are doing incredible work around the scenes. You did not sleep for two days, filing paperwork to be able to make sure that Lue was pulled off that plane. But what can regular people, what can our audience do to get involved right now? Aisa Villarosa: There's myriad actions along this really terrible deportation pipeline. We're seeing that folks who might not have, any deep knowledge of the immigration system can still be so impactful. We have partners in LA in the faith community and they've started working with community organizations to do things like accompaniment, which is, joining community members like Lue, who often have these ice check-ins. As folks have seen on the news, these check-ins can be really risky because that is where ice arrests can happen. If someone misses their ice check-in, typically that means that a warrant is issued, that immigration forces can come after you. In these cases, community members, particularly folks who are US citizens, accompaniment can be a great way to dig in to show up for our immigrant and refugee siblings. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for breaking down how folks can get involved. It's so important right now in a time where we feel so utterly helpless to be able to make change. Now we're gonna go back to listen to our interview that is with the two spouses, Tika, Basnet, and Ann Vue, and also our current guest, Aisa Villarosa Tika and Ann they're part of a horrible club, which is both of their spouses are currently in detention from our immigration system. I just wanna start on a real personal note in a way that I often do with my guests. Anne, I just would love to hear from you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Ann Vue: Thank you again, Miko and Isa, for having me on. We are Hmong. We helped Americans during the Vietnam War. In Laos, a lot of our pilots needed a communication. Because we're indigenous and we are in the mountains they were able to speak with us and use us. Our Hmong, helped a lot of the pilots rescued a lot, like thousands and thousands of Americans, so that they can make it back home. That is our contribution to the American people. When we were brought to America, was to resettle because of humanitarian purpose. Our legacy of helping Americans with the war. that is who we are and what we bring to America. That's who I am. I'm actually the first generation Hmong American. I was born right here in the capital of Lansing, Michigan. Miko Lee: Thanks so much ann. Tika, can you share who are your people and what legacy you carry with you? Tika Basnet: Hi, my name is Tika Basnet. I am Bhutanese Nepali community. My parents and all the Bhutanese, they ran away from Bhutan in 1990 due to the ethnic cleansing. They came to Nepal, seeking for asylum, and that is where we born. I was born in Nepal, in refugee camp. Even though I was born in Nepal, Nepal never gave us identity. They never give us citizenship. We were known as Bhutanese Nepali, but as known as Stateless. My husband also born in Nepal in a refugee camp. Miko Lee: Thank you. Aisa, I'm gonna ask the same question for you Aisa, that works at Asian Law Caucus. Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Aisa Villarosa: So much love to you, Miko and to you Ann and Tika for being here today. I just am, I'm so honored. My name is Aisa and I carry the love and, Maki Baka spirit of Filipino Americans both in my family across the diaspora. A little bit about the Filipino American story. We came to the United States as part of the colonial machine. The first Filipinos were brought as part of the Spanish Gallian trade. We made California home, parts of Lueisiana home, and it's quite a contrast to a lot of the sort of model minority seduction that many of my people, and myself as a younger person tended to fall into that if we kept our heads down, if we were quiet, we would be left alone. I'm struck because at this moment of just unprecedented government attacks, so many of our communities have this story where someone somewhere said to us, yeah, just keep your head down and it'll be fine. We're seeing the exact opposite, that this is the time to really use our voices, both individually and as one. I'm also an artist and try to infuse that into my work in fighting government systems. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. I will say I'm Miko. I am fifth generation Chinese American. I grew up knowing that my family was full of fighters that built the railroads, worked in the gold mines in laundromats and restaurants, and my parents walked with Dr. King and Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and I was raised in a family of social justice activists. I feel like our legacy is to continue that work and to fight for the rights of our peoples. I'm so honored to have both of all three of you powerful women join me today. As I was saying in the beginning, Tika and Anne are sadly a part of this club nobody wants to be a part of with the sudden, unexpected, harmful detentions of both of your husbands. I wonder if you can each just share the story about what happened and how you first found out about your husband being detained. Let's start with you Tika. Tika Basnet: My husband got his removal in 2014 when he was just 17 years old, high school student going from school to home. He's a teenager and with his friend, they were playing around and they wanna go home really fast. They just cross from private property. That is where someone saw and call 9 1 1. We came from the culture that we love to go people home , walking around, playing around. My husband came here in 2011. The incident happened on 2013. He just, came here without knowing culture, without knowing languages, So he has no idea. So when somebody called 9 1 1, he could not explain what happened. First of all, English is his second language, he was barely here without knowing rules and regulation, without knowing culture. The police took him to jail, gave a lot of charges. My husband doesn't know what are those charges? At that time, nobody explained, this is the three charges you got, and this could lead to deportation. He feel guilty without knowing those charges. He trusts [00:14:00] Nepali translate guy, and he told my husband, if you don't say I'm guilty, you will end up in prison for 20 to 25 years, but if you say I'm guilty, you'll go home. My husband said, guilty. At that time, neither criminal lawyer told my husband, if you say I'm guilty, you'll end up getting deport. Deport to the country that you are you never born. Deport To the country, you doesn't even speak their language. The lawyer did not explain my husband you will not gonna get your green card. You cannot apply your citizenship in your life. If those things the lawyer told my husband at that time, he will never gonna say, I am guilty to the crime that he did not even commit. When they tried to deport my husband back then, Bhutan say, he's not my citizenship, he's not from my country, We don't know this guy. He's not belongs to here. When US Embassy reach out to, Nepal, do you know this guy? They told, ICE no, we don't know this guy, like he's not belongs here. The ICE officer, told my husband, we can let you go, you need to come here, like order of supervision every three months, every six months, whenever we call you. It been 11 years. My husband is following rules and regulation. He never did any violation after that. He got married, he has a life, he pay taxes. He was taking care of his family and in 11 years he was doing everything. In 2025 for the first time they target Bhutanese Nepali community. I knew that this is the last time I'm gonna see my husband. I broke down. When they detained my husband in April 8, I was eight months pregnant. We dream a lot of things we are gonna take care of our daughter. We are gonna buy home, we are gonna work, we are gonna give her the life that we, I'm sorry. Miko Lee: Totally. Okay. Tika Basnet: I never thought like Bhutanese community can, like deport. Like my parent already go through this trauma, when Bhutan throw them away due to ethnic cleansing and same thing happening to us. It is unbelievable. I cannot believe that, we're going through this again and I don't know when this gonna be stopped. I don't know whether like my husband gonna come home. It is been five month and I really want my husband back. My daughter is, three month old. She need her dad in life 'cause I cannot provide everything by myself. My husband is the main provider for her aging parent. 'cause even now they cannot pay bills. I'm fighting for my husband case and I want my husband back. He deserve second chance because if you see his record is clean, like for one incident that happened like 12 years ago, that cannot define my husband. I cannot believe that my husband is able to get deport to the country that doesn't even accept. I don't know whether he gonna get killed. Whether he gonna disappear, I don't know what will happen to him. I don't know if it is last time I'm gonna see him. Miko Lee: Tika, thank you so much for sharing your story. Just to recap really briefly, your husband, Mohan Karki when he was a teenager, newly arrived in the country, was leaving high school, walked with his friends through a backyard and was racially profiled. The neighbor called police because he was trespassing on property. He was born at a refugee camp. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: There was not property that was like person's property on that refugee camp. So that whole concept of walking across somebody's land was something he was not aware of. He had an interpreter that did not give correct information. And so he signed something, including a deportation order, that he wasn't even aware of until recently when he was put into detention. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Yes. Miko Lee: Right now he's in detention. You live in Ohio, but he's in detention in Michigan, right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: Okay, Tika, let's talk about Mohans case and what's happening. He's held in detention right now in a detention facility in Michigan. What is going on with his case? Tika Basnet: His criminal attorney file, a Motion to Redeem asking BIA to send that, case back to Georgia. His case, that happened in 2013. Our attorney just submit documentation where he's asking to release my husband because it'd been five month. He's not risk to the community. He's not risk to the flight 'cause he doesn't have no one in Bhutan. He doesn't have no one in Nepal. All family is in here. His community love him ,he has family that loves him. We also get lot of documentations as a proof telling ICE that my husband is not risk to the community or to the flight. Miko Lee: Thank you. He has a a four month old baby that he has yet to meet. So that is a powerful reason to stay. As Tikas pointing out, the lawyer just submitted documentation along with 50 letters of support from the community from employers, from family members, all saying why he should stay in this country. Thank you so much for sharing. Anne, i'm wondering if you could share about what happened to your husband. He was also born in a refugee camp, right? Ann Vue: Lue was born in Nangkai, Thailand refugee camp in 1978. In1979 his parents and him and his older brother Granted urgent humanitarian reasons for or for public benefit. They made it to America right before Halloween. The early nineties, me even being the first generation American here, racism played a lot. We all went through that piece and our parents not speaking English at the same time, they were going to school themselves so that they can learn our English language, . They weren't able to teach us growing up. We had to fend for ourselves. I would say my husband he went out with some friends. He did not commit the crime. But of course now that is brought back to him, he understood about his particular case is second attempt, home invasion. Nobody was harmed. He was in the vehicle, in the backseat when he was caught. He didn't wanna partake, but he didn't wanna stop them either 'cause to him it was like, if I don't partake, then I have nothing to do with it. . Because if I do, then they might not be my friends anymore. It's just a part of growing up as a youth. Because he was there, and then would receive a court appointed attorney, and then provide it very similar to Tika's too. Had an interpreter, that was explaining to them, was provided bad legal advice. He had no knowledge about how this would impact his immigration status. It was advised by their attorney, take the plea it's easier, and you probably serve less than a year. You'll be out, you'll only be in the county jail anyways 'cause you didn't really commit the crime and technically it should have been a misdemeanor. But because you're an accomplice, that kind of falls under this category. So he took the plea, he served 10 months in a county jail. He actually was released for good behavior. He even finished his probation soon because he paid all of his stuff off. He even finished a youth advocate program for anybody that committed crimes between the age of 18 to 21. I just saw this form the other day and I was reading it and it talks about, the one thing about our parents, experiencing the war and coming to America, they don't talk about it. A lot of us are from communist countries. We are very afraid to voice our voices, because someone can take action. Our parents never talked about it. I read what he wrote to his, youth coordinator, he felt so bad about what he did. He created disappointment for his parents and he understands, there are sacrifices that got us here to America. He literally wrote all of this down, i'm going to be a better person. I'm going to make my parents proud now that I understand their sacrifices. They asked him, ” what was your upbringing like?” He wrote, “poor” and the coordinator wrote on the bottom of his comments said, “Lue is remorseful for what has happened and he wants to be a better person. I have no other questions. The training is complete.” He doesn't need any further, support and believes that he will move forward to be a better person. That's literally what they wrote on the document. Then fast forwarding to 1999 that's when, immigration showed up at his house. Him and I would meet in 2000, and then we'd be married in 2001. We'd celebrate. Almost 24 and a half years of marriage. We did appeal his case in the humanitarian piece of what this meant for Lue during the time where we all fled the country. Once the monks were declared enemy of the state by the LDR in Laos, we fled. It's well documented that there was a little bit over 400,000 of us there right after the genocide and the killings of the Hmong there was probably less than 45,000 of us left. Once we understood a lot of that, we wanted to do better. We wanted to really service our community. We appealed the case. The case was then denied in his appeal letters, general Vink Powell, which led the Hmongs during the war, even had a letter where he, also pled why Hmongs need to stay here in America. And why we need to bring the rest of our people to this country. The reality is our whole family, Lue's whole family was wiped out. We don't have anybody, Lue doesn't have anyone. That goes to Tika's thing too. There's nobody there. Going back to the case once it was denied in 2002. He then was forced to reach out to the embassy and was denied, entry into Thailand 'cause that's where he was born. We're stateless too, just like Tikas husband. We were denied by Thailand. We were denied by Laos stating that we are not a citizen of theirs. They do not allow or welcome any sort of entry. In 2006, they actually took his green card and then we again were denied. In 2008 we were denied a third time and that's when his immigration officer was like, just move on and start your life. Laos and Thailand, will never sign a repatriation act with America because of you guys, because of the Hmong people, what you guys have done to their country, making it the most bombed country during the war without even being a part of the war. They will never allow you guys back. So we were like, okay. So we moved forward. Then in 2014, this immigration officer, which we was doing yearly checkups at this time, was like, Hey go get your citizenship, get your green card. They're like you're doing so good. You probably could have a chance to get it. We moved forward to apply for citizenship and for the green card. We were denied in 2015 and we know how expensive this is. You pay $10,000 outright, you don't get that money back. You just have to go at it again. We decided that, we're gonna get his case expunged, and we got his case expunged in 2018. No questions asked. It was very straightforward. Once it was expunged, we continued with our [00:26:00] lives. Very involved in the community. We had six kids . This year we even called his immigration officer and he was like, “Hey, don't worry about it, Lue, we're moving you over to Grand Rapids and you should be fine. Just make sure that you stay outta trouble, continue to follow your stock.” I think what triggered it was when we applied for his work permit in April. He always meets his immigration officer at the end of the year, and we renewed his work permit is what triggered it. The money was cashed out, everything the checks went through while we were receiving that, he was gonna be here, everything was gonna be fine. Then July 15th he was detained at work, six 30 in the morning, the detained officer they told him they know who he is to the community, so they have to do it this way because they don't want any problems. They don't want media, they don't want reporters. He did ask them because he rode his motorcycle for some weird reason. He has not taken his bike out, his motorcycle out in the last three years. But for some reason that night he was like, I just wanna take my bike. So he took his bike that night and when ICE told him, do you have somebody come get your bike? You need to call somebody to come get your bike. He was like, nobody in my family rides motorcycles. I don't have anyone to come get my bike. I think there was some empathy and compassion for him. My husband was like, can I just take my bike back? I've got six kids. I've got my grandma at home and my parents are also at my house right now. I just wanna see them and wanna take my bike back. They asked him, “if we let you go, please don't run.” They followed my husband home and my husband literally called me at 6 37 in the morning and he was like, Hey, ICE is, here they got me. I'm like, “what? What's going on?” It was just so surreal. I was so shocked. It's a 30 minute drive. When he got there, they were already officers, packed tight in our driveway. We live in the country. There were like five or six cop cars there too. We had to walk about half a mile down to go see him. They wouldn't allow him to enter where our home was. The officer told, my husband, told him that they're so sorry. They have to do it this way. They know who he is. They don't want any problems, they don't want any reports in media out here. I will say my experience was a little bit different from others. They did take their mask off when they took him in, they were respectful. They even, talk to my two older boys like, Hey, you guys have money. I could put the money in your dad's account. We're, take him into Grand Rapids, we're gonna process him, and then we're gonna take him to the detention center, which is gonna be in Michigan. They were very open about these steps . My grandma has chronic pulmonary disease stage four. We couldn't haul her fast enough because we only saw him for like maybe a quick minute, and that was it. They did ask us to turn around because they had to take him back and they didn't want our little ones to see them cuffing him. Miko Lee: They actually said, Anne, we don't want any media to be watching this? Ann Vue: I don't want any problems. Miko Lee: Your husband is also quite well known in the Hmong community, right? So probably, they were worried about folks coming out and protesting. Is that, do you think that was the case? Ann Vue: That's what I'm assuming. I don't remember their exact words saying media, but do remember that they didn't want people around, they didn't want to create issues for the community. Because if he would've gotten the letter just like everybody did, which everybody then would receive the letter on Friday, and because my husband is a community leader, he is the Hmong Family Association's president, we restart receiving many, many calls where everybody just wanted to talk to Lue 'cause they needed to know what's going on, how to handle, what to do. At that moment I realized, oh my gosh, they detained my husband first. Then everybody else got a letter. Miko Lee: And the ICE officer that he had been checking in with routinely has he been in touch with him since he was detained? Ann Vue: He hasn't. Miko Lee: So they had different people come in even, 'cause he was the person that said everything's okay, keep going with your life. Ann Vue: Oh yeah. Miko Lee: And so no contact with him whatsoever since the detention? Ann Vue: No. Miko Lee: Okay. Thank you so much. I just wanna point out, for all of our listeners, how many similarities there are in these two cases. In both of these amazing women are here supporting their spouses. Both spouses born in refugee camps. Dealing with intergenerational trauma from families that had to escape ethnic cleansing or involved in a war, came into the United States under, legal properties through refugee resettlement acts, made mistakes as young people, partially due to culture and wanting to fit in. They served their time, they paid their dues. They were racially profiled. They suffered from incredible immigration policy failure with bad advice, with a system that's broken. Now both of them are detained. Not yet deported, but detained. Many of the community members have already been deported and they're facing statelessness. We're seeing this not just with Bhutanese and Hmong folks, but with Mien and Lao and Haitian and El Salvadorian. We could fill in the blank of how many other peoples in other communities are facing this. We also know that these private detention centers where people are being held, are making millions and millions of dollars, and it's connected into our corrupt political system that's in place right now. Aisa, I'm wondering if you could, talk about the case, but also about some of the deals that we think have had to be made with Laos and Bhutan in order for these deportations to even take place. So Aisa from Asian Law Caucus, I'm gonna pass it to you to go over some of the legal ramifications. Aisa Villarosa: Of course, Miko, and thank you for it for the context. There are so many parallels that we as advocates must uplift because this is not the time to be divided. This is the time to build solidarity that we've long known needs to happen. What Miko is referring to is largely something that we've observed around the travel  bans. Earlier this year, right around the time that the Trump administration took hold, there was a draft travel ban list that leaked across a number of media outlets, the Times, et cetera, and the same countries we're talking about today, Bhutan, Laos. These were historically not countries that were subject to sanctions, like the travel ban, and yet here they were. A lot of us were scratching our heads and asking, why is this happening? Our theory, and this is a theory that is now also manifesting in a number of FOIA requests or Freedom of Information Act requests that are submitted from Asian Law Caucus to departments like the State Department ice, the Department of Homeland Security. Asking the same question that Tika and Anne are asking, which is, how are these deportations even happening? They were not happening until this year. What very likely happened was a bit of a quid pro quo. So in removing Bhutan, removing Laos from this list where they could be sanctioned as a country, there was likely some backdoor deal that took place between the US State Department and Bhutanese officials and the US officials, where essentially there was some form of an agreement that there would be an acceptance or a supposed acceptance of a certain number of folks from these communities. That is why around March, for the Bhutanese refugee community, for example, we started seeing pickups very similar to Mohan's case, where, many people who had perhaps made some mistakes in their youth or had really old criminal convictions were swept off the streets and thrust into these really rapid deportation proceedings. I don't even know if proceedings is the right word, because there essentially was no proceeding. The Immigration Court is very much a cloaked process. The immigration judge is kind of judge and jury wrapped up together, which is very different than many of us might turn on the TV and see something like Law and order. An immigration court works a very different way where this piece of paper, this final removal order, basically gives ICE a lot of bandwidth to make these deportations happen. However, that doesn't mean we should just accept that this is happening. We know that just basic procedures of fairness are not being met. We know, too that in the case of, for example, the Bhutanese community ICE officers have come to the wrong house. And put a lot of people in fear. So racial profiling was happening even before this recent Supreme Court decision, which essentially now condones racial profiling, as criteria that the ICE can use. I also just wanted to talk about this trend too, we're seeing with so many cases. It happened to Lue, it happened to Mohan, where in someone's underlying criminal court case, maybe they were given a court appointed attorney. In many cases, they were not told of the immigration impacts of, say, taking a plea. There is a Supreme Court case called Padilla versus Kentucky and basically the law shifted such that in many cases there now is a duty for a court appointed public defender to actually talk to folks like Mohan and Lue about the immigration consequences of their plea. So when Tika mentioned that there's something called a post-conviction relief effort for Mohan. That's happening in Georgia. This is very much what that legal defense looks like, where, an expert attorney will look at that very old court record, see if those rights were violated, and also talk to Mohan and make sure did that violation happen and is that grounds for reopening an immigration case. For Lue, there is a really mighty pardoning campaign that's brewing in the state of Michigan. So in Michigan, governor Gretchen Whitmer does have the authority to in some cases expedite a pardon in process. Unfortunately in the immigration arena the expungement does not have that same weight as say a vacating, or a motion to vacate that criminal record. So it's super frustrating because, so much of this turns ethically, morally on- do we, as people believe in second chances, and I know most people do, and yet here we are really. Based on a technicality. I also just want to name too that Lue as a person is both a natural organizer and he is a spiritual guide of his community. So something that many folks don't know is because of so much of the trauma that Anne talked about, both from, supporting the Americans during the Secret War, many Hmong folks who came to the States, they actually in some cases died in their sleep because of this, almost unexplained weight of the trauma. It almost underscores the importance of Lue, not just to his family, but this family is a collective family. He's both a mentor for so many, he's a spiritual guide for so many. Him being away from his family, away from community, it's like a double, triple wound. for Mohan, I'd love to uplift this memory I have of a moment in June when Tika gave us a call, and at that point, Mohan had called Tika and said, they're taking me, I'm being deported. At that point, they were removing Mohan from the ICE facility in Butler, Ohio and transporting him to the Detroit airport or that deportation to Bhutan. Tika was forced to essentially delay her childbirth. It was very much in the range of when she was due to give birth to their daughter. But because the clock was ticking, Tika drove to Butler, literally begged for Mohans life as our organizing and advocacy and legal team was trying to get together this emergency stay of deportation. That fortunately came through at the 11th hour. But the fact that Mohan remains in this facility in St. Clair, Michigan, that he's never held his daughter is unacceptable, is ridicuLues. I think so much of these two cases almost, this invisible brotherhood of pain that I know Ann has talked to me about that. Because Lue right now has been in a couple facilities. He is organizing, he's doing his thing and actually supporting folks while also just trying to keep himself well, which is no easy feat to do in so many of these facilities. Especially because, in Alexandria, for example, which is a facility in Louisiana. We know that folks are sleeping on cement floors. We know that folks are not being fed, that there's a lot of human rights violations going on. Here is Lue still continuing to use his voice and try to advocate for the folks around him. Miko Lee: Aisa thank you so much for putting that into context, and we'll put links in the show notes for how folks can get involved in both of these cases. One is, Rising Voices call to action for Lue. We encourage folks to do that. In terms of Mohan, there's a GoFundMe to help support Tika and the immense lawyer fees, and also a letter writing campaign to the ICE director Kevin Roff, to try and release Mohan and Lue. These are really important things that are happening in our community, and thank you for being out there. Thank you for talking and sharing your stories. We really appreciate you. And also, just briefly, I'd love us for us to talk for a minute about how many folks in our Asian American communities, we don't wanna talk about mistakes that we have made in the past because we might consider that shameful. And therefore, in both of these communities, when we started organizing, it was really hard at first to find people to come forth and share their stories. So I wonder if both of you can give voice to a little about that, the power you found in yourself to be able to come forward and speak about this, even though some other folks in the community might not feel comfortable or strong enough to be able to talk. Tika, can you speak to that? Tika Basnet: What makes me really strong, and I wanna see that my husband case is because he was 17, people can make mistake and from those mistake, if people are learning. Americans should consider, 'cause my husband did make mistake and I wish that time he knew the rules and regulation. I wish somebody taught him that he's not supposed to go somebody else property, around in backyard. I wish he was been in the United States like more than , one and a half year. I wish, if he was like more than two years, three years. I think that time he, from high school, he could learn. He's not supposed to go there. He was just been in the United States like one and a half year just going to high school. Nobody taught him. His parent doesn't even speak English. Until now, they doesn't even speak, like nobody in our community knew rules and regulation. He doesn't have guide, mentor to taught him like, and even though he did make mistake and he's really sorry, and from those mistake learning a lot, and he never get into trouble, after 11 years, he was clean, he work, he pay taxes. That is the reason that I really wanna come forward. People can make mistake, but learning from those mistake that changed people life. The reason that I'm coming forward is because organization like Asian Law Caucus, ARU, and, Miko, a lot of people helped me. They taught me like people can make mistake and, we shouldn't be same. I really wanna give example to my daughter, that, you are fighting for justice and you shouldn't fear. What is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. But if somebody's make mistake and they are not, doing that mistake again, I think the people can get a second chance. My husband deserves second chance. He's 30 years old. He has a family, he has a wife, children and he deserved to be here. We came here legally, my husband came here. Legally, we, promise that we'll get home and this is our home. We wanna stay here and I really want my husband be home soon so he can play with her daughter to play with his daughter. Miko Lee: Thank you so much, Tika. Ann I wonder if you could talk to the strength that it takes for you to come forward and speak about your husband and your family. Ann Vue: I'm a community leader with my husband. There was a moment when he was first detained where I was in complete silence. I was so shocked. It took my attorney, Nancy, just talking to me about it. Of course, back to what Aisa said earlier in our communities, we're afraid. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. It took me visiting my husband in Baldwin and letting him know that, hey, a bunch of community members are now reaching out. And that's that. At that moment, he was like, you have to say something. You have to say something you have to make noise because you have a, 50% chance, right? We have a 50 50 chance. 50%. They're gonna send me 50%. You're gonna feel bad if you don't say anything, right? 50 here, 50 there. It doesn't matter. But a hundred percent regret if you don't say something. I thought about it and he was like, well, go out there, be my voice. He's like, you've always been my voice. You got this right. I didn't say no to Nancy. 'cause she really wanted to talk to our rep Mai you know about this. Mai and I are pretty close too. , I just knew if I said anything, Mai's gonna be like mm-hmm. All the way. I just let Nancy help me, and my most vulnerable time. I'm glad that she did. I'm glad that we did get this out. It is the most important thing for us. what keeps me going is all of those that have been impacted by this, from people like Tika. I have many, I call 'em sisters. We're all in a lot of these group chats together. They've been also keeping me going. Our amazing team of attorneys and everybody just strategizing through this unprecedented time. It's really everyone's voices. I get to talk to Lue daily. It's definitely not cheap, but he gets to share each story of each person. I believe that everybody has a story and they might not be as lucky as maybe Tika or my husband, but at least now I have their story. I will be their voice. I will tell each person's story, each name, each alien number that I track down, my husband's even literally learned how to count in Spanish, just so he can give them like my phone number in Spanish in case they need to call an emergency. Oh, I'm be getting a lot of calls. that is what keeps me going because I think that Tika and I and many others are, hoping that there is going to be a better day, a brighter day. I hope that everyone can see that, our children are American, right? Our children, they deserve to have their fathers and their mothers. They deserve to grow with these parents. And with that being said, the most important thing to me is they're not just bystanders. They're literally the future of America. I don't want them growing up with trauma, with trying to ask me questions “well mom, if we're refugees and we helped, Americans as allies, and we come to this country, why is this payback like this?” There's a moral obligation that has to be there and they're gonna grow up and they're gonna be trauma by this. I've got children right now that's been talking about joining the National Guard. It speaks volume about what happens to my husband. He's championed the Hmong, Michigan Special Gorilla unit, the Hmong veterans here in the last two years, really  with helping them through resolutions, tributes, making sure that they have things, that they are out there, that people now know them, they are finally recognized. This puts my husband at great danger by sending him back, because now he's championed the veterans here. He celebrates our veterans here. So it's a moral obligation. I hope that, and this is to every child, I hope that every child, they deserve their father's presence. There are many people who don't even have their father's presence and they wish their fathers were around. Our fathers wanna be around. I hope that our daughter, I only have one daughter too, that someday they can, their fathers can be a part of their, the American culture. I hope that we get that opportunity and I hope that somebody stop being scared, but turn around and help us. Help us. We came here legally, minor stuff, long decade old. This detainment has been worse than when he did time back in 1997. I just hope that somebody hears our podcast, Miko. Thank you. Aisa and Tika. And they turn and they have some compassion and help us because this is the tone that we're setting for the future of our American children. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing. Tika, you wanna add? Tika Basnet: Yes, I really wanna talk about what kind of husband Mohan is. Even though like he detained for five month I put lot of money in his account and there was one guy, his family cannot support him. For me, it is really hard. I'm not working. But even my husband called me you don't need to put like money in my account, but can you please can you please put money in his account? He did not eat food. His family did not have money. I can survive without eating food. I think his story is really touching me. My husband was crying listening to that guy story in detention center and then I did put like $50 in his account. My husband is giving person. He love to give even though, he struggle a lot, even though, he doesn't know what will happen when he get deport. But, him saying other guy story. Does make him cry. I think this is the reason that I really wanna come forward. My husband is giving person, he's lovely person, he's caring person. That is the reason I wanna come forward. I want people to hear our voice, rather than silent. Right now people know our story. But if I was silent then I don't know whether my husband was already disappear. I don't know whether he gonna die torture or maybe he will expel within 24 hours. I have no idea. My husband is number one support system for me, because of him I'm here sharing his story. For years I had wonderful time with him. We build our dream and until 2025, our dream is destroy. I'm trying to build again. I'm hoping, my husband is coming home soon and I'm hoping that this will be the last time that he will get detained. I hope that this will be the end. I don't want him to get detained or deported again. I'm really tired. I don't know what to do. I'm hopeless. I hope listening to my story and Ann's story that separating family is not good. It is affecting not only one person but his whole community, whole family. We deserve to get our husband back. It is not only about the wife that is fighting for husband, it is the children. They're so small, they born here and we cannot raise alone, we cannot work. We have things to pay. Paying bills and taking care of child alone is really difficult. It's been five month. I went through postpartum depression, I went through trauma and I don't wanna deal anymore. Like I don't have courage to do this anymore. We need our husband back. Miko Lee: Thank you. I think both of your husbands are also main caregivers for parents that are ailing in both cases. It's a really important that we are intergenerational communities and as you both said, it's not just about the children, but it's also about parents and brothers and sisters and community members as well. Thank you so much for lifting up your stories. I just wanna go back for one more thing. We talked briefly about the crazy expensive lawyer fees that have come up for families that they've been dealing with this, and then also Tika was just bringing up about detention and commissary fees. Can you talk a little bit about the prison industrial complex and the fees that are associated? As Anne was saying, just calling Lue every day the costs that are associated with those things. Many people that don't have a family member that's incarcerated don't know about that. Can you share a little bit about what that system is? Aisa Villarosa: Yeah, absolutely Miko. Just to underscore, a big theme from this conversation, is that the US made commitments and they have broken them, both with, as Anne talked about, the refugee experience is one that is made possible through US commitment of acknowledging what, people have survived, what they have given to the country. Folks are being removed to countries where not only do they have zero ties to, don't speak the language, but, especially in the case of the Bhutanese refugee community, as Tika mentioned, it is truly a double expulsion. So the fact that we have well-documented testimonials of folks deported from Bhutan after they're removed there into these life-threatening conditions . A community member passed away in large part because of the failure of the US to both care for them while in detention. So going back to that prison complex, but also just putting them in such a harrowing situation. In another instance, a community member was found after wandering for over a hundred miles on foot. So this is not, deportation and the story ends. This is deportation and, there is a family that is grieving and thinking through next steps, there is, this call to not have borders, break us the way that this country is trying to do. And to say a little bit about the fees, USCIS, there, there has not been a point yet in history where so many changes and charges hurting families have been ushered in, But for this year. To give a couple examples of that – asylum cases for one, these often take many years through this administration. Now, families have to pay a cost yearly for each year that your asylum application, languishes because we're also seeing that those same folks who are supposed to process these applications are either being laid off or they're being militarized. So something like USCIS where this was where one would go to apply for a passport. Now the same department is literally being handed guns and they're now taking folks during naturalization interviews. Other avenues to challenge your removal. Like I mentioned a motion to reopen. All these things used to be fairly affordable. Now they can cost many thousands of dollars on top of the attorney fees. So something that's been quite challenging for groups like Asian Law Caucus where we do have attorneys representing folks in removal proceedings, there's often this misperception that oh it's costing so much money. Attorneys are pocketing cash. Unfortunately there are some situations where attorneys have been known to take advantage of families in this desperate moment. But for many, many attorneys who are in this mix, they're experts at this work. They're trying to do the right thing. They're both overwhelmed and they're seeing these new charges, which make the battle really even more difficult. So to turn it back to the listeners, I would say that as powerless as this moment can make us feel everyone is bearing witness. Hopefully the listeners today can take in Anne's story, can take in Tika's story and whatever power one has in their corner of the world, this is the moment to use that. Whether it's your voice, whether it's learning more about a community, maybe you're learning about for the first time. This is really the moment to take action. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. I wanna thank you all for being here with me today, for sharing your personal stories, your personal pain, and for recognizing that this is happening. We deeply believe that we need to keep our families together. That is really important. It is written into the very basis of this American country about redemption and forgiveness. And this is what we're talking about for misunderstandings that happened when these folks were young men, that they have paid for their time, and yet they're being punished again, these promises that were broken by this American government, and we need to find ways to address that. I really wanna deeply thank each of you for continuing to be there for sharing your voice, for protecting one another, for being there and standing up for your family and for our community. Thank you for joining me today. Check out our Apex Express Show notes to find out about how you can get involved. Learn about the Rising Voices campaign for Lue Yang and Mohan Khaki's GoFundMe. On November 3rd, 4:00 PM Pacific Time, 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Join us for We Belong here, Bhutanese and Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness, a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program, apex Express to find out more about our show. APEX Express is a collective of activists that includes Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Have a great night.     The post APEX Express – 10.30.25-We Belong! appeared first on KPFA.

Send us a textYou can contact Michele  at https://www.bookclues.com Have you ever read Dracula??? child's play compared to John Blair's Killing the  Dead; Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World.A corpse that won't stay put tells you as much about the living as it does about the dead. We sit down with Oxford's Professor John Blair to chart how vampire epidemics rise when communities are shaken by disease, war, or rapid change—and why the freshly buried become suspects when fear demands a target. From cuneiform-era hints of walking corpses to the 1720s Habsburg–Ottoman frontier where exhumations spread like wildfire, we follow the ideas that fused Central European “dangerous dead” with bloodsucking demons from the Caucasus and Black Sea, eventually crystallizing into the vampire that haunts Western imagination.Together we draw clear lines between ghosts, zombies, and walking corpses and explore cultures that treat death as a long passage rather than a moment. Greek funerary customs—wakes, ossuaries, inspection of clean white bones—frame a pragmatic logic: when decay stalls, ritual steps in. We examine gendered patterns that mark young women as prime “restless” candidates, echoing deep folklore about female power and unfinished lives. Then we head into the ground with a practical guide to reading graves: decapitation with bound legs, bodies flipped face down, hearts pierced or removed, jaws separated to stop biting and curses. Archaeology becomes a detective story, not a horror script.We also connect neurology and narrative through sleep paralysis, including intense Hmong cases in the United States where trauma and disrupted belief systems turned night terrors deadly. Finally, we trace how the press and literature—Voltaire's metaphors, Le Fanu's Carmilla, and Stoker's Dracula—reshaped scattered practices into a single, seductive archetype. If you're curious about how societies manage grief, channel anxiety, and transform fear into ritual, this conversation opens a doorway from folklore to forensic clues and back again.Subscribe, share with a friend who loves history or horror, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What idea about vampires will you rethink after listening?

Artist Sheng Lor reflects on her journey from a Thai refugee camp to a studio practice in Los Angeles. Born to Hmong parents displaced by the Secret War in Laos, Lor discusses culture shock, grief, and the intergenerational legacies that shape her art. Her loom-wrapping series transforms discarded weaving tools into sculptural memorials, addressing the histories of labor, invisibility of craft, and Hmong spiritual traditions. This conversation explores how weaving, diaspora, and ritual intersect in contemporary art and the Los Angeles art scene.

What if your favorite horror movies weren't fiction at all? In this chilling episode of Mysteries, Mayhem & Merlot, we uncover the real-life killers and legends that inspired Hollywood's most iconic nightmares. From Danny Rolling—the Gainesville Ripper who birthed Scream—to John Wayne Gacy's clown persona that echoed through It, the Manson Family's cult terror, the cannibal clan of Sawney Bean, and the Hmong sleep demon that gave rise to Freddy Krueger—these stories prove truth is far more terrifying than fiction. Grab your glass of Merlot, turn off the lights, and step into the shadows where real murder meets movie magic. Origins of Horror: The Real Monsters Behind the Movies - Mysteries, Mayhem & Merlot Check out the merch, blog, buy the book and so much more! mysteriesmayhemandmerlot.net WHERE'S WINNIE! - https://linktr.ee/WinnieSchrader Check out Winnie's Linktree for everything Winnie! From merch for Paranormal 60, Love+Lotus Tarot & Mysteries, Mayhem & Merlot to digital designs with WS Media & more! Find the Paranormal 60 Podcast & Mysteries, Mayhem & Merlot Podcasts on Rumble Use our link & Sign Up Today! - https://rumble.com/register/Paranormal60Network IF YOU NEED HELP PLEASE CONTACT Call or Text to 988 Chat online at https://988lifeline.org/ PLEASE SUPPORT THE ADVERTISERS THAT SUPPORT THIS SHOW Cornbread Hemp - Save 30% off your first order at www.cornbreadhemp.com/P60 and enter P60 into the coupon code Factor Meals - Get 50% off your first order & Free Shipping at ⁠⁠www.FactorMeals.com/p6050off⁠⁠ & use code: P6050off at checkout Mint Mobile - To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to ⁠⁠www.MintMobile.com/P60 Steam Beacon TV - Your home for Paranormal, Horror & True Crime TV https://streambeacontv.com/⁠⁠ Shadow Zine - ⁠⁠⁠https://shadowzine.com/⁠⁠⁠ Love & Lotus Tarot with Winnie Schrader- ⁠⁠⁠http://lovelotustarot.com/⁠⁠⁠ PLEASE RATE & REVIEW THE PARANORMAL 60 PODCAST WHEREVER YOU LISTEN! #TrueCrimePodcast #HorrorMovies #RealKillers #DannyRolling #JohnWayneGacy #MansonFamily #SawneyBean #FreddyKrueger #HmongSleepDemon #TrueCrimeMeetsHorror #MysteriesMayhemAndMerlot #TrueCrimeStories #HorrorHistory #SerialKillers #BasedOnTrueEvents #RealLifeHorror #TrueCrimeCommunity #CreepyStories #CultKillers #MovieMonsters 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. On tonight's episode, we're focusing on a particular segment of our immigrant and refugee community, Hmong and Bhutanese refugees. Both of these targeted communities are stateless with no land to call their own, and their deportation carries the very real danger of disappearance and death. Robin Gurung from Asian Refugees United and Kao Ye Thao from Hmong innovating Politics, discuss their community and personal refugee stories, and talk about the intersection of the US' deeply broken immigration and criminal legal systems, otherwise known as crimmigration. We also get to hear from the wives of two detained refugees, one Bhutanese and one Hmong, who are currently fighting to keep their families together and to protect their loved ones from the dangers of deportation as stateless people.   Important Links: Hmong Innovating Politics: Website | Instagram Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram Bhutanese American Refugee Rights website Transcript Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on KPFA. My name is Swati Rayasam. Since the onset of the Trump administration, immigrant and refugee communities have been under increased attack, being kidnapped in broad daylight, detained in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and deported to countries many of them barely know. All without due process or communication to their loved ones and communities. On tonight's episode, we're focusing on a particular segment of our immigrant and refugee community, Hmong and Bhutanese refugees. Both of these targeted communities are stateless with no land to call their own, and their deportation carries the very real danger of disappearance and death. Robin Gurung from Asian Refugees United and Kao Ye Thao from Hmong innovating Politics, discuss their community and personal refugee stories, and talk about the intersection of the US' deeply broken immigration and criminal legal systems, otherwise known as crimmigration. We also get to hear from the wives of two detained refugees, one Bhutanese and one Hmong, who are currently fighting to keep their families together and to protect their loved ones from the dangers of deportation as stateless people. I also want to note because this is a rapidly developing situation, that this episode was recorded on August 13th, 2025, and is being released on August 28th, 2025. For the most recent updates, please go to bhutaneserefugeerights.org or check out the Pardon Refugees campaign. Now, here's Miko. Miko: Welcome to Apex Express. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so glad to bring you all together in this time. I'm wondering if I could ask you each to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the community your organization serves and what you do, and let's start with Kao Ye. Kao Ye: Hello everyone, and thank you for making space- my name is Kao Ye Tao. I use she her pronouns, and I work as the director of policy and partnerships with an organization called Hmong Innovating Politics. We are an organization that serves Hmong youth and families in Sacramento and Fresno, which holds two of our largest Hmong American communities in California. And our work with Hmong youth and families is really about developing their leadership to organize towards social justice and to get the resources that their communities deserve. Miko: Thank you, Kao Ye and Robin, could you please introduce yourself? Robin: Sure. My name is Robin Gurung. I use he, him, his, I'm from the Nepali speaking Bhutanese community. I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. my role at Asian Refugees United is the co-founder and the co-executive director. We have our program in California and Pennsylvania. California programs are, are serving Asian diaspora and then, Pennsylvania programs are focused serving the Nepal speaking Bhutanese community. We work in the intersection of arts and healing, storytelling, civic engagement, leadership development. Thank you. Miko: Thanks Robin and I am your host Miko Lee, lead producer at Apex Express. And all of us are part of a network called AACRE Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, which is a network of progressive Asian American groups. So you all work with refugee populations. I'm wondering if you could tell a little bit more about the backstory of your community, and also if you feel comfortable about how you personally came to be a refugee in the United States. And, Robin, I'd love to start with you on that one. Robin: Sure. My community is Nepali speaking, Bhutanese refugee community. And we are ethnically Nepali, which means culture wise and language wise we speak Nepali and follow the Nepali culture tradition. Our ancestors like maybe in 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds migrated from Nepal to Bhutan and became the citizen of that country. And most people don't know about Bhutan, it's a very tiny country between China and India. And, if people know about Bhutan, then people know it through the cross national happiness concept, Bhutan is considered the happiest country in the world. So our ancestors were in mostly in the southern area of Bhutan for generations, they became the citizen. They had their own home, their own land. And then later, 1980s, early nineties, there was a policy by the government of Bhutan, which is the monarchy government system- king rules the country. They brought a policy called One Nation, One People Policy. Which means all different groups of people would have to follow the same culture, same religion, kind of follow the same dress code and because of that policy all people were forced to stay away from following our own culture or our own religion, which, most of our folks were Hindu. Our people protested against it and because of that, the government expelled over a hundred thousand of our community members. And, they expelled to India and then from like India wouldn't allow us to stay and we had to resettle in Nepal in seven different refugee camps under different international agencies like U-N-H-C-R and other agencies. Miko: And then Robin, can you tell a little bit about your personal story and how you came here? Robin: Yeah. Yeah. So 1992 is when my family had to leave Bhutan. And at that time I was three years old. I remember growing up in a refugee camp in Nepal, from three years until I was 23 years. So 20 years of my life I was in a refugee camp in Nepal. And in 2012, I came to US through the refugee resettlement program introduced to our camps in 2008, and through it US agreed to resettle 60,000 of our committee members. By 2017, I think US has resettled about 70 to 80,000 of our Bhutanese community members.   Miko: Thank you so much for sharing. Kao Ye I wonder if you could talk about your community and the refugee resettlement program that your community was a part of. Kao Ye: The Hmong American community, or just the Hmong community overall, is a group that's indigenous to East and Southeast Asia. And through our ancient history, we've always been a stateless, people fighting for our autonomy to live to practice our customs and our culture. And particularly where we come into this history of refugee is during the Vietnam War where many Hmong people, alongside other ethnic groups in Laos, were caught in the crossfire of the United States conflict in Southeast Asia. And so with the Vietnam War. The Hmong as well as many other ethnic communities that lived, in the hills and the mountains were recruited in covert operations by the CIA to fight back against the Vietnamese, the Northern Vietnamese communist forces, as well as the Putet Lao. And so once the US withdrew from Southeast Asia, it created a vacuum of conflict and violence that our people had to escape from in order to survive. And so after the Vietnam War in 1975, we saw the mass displacement of many Southeast Asian ethnic communities, including Hmong families. And that is where my history starts because my parents were born in Laos and because of this war, they fled to Thailand refugee camps and lived there for a few years until they were able to come to the United States in 1992. And I'm actually I'm a child of refugees and so what I know about this part of my history comes from the stories of my grandparents who raised me as well as what little I could learn in the textbooks of public education. And so it wasn't actually until going to college and. Being able to access more of this literature, this history that I really learned about what the United States had done in Southeast Asia and the ramifications of that for myself and my family and so many others, refugees that. Have to have had to resettle in the United States. And so it's definitely a history that runs very close, because we have relatives that live through that refugee experience. And so it is very well and alive. And so as we now approach this conversation around ICE and deportations, it really is a reminder of the trauma that our people face, but are still facing as a people that have been seen as disposable to the United States government. Miko: Thanks, Kao Ye. Let's talk a little bit more about that. But first I wanna say, did either of you ever hear about refugees in your textbooks? I never did. So I'm wondering if, you said you learned a little bit about that from textbooks. Was that something you learned in public education. Kao Ye: I did not learn about refugees or refugees experience. I learned about the war and as a Hmong kid it brought me so much delight to try to scroll through the history books just to see if Hmong people were mentioned. And even then the refugee experience was not ever something that we talked about. I felt like definitely not in, in high school. I think it was college really, that then started to articulate those terms and that Southeast Asian identity, that is really where I think I also became politicized in that. Miko: Yeah, because I think in textbooks there might be a little section on the Vietnam War, but it does not talk about the, all the Southeast Asian ethnic peoples that actually fought in the war. We have to dig that information out on our own, but I wanna move us to what is happening right now. So the Trump administration has created. Culture of fear among immigrants and refugees, these ICE raids and disappearances. It is so intense and using immigrants as a fear tool to prop up white supremacy is so blatant right now. I'm wondering if you can each talk about, how this administration's policies are impacting your communities. And, Robin, let's start with you. What is happening right now? I know since the end of March, can you share a little bit about what's been happening with Bhutanese Americans? Robin: Sure. Sure. So our people were settled to this country with the hope that this is going to be our home. But starting March of this year, with the new policies of this current administration, we started seeing abrupt, ICE arrest in our communities. People were picked up from home, their workplaces, and from their ICE, check-ins. And, since March, within I would say two to three months, more than 72 of our community members were picked up, mostly from Pennsylvania and then Ohio, and also from other states like New York, Georgia, North Dakota. So until now, we have, the records of at least 50 people who have been deported to Bhutan and at least 72 who are detained. So more than 30 people are [at risk] of getting detained. The nature of the ICE arrests that we have seen is we don't know whether the due processes were followed. They made it so hard for the families to look for attorneys, and also to track their family members. Within days family members would find their loved ones disappeared, and then they wouldn't be able to talk to them they wouldn't be able to track them and provide the support that they needed. So for us as a community organization we did not anticipate this and we were not prepared for this. And, and we didn't have the infrastructure to really address this, right? So it became such challenging work for us. Like within days we had to mobilize our people. We had to mobilize our teams to help family members with legal support, emotional support, mobilize our community members to update what's happening with this situation. The rapid response work, know your rights clinics that we had to set up. So on one hand it's the detention and deportation in the US and on the other hand, when our people were deported to Bhutan, what we're seeing is within 24 hours, they are being expelled from Bhutan to India, and then from India because India wouldn't accept them as well, they had to enter Nepal because for most of these Deportee, they're very young, they were born in refugee camps, and for most of them, the only known land is Nepal. Right. And they had to enter Nepal without documentation. And then some of them were found in refugee camps. And most of them are unknown. Like they're, they have disappeared. Miko: So that is so much over the last few months that ARU has had to step in and take a leading, role in this situation that has impacted the Bhutanese community from focusing on wellness and youth development to suddenly translating materials into Nepali, translating, know Your Rights materials into Nepali, hosting all these different events, the work that you have been doing is really powerful. I wonder if you could share with us the story of Mohan Karki, who is a community member that's currently detained in Michigan. Robin: Sure. So, Mohan Karki is now in detention in Michigan and he's a community member member who lived in Ohio. So he was detained by ICE during his regular ICE check-in , I believe in April, they detained him and then he was taken for deportation. And last minute, the families and the community had to come together and then appeal the deportation. Right now he's in Michgan detention center and his wife, who was pregnant and had due date, when Mohan was being deported on June 10, is now fighting day and night to stop the deportation and also to bring Mohan home. Right now, Asian Refugees United and other community partners, like AWPAL, Asian Law Caucus are working together to support Mohan's family, to bring Mohan home and also running a, GoFund me fundraiser, to help the family pay the legal fees. Miko: Thanks Robin. And we're gonna listen to Tikas story right now. Tika Basnet: Hi, my name is Tika Basnet I'm from Ohio and I'm fighting my husband deportation case. So on April seven, a lot of people told us not to go to the ICE office, but my husband wanna follow the rules, he wanna go there. We went to the Westerville office inside And we sit down, we talk to each other. Nothing will go wrong. And suddenly ICE told us to come inside and they told us that my husband got travel documents from Bhutan. I told them like it is not safe for my husband to get deport in Bhutan, all the Bhutanese people run away in 1990s due to the ethnic cleansing and if my husband get deported in Bhutan, he will either gonna get killed, tortured, disappeared, imprisoned, I don't know what will happen, but they did not listen to me. So they detained my husband and I came at the parking lot and his mom saw me coming alone. So they start crying and I told them like, Mohan is gone and this is the last time I think I'm gonna see my husband. the time that my husband was taken away from Butler County on June 10 I was 41 weeks pregnant. I was supposed to deliver on, June 10. But no, I told the doctor I change my delivery time. I am not gonna go now like I need to fight for my husband. Like, When Bhutanese people started coming here in 2007. Third party promise us that in here in United States, we will get our identity. That identity will never taken away. They promise us that the way Bhutan take our identity, they will not gonna do that. we thought that this is our home. We thought that having a green card, having a citizenship, it is permanently, but no, we are, we all are wrong. And that identity is taken away within a second. And we became stateless again. So, my husband, Mohan Karki he just arrived in the United States he been here less than two years when the incident happened. He did not understand the law. He did not understand the culture. He did not know anything. My husband he was only 17 years old, high school student coming from school to home. On the way to reach their apartment, there is one private house. They are just trying to go to the shortcut from the backyard. So some neighbor call 9 1 1. And that only one mistake lead to deportation. The place that we come from, there is no boundaries. In Nepal, we are allowed to go anybody property We are allowed to walk somebody else house and because of the cultural difference, he's paying price right now. At that time, nobody can speak English. They cannot understand what police were saying and Nepali interpreter told my husband that if you say I'm guilty, you'll out of prison soon. But if you did not say I'm guilty, you'll end up in prison for 20 to 25 years. High school student he's scared he just say, I'm guilty, and he did not know what is deportation mean. He did not know what he was signing. Nobody informed him what he was signing. That signing was deportation. What happened in 2013 is impacting us in 2025 and still he wish he did not cross somebody else backyard at that time. He wish he knew that he wasn't allowed to cross somebody else's backyard. I don't know what will our future is gonna be, but I hope that he gets second chance. His community love him. He love people. He was working as a truck driver. He paid taxes. He was supporting his parent. He was supporting me. My daughter deserve to have a father. You know, she's just one month. But now the dream that I was hoping one day I'm gonna build with my husband that is taken away and I'm left alone with this child. I already went through a lot without him, i'm the only one that fighting for my husband case. The deportation is not only breaking one family, but it is breaking everybody, the community and the family. And I hope that people can support me so I can fight for my husband case. Like I really need so many attorney. I need criminal attorney to open up his 2013 case. And I have wonderful, wonderful attorney, my husband get stay off removal, but that is not guarantee my husband can get deport anytime. The attorney fee are really expensive and he still needs support. The US made bhutanese people a promise of home. We belong here. Stop the detention and deportation. Stop deporting Bhutanese people. We are stateless. We don't have country, don't have a home. This is our home. US is our home. We belong here. Miko: Of the 72 people, Mohan is the first Bhutanese refugee that we actually have a stay of release on, as Robin was saying earlier, most of the folks were moved from state to state, so you can't really get a lawyer in that time. And as we all know, nonprofit immigration lawyers are under a lot of stress because of the attack of this administration. So it makes it incredibly complicated, let alone the legal fees that it costs to help support people going through this. And right now, Mohan has a stay on his, deportation and the lawyer that they do have is drafting up a letter to be able to release him into the community and also overturn his original case that happened as a minor in Georgia, which was a ridiculous case where he was leaving school, early high school, first year in the country, leaving high school early, and walked with his friends across a backyard. And the neighbor that they walked through their yard called the police, and they arrested him along with his friends for trespassing, they gave him paperwork that he didn't even understand. He signed it along with a interpreter they gave him false information to say he'd be locked up for 25 years, or if he signed this papers, that would be fine. He could go and what the papers said was it changed his charge into a felony and had him sign a letter of deportation. So this is part of the failure of our American legal system that we're not providing adequate information. It is a lack of due process. Thankfully, the work that Asian Law Caucus and United States of Stateless and other community activists are doing to call this out and help work with us is really critical. I wanna turn now to Kao Ye how this administrations is impacting Hmong refugees, and how is it similar or different to the experiences that Robin is describing for the Nepali speaking Bhutanese community? Kao Ye: I echoed many of the sentiments and the challenges that Robin shared around what we as nonprofit, grassroots organizations are having to build and grapple with just the limited infrastructure that we have to deal with the current ICE disappearances and deportation and all the support that's needed for the families. And so thank you Robin, for sharing that. I wanted to start broad a little bit because I think that this Trump administration is happening in the backdrop of the 50th year commemoration of the end of the wars in Southeast Asia and the refugee resettlement. We had over 1.1 million Southeast Asians resettle to the United States, the largest immigration resettlement, in American history. And so this year brings so many complexities, I think as a Southeast Asian community where there is a level of looking back at policies that have impacted us and have failed, but also looking forward what is the community that we are building together to move and progress together. And so there are those complexities, I think as the fact that it's the 50th year and like, this is what we're dealing with. This is the trauma that we are grappling with. And so I wanted to put that out front and center because even I think within our communities , there is no necessarily enlightenment in terms of how we talk about what is happening to our people and how they're getting deported unjustly. So that is why it is so important to have this dialogue within our communities as well as the solidarity that we also share with the Bhutanese community and other immigrant groups too. I think that in many of our Southeast Asian communities, their reasons for deportations is very tied to past convictions, and so this is the intersection between criminal law and immigration law. And it makes it complex because our people are now having to consult not just an immigration lawyer, but like criminal attorney so that they could really assess like what kind of relief they can get in order to mitigate, impending deportations. And then also miko you had shared about the lack of adequate legal service or representation because many of these folks, right, that have had these convictions that have now served their time and are simply members of our community that make our community rich. They are now having to revisit removal orders that they signed, thinking that, oh, nothing necessarily was gonna happen because they don't have a repatriation agreement. So, in our community, there was never a thought that we were going to be deported back to our home country because of that policy. And so that is a big contributing factor as to why the Hmong community, we don't have that infrastructure to really support our members who have gone through the criminal justice system and now have those removal orders. And so HIP, as well as many other grassroots. Sadly we did have to scramble to put this know your rights information together because again, I don't think that there was visibility in the need for us in this conversation around immigration Southeast Asians are a segment of our API community and so it just, I think, multiplied the invisibility that we already faced as a group of Southeast Asians. And so the support was definitely not there. And, to Robin's point, we did our best to try to put this information together to our community, starting with the Know Your Rights. And then we also realized like it was more complex than that, and that the legal supports were so necessary because everyone's case was different. I think what we're still dealing with now is that there's always been a lack of trust between our community members and government entities and nonprofit organizations. And so, if someone is dealing with the situation, they wanna go to, a partner that they trust to help them, even if they're not necessarily equipped to do that work, is that they're going to only the people that they trust because there is such a big mistrust. And so I think that, there is still the level of trust building that is needed to be done within our community so that folks feel comfortable to come to us or come to other people for support. And I think what makes me feel emotional is just when I hear about community members feeling hopeless and just feeling like there's nothing that they can do and that level of disempowerment to me, I think is something that is real. And I can't say that we can't combat it, but I think that it is about being able to find different outlets of support for them. Miko: Thank you for lifting that up. And just , in terms of the numbers, over three months, March, April and May, there were about 72 Bhutanese Americans that have been detained. And this is just kind of starting up with the Hmong community. So we had 15 that were detained from Minnesota and another 10 right now are being held in Michigan. And we also see this happening with Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodians, and Myan folks. All of these folks as Kao Ye you're pointing out, have had common threads, which is connections with the system, with the criminal legal/ justice system and crimmigration is something that in the AACRE network we've been talking about and working on, which is really about the education to prison, to deportation pipeline. And one of the things that this administration had talked about is, let's get rid of all the murderers and the rapists. You know, this like scare language about people that are convicted criminals, let's get rid of them all. But the fact of the matter. The vast majority of all of these people are people like Mohan Karki, a cultural misunderstanding that happened when he was a child. Like Lou Yang, who is Hmong refugee detained in Michigan right now. Somebody who was involved in something as a kid, but has since then become a leader in the community. So let's take a moment and listen to the spouse of Lou Yang, a Hmong refugee detained in Michigan in July. Anne Vu: My name is Anne Vu and I come before you today with a heart full of hope. Sorrow and a plea for justice. I am a proud American, a mother of six, the daughter of Hmong refugees who would gain their citizenship, and the wife of a man called Lou Yang, who is now detained and faced with potential deportation from the only country that he's ever known. Lou has lived in Michigan since October, 1979. He was born stateless in a refugee camp in Nongkai Thailand and his family fled Laos due to persecution. His father and like many others, served with the United States force during the Vietnam War as part of the Secret War, recruited by CIA in Laos, a conflict that most Americans do not know has happened. The Hmong were recruited by the CIA as part of the Secret War to help America during the Vietnam War. But when the war ended and the US withdrew, we were as the Hmongs declared enemy of the state. What followed was genocide, polarization and persecution by the state, and it was because of our alliance, the promise made by the US government that the Hmong refugees were legally settled here under certain migration of refugee laws and acts. And Lou arrived here as a young, toddler in infancy. In 1997, he was arrested on an alleged accomplice in an attempt home invasion, second degree. He was in the vehicle at the time. He never entered the home. He literally was still a juvenile at that time. He had a court appointed attorney and was advised to take a plea without being told it would affect his immigration status for the rest of his life. This is the reality of our immigration system – long, complex, confusing and devastating, unforgiving. It is not built for people like us, people like Lou, people who have served their time, rebuilt their lives and have nowhere else to go. We've walked this legal path, we've stayed together in the lines, and yet we are here punished today. Lou has no other charges, no current legal issues, no history of violence. He is not a flight risk. He is not a danger to our public safety. He is a father, my husband, a son, a son-in-law, a grandson and a brother to many, and our leader and a provider to our community, and to my family. He renews his work authorization and follows every rule asked of him no matter how uncertain the future felt. Together, we've raised six beautiful children. They're all proud Americans. Lou has contributed to Michigan's economy for decades working in our automotive industry and now he is gone and all that he is built is unraveling and the community is heartbroken. We didn't come from wealth. We didn't have every opportunity handed to us because we didn't come seeking a land of opportunity. We came here because of survival. We had to build from the ground up. But the most important thing was Lou and I, we had each other. We had our families, our friends, and our neighbors. We had a shared commitment to build a better life, grounded in love, respect, and purpose. And somehow that's still not enough. For years, we were told like other Hmong families that Laos in Thailand would never take us back. And that has changed. In June, 2025 the US imposed a partial travel ban on Laos, citing visa overstays, and lack of deportation cooperation. And in response, Laos began issuing these documents under pressure. Today over 4,800, including Hmong, Myan, and the other ethnic minorities are facing removal to Laos and to many other countries, many have never stepped foot in a country that they are now being sent to. Lou is Stateless like many others that is detained with him. None of these countries recognize him. He was born in the Thailand refugee camp, it does not recognize him nor qualify him for any sort of Thai citizenship and I'll tell you guys right now if forced to return, he will face danger because of his family's deep ties to the CIA and United States military. Deporting him turns him, a civil servant and respected community leader, into a political casualty, it would be a grave and irreversible injustice. To deport him now is to punish him to death. Once again, 50 years later, as we celebrate resilience this year across the nation, we are now celebrating a fight within our own grounds, right here in United States, right here in Michigan. We're now fighting the same fight within our own country. Thousands of Southeast Asian Americans, many that entered legally admitted as refugees are being deported for decade old offenses they've longed paid for. America is our country. All we ask is the right to stay in the home that we've helped to build and work hard to protect. We are not seeking special treatment. We are asking for justice, compassion, and a second chance in this country to claim what we believe in. To Governor Whitmer and members of Congress and all elected officials, please help bring Lou and the many others home. Urge ICE and DHS to release him on humanitarian grounds. Help his case. Help us preserve the integrity of our laws and the dignity of our families. And to the public allies and the media. Please call our elected officials. Please call these offices. Please share Lou's story. We need voices. Voices louder than ours alone. It is hard times you guys. It is real. And I speak to you from the bottom of my heart. Please help me and our families in the many that are suffering. This is our home. These are our children. This is my husband and this is our fight. Let him come home. Let our families be whole again, and let America keep its promise. Thank you guys for hearing me. Miko: Lou Young is a community leader. Michigan, who actually runs a nonprofit in support of Hmong folks in that community, and is targeted and also has a stay of removal. So we're doing a targeted campaign for both of these folks, Lou Yang and Mohan Karki, to be able to get them released to overturn their original convictions and they also have spouses that are telling their stories and telling the impact these detentions have had. Because while this current administration talks about getting rid of criminals, what they are actually doing is breaking apart families and community. Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. Coming up is Deporting the Pilgrim from the Anakbayan Long Beach Mayday Mix tape.   Swati Rayasam: That was please be strong, featuring Hushed, loudmouth and Joe handsome. And before that was deporting the pilgrim from the Unec Bayan Long Beach Mayday Mixtape. Now back to the show. Miko: I wanna shift us a little bit to talking about Asian american representation in the larger fabric of immigration justice in the United States. Mostly many of our Asian communities have been like isolated, not really involved in the broader immigration movement. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difficulty and nuance of bringing your community struggle to the forefront because many of us heard about the Venezuelans and the Mexicans that have been deported and what was going on, but we don't hear as much about these stories of our Asian sisters and brothers. I wonder if one of you could give voice to that. Robin: Before going there can I add something to Miko: of course. Robin: crimmigration conversation? So when you all are sharing about that, I was thinking about, the justice system in this country and what we are seeing right now is a broken justice system. Like you said, Miko, where families are separated where families are broken, and what I don't understand is, when, let's say your loved one gets into trouble, makes a mistake, and gets into a trouble, then, as a human being, like, don't you want your loved ones to rebuild their lives? Like Yes, of course there is a system that you have to follow, the laws that you have to follow, but at the end, I think we all want our loved ones to come back, rebuild their lives, right? And what we're seeing in this country is they're constantly breaking the families. And I don't see how we are going to build a better future when we are constantly, hurting the families. And in the cases of detention and deportation, what we're seeing is the double punishment. Like the mistakes that they had made, but then throughout their life, they have to go through that, a continuous cycle of being punished. And not just the individuals, but their family members have also go through the challenges, the suffering, right? And in the case of Bhutanese from double punishment to double expulsion to this, the state of being statelessness. Right? So what kind of future we are imagining when an individual has to go through that continuous cycle of being punished and not having the opportunity to rebuild their lives. So that's a big question mark that I think, we all need to think about. To your later question around my community and the larger Asian American context or the national context. My community is relatively new to this country. We lived, almost two decades in a refugee camp, which was a enclosed camp. And our lives were dependent on foreign aids like UNHCR or ILWF. Pretty much I would say we had our own world over there. And for us to work outside the refugee camp was illegal. There was no laws that gave us the permission to work outside. So we were not pretty much exposed to the outer world. So for us to come to US was a big step. Which means pretty much from basic every day stuffs like, you know, using a bathroom, using a kitchen, taking a bus. All of those were foreign for us. So for our community to really tap into the education system, the political landscape of this country. And also like the experience of being expelled for voicing our, our opinions, for fighting for our rights. Right? So for us, for our community to kind of step in into the politics, it's like re-traumatizing ourselves. I would say there are a lot of barriers, multi-layered barriers for our community members to really tap into the larger political, like socio political landscape, from language barriers to culture barriers to education, to pretty much everything. So right now, the way our committee has been being attacked. It's a surprise to the community. And also it is like kind of traumatizing the community and taking us back to the same place of feeling, insecure, feeling like we don't have a home. And we did hope that this is legally, this is going to be a home. Because after coming to the US most of us became the legal citizens of this country and we started rebuilding our lives. Now it's kind of like going back to the same circle of statelessness. Miko: Thank you for sharing about that. Kao Ye, would you like to add to that? Kao Ye: When I think of the Hmong American community and even the Southeast Asian community and why the narratives of what is happening still feels very invisible. I think of how our community, we were assimilating for survival. And I speak on that as a child of my refugee parents and siblings where growing up we were taught to, listen, not speak out, not cause trouble. Go through the system, listen to authority, listen to law enforcement. And because of that, I feel it's shaped a culture of fear. Fear to dissent and fear to speak out because we care so much about the stability of our families. And we wanted to protect ourselves, because of everything we've gone through with the war. And we are finding that it's been challenging for our community members to come forward with their stories. Honestly, we're still sitting on that and we're still kind of sitting through like, why is there that tension? You know, I feel like folks are going through a lot and even folks have, our impacted loved ones, but they're afraid to tell their story because of fear of of retaliation. And so I think that there is a level of, I think that lack of even psychological safety, but real, physical, real financial safety that people have. And I think that being a factor to the assimilation, but also this facade of like the American dream and like if we don't just disrupt, if we don't speak out, we will be protected. And, white supremacy, right? Like we will be okay. And it's a facade because we know that because our communities are the ones getting kidnapped and getting deported. Right. And so I think there is that fear, but there's also recognition of this now, this facade that the silence doesn't protect us and that there is a real need for us to really, be strong in speaking out, not just for our SEA siblings that are impacted, but for all of our immigrant groups, even the Bhutanese community, right. That's been impacted during this time. And so I, yeah, I think it is that multi-layered experience of being a Southeast Asian refugee community on top of, being part of this AAPI umbrella. AAPI we are not homogenous. We all have very unique histories as to how we have dealt with the systems in this country and how we came into this country. And so I think it's been challenging to make space for those nuances. And at the end of the day, I still see the interconnections that we all have together too. And so, I think it's the willingness to make space for those different stories. And I am finding that more of our ethnic media, our smaller news outlets are more willing to cover those stories as opposed to, these larger mainstream outlets. Like they're not covering those stories, but we are. Miko: Thank you. Oh, both of you have brought up so much today about our failed criminal justice system, about us punishing people as opposed to rehabilitating people and punishing them more than once. We brought up questions around statelessness and the impact that it has, and I just recently learned that the United States does not have any policy on Statelessness. So one of the things that this coalition of folks is trying to do is to get a congressional hearing to help the United States develop policy around statelessness, because it is actually our responsibility and our duty to do that. The other thing I hear you both talking about is this good immigrant, bad immigrant trope, which we've heard of a lot, but I think that's also very much connected to why so many members of our communities don't wanna speak out because this connection with, you know, quote unquote criminal history might be something that's shameful. And I'm wondering if you both see that as a divide mostly between elders in the community and younger folks. Robin, do you wanna talk about that? Robin: Yeah. I mean, initially when we were mobilizing our community members to fight against the the unjust and unfair detention and deportation, this issue around the perception around good immigrants and bad immigrants became one of the main topic of discussion. We had to deal with people, and mostly elders, but I would say some young folks as well, who would pull themselves back on speaking against this issue because for them people who are being deported or detained are criminals and they deserve this kind of mindset. And not being able to see the larger picture of how the administration is targeting the immigrant and the refugee population of this country and really trying to dismantle community power, right? So, yes, it is a challenge that we are, we're going through and I think it's going to be quite a bit of work, to really build solidarity within our own communities. Kao Ye: I feel that the divide in the Hmong community is stemming from class and education. I feel as though when folks are articulating, regurgitating these justifications of the bad immigrant as to why folks should be deported it's folks that maybe kind of made it in their lives and now they're comparing themselves to folks that were not in that situation. And there is this growing within our community as well, where some folks are getting that education, getting, good jobs. But so much of our community, we still suffer from poverty, right? And so, I think that has been really interesting to witness the level of division because of class, because of income and also the education piece. Because oftentimes when folks are feeling this, it comes from a place of ignorance as well. And so that's why I think the education piece is so important. I actually feel though our elders are more understanding because these are their children that are being separated from them. And Robin's point is that when we have loved ones that go through the system, we just want them to rebuild their lives and be self-sufficient. And I feel like those are the values that I grew up in my community where our parents were always about keeping the family together to a fault, you know? And so they don't want separation. They just want us to be well and to do well, and to turn our lives around. And so, I feel strongly that our elders, they do understand that the importance of giving this opportunity for us to, to stay together and turn our lives around. Miko: Thank you so much, both of you for joining me here today to talk about this important conversation. I'm wondering if you could provide our audience with how they could find out more about what is going on and what are next steps for our audience members. Robin, let's start with you. Robin: Yeah. I just wanted to add what, Kao Ye talked about. I do agree the patterns around the divide is based on class. And I do see that in the community, and not just the class, but in our community class and caste, I would say. And in terms of the class, there were some instances where we had to deal with even the highly educated like PhD holders kind of, questioning us like, you know, what we are advocating for, and, I couldn't understand like, I couldn't relate the education, the title, the degree that he holds and the perception around this issue. Right. So, I just wanted to echo that. So, in terms of our work and Asian Refugees United, our website is www.asianrefugees.org And you can find us in our Instagram, Facebook, Asian Refugees United. Miko: And you can also get latest news about what's happening at bhutaneserefugeerights.com. Yeah. And Kao Ye how can folks find out more about your work? Kao Ye: Right now HIP is part of a statewide network in California called the Pardon Refugees Campaign, where we are really pushing Governor Newsom to pardon all refugees, not just Southeast Asians because of everything that we talked about, about how our families, they deserve to stay together. And so, I don't think we have a website up yet, but you can follow this campaign with us. We will be having a rally and press conference, coming up soon, in the next few weeks. And so, I would say that please follow us in that work where we are really moving in coalition with all of our uh, grassroots partners to advocate for our loved ones that are currently being impacted. Miko: Thank you so much, Robin Gurung, Asian Refugees United and Kao Ye Thao from Hmong Innovating Politics. Thank you so much for being with us here today, and I hope you listeners out there take action to keep our families together, to keep our people in the communities as loved ones where they belong. Thank you all. Have a great night. Swati Rayasam: I'm so grateful that Miko was able to talk to Robin and Kao Ye. And for those who missed it, visit bhutanese refugee rights.org for the most recent updates on the Bhutanese refugees. The press conference in rally Kao Ye mentioned took place last week on August 21st, 2025, but check out the Pardon Refugees Campaign for updates from the coalition supporting Hmong, Cambodian Laotian, Myan, and other refugees facing deportation. Thanks so much for tuning in to Apex Express. Please check out our website at kpfa.org/program/apexexpress 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, along with Jalena Keene-Lee, Ayame Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar,  Anuj Vaida, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Ravi Grover, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a good night. The post APEX Express – 10.23.25 -And We Become Stateless Again appeared first on KPFA.

The California Report just turned 30! On November 4, we're throwing a party to celebrate, at KQED in San Francisco, with special guests whose stories we've featured on our show. This week we're reprising two of those stories. ⁠How Experimental Composer and Performer Kishi Bashi Brings New Ideas to Life⁠⁠ Kishi Bashi has been releasing music for over a decade. The Santa Cruz-based musician and composer defies genre, and it's hard even for his fans to describe his work – yet they feel deeply connected to his music. For our series on California Composers, we sent reporter Lusen Mendel to one of his shows in San Francisco to see if they could figure it out. ⁠This Stockton Park Is a Weekend Haven for Hmong and Cambodian Bites⁠ On the northern end of Stockton, you'll find Angel Cruz Park. Most weekends it's lined with food vendors, many of them Hmong and Cambodian immigrants. For more than 30 years, this has been a destination for made-to-order dishes, where locals argue over who has the best beef sticks or papaya salad. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse spent a day at the park, learning about the people behind the food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob and Omar kick off this week's 365 Amplified with stories making headlines across Madison365: Hmong New Year 50th Anniversary – A preview of this year's celebration marking 50 years since Hmong families began arriving in Wisconsin, emphasizing renewed connections with elders and cultural traditions. Indigenous Business Conference – Omar reports from Milwaukee's Potawatomi Casino, where hundreds of Indigenous entrepreneurs and tribal leaders gathered to discuss sovereignty, new trade opportunities, and economic independence. Funding Cuts for Nonprofits – At Madison's Progress Center for Black Women, Alder Sabrina Madison called on the community to help sustain local nonprofits as public and philanthropic support declines, citing new data on wage and health disparities affecting Black women. No Kings Rallies – A look ahead to Saturday's nationwide “No Kings” demonstrations, the difference between protests and rallies, and the importance of visible collective action in defending democracy. Main Interview: Rep. Francesca Hong The first Asian American member of the Wisconsin Assembly joins Rob to discuss her run for governor and her vision for a state grounded in community care and resistance to authoritarianism. Topics include: Why She's Running: Hong frames her campaign as a movement against fascism and a push for imagination, solidarity, and working-class power. Public Safety and Community Protection: She calls for state action to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and urges residents to report ICE activity through community hotlines rather than social media. Economic and Care Policies: Universal child care up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, paid leave for all, and investment in care workers to strengthen families and local economies. Public Bank Proposal: Modeled after North Dakota's public bank and Wisconsin's existing WEDC infrastructure to provide low-interest loans and grants to small businesses. Healthcare Reform: Expand BadgerCare, hold large hospital systems accountable for costs, and reduce premiums for small business employees. Movement Building: Encouraging Democrats to compete in every district and support local candidates to build lasting working-class power statewide. On Protest and Democracy: Hong calls protest “direct democracy” and urges Wisconsinites to show up in the streets as visible proof that they are not alone in fighting fascism. Connect: Full coverage at Madison365.org Support Local Journalism: If you appreciate our work, consider donating to keep 365 Amplified and Madison365 thriving. Visit madison365.org/donate to contribute. Follow Us: Stay connected for real-time news updates and discussions:

Episode 52: With Pheng Bolo Thao HerOn this episode, the crew is joined by Pheng “Bolo” Thao Her, the creative force behind the No Eggs Podcast and founder of Guerrilla Pastures. We dive into how Pheng first started his podcast and what it represents, his journey into launching a business rooted in beekeeping, and what it means to be a pioneer in this space for the Hmong community. Along the way, Pheng opens up about his upbringing—growing up in Section 8 housing, caring for his mother, and how those early experiences shaped the resilience and vision he carries today.Check out and follow No Eggs Podcast:https://www.facebook.com/noeggspodcastCheck out and support Guerrilla Pastures:https://www.facebook.com/guerrillapasturesGuerrilla Pastures Website:https://www.guerrillapastures.com/...SUBSCRIBE, LIKE, AND FOLLOW US:Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, InstagramOUR LINKTREE TO ALL PLATFORMS:https://linktr.ee/raminiscepodcastE-MAIL US: Raminisce2019@gmail.com

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. TAKE ACTION Rising Voices campaign for Lue Yang Mohan Karki's GoFundMe   And please help support these organizations working to support detained and deported folx: Asian Law Caucus Asian Refugees United Ba Lo Project in Vietnam Collective Freedom in Vietnam & Laos Asian Prisoner Support Committee & New Light Wellness in Cambodia November 1–2, people nationwide are joining the Disappeared In America Weekend of Action to stand up for immigrant families and defend due process. Actions include protests at Home Depots, candlelight Freedom Vigils, and Day of the Dead events honoring lives lost to detention.   The following day, November 3, 4pm Pacific time, 7pm Eastern Time, Join us for “We Belong Here, Bhutanese & Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness” a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. bit.ly/WBH-2025   We Belong Here! Show Transcript Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express. This is your host, Miko Lee. Today we're talking about detentions and potential deportations and the atrocities that the Trump administration is creating in our communities. And today I am so honored to have three guests with me, Tika Basnet, and Ann Vu, and Aisa Villarosa. Tika and Ann they're part of a horrible club, which is both of their spouses are currently in detention from our immigration system. But I just wanna start on a real personal note in a way that I often do with my guests. Anne, I'm gonna start with you. I just would love to hear from you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Ann Vue: Thank you again, Miko and Isa, you guys for having me on. So we are Hmong. And we helped Americans during the Vietnam War. And so, during the Vietnam War in Laos, a lot of our pilots needed a communication. And because we're indigenous and we are in the mountains, they were able to speak with us and use us. And so a lot of our Hmong, what they did or what they contributed helped a lot of the pilots rescued a lot, like thousands and thousands of Americans, really, so that that way they can make it back home, right? And so that is our contribution to the American people. And so when we were brought to America, was to resettle because of humanitarian purpose. Really because of our legacy of helping Americans with the war, right? So that is who we are and what we bring to America. And that's who I am. I'm, and I'm actually the first generation Hmong American too. So I was born right here in the capital of Lansing, Michigan. Miko Lee: Thanks so much ann. And Tika, can you share who are your people and what legacy you carry with you? Tika Basnet: Yes. Hi, my name is Tika Basnet. So I am Bhutanese Nepali community. My parents and all the Bhutanese, they ran away from Bhutan in 1990 due to the ethnic cleansing. And they came to Nepal, seeking for asylum, and that is where we born. I was born in Nepal, in refugee camp. Even though I was born in Nepal, Nepal never gave us identity. They never give us citizenship, so we were known as Bhutanese Nepali, but as known as Stateless. And yeah, my husband also born in Nepal in a refugee camp. Miko Lee: Thank you, Tika. And Aisa, I'm gonna ask the same question for you Aisa, my friend that works at Asian Law Caucus. Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Aisa Villarosa: So much love to you, Miko and to you Ann and Tika for being here today. I just am, I'm so honored.My name is Aisa and I carry the love and, Maki Baka spirit of Filipino Americans both in my family across the diaspora. A little bit about the Filipino American story. We came to the United States as part of the colonial machine. The first Filipinos were brought as part of the Spanish Gallian trade. We made California home, parts of Louisiana home, and it's quite a contrast to a lot of the sort of model minority seduction that many of my people, and myself as a younger person tended to fall into that if we kept our heads down, if we were quiet, we would be left alone. I'm struck because at this moment of just unprecedented government attacks, so many of our communities have this story where someone somewhere said to us, yeah, just keep your head down and it'll be fine. And we're seeing the exact opposite, that this is the time to really use our voices, both individually and as one. And I'm also an artist and try to infuse that into my work in fighting government systems. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. And in the interest of fairness, I will say I'm Miko. I am fifth generation Chinese American. I grew up knowing that my family was full of fighters that built the railroads, worked in the gold mines in laundromats and restaurants, and my parents walked with Dr. King and Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and I was raised in a family of social justice activists. So I feel like our legacy is to continue that work and to fight for the rights of our peoples. That being said, I'm so honored to have both of all three of you powerful women join me today. And as I was saying in the beginning, Tika and Anne are sadly a part of this club. Nobody wants to be a part of this club with the sudden, unexpected, harmful detentions of both of your husbands. I wonder if you can each just share the story about what happened and how you first found out about your husband being detained. And let's start with you Tika. Tika Basnet: So, my husband got his removal in 2014 when he was like minor. Just 17 years old, high school student going from school to home and, he's a teenager and with his friend, like they were playing around and they wanna go home really fast. So they just cross from private property. And I think that is where someone saw and call 911. So we came from the culture that we love to go people home , walking around, playing around. So my husband came here in 2011. The incident happened on 2013. So he was just, came here without knowing culture, without knowing languages, So he has no idea. So when somebody called 911, he could not explain what happened. First of all, English is his second language, he was barely here without knowing rules and regulation, without knowing culture. The police get them and then they took him to jail I think police gave a lot of charges. And even until now, my husband doesn't know what are those charges? At that time, nobody explained, this is the three charges you got, and this could lead to deportation. And he feel guilty without knowing those charges. And just because he trusts Nepali translate guy, and he told my husband, like, if you don't say I'm guilty, you will end up in prison for 20 to 25 years, but if you say I'm guilty, you'll go home. And my husband said, guilty. And at that time, neither criminal lawyer told my husband, like, if you say I'm guilty, you'll end up getting deport. Deport to the contrary that you are you never born. Deport To the contrary, you doesn't even speak their language. And even the lawyer did not explain my husband like, you will not gonna get your green card. You cannot apply your citizenship in your life. If all of, if those things like the lawyer told my husband at that time, he will never gonna say, I am guilty to the crime that he did not even commit. And so when they tried to deport my husband back then, Bhutan say, he's not my citizenship, he's not from my country, We don't know this guy. He's not belongs to here. And when US Embassy reach out to, Nepal, do you know this guy? They told, ICE no, we don't know this guy, like he's not belongs here. And then the ICE officer, they told my husband, like, we can let you go, you need to come here, like order of supervision every years, every three months, every six months, whenever we call you. And it been 11 years. My husband is following rules and regulation. After that incident, never police arrest him. He did not even get criminal record. He did not even get misdemeanor record. So basically he never did any violation after that. So he was following, he got married, he has a life, he pay taxes. He was taking care of his family and in 11 years he was doing everything. And in 2025 for the first time they target Bhutanese Nepali community. And at that time I knew that this is the last time I'm gonna see my husband. And that is a time I think I broke down. Like, when they detained my husband in April 8, I was eight months pregnant. And um, like we dream a lot of things like, you know, we are gonna take care of our daughter. We are gonna buy home, we are gonna work, we are gonna give her the life that we, I'm sorry. Miko Lee: Totally. Okay. Tika Basnet: So, yeah. Um, like I never thought like Bhutanese community can, like deport. Like my parent already , go through this trauma, you know, when Bhutan throw them away due to ethnic cleansing and same thing happening to us. It is unbelievable. I cannot believe that, we're going through this again and I don't know when this gonna be stopped. I don't know whether like my husband gonna come home. I dunno. Like I'm fighting and it is been five month and I really want my husband back. Like my daughter today is, she's three month old. She need her dad in life. 'cause I cannot provide everything by myself. My husband is the main provider for her aging parent. 'cause even now they cannot pay bills. Like they have really hard time paying bills. And this is the reason, like I'm fighting for my husband case and I want my husband back. And I think he deserve second chance because if you see his record is clean, like for one incident that happened like 12 years ago, that cannot define my husband. Like who he is right now, you know? So yeah, this is what happened. Like I cannot believe that my husband is able to get deport to the country that doesn't even accept. And I don't know whether he gonna get killed. I dunno what, whether he gonna disappear, I don't know what will happen to him. I don't know if it is last time I'm gonna see him. Miko Lee: Tika, thank you so much for sharing your story. And just to recap really briefly, your husband, Mohan Karki when he was a teenager, newly arrived in the country, was leaving high school, walked with his friends through a backyard and was suddenly racially profiled. And the neighbor called police because he was trespassing on property.He was born at a refugee camp. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: And so there was not property that was like person's property on that refugee camp. So that whole concept of walking across somebody's land was something he was not aware of. He had an interpreter that did not give correct or full information. And so he signed something, including a deportation order, that he wasn't actually, wasn't even aware of until recently when he was put into detention. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Yes. Miko Lee: And right now he's in detention. You're, you live in Ohio, but he's in detention in Michigan, right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: Okay, Tika, let's talk about Mohans case and what's happening. He's held in detention right now in a detention facility in Michigan. And what is going on with his case? Tika Basnet: Yeah, I don't wanna say a lot of things about his case, but our attorney, his criminal attorney does file, a Motion to Redeem asking BIA to send that, case back to Georgia and we recently hired, criminal attorney to fight for his case, that happened in 2013. And our attorney just submit documentation where he's asking to release my husband because it'd been five month. And he's not risk to the community. He's not risk to the flight. 'cause he doesn't have no one in Bhutan. He doesn't have no one in Nepal. He's all family is in here. So his community love him ,he has family that loves him. And, we also get lot of documentations as a proof telling ICE officer that my husband is not risk to the community or, to the flight. Miko Lee: Thank you. And he has a new baby, a four month old baby that he has yet to meet. So that is a powerful reason to stay. And as Tikas pointing out, the lawyer just submitted documentation along with 50 letters of support from the community , from employers, from family members, all saying why he should stay in this country. Thank you so much for sharing. And Anne, i'm wondering if you could share about what happened to your husband. He was also born in a refugee camp, right? Ann Vue: So, Lou was born in Nangkai, Thailand refugee camp. In 1978 and in 1979 his parents and him and his older brother received parole for legal entry. I think the exact word was, they were paroled pursuant under section 212D5 of the I and N Act, which means that they are granted urgent humanitarian reasons for or for public benefit. Right. Because my father-in-law had helped and during the war. And so he received his visa in September. I just lookeded back at all of his history there and then they made it to America right before Halloween 'cause my father-in-law was like, I always remembered it because in the country of Asia, they're scared of halloween, scary Halloween stuff. And so when they came, they were like, oh my gosh. There were, Jesus says, I remember there were just a lot of zombies, right? And we were so scared because we were like, and so I always remember that about, you know, I'll fast forward it to 1997, right when he just turned, I believe 18 and very similar to Tika, you know, her husband too. And a lot of times, in the early nineties, me even being the first generation American here, racism played a lot. And we all went through that piece and our parents not speaking English at the same time, they were going to school themselves so that they can learn our English language, right. And they weren't able to teach us growing up. So we had to kind of fend for ourselves. And I would say my husband he went out with some friends. He did not commit the crime. But of course now that is brought back to him, he understood about his particular case is second attempt, home invasion. Nobody was harmed. He was in the vehicle, in the backseat when he was caught. And he didn't wanna partake, but he didn't wanna stop them either, you know? 'cause to him it was like, if I don't partake, then I have nothing to do with it. Right. Because if I do, then they might not be my friends anymore. I mean, it's just a part of growing up as a youth. But because he was there, and then would receive a court appointed attorney, and then provide it very similar to Tika's too. Had an interpreter, that was explaining to them, was provided bad legal advice. He had nothing, no knowledge about how this would impact his immigration status. He would take a plea, and it was advised by their attorney, take the plea it's easier, you know, and you probably serve less than a year. You'll be out, you'll only be in the county jail anyways 'cause you didn't really commit the crime and technically it should have been a misdemeanor. But because you're an accomplice , that kind of falls under this category. So he took the plea, he served 10 months in a county jail. He actually was released for good behavior. He even finished his probation soon because he paid all of his stuff off. And he even finished a youth advocate program, a youth training program for anybody that committed crimes between the age of 18 to 21. I actually just saw this form the other day and I was reading it and it talks about, you know, the one thing about our parents, experiencing the war and coming to America, they don't talk about it. And a lot of us are from communist countries . We're, we are very afraid to voice our voices, because someone can take action. And our parents never talked about it. And I read what he wrote to his, youth coordinator, and he wrote, he felt so bad about what he did. He created disappointment for his parents and he understands now after his parents told him, there are sacrifices that got us here to America. And he literally wrote all of this down, he's going to be a better person, is what he wrote. I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to make my parents proud now that I understand their sacrifices. And, they asked him, well what was your upbringing like? And in one sentence, he wrote, poor, right? So he wrote, poor and the coordinator wrote on the bottom of his comments said, Lou is remorseful for what has happened or for what ha what has happened, and very remorseful and he wants to be a better person. I have no other questions. The training is complete. He doesn't need any further, support and believes that he will move forward to be a better person. That's what literally what they wrote on the document. Then fast forwarding to 1999 , after everything was done and he served, that's when, immigration showed up at his house. And from there moved forward to explain to him what had happened. And once that happened, of course him and I would meet in 2000, and then we'd be married in 2001. Right? So we'd celebrate. Almost 24 and a half years of marriage. Right? So we did appeal his case in the humanitarian piece of what this meant for Lou during the time where we all fled the country. Once we were, once the monks were declared enemy of the state by the LDR in Laos, we fled. And once we fled, it's well documented that there was a little bit over 400,000 of us there right after all the genocide and the killings of the Hmong there was probably less than 45,000 of us left, right? And so once we understood a lot of that, we wanted to do better. We wanted to really service our community, right? So. Fast forwarding it. We appealed the case. The case was then denied I believe in 2002. And even in his letters, in his appeal letters, general Vink Powell, which led the, Hmongs during, in the war, even had a letter in there where he, to also pled why Hmongs need to stay here in America, right. And why we need to bring the rest of our people to this country. The reality is our whole family, Lou's whole family was wiped out. We don't have anybody, Lou doesn't have anyone, right? And so you know, that goes to Tikas thing too. There's nobody there. And, going back to the case once it was denied in 2002, of course he then. Was forced to reach out to the embassy and reached out to the embassy and was denied, entry into Thailand 'cause that's where he was born. We're stateless too, just like Tikas husband. We were denied by Thailand. We were also denied by Laos stating that we are not a citizen of theirs. They do not allow or welcome any sort of entry. And then in 2006, that's when they actually took his green card was in 2006 and then we prompt again we were denied. And then in 2008 we were denied a third time and that's when his immigration officer was like, just move on and start your life. Laos and Thailand, will never sign a repatriation act with America because of you guys, because of the Hmong people, what you guys have done to their country, making it the most bombed country during the war without even being a part of the war. So therefore, they will never allow you guys or accept you guys back. And so we were like, okay. So we moved forward and then in 2014, this immigration officer, which we was doing yearly checkups at this time, was like, Hey go get your citizenship, get your green card. They're like you're doing so good. You know, you probably could have a chance to get it. That's when we moved forward to apply for citizenship and for all we did for the green card and then for citizenship. And of course we were denied in 2015 and we know how expensive this is. You pay $10,000 outright, you don't get that money back. You just have to go at it again, right? And so, uh, we decided that, you know what, we're gonna get his case expunged, and so. We got his case expunged in 2018, no questions asked. It was very straightforward. Once it was expunged, we continued, with our lives. Very involved in the community. And we had all of our children by that time already, so we had six kids already. So fast forwarding to that, and then leading up to his detainment, which this year we even called his immigration officer and he was like, Hey, don't worry about it, Lou, we're moving you over to Grand Rapids and you should be fine. Just make sure that you stay outta trouble, continue to follow your stock and I think what triggered it was when we applied for his work permit in April. Because he was supposed to, he always meets his immigration officer at the end of the year, and we renewed his work permit is what triggered it. And so of course, the money was cashed out, everything the checks went through while we were receiving that, he was gonna be here, everything was gonna be fine. And then leading up to July 15th where he was detained at work, early morning of six 30 in the morning, the detained officer they they told him that they know who he is to the community, so they have to do it this way because they don't want any problems. They don't want media, they don't want reporters. He did play with them. He did ask them because he rode his motorcycle for some weird reason. He has not taken his bike out, his motorcycle out in the last three years. But for some reason that night he was like, I just wanna take my bike. So he took his bike that night and when ICE told him, do you have somebody come get your bike? You need to call somebody to come get your bike. And he was like, nobody in my family rides motorcycles. Like we don't, I don't have anyone to come get my bike. And I think there was some empathy and compassion for him. He was like, okay, let me check on something. Because my husband was like, can I just take my bike back? I've got six kids. I've got my grandma at home and my parents are also at my house right now. I just wanna see them and I just wanna take my bike back. So they asked him, if we let you go, we asked will you like please don't run. Right? And so they followed my husband home and my husband literally called me at 6 37 in the morning and he was like, Hey, ICE is, here they got me. So I'm like, what? What's going on? So it was just so surreal. I was so shocked. And so it's about a 30 minute drive from his workplace back to our house. And um, when he got there, um, they, there were already officers, like there were, it was packed tight in our driveway. So our driveway's pretty far up because we live in the country. And so, there were like five or six cop cars there too. So we had to walk about half a mile down to go see him. They wouldn't allow him to enter where our home was. And the officer told, my husband, told him that they're so sorry. They have to do it this way. They know who he is. They don't want any problems, they don't want any reports in media out here. And I will say my experience was a little bit different from others. They did take their mask off when they took him in, they were respectful so that part is that much. They even, you know, talk to my two older boys like, “Hey, you guys have money. I could put the money in your dad's account.” We're, take him into Grand Rapids, we're gonna process him, and then we're gonna take him to the detention center, which is gonna be involved in Michigan. So they were very open about these steps, what they were doing with him, at least that much. But I will say that it was my grandma, of course she has chronic pulmonary disease stage four. So at that point we, we couldn't haul her fast enough because we only saw him for like maybe a quick minute, and that was it. And so they did ask us to turn around because they had to take him back and they didn't want my, our little ones to see them cuffing him. Miko Lee: They actually said, Anne, we don't want any media to be watching this? Ann Vue: I don't want any problems. Miko Lee: Mm. And and your husband is also quite well known in the Hmong community, right? Ann Vue: He is Miko Lee: and so probably, they were worried about folks coming out and protesting. Is that, do you think that was the case? Ann Vue: That's what I'm assuming, because I don't remember their exact words saying media, but I do remember they were saying that they didn't want people around, they didn't want to create issues for the community.I am assuming that correct, because if he would've gotten the letter just like everybody did, which everybody then would receive the letter on Friday, and because my husband is a community leader, he is the Hmong Family Association's president, we restart receiving. Many, many calls where everybody just wanted to talk to Lou 'cause they needed to know what's going on, how to handle, what to do. And so at that moment I realized, oh my gosh, they detained my husband first this way. And then everybody else got a letter. Miko Lee: And the ICE officer that he had been checking in with routinely has, have you all been in touch with that same ICE officer? Ann Vue: He has been, I think in the last seven or eight years.Yeah. It's been the same guy. Miko Lee: But has he been in touch with him since he was detained? Ann Vue: He hasn't. Miko Lee: Has not, no. So they had different people come in even, 'cause he was the person that said everything's okay, keep going with your life. Ann Vue: Oh yeah. Miko Lee: And so no contact with him whatsoever since the detention? Ann Vue: No. Miko Lee: Can you give a little bit of an update of Lou's case and what's going on with him right now? Ann Vue: I don't know as much. Maybe I may have to have Aisa respond to the legality piece around it. 'cause I know we're, they've been doing, working around the clock and working hard on strategy. Miko Lee: Okay. Thank you so much, Aisa. Before we move into that, I just wanna point out, for all of our listeners, how many similarities there are in these two cases. And in both of these, you know, these amazing women are here supporting their spouses, both, spouses born in refugee camps. Dealing with intergenerational trauma from families that had to escape ethnic cleansing or involved in a war, came into the United States under, legal properties through refugee resettlement acts, made mistakes as young people, partially due to culture and wanting to fit in. They served their time, they paid their dues. They were racially profiled to be able to actually be in those positions that they were in. They suffered from incredible immigration policy failure with bad advice, with a system that's broken. And now both of them are detained. Not yet deported, but detained. Many of the community members have already been deported and they're facing statelessness. And we're seeing this not just with Bhutanese and Hmong folks, but with Mien and Lao and Haitian and El Salvadorian. And we could fill in the blank of how many other peoples in other communities are facing this. So, we also know that these private detention centers where people are being held, are making millions and millions of dollars, and it's connected into our corrupt political system that's in place right now. We also know and Aisa, I'm wondering if you could, talk about the case, but also about some of the deals that we think have had to be made with Laos and Bhutan in order for these deportations to even take place. So Aisa from Asian Law Caucus, I'm gonna pass it to you to go over some of the legal ramifications. Aisa Villarosa: Of course, Miko, and thank you for it for the context. And there are so many parallels that we as advocates must uplift because this is not the time to be divided. This is really the time to build solidarity that we've long known needs to happen. And, and this is really the moment. What Miko is referring to is, uh, largely, um, something that we've observed around the travel bans. So. Earlier this year, right around the time that the Trump administration took hold, there was a draft travel ban list that leaked across a number of media outlets, the Times, et cetera, and the same countries we're talking about today, Bhutan, Laos. These were historically not countries that were subject to sanctions, like the travel ban, and yet here they were. And so a lot of us were scratching our heads and asking, you know, what, why is this happening? Our theory, and this is a theory that is now also manifesting in a number of FOIA requests or Freedom of Information Act requests that are submitted from Asian Law Caucus to departments like the State Department ice, the Department of Homeland Security. Asking the same question that Tika and Anne are asking, which is, how are these deportations even happening? Because they were not happening until this year. And what very likely happened was a bit of a quid pro quo. So in removing Bhutan, removing Laos from this list where they could be sanctioned as a country, there was likely some backdoor deal that took place between the US State Department and Bhutanese officials and the US officials, where essentially there was some form of an agreement that there would be an acceptance or a supposed acceptance of a certain number of folks from these communities. That is why around March, around April for the Bhutanese refugee community, for example, we started seeing pickups very similar to Mohans case, where, many people who had perhaps made some mistakes in their youth or had really old criminal convictions were swept off the streets and thrust into these really rapid deportation proceedings. I don't even know if proceedings is the right word, because there essentially was no proceeding. You know, the Immigration Court is very much a cloaked process. The immigration judge is kind of judge and jury wrapped up together, which is very different than many of us might turn on the TV and see something like Law and order. An immigration court works a very different way where this piece of paper, this final removal order, basically gives ICE a lot of bandwidth to make these deportations happen. However, that doesn't mean we should just accept that this is happening. We know that just basic procedures of fairness are not being met. We know, too that in the case of, for example, the Bhutanese community ICE officers have come to the wrong house. And put a lot of people in fear. So racial profiling was happening even before this recent Supreme Court decision, which essentially now condones racial profiling, right? As criteria that the ICE can use. I also just wanted to talk about this trend too, that we're seeing with so many cases. It happened to Lou, it happened to Mohan, where in someone's underlying criminal court case, maybe they were given a court appointed attorney. In many cases, they were not told of the immigration impacts of, say, taking a plea. There is a Supreme Court case called Padilla versus Kentucky and basically the law shifted such that in many cases there now is a duty for a court appointed public defender to actually talk to folks like Mohan and Lou about the immigration consequences of their plea. So when Tika mentioned that there's something called a post-conviction relief effort for Mohan. That's happening in Georgia. This is very much what that legal defense looks like, where, an expert attorney will look at that very old court record, see if those rights were violated, and also talk to Mohan and make sure did that violation happen and is that grounds for reopening an immigration case. For Lou, there is a really mighty pardoning campaign that's brewing in the state of Michigan. So in Michigan, governor Gretchen Whitmer does have the authority to in some cases expedite a pardon in process. We're hoping that this public swelling of support from Mohan will result in a pardon, because importantly, even if Mohans conviction was expunged, which can be very helpful in, for example, state court, arenas, things like, applying for certain jobs. Unfortunately, in the immigration arena the expungement does not have that same weight as say a vacating, or a motion to vacate that criminal record. So it's super frustrating because, so much of this turns ethically, morally on- do we, as people believe in second chances, and I know most people do, and [00:35:00] yet here we are really. Based on a technicality. I also just want to name too that Lou as a person is both a natural organizer and he is a spiritual guide of his community. So something that many folks don't know is because of so much of the trauma that Anne talked about, both from, supporting the Americans during the Secret War, many Hmong folks who came to the States, they actually in some cases died in their sleep because of this, almost unexplained weight of the trauma, right? And so it almost underscores. The importance of Lou, not just to his family, but this family is a collective family, right? He's both a mentor for so many, he's a spiritual guide for so many. And so you know, him being away from his family, away from community, it's like a double, triple wound. And then for Mohan, I'd love to uplift this memory I have of , a moment in June when Tika gave us a call, and at that point, Mohan had called Tika and said, they're taking me, I'm being deported. And at that point, they were removing Mohan from the ICE facility in Butler, Ohio and transporting him to. At first we had no idea. Then we learned it was, toward the Detroit airport or that deportation to Bhutan and Tika was forced to essentially delay her childbirth. It was very much in the range of when she was due to give birth to their daughter. But because the clock was ticking, Tika drove to Butler, literally begged for Mohan's life as our organizing and advocacy and legal team was trying to get together this emergency stay of deportation. That fortunately came through at the 11th hour. But the fact that Mohan remains in this facility in St. Clair, Michigan, that he's never held his daughter is unacceptable, is ridiculous. And I think so much of these two cases almost, this invisible brotherhood of pain that I know Ann has talked to me about that. Because Lou right now has been in a couple facilities. He is organizing, he's doing his thing and actually supporting folks while also just trying to keep himself well, which is no easy feat to do in so many of these facilities. Especially because, in Alexandria, for example, which is a facility in Louisiana. We know that folks are sleeping on cement floors. We know that folks are not being fed, that there's a lot of human rights violations going on. And here is Lou still continuing to use his voice and try to advocate for the folks around him. Miko Lee: Aisa thank you so much for putting that into context, and we'll put links in the show notes for how folks can get involved in both of these cases. One is, Rising Voices has a call to action to reach out to Governor Whitmer for that. Pardon in Campaign for Lou. So we encourage folks to do that. And in terms of Mohan, there's a GoFundMe to help support Tika and the immense lawyer fees, which we discussed that are needed. And also a letter writing campaign to the ICE director Kevin Roff, to try and release Mohan and also Lou. These are really important things that are happening in our community, and thank you for being out there. Thank you for talking and sharing your stories. We really appreciate you. And also, just briefly, I'd love us for us to talk for a minute about how many folks in our Asian American communities, we don't wanna talk about mistakes that we have made in the past because we might consider that shameful. And therefore, in both of these communities, when we started organizing, it was really hard at first to find people to come forth and share their stories. So I wonder if both of you can give voice to a little about that, the power you found in yourself to be able to come forward and speak about this, even though some other folks in the community might not feel comfortable or strong enough to be able to talk. Tika, can you speak to that? Tika Basnet: Yeah. So what makes me really strong, and I wanna see that my husband case is because he was 17, people can make mistake and from those mistake, if people are learning. Then I think Americans should consider, 'cause my husband did make mistake and I wish that time he knew the rules and regulation. I wish like somebody taught him that he's not supposed to go somebody else property, like around in backyard. And I wish he was been in the United States like more than one and a half year. I wish, if he was like more than two years, three years. And I think that time he, from high school, he could learn. You know, he's not supposed to go there. He was just been in the United States like one and a half year just going to high school. Nobody taught him. His parent doesn't even speak English. Until now, he doesn't even, they doesn't even speak, like nobody in our community knew rules and regulation. So no, basically that he doesn't have guide, like mentor to taught him like, and even though he did make mistake and he's really sorry, and from those mistake learning a lot, and he never get into trouble, like after 11 years, he was clean, he work, he pay taxes. And I think, that is the reason that I really wanna come forward. You know, people can make mistake, but learning from those mistake that changed people life. And, and I think, the reason that I'm coming forward is because organization like Asian Law Caucus, ARU, and, Miko, a lot of people helped me. You know, they taught me like people can make mistake and, I think we shouldn't be same. And I really wanna give example to my daughter, you know, that, you are fighting for justice and you shouldn't fear. I think, what is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. But if somebody's make mistake and they are not, doing that mistake again, I think the people can get a second chance. And I think my husband deserves second chance and he's 30 years old. He has a family, he has a wife, children and he deserved to be here. We came here legally, my husband came here. Legally, we, promise that we'll get home and this is our home. We wanna stay here and I really want my husband be home soon so he can play with her daughter to play with his daughter. Miko Lee: Thank you so much, Tika. Ann I wonder if you could talk to the strength that it takes for you to come forward and speak about your husband and your family. Ann Vue: I'm a community leader with my husband too, right? I would say that there was a moment when he was first detained where I was in complete silence. I was so shocked. It took my attorney, Nancy, just talking to me about it. Of course, back to what Aisa said earlier in our communities, we're afraid. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. It took me visiting my husband in Baldwin and letting him know that, hey, a bunch of community members are now reaching out and I think it's hit our community. And that's that. At that moment, he was like, you have to say something. You have to say something you have to make noise because you have a, 50% chance, right? We have a 50 50 chance. 50%. They're gonna send me 50%. You're gonna feel bad if you don't say anything, right? 50 here, 50 there. It doesn't matter. But a hundred percent regret if you don't say something. I thought about it and he was like, well, go out there, be my voice. He's like, you've always been my voice. You got this right. And so when, I didn't say no to Nancy. 'cause she really wanted to talk to our rep Mai you know about this. And , Mai and I are pretty close too. And, I just knew if I said anything, Maya's gonna be like mm-hmm. All the way. Right? So I just let Nancy help me, and my most vulnerable time. And I'm glad that she did. And I'm glad that we did get this out. It is the most important thing for us, and I've been, I will say what keeps me going is all of those that have been impacted by this, from people like Tika. I have many, I call 'em sisters. We're all in a lot of these group chats together. They've been also keeping me going. Our amazing team of attorneys and everybody just strategizing through this unprecedented time. It's really everyone's voices. I get to talk to Lou daily. It's definitely not cheap, but he gets to share each story of each person. I believe that everybody has a story and they might not be as lucky as maybe Tika or my husband, but at least now I have their story. I will be their voice. I will tell each person's story, each name, each alien number that I track down, my husband's even literally learned how to count in Spanish, just so he can give them like my phone number in Spanish in case they need to call an emergency. Oh, I'm be getting a lot of calls. Right. I would say that that is what keeps me going because I think that Tika and I and many others are, hoping that there is going to be a better day, a brighter day. I hope that everyone can see that, our children are American, right? Our children, they deserve to have their fathers and their mothers. They deserve to grow with these parents. And with that being said, the most important thing to me is they're not just bystanders. They're literally the future of America. I don't want them growing up with trauma, with trying to ask me questions like, well mom, if we're refugees and we helped, Americans as allies, and we come to this country, why is this payback like this? There's a moral obligation that has to be there and they're gonna grow up and they're gonna be trauma by this. I've got children right now that's been talking about joining the National Guard. It speaks volume about what happens to my husband. He's championed the Hmong, Michigan Special Gorilla unit, the Hmong veterans here in the last two years, really with helping them through resolutions, tributes, making sure that they have things, that they are out there, that people now know them, they are finally recognized. This puts my husband at great danger by sending him back, because now he's championed the veterans here. He celebrates our veterans here. So it's a moral obligation. And I hope Tika, I hope that, and this is to every child, I hope that every child, they deserve their father's presence. There are many people who don't even have their father's presence and they wish their fathers were around. And our fathers wanna be around. And I hope that our daughter, I only have one daughter too, that someday they can, their fathers can be a part of their, the American culture. So I, I hope that. We get that opportunity and I hope that somebody stop being scared, but turn around and help us. Help us. We came here legally, minor stuff, long decade old. Even lose share with me. This detainment has been worse than when he was, when he did time back in 1997. And I just hope that somebody hears our podcast, Miko. Thank you. And, Aisa and Tika. And they turn and they have some compassion and help us because this is the tone that we're setting for the future of our American children. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing. Tika, you wanna add? Tika Basnet: Yes, I really wanna talk about what kind of husband Mohan is. Even though like he detained for five month and I cannot. I put lot of money in his account and there was one guy, I think his family cannot support him. And for me, like it is really hard. I'm not working. But even my husband called me like, you don't need to put like money in my account, but can you please can you please put money in his account? He did not eat food. His family did not have money. I can survive without eating food. But, I think his story is really touching me. And that time, like my husband was crying listening to that guy story in detention center and then I did put like $50 in his account. And my husband is giving person like, he love to give even though, he struggle a lot, even though, he doesn't know what will happen when he get deport. But, him saying other guy story. Does make him cry. I think this is the reason that I really wanna come forward. My husband is giving person, he's lovely person, he's caring person. And that is the reason I wanna come forward. I want people to hear our voice, rather than silent. Because right now people know our story. But if I was silent back , then I don't know whether my husband was already disappear. I don't know whether he gonna die torture or maybe he will expel within 24 hours. I have no idea. So I think, my husband is number one support system for me, and I think because of him that I'm here sharing his story and yeah, like for years I had wonderful time with him. We build our dream and until 2025, our dream is destroy. I'm trying to build again. I'm hoping, like my husband is coming home soon and I'm hoping that this will be the last time that he will get detained. I hope that this will be the end. I don't want him to get detained or deported again. I'm really tired. I don't know what to do. I'm hopeless. I hope listening to my story and Anna's story that separating family is not good. Like it is affecting not only one person but his whole community, whole family. We deserve to get our husband back. Because it is not only about the wife that is fighting for husband, it is the children. , They're so small, they born here and we cannot raise alone, we cannot work. We have things to pay. And paying those bills and taking care of child alone is really difficult. It is giving depression like it's been five month, like I went through postpartum depression, I went through trauma and I don't wanna deal anymore. Like I don't have courage to do this anymore. We need our husband back. Miko Lee: Thank you. And I think both of your husbands are also main caregivers for parents that are ailing in both cases. It's a really important thing that we are intergenerational communities and as you both said, it's not just about the children, but it's also about parents and brothers and sisters and community members as well. Thank you so much for lifting up your stories. I just wanna go back for one more thing. We talked briefly about the crazy expensive lawyer fees that have come up for families that they've been dealing with this, and then also Tika was just bringing up about detention and commissary fees. Can you talk a little bit about the prison industrial complex and the fees that are associated? As Anne was saying, just calling Lou every day the costs that are associated with those things. Many people that don't have a family member that's incarcerated don't know about that. Can you share a little bit about what that system is? Aisa Villarosa: Yeah, absolutely Miko. And, just to underscore, a big theme from this conversation, it is that the US made commitments and they have broken them, both with, as Anne talked about, the refugee experience is one that is made possible through US commitment of acknowledging what, people have survived, what they have given to the country. And to look at this moment where folks are being removed to countries where not only do they have zero ties to, don't speak the language, but, especially in the case of the Bhutanese refugee community, as Tika mentioned, it is [00:52:00] truly a double expulsion. So the fact that we have well-documented testimonials of folks really deported from Bhutan after they're removed there into these life-threatening conditions that in some cases have actually resulted in a community member passing away. A community member passed away in large part because of the failure of the US to both care for them while in detention. So going back to that prison complex, but also just putting them in such a harrowing situation. In another instance, a community member was found after wandering for over a hundred miles on foot. So this is not, deportation and the story ends. This is deportation. And, there is a family that is grieving and thinking through next steps, there is, this call to not have borders, break us the way that this country is trying to do. And to say a little bit about the fees, USCIS, there, there has not been a point yet in history where so many changes and charges hurting families have been ushered in, But for this year, and so to give a couple examples of that – asylum cases for one, these often take many, many years through this administration. Now, families have to pay a cost yearly for each year that your asylum application, languishes because we're also seeing that those same folks who are supposed to process these applications are either being laid off or they're being militarized. So something like USCIS where this was where one would go to apply for a passport. Now the same department is literally being handed guns and they're now taking folks during naturalization interviews. Other avenues to challenge your removal. Like I mentioned a motion to reopen. All these things used to be fairly affordable. Now they can cost many thousands of dollars on top of the attorney fees. So something that's been quite challenging for groups like Asian Law Caucus where we do have attorneys representing folks in removal proceedings, there's often this misperception that oh it's costing so much money. Attorneys are pocketing cash. And unfortunately there are some situations where some attorneys have been known to take advantage of families in this desperate moment. But for many, many attorneys who are in this mix, they're experts at this work. They're trying to do the right thing. They're both overwhelmed and they're seeing these new charges, which make the battle really even more difficult. So to turn it back to the listeners, I would say that as powerless as this moment can make us feel everyone is bearing witness. Hopefully the listeners today can take in Anne's story, can take in Tikas story and whatever power one has in their corner of the world, this is the moment to use that. Whether it's your voice, whether it's learning more about a community, maybe you're learning about for the first time. This is really the moment to take action. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. I really wanna thank you all for being here with me today, for sharing your personal stories, your personal pain, and for recognizing that this is happening. We deeply believe that we need to keep our families together. That is really important. It is written into the very basis of this American country about redemption and forgiveness. And this is what we're talking about for incidents that happened, misunderstandings that happened when these folks were young men, that they have paid for their, they have paid for their time, and yet they're being punished again, these promises that were broken by this American government, and we need to find [00:56:00] ways to address that. I really wanna deeply thank each of you for continuing to be there for sharing your voice, for protecting one another, for being there and standing up for your family and for our community. Thank you for joining me today. Check out our Apex Express Show notes to find out about how you can get involved. Learn about the Rising Voices campaign for Lou Young and Mohan Khaki's GoFundMe and please help to support these organizations working every day to support detained and deported people. Asian Law Caucus, Asian Refugees, United Balo Project in Vietnam. Collective Freedom in Vietnam and Laos Asian Prisoner Support Committee and new light Wellness in Cambodia. November 1st and second people nationwide are joining the Disappeared in America Weekend of Action to Stand Up for Immigrant Families and Defend Due Process. Actions include protests at Home [00:57:00] Depots, candlelight, freedom Vigils, and Day of the Dead events, honoring lives lost to detention. The following day on November 3rd, 4:00 PM Pacific Time, 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Join us for We Belong here, Bhutanese and Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness, a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. Find out more in our show notes. Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program, apex Express to find out more about our show. 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 a collective of activists that includes Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Have a great night. The post APEX Express – 10.16.25 – We Belong Here appeared first on KPFA.

Lionel challenges official narratives, focusing on the critical difference between correlation and cause across major news stories. Topics covered include skepticism toward claims linking Tylenol to autism, the motives behind alleged radicalization like Tyler Robinson, and the impact of tech giant content policing on free speech. Lionel explores deep concerns over America losing its identity and culture, featuring listener calls debating the rise of Sharia law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lionel does a deep dive into cultural clashes and assimilation. Lionel and his callers debate whether certain foreign cultural practices are "wholesale reshaping" American neighborhoods. Topics include complaints about loud calls to prayer, the lack of assimilation, and reports of separate patrols or the enactment of religious laws including discussions on Sharia and Orthodox law. Lionel also explores the history and rich culture of the Hmong people—US allies during the secret war in Laos. Plus, a Vietnam veteran shares candid and powerful memories concerning the war's hidden legacies, including the heroin epidemic and the ongoing impact of the "black rifle" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Capital Notes discusses how Wisconsin's approach to COVID vaccines differs from the federal government. The history of Hmong refugees settling in Wisconsin. The art of cheesemaking. A new Milwaukee Music Roundup.

Welcome to Season 5, Episode 37! Today we continue with the second part of The History of The Secret War in Laos. We highly recommend going back to listen to Part 1. That's where you'll hear about the Cold War motivations behind U.S. involvement in Laos, the rise of General Vang Pao and the Hmong Secret Army, and the massive bombing campaign that made Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. In this episode, we'll talk about the aftermath once the war ended… from re-education camps for the Lao and Hmong soldiers who fought on the side of the Americans, to the massive amount of UXO clean-up, to the refugee crisis. We also share some of the challenges with the current administrations policy of revoking temporary refugee status for many in the community. To learn more about some of the organizations helping with clean-up and education, checkout Legacies of War, Mines Advisory Group, or the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. You can learn about all three and support them through donations. For our recurring segment, we talk about Netflix's most popular show ever… Kpop Demon Hunters. Kpop now goes beyond Korea, and with several prominent Korean American voice actors, this show definitely resonated with people who find relevance with the “third culture” experience. Whether you watch it for the story, action, music, or Kpop scenes, it's a show that is resonating with a lot of people! 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 our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Intro and Catching Up 06:36 The History of The Secret War in Laos Part 2 15:14 What Are We Watching? Kpop Demon Hunters!!!

This week, we're taking a look back at Clint Eastwood's 2008 film, Gran Torino. It's been 17 years since this film was released. How does the movie resonate today? Are its themes still relevant in the modern day? Join us as we look back and discuss!https://www.spreaker.com/episode/gran-torino--67739777

Study after study has shown a drop in mental health. That is especially true of young people and women. Sheng Lee Yang discusses her work with underserved, marginalized populations and the need for culturally sensitive therapy. Sheng is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Perinatal Mental Health therapist. She is a former professor who taught social justice issues, mental health, and advocacy to social work students. She is a first generation Hmong refugee and, most importantly she says, a proud mom. Us 2 Behavioral Health Care and Sheng can be contacted at Mental Health Services, Diversity & Inclusion Training in Appleton (https://us2bhc.org) The State of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality campaign is at Dose of Reality: Opioids in Wisconsin (https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/opioids/index.htm). More information about the federal response to the ongoing opiate crisis can be found at One Pill Can Kill (https://www.dea.gov/onepill)   The views and opinions of the guests on this podcast are theirs and theirs alone and do not necessarily represent those of the host or Westwords Consulting. We're always interested in hearing from individuals or organizations who are working in substance use disorder treatment or prevention, mental health care and other spaces that lift up communities. This includes people living those experiences. If you or someone you know has a story to share or an interesting approach to care, contact us today! Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Subscribe to Our Email List to get new episodes in your inbox every week!

Khiav Dim 4. This is a daily reading from the Hmong Bible by Lo Lee. Season “36“ Episode “4“ from the book of “Exodus“. Enjoy. Disclaimer. God's word the Bible is an important part of those who follows him and it can change the life of those who take it seriously. The intention of this audio recording is to spread the word of God to anyone who understand Hmong. This audio can be downloaded and is only for personal use. It is not to be copy, edit in any shape or form, commercialize, upload to the internet, or change in any way. All background music is provided by Anchor and Pixabay at pixabay.com that this podcast creator has the right to use. Thank you for your interest in The Hmong Bible and may you be change as you listen to the word of God.

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. Important Links: Hmong Innovating Politics: Website | Instagram Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram Bhutanese American Refugee Rights website Transcript Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on KPFA. My name is Swati Rayasam.  Since the onset of the Trump administration, immigrant and refugee communities have been under increased attack, being kidnapped in broad daylight, detained in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and deported to countries many of them barely know. All without due process or communication to their loved ones and communities. On tonight's episode, we're focusing on a particular segment of our immigrant and refugee community, Hmong and Bhutanese refugees. Both of these targeted communities are stateless with no land to call their own, and their deportation carries the very real danger of disappearance and death. Robin Gurung from Asian Refugees United and Kao Ye Thao from Hmong innovating Politics, discuss their community and personal refugee stories, and talk about the intersection of the US' deeply broken immigration and criminal legal systems, otherwise known as crimmigration. We also get to hear from the wives of two detained refugees, one Bhutanese and one Hmong, who are currently fighting to keep their families together and to protect their loved ones from the dangers of deportation as stateless people. I also want to note because this is a rapidly developing situation, that this episode was recorded on August 13th, 2025, and is being released on August 28th, 2025. For the most recent updates, please go to bhutaneserefugeerights.org or check out the Pardon Refugees campaign. Now, here's Miko. Miko: Welcome to Apex Express. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so glad to bring you all together in this time. I'm wondering if I could ask you each to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the community your organization serves and what you do, and let's start with Kao Ye.  Kao Ye: Hello everyone, and thank you for making space- my name is Kao Ye Tao. I use she her pronouns, and I work as the director of policy and partnerships with an organization called Hmong Innovating Politics. We are an organization that serves Hmong youth and families in Sacramento and Fresno, which holds two of our largest Hmong American communities in California. And our work with Hmong youth and families is really about developing their leadership to organize towards social justice and to get the resources that their communities deserve. Miko: Thank you, Kao Ye and Robin, could you please introduce yourself? Robin: Sure. My name is Robin Gurung. I use he, him, his, I'm from the Nepali speaking Bhutanese community. I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. my role at Asian Refugees United is the co-founder and the co-executive director. We have our program in California and Pennsylvania. California programs are, are serving Asian diaspora and then, Pennsylvania programs are focused serving the Nepal speaking Bhutanese community. We work in the intersection of arts and healing, storytelling, civic engagement, leadership development. Thank you. Miko: Thanks Robin and I am your host Miko Lee, lead producer at Apex Express. And all of us are part of a network called AACRE Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, which is a network of progressive Asian American groups. So you all work with refugee populations. I'm wondering if you could tell a little bit more about the backstory of your community, and also if you feel comfortable about how you personally came to be a refugee in the United States. And, Robin, I'd love to start with you on that one. Robin: Sure. My community is Nepali speaking, Bhutanese refugee community. And we are ethnically Nepali, which means culture wise and language wise we speak Nepali and follow the Nepali culture tradition. Our ancestors like maybe in 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds migrated from Nepal to Bhutan and became the citizen of that country. And most people don't know about Bhutan, it's a very tiny country between China and India. And, if people know about Bhutan, then people know it through the cross national happiness concept, Bhutan is considered the happiest country in the world. So our ancestors were in mostly in the southern area of Bhutan for generations, they became the citizen. They had their own home, their own land. And then later, 1980s, early nineties, there was a policy by the government of Bhutan, which is the monarchy government system- king rules the country. They brought a policy called One Nation, One People Policy. Which means all different groups of people would have to follow the same culture, same religion, kind of follow the same dress code and because of that policy all people were forced to stay away from following our own culture or our own religion, which, most of our folks were Hindu. Our people protested against it and because of that, the government expelled over a hundred thousand of our community members. And, they expelled to India and then from like India wouldn't allow us to stay and we had to resettle in Nepal in seven different refugee camps under different international agencies like U-N-H-C-R and other agencies. Miko: And then Robin, can you tell a little bit about your personal story and how you came here? Robin: Yeah. Yeah. So 1992 is when my family had to leave Bhutan. And at that time I was three years old. I remember growing up in a refugee camp in Nepal, from three years until I was 23 years. So 20 years of my life I was in a refugee camp in Nepal. And in 2012, I came to US through the refugee resettlement program introduced to our camps in 2008, and through it US agreed to resettle 60,000 of our committee members. By 2017, I think US has resettled about 70 to 80,000 of our Bhutanese community members.   Miko: Thank you so much for sharing. Kao Ye I wonder if you could talk about your community and the refugee resettlement program that your community was a part of. Kao Ye: The Hmong American community, or just the Hmong community overall, is a group that's indigenous to East and Southeast Asia. And through our ancient history, we've always been a stateless, people fighting for our autonomy to live to practice our customs and our culture. And particularly where we come into this history of refugee is during the Vietnam War where many Hmong people, alongside other ethnic groups in Laos, were caught in the crossfire of the United States conflict in Southeast Asia. And so with the Vietnam War. The Hmong as well as many other ethnic communities that lived, in the hills and the mountains were recruited in covert operations by the CIA to fight back against the Vietnamese, the Northern Vietnamese communist forces, as well as the Putet Lao. And so once the US withdrew from Southeast Asia, it created a vacuum of conflict and violence that our people had to escape from in order to survive. And so after the Vietnam War in 1975, we saw the mass displacement of many Southeast Asian ethnic communities, including Hmong families. And that is where my history starts because my parents were born in Laos and because of this war, they fled to Thailand refugee camps and lived there for a few years until they were able to come to the United States in 1992. And I'm actually I'm a child of refugees and so what I know about this part of my history comes from the stories of my grandparents who raised me as well as what little I could learn in the textbooks of public education. And so it wasn't actually until going to college and. Being able to access more of this literature, this history that I really learned about what the United States had done in Southeast Asia and the ramifications of that for myself and my family and so many others, refugees that. Have to have had to resettle in the United States. And so it's definitely a history that runs very close, because we have relatives that live through that refugee experience. And so it is very well and alive. And so as we now approach this conversation around ICE and deportations, it really is a reminder of the trauma that our people face, but are still facing as a people that have been seen as disposable to the United States government. Miko: Thanks, Kao Ye. Let's talk a little bit more about that. But first I wanna say, did either of you ever hear about refugees in your textbooks? I never did. So I'm wondering if, you said you learned a little bit about that from textbooks. Was that something you learned in public education. Kao Ye: I did not learn about refugees or refugees experience. I learned about the war and as a Hmong kid it brought me so much delight to try to scroll through the history books just to see if Hmong people were mentioned. And even then the refugee experience was not ever something that we talked about. I felt like definitely not in, in high school. I think it was college really, that then started to articulate those terms and that Southeast Asian identity, that is really where I think I also became politicized in that. Miko: Yeah, because I think in textbooks there might be a little section on the Vietnam War, but it does not talk about the, all the Southeast Asian ethnic peoples that actually fought in the war. We have to dig that information out on our own, but I wanna move us to what is happening right now. So the Trump administration has created. Culture of fear among immigrants and refugees, these ICE raids and disappearances. It is so intense and using immigrants as a fear tool to prop up white supremacy is so blatant right now. I'm wondering if you can each talk about, how this administration's policies are impacting your communities. And, Robin, let's start with you. What is happening right now? I know since the end of March, can you share a little bit about what's been happening with Bhutanese Americans? Robin: Sure. Sure. So our people were settled to this country with the hope that this is going to be our home. But starting March of this year, with the new policies of this current administration, we started seeing abrupt, ICE arrest in our communities. People were picked up from home, their workplaces, and from their ICE, check-ins. And, since March, within I would say two to three months, more than 72 of our community members were picked up, mostly from Pennsylvania and then Ohio, and also from other states like New York, Georgia, North Dakota. So until now, we have, the records of at least 50 people who have been deported to Bhutan and at least 72 who are detained. So more than 30 people are [at risk] of getting detained. The nature of the ICE arrests that we have seen is we don't know whether the due processes were followed. They made it so hard for the families to look for attorneys, and also to track their family members. Within days family members would find their loved ones disappeared, and then they wouldn't be able to talk to them they wouldn't be able to track them and provide the support that they needed. So for us as a community organization we did not anticipate this and we were not prepared for this. And, and we didn't have the infrastructure to really address this, right? So it became such challenging work for us. Like within days we had to mobilize our people. We had to mobilize our teams to help family members with legal support, emotional support, mobilize our community members to update what's happening with this situation. The rapid response work, know your rights clinics that we had to set up. So on one hand it's the detention and deportation in the US and on the other hand, when our people were deported to Bhutan, what we're seeing is within 24 hours, they are being expelled from Bhutan to India, and then from India because India wouldn't accept them as well, they had to enter Nepal because for most of these Deportee, they're very young, they were born in refugee camps, and for most of them, the only known land is Nepal. Right. And they had to enter Nepal without documentation. And then some of them were found in refugee camps. And most of them are unknown. Like they're, they have disappeared. Miko: So that is so much over the last few months that ARU has had to step in and take a leading, role in this situation that has impacted the Bhutanese community from focusing on wellness and youth development to suddenly translating materials into Nepali, translating, know Your Rights materials into Nepali, hosting all these different events, the work that you have been doing is really powerful. I wonder if you could share with us the story of Mohan Karki, who is a community member that's currently detained in Michigan. Robin: Sure. So, Mohan Karki is now in detention in Michigan and he's a community member member who lived in Ohio. So he was detained by ICE during his regular ICE check-in , I believe in April, they detained him and then he was taken for deportation. And last minute, the families and the community had to come together and then appeal the deportation. Right now he's in Michgan detention center and his wife, who was pregnant and had due date, when Mohan was being deported on June 10, is now fighting day and night to stop the deportation and also to bring Mohan home. Right now, Asian Refugees United and other community partners, like AWPAL, Asian Law Caucus are working together to support Mohan's family, to bring Mohan home and also running a, GoFund me fundraiser, to help the family pay the legal fees. Miko: Thanks Robin. And we're gonna listen to Tikas story right now. Tika Basnet: Hi, my name is Tika Basnet I'm from Ohio and I'm fighting my husband deportation case.  So on April seven, a lot of people told us not to go to the ICE office, but my husband wanna follow the rules, he wanna go there. We went to the Westerville office inside And we sit down, we talk to each other. Nothing will go wrong. And suddenly ICE told us to come inside and they told us that my husband got travel documents from Bhutan. I told them like it is not safe for my husband to get deport in Bhutan, all the Bhutanese people run away in 1990s due to the ethnic cleansing and if my husband get deported in Bhutan, he will either gonna get killed, tortured, disappeared, imprisoned, I don't know what will happen, but they did not listen to me. So they detained my husband and I came at the parking lot and his mom saw me coming alone. So they start crying and I told them like, Mohan is gone and this is the last time I think I'm gonna see my husband. the time that my husband was taken away from Butler County on June 10 I was 41 weeks pregnant. I was supposed to deliver on, June 10. But no, I told the doctor I change my delivery time. I am not gonna go now like I need to fight for my husband. Like, When Bhutanese people started coming here in 2007. Third party promise us that in here in United States, we will get our identity. That identity will never taken away. They promise us that the way Bhutan take our identity, they will not gonna do that. we thought that this is our home. We thought that having a green card, having a citizenship, it is permanently, but no, we are, we all are wrong. And that identity is taken away within a second. And we became stateless again. So, my husband, Mohan Karki he just arrived in the United States he been here less than two years when the incident happened. He did not understand the law. He did not understand the culture. He did not know anything.  My husband he was only 17 years old, high school student coming from school to home. On the way to reach their apartment, there is one private house. They are just trying to go to the shortcut from the backyard. So some neighbor call 9 1 1. And that only one mistake lead to deportation.  The place that we come from, there is no boundaries. In Nepal, we are allowed to go anybody property We are allowed to walk somebody else house and because of the cultural difference, he's paying price right now.  At that time, nobody can speak English. They cannot understand what police were saying and Nepali interpreter told my husband that if you say I'm guilty, you'll out of prison soon. But if you did not say I'm guilty, you'll end up in prison for 20 to 25 years. High school student he's scared he just say, I'm guilty, and he did not know what is deportation mean. He did not know what he was signing. Nobody informed him what he was signing. That signing was deportation. What happened in 2013 is impacting us in 2025 and still he wish he did not cross somebody else backyard at that time. He wish he knew that he wasn't allowed to cross somebody else's backyard. I don't know what will our future is gonna be, but I hope that he gets second chance. His community love him. He love people. He was working as a truck driver. He paid taxes. He was supporting his parent. He was supporting me. My daughter deserve to have a father. You know, she's just one month. But now the dream that I was hoping one day I'm gonna build with my husband that is taken away and I'm left alone with this child. I already went through a lot without him, i'm the only one that fighting for my husband case. The deportation is not only breaking one family, but it is breaking everybody, the community and the family. And I hope that people can support me so I can fight for my husband case. Like I really need so many attorney. I need criminal attorney to open up his 2013 case. And I have wonderful, wonderful attorney, my husband get stay off removal, but that is not guarantee my husband can get deport anytime. The attorney fee are really expensive and he still needs support. The US made bhutanese people a promise of home. We belong here. Stop the detention and deportation. Stop deporting Bhutanese people. We are stateless. We don't have country, don't have a home. This is our home. US is our home. We belong here. Miko: Of the 72 people, Mohan is the first Bhutanese refugee that we actually have a stay of release on, as Robin was saying earlier, most of the folks were moved from state to state, so you can't really get a lawyer in that time. And as we all know, nonprofit immigration lawyers are under a lot of stress because of the attack of this administration. So it makes it incredibly complicated, let alone the legal fees that it costs to help support people going through this. And right now, Mohan has a stay on his, deportation and the lawyer that they do have is drafting up a letter to be able to release him into the community and also overturn his original case that happened as a minor in Georgia, which was a ridiculous case where he was leaving school, early high school, first year in the country, leaving high school early, and walked with his friends across a backyard. And the neighbor that they walked through their yard called the police, and they arrested him along with his friends for trespassing, they gave him paperwork that he didn't even understand. He signed it along with a interpreter they gave him false information to say he'd be locked up for 25 years, or if he signed this papers, that would be fine. He could go and what the papers said was it changed his charge into a felony and had him sign a letter of deportation. So this is part of the failure of our American legal system that we're not providing adequate information. It is a lack of due process. Thankfully, the work that Asian Law Caucus and United States of Stateless and other community activists are doing to call this out and help work with us is really critical. I wanna turn now to Kao Ye how this administrations is impacting Hmong refugees, and how is it similar or different to the experiences that Robin is describing for the Nepali speaking Bhutanese community? Kao Ye: I echoed many of the sentiments and the challenges that Robin shared around what we as nonprofit, grassroots organizations are having to build and grapple with just the limited infrastructure that we have to deal with the current ICE disappearances and deportation and all the support that's needed for the families. And so thank you Robin, for sharing that. I wanted to start broad a little bit because I think that this Trump administration is happening in the backdrop of the 50th year commemoration of the end of the wars in Southeast Asia and the refugee resettlement. We had over 1.1 million Southeast Asians resettle to the United States, the largest immigration resettlement, in American history. And so this year brings so many complexities, I think as a Southeast Asian community where there is a level of looking back at policies that have impacted us and have failed, but also looking forward what is the community that we are building together to move and progress together. And so there are those complexities, I think as the fact that it's the 50th year and like, this is what we're dealing with. This is the trauma that we are grappling with. And so I wanted to put that out front and center because even I think within our communities , there is no necessarily enlightenment in terms of how we talk about what is happening to our people and how they're getting deported unjustly. So that is why it is so important to have this dialogue within our communities as well as the solidarity that we also share with the Bhutanese community and other immigrant groups too. I think that in many of our Southeast Asian communities, their reasons for deportations is very tied to past convictions, and so this is the intersection between criminal law and immigration law. And it makes it complex because our people are now having to consult not just an immigration lawyer, but like criminal attorney so that they could really assess like what kind of relief they can get in order to mitigate, impending deportations. And then also miko you had shared about the lack of adequate legal service or representation because many of these folks, right, that have had these convictions that have now served their time and are simply members of our community that make our community rich. They are now having to revisit removal orders that they signed, thinking that, oh, nothing necessarily was gonna happen because they don't have a repatriation agreement. So, in our community, there was never a thought that we were going to be deported back to our home country because of that policy. And so that is a big contributing factor as to why the Hmong community, we don't have that infrastructure to really support our members who have gone through the criminal justice system and now have those removal orders. And so HIP, as well as many other grassroots. Sadly we did have to scramble to put this know your rights information together because again, I don't think that there was visibility in the need for us in this conversation around immigration Southeast Asians are a segment of our API community and so it just, I think, multiplied the invisibility that we already faced as a group of Southeast Asians. And so the support was definitely not there. And, to Robin's point, we did our best to try to put this information together to our community, starting with the Know Your Rights. And then we also realized like it was more complex than that, and that the legal supports were so necessary because everyone's case was different. I think what we're still dealing with now is that there's always been a lack of trust between our community members and government entities and nonprofit organizations. And so, if someone is dealing with the situation, they wanna go to, a partner that they trust to help them, even if they're not necessarily equipped to do that work, is that they're going to only the people that they trust because there is such a big mistrust. And so I think that, there is still the level of trust building that is needed to be done within our community so that folks feel comfortable to come to us or come to other people for support. And I think what makes me feel emotional is just when I hear about community members feeling hopeless and just feeling like there's nothing that they can do and that level of disempowerment to me, I think is something that is real. And I can't say that we can't combat it, but I think that it is about being able to find different outlets of support for them. Miko: Thank you for lifting that up. And just , in terms of the numbers, over three months, March, April and May, there were about 72 Bhutanese Americans that have been detained. And this is just kind of starting up with the Hmong community. So we had 15 that were detained from Minnesota and another 10 right now are being held in Michigan. And we also see this happening with Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodians, and Myan folks. All of these folks as Kao Ye you're pointing out, have had common threads, which is connections with the system, with the criminal legal/ justice system and crimmigration is something that in the AACRE network we've been talking about and working on, which is really about the education to prison, to deportation pipeline. And one of the things that this administration had talked about is, let's get rid of all the murderers and the rapists. You know, this like scare language about people that are convicted criminals, let's get rid of them all. But the fact of the matter. The vast majority of all of these people are people like Mohan Karki, a cultural misunderstanding that happened when he was a child. Like Lou Yang, who is Hmong refugee detained in Michigan right now. Somebody who was involved in something as a kid, but has since then become a leader in the community. So let's take a moment and listen to the spouse of Lou Yang, a Hmong refugee detained in Michigan in July. Anne Vu: My name is Anne Vu and I come before you today with a heart full of hope. Sorrow and a plea for justice. I am a proud American, a mother of six, the daughter of Hmong refugees who would gain their citizenship, and the wife of a man called Lou Yang, who is now detained and faced with potential deportation from the only country that he's ever known. Lou has lived in Michigan since October, 1979. He was born stateless in a refugee camp in Nongkai Thailand and his family fled Laos due to persecution. His father and like many others, served with the United States force during the Vietnam War as part of the Secret War, recruited by CIA in Laos, a conflict that most Americans do not know has happened. The Hmong were recruited by the CIA as part of the Secret War to help America during the Vietnam War. But when the war ended and the US withdrew, we were as the Hmongs declared enemy of the state. What followed was genocide, polarization and persecution by the state, and it was because of our alliance, the promise made by the US government that the Hmong refugees were legally settled here under certain migration of refugee laws and acts. And Lou arrived here as a young, toddler in infancy. In 1997, he was arrested on an alleged accomplice in an attempt home invasion, second degree. He was in the vehicle at the time. He never entered the home. He literally was still a juvenile at that time. He had a court appointed attorney and was advised to take a plea without being told it would affect his immigration status for the rest of his life. This is the reality of our immigration system – long, complex, confusing and devastating, unforgiving. It is not built for people like us, people like Lou, people who have served their time, rebuilt their lives and have nowhere else to go. We've walked this legal path, we've stayed together in the lines, and yet we are here punished today. Lou has no other charges, no current legal issues, no history of violence. He is not a flight risk. He is not a danger to our public safety. He is a father, my husband, a son, a son-in-law, a grandson and a brother to many, and our leader and a provider to our community, and to my family. He renews his work authorization and follows every rule asked of him no matter how uncertain the future felt. Together, we've raised six beautiful children. They're all proud Americans. Lou has contributed to Michigan's economy for decades working in our automotive industry and now he is gone and all that he is built is unraveling and the community is heartbroken. We didn't come from wealth. We didn't have every opportunity handed to us because we didn't come seeking a land of opportunity. We came here because of survival. We had to build from the ground up. But the most important thing was Lou and I, we had each other. We had our families, our friends, and our neighbors. We had a shared commitment to build a better life, grounded in love, respect, and purpose. And somehow that's still not enough. For years, we were told like other Hmong families that Laos in Thailand would never take us back. And that has changed. In June, 2025 the US imposed a partial travel ban on Laos, citing visa overstays, and lack of deportation cooperation. And in response, Laos began issuing these documents under pressure. Today over 4,800, including Hmong, Myan, and the other ethnic minorities are facing removal to Laos and to many other countries, many have never stepped foot in a country that they are now being sent to. Lou is Stateless like many others that is detained with him. None of these countries recognize him. He was born in the Thailand refugee camp, it does not recognize him nor qualify him for any sort of Thai citizenship and I'll tell you guys right now if forced to return, he will face danger because of his family's deep ties to the CIA and United States military. Deporting him turns him, a civil servant and respected community leader, into a political casualty, it would be a grave and irreversible injustice. To deport him now is to punish him to death. Once again, 50 years later, as we celebrate resilience this year across the nation, we are now celebrating a fight within our own grounds, right here in United States, right here in Michigan. We're now fighting the same fight within our own country. Thousands of Southeast Asian Americans, many that entered legally admitted as refugees are being deported for decade old offenses they've longed paid for. America is our country. All we ask is the right to stay in the home that we've helped to build and work hard to protect. We are not seeking special treatment. We are asking for justice, compassion, and a second chance in this country to claim what we believe in. To Governor Whitmer and members of Congress and all elected officials, please help bring Lou and the many others home. Urge ICE and DHS to release him on humanitarian grounds. Help his case. Help us preserve the integrity of our laws and the dignity of our families. And to the public allies and the media. Please call our elected officials. Please call these offices.  Please share Lou's story. We need voices. Voices louder than ours alone. It is hard times you guys. It is real. And I speak to you from the bottom of my heart. Please help me and our families in the many that are suffering. This is our home. These are our children. This is my husband and this is our fight. Let him come home. Let our families be whole again, and let America keep its promise. Thank you guys for hearing me. Miko: Lou Young is a community leader. Michigan, who actually runs a nonprofit in support of Hmong folks in that community, and is targeted and also has a stay of removal. So we're doing a targeted campaign for both of these folks, Lou Yang and Mohan Karki, to be able to get them released to overturn their original convictions and they also have spouses that are telling their stories and telling the impact these detentions have had. Because while this current administration talks about getting rid of criminals, what they are actually doing is breaking apart families and community. Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. Coming up is Deporting the Pilgrim from the Anakbayan Long Beach Mayday Mix tape.   Swati Rayasam: That was please be strong, featuring Hushed, loudmouth and Joe handsome. And before that was deporting the pilgrim from the Unec Bayan Long Beach Mayday Mixtape. Now back to the show. Miko:  I wanna shift us a little bit to talking about Asian american representation in the larger fabric of immigration justice in the United States. Mostly many of our Asian communities have been like isolated, not really involved in the broader immigration movement. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difficulty and nuance of bringing your community struggle to the forefront because many of us heard about the Venezuelans and the Mexicans that have been deported and what was going on, but we don't hear as much about these stories of our Asian sisters and brothers. I wonder if one of you could give voice to that. Robin: Before going there can I add something to  Miko: of course.  Robin: crimmigration conversation? So when you all are sharing about that, I was thinking about, the justice system in this country and what we are seeing right now is a broken justice system. Like you said, Miko, where families are separated where families are broken, and what I don't understand is, when, let's say your loved one gets into trouble, makes a mistake, and gets into a trouble, then, as a human being, like, don't you want your loved ones to rebuild their lives? Like Yes, of course there is a system that you have to follow, the laws that you have to follow, but at the end, I think we all want our loved ones to come back, rebuild their lives, right? And what we're seeing in this country is they're constantly breaking the families. And I don't see how we are going to build a better future when we are constantly, hurting the families. And in the cases of detention and deportation, what we're seeing is the double punishment. Like the mistakes that they had made, but then throughout their life, they have to go through that, a continuous cycle of being punished. And not just the individuals, but their family members have also go through the challenges, the suffering, right? And in the case of Bhutanese from double punishment to double expulsion to this, the state of being statelessness. Right? So what kind of future we are imagining when an individual has to go through that continuous cycle of being punished and not having the opportunity to rebuild their lives. So that's a big question mark that I think, we all need to think about. To your later question around my community and the larger Asian American context or the national context. My community is relatively new to this country. We lived, almost two decades in a refugee camp, which was a enclosed camp. And our lives were dependent on foreign aids like UNHCR or ILWF. Pretty much I would say we had our own world over there. And for us to work outside the refugee camp was illegal. There was no laws that gave us the permission to work outside. So we were not pretty much exposed to the outer world. So for us to come to US was a big step. Which means pretty much from basic every day stuffs like, you know, using a bathroom, using a kitchen, taking a bus. All of those were foreign for us. So for our community to really tap into the education system, the political landscape of this country. And also like the experience of being expelled for voicing our, our opinions, for fighting for our rights. Right? So for us, for our community to kind of step in into the politics, it's like re-traumatizing ourselves. I would say there are a lot of barriers, multi-layered barriers for our community members to really tap into the larger political, like socio political landscape, from language barriers to culture barriers to education, to pretty much everything. So right now, the way our committee has been being attacked. It's a surprise to the community. And also it is like kind of traumatizing the community and taking us back to the same place of feeling, insecure, feeling like we don't have a home. And we did hope that this is legally, this is going to be a home. Because after coming to the US most of us became the legal citizens of this country and we started rebuilding our lives. Now it's kind of like going back to the same circle of statelessness. Miko: Thank you for sharing about that. Kao Ye, would you like to add to that? Kao Ye: When I think of the Hmong American community and even the Southeast Asian community and why the narratives of what is happening still feels very invisible. I think of how our community, we were assimilating for survival. And I speak on that as a child of my refugee parents and siblings where growing up we were taught to, listen, not speak out, not cause trouble. Go through the system, listen to authority, listen to law enforcement. And because of that, I feel it's shaped a culture of fear. Fear to dissent and fear to speak out because we care so much about the stability of our families. And we wanted to protect ourselves, because of everything we've gone through with the war. And we are finding that it's been challenging for our community members to come forward with their stories. Honestly, we're still sitting on that and we're still kind of sitting through like, why is there that tension? You know, I feel like folks are going through a lot and even folks have, our impacted loved ones, but they're afraid to tell their story because of fear of of retaliation. And so I think that there is a level of, I think that lack of even psychological safety, but real, physical, real financial safety that people have. And I think that being a factor to the assimilation, but also this facade of like the American dream and like if we don't just disrupt, if we don't speak out, we will be protected. And, white supremacy, right? Like we will be okay. And it's a facade because we know that because our communities are the ones getting kidnapped and getting deported. Right. And so I think there is that fear, but there's also recognition of this now, this facade that the silence doesn't protect us and that there is a real need for us to really, be strong in speaking out, not just for our SEA siblings that are impacted, but for all of our immigrant groups, even the Bhutanese community, right. That's been impacted during this time. And so I, yeah, I think it is that multi-layered experience of being a Southeast Asian refugee community on top of, being part of this AAPI umbrella. AAPI we are not homogenous. We all have very unique histories as to how we have dealt with the systems in this country and how we came into this country. And so I think it's been challenging to make space for those nuances. And at the end of the day, I still see the interconnections that we all have together too. And so, I think it's the willingness to make space for those different stories. And I am finding that more of our ethnic media, our smaller news outlets are more willing to cover those stories as opposed to, these larger mainstream outlets. Like they're not covering those stories, but we are. Miko: Thank you. Oh, both of you have brought up so much today about our failed criminal justice system, about us punishing people as opposed to rehabilitating people and punishing them more than once. We brought up questions around statelessness and the impact that it has, and I just recently learned that the United States does not have any policy on Statelessness. So one of the things that this coalition of folks is trying to do is to get a congressional hearing to help the United States develop policy around statelessness, because it is actually our responsibility and our duty to do that. The other thing I hear you both talking about is this good immigrant, bad immigrant trope, which we've heard of a lot, but I think that's also very much connected to why so many members of our communities don't wanna speak out because this connection with, you know, quote unquote criminal history might be something that's shameful. And I'm wondering if you both see that as a divide mostly between elders in the community and younger folks. Robin, do you wanna talk about that? Robin: Yeah. I mean, initially when we were mobilizing our community members to fight against the the unjust and unfair detention and deportation, this issue around the perception around good immigrants and bad immigrants became one of the main topic of discussion. We had to deal with people, and mostly elders, but I would say some young folks as well, who would pull themselves back on speaking against this issue because for them people who are being deported or detained are criminals and they deserve this kind of mindset. And not being able to see the larger picture of how the administration is targeting the immigrant and the refugee population of this country and really trying to dismantle community power, right? So, yes, it is a challenge that we are, we're going through and I think it's going to be quite a bit of work, to really build solidarity within our own communities. Kao Ye: I feel that the divide in the Hmong community is stemming from class and education. I feel as though when folks are articulating, regurgitating these justifications of the bad immigrant as to why folks should be deported it's folks that maybe kind of made it in their lives and now they're comparing themselves to folks that were not in that situation. And there is this growing within our community as well, where some folks are getting that education, getting, good jobs. But so much of our community, we still suffer from poverty, right? And so, I think that has been really interesting to witness the level of division because of class, because of income and also the education piece. Because oftentimes when folks are feeling this, it comes from a place of ignorance as well. And so that's why I think the education piece is so important. I actually feel though our elders are more understanding because these are their children that are being separated from them. And Robin's point is that when we have loved ones that go through the system, we just want them to rebuild their lives and be self-sufficient. And I feel like those are the values that I grew up in my community where our parents were always about keeping the family together to a fault, you know? And so they don't want separation. They just want us to be well and to do well, and to turn our lives around. And so, I feel strongly that our elders, they do understand that the importance of giving this opportunity for us to, to stay together and turn our lives around. Miko: Thank you so much, both of you for joining me here today to talk about this important conversation. I'm wondering if you could provide our audience with how they could find out more about what is going on and what are next steps for our audience members. Robin, let's start with you. Robin: Yeah. I just wanted to add what, Kao Ye talked about. I do agree the patterns around the divide is based on class. And I do see that in the community, and not just the class, but in our community class and caste, I would say. And in terms of the class, there were some instances where we had to deal with even the highly educated like PhD holders kind of, questioning us like, you know, what we are advocating for, and, I couldn't understand like, I couldn't relate the education, the title, the degree that he holds and the perception around this issue. Right. So, I just wanted to echo that. So, in terms of our work and Asian Refugees United, our website is www.asianrefugees.org And you can find us in our Instagram, Facebook, Asian Refugees United. Miko: And you can also get latest news about what's happening at bhutaneserefugeerights.com. Yeah. And Kao Ye how can folks find out more about your work? Kao Ye: Right now HIP is part of a statewide network in California called the Pardon Refugees Campaign, where we are really pushing Governor Newsom to pardon all refugees, not just Southeast Asians because of everything that we talked about, about how our families, they deserve to stay together. And so, I don't think we have a website up yet, but you can follow this campaign with us. We will be having a rally and press conference, coming up soon, in the next few weeks. And so, I would say that please follow us in that work where we are really moving in coalition with all of our uh, grassroots partners to advocate for our loved ones that are currently being impacted. Miko: Thank you so much, Robin Gurung, Asian Refugees United and Kao Ye Thao from Hmong Innovating Politics. Thank you so much for being with us here today, and I hope you listeners out there take action to keep our families together, to keep our people in the communities as loved ones where they belong. Thank you all. Have a great night. Swati Rayasam: I'm so grateful that Miko was able to talk to Robin and Kao Ye. And for those who missed it, visit bhutanese refugee rights.org for the most recent updates on the Bhutanese refugees. The press conference in rally Kao Ye mentioned took place last week on August 21st, 2025, but check out the Pardon Refugees Campaign for updates from the coalition supporting Hmong, Cambodian Laotian, Myan, and other refugees facing deportation. Thanks so much for tuning in to Apex Express. Please check out our website at kpfa.org/program/apexexpress 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, along with Jalena Keene-Lee, Ayame Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar,  Anuj Vaida, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Ravi Grover, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a good night.   The post APEX Express – August 28, 2025 – “And we became stateless again” appeared first on KPFA.

Diane Moua, owner of Diane's Place joins Jason to talk about her Hmong cuisine restaurant being featured in the NY Times

Why flood damage isn't covered by most people's home insurance. How racist policies have undermined Black homeownership. The story of a Hmong family that came to Wisconsin as refugees.

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.   Important Resources: Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram | Learn about the Disappearances of Bhutanese American refugees: Website | Toolkit Hmong Innovating Politics: Website | Instagram Lavender Phoenix: Website | Instagram Minjoona Music: Instagram   Transcript: Cheryl (Host): Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. I'm your host, Cheryl, and tonight we're diving into the vibrant summer programming happening across the AACRE network. That's the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Network. AACRE is made up of 11 Asian American social justice organizations working together to build collective power and create lasting movements .  Throughout tonight's show, we'll be spotlighting a few of these groups [00:01:00] and the incredible work they're leading this summer. First up, we're joined by Pratik from Asian refugees United Pratik. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself and to kick things off in the spirit of tonight's show, maybe share what's something that's been bringing you joy this summer? Pratik (ARU): Hello, namaste everyone. My name is Pratik Chhetri. He, him. I'm the program manager at ARU, Asian Refugees United in Pennsylvania. I'm originally from Nepal. I grew up in Nepal. I am an immigrant, came to the for college long time ago. And I've been working in social justice, health justice field for over 15 years now. Initially it was mostly around advocacy policy relating to access to medicines, issues, especially in lower and middle income countries, and the past six, seven. More than seven [00:02:00] years. I also started an organization, a nonprofit organization in Nepal, that works at the intersection of social, economic and climate justice. And with ARU, I got introduced to ARU back in 2020. So by that time I had some skills that I felt I could bring to the community. Even though I'm not from Bhutanese refugee community, I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent. So I felt with the linguistic skill I could be of some help. I think right around that time COVID happened, everything and end of 2021 is when I reconnected with Robin and started talking about possibilities. For about two years, I was part of the CAMP for Emerging Leaders, the leadership program ARU has, and [00:03:00] starting last year, early this year formally, I am a staff, for ARU. I'm in charge of programs under wellness, education, and civic engagement largely but depending on time and resources, I become available for other programs as well. It's a joy working with ARU. I was just telling Cheryl earlier that it doesn't feel like work ‘ cause I enjoy it, working with people, getting to work on impactful programs, and being a part of an organization that has so much potential, so much responsibility, but also trying to find new ways to become, useful for the community. That's very exciting. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): That's great. I'm glad that your work is what's bringing you joy this summer. That's so special. And before we get into some of that impactful programming that you've been running this summer, could you [00:04:00] tell us a little bit about, ARU, Asian Refugees United  Pratik (ARU): Sure. ARU started back in 2016 in California and back then all of the programs used to be in California. The community that ARU serves since then, and even to this day are Nepali speaking, Bhutanese refugee community and Vietnamese community, Korean and other Pan-Asian community. After the pandemic, there has been a lot of secondary migration of the Bhutanese folks from across the United States to two major locations. One being central PA around Harrisburg area and Pennsylvania, and the second one around Columbus, Ohio, and other major cities in Ohio. The secondary migration mostly to Pennsylvania triggered a, shifting of ARU programs, to Pennsylvania as well in addition to [00:05:00] California. So at this point in 2025, the Pennsylvania side of ARU caters to the Nepali speaking Bhutanese folks. And the California side of ARU works with Vietnamese, Korean, and other Asian communities. I work with the Pennsylvania, ARU, and here we have four different pillars around health and wellness, education, art and storytelling. And the fourth one is civic engagement, and that is the newest one. I can talk about programs under each of the pillars but for summer the programs that is bringing me joy, not only for me, but also ARU's staffs is this longitudinal five month long leadership program called Camp for Emerging Leaders, where we recruit Nepali speaking folks from all across United States, and they go through virtual sessions every other [00:06:00] week on, history to the story of displacement, intergenerational trauma. How it started, how it used to be back in Bhutan, how it used to be in the refugee camps in Nepal, and now how it is in the US and Canada, wherever they are. So end of summer, end of July, early August is when all of those cohort members, the youth leaders will come physically to Harrisburg and we'll spend a few days here connecting with each other, building that trust, but also working together to build projects for the community, addressing community challenges that's happening. And for that I think five or six of the ARU staff from California are also coming. We have guest speakers. I think one of them is coming from all the way from Australia. It's fun. Largely I think [00:07:00] I'm looking forward to meeting with all of these youth leaders who have so much potential to do, so much good, not only for Bhutanese community, Nepali speaking, south Asian community, but also, their potential goes beyond that, yeah.  Cheryl (Host): It is powerful to hear how ARU's work has evolved and now spans across the nation, and also how Camp for Emerging Leaders is creating space for Nepali speaking Bhutanese youth to reflect their community's history, build deep connections, and grow as leaders. You mentioned that during the summer youth leaders gather in Harrisburg to create community projects. Could you share more about what kinds of projects they're working on and what kind of issues they're hoping to address? Pratik (ARU): For education, one of the main ones that we just concluded is, so we started high school success program called First Step Forward. And the interesting thing, the exciting thing about this program [00:08:00] is the concept of First Step forward from one of the Camp for Emerging Leaders cohort from two years ago. And similarly so that's how most of ARU programs have been. The ARU Youth Center, the ARU Office, that concept also started from the camp for emerging leaders. There are a couple other programs ARU does. Youth Wellness Day. That started from the camp as well. For the First Step Forward, what we do is early winter of, I think January or February we accepted a cohort of 10. These were high school juniors and seniors, and largely the purpose of the program is to make sure that they are well equipped for college and for any other professional avenues they end up going even if higher education is not for them. We did a lot of like leadership sessions, public speaking [00:09:00] sessions, like how to write essays, how to apply for different scholarships. We just concluded it literally last Saturday, we went hiking and went to one of the Six Flags amusement parks. But learning from that program, we are scaling it up. We're taking 20 people next year, and we will do it a year long cohort. So starting from September up until May, June. We'll integrate college tours, not only for the kids, but also for their family because in Bhutanese community and Nepali speaking folks a lot of the times the parents do not understand how the system works, even with their best intent and best intention. So along with the students, it is very important for us to work with the family, the parents as much as possible to take them through the process, right? On education, we also do a lot of cultural navigation training to [00:10:00] different county level and different governance agencies. Some of the cultural navigation trainings that we did in the past year that I can think of is we did one for the. Panel of judges from Dauphin County, which is where Harrisburg is. We did similar thing for different school districts in Dauphin and Cumberland County, different nearby counties for juvenile probation unit, child and youth services. And while we do that, as an organization, it gave us a better sense of where the gaps are, especially for parents to run into difficulties. 'cause a lot of times, for example, if a kid is sent home with a sheet of paper, even when it's bilingual, because their movement happened from Nepal to Bhutan, such a long time ago, a lot of the folks in the community speak the language but do not understand how to read or write the [00:11:00] language. So there are double language barrier, right? When a kid is called into a meeting or a disciplinary meeting, the parents a lot of times don't even look at the sheet of paper or don't know where to show up or how to show up or what to expect. Based on those things we're using that knowledge and experience to design further programs in the future. That's just for education. With civic engagement, for example, this 2024 cycle was the first election for our community members to vote in their lifetime. Back in Bhutan they didn't have that opportunity and then they spent decades in refugee camps, and it took most of them some time to get the green cards and five years after Green card to secure their citizenship. So we saw a lot of even elderly folks show up to voting. That was their first time that they were voting. And when that happens, it's not [00:12:00] just generic voter education. It's teaching the community how to register, where to register, where to show up at the precincts. A lot of precincts we were seeing, 30 to 40% of the folks show up to the wrong precincts. So there's a lot of need, but also in 2024 we saw, unfortunately, a lot of folks fall victim to misinformation and disinformation. So there's that need to do something about that part as well in the future. One of the things we started doing under civic engagement work is not just teach folks where to register, how to register on voter education, but also preparing some of the community members to run for office.  Two or three weeks ago, mid-June, we did our first round of run for office training. We partner up with another organization called Lead PA. And even for the folks who showed up, all of us [00:13:00] are politically inclined, educated to a certain extent, and a lot of the things that were shared in that training, it was mostly new to us, especially around local government. Like what are the positions that they are and how so many important positions, people run unopposed and what kind of ramifications that might have for our daily lives. Right. Starting 2026 election cycle, we're hoping some of our trainees run for office as well, starting from school board to all the way, wherever they want to. And there are wellness focused events, youth wellness Day that I talked about, around mental health is one of the great needs for the community. One piece of data might be very important to mention, based on CDCs 20 12 data, there was a report out, the research was conducted in 2012, and the report came out in 2014, basically what it said [00:14:00] was, Bhutanese folks in the US have the highest of suicide in the whole nation, and that's something that has not received a lot of attention or resources because generally those numbers get mixed up with generic Asian data and the numbers get diluted. Right. So one of the things, what, as an organization, what we are trying to do is bring awareness to that number. And the other thing is like, it's been over 10 years since that study happened and there has not been a follow-up study. What we are seeing is previously how mental health and it's ramifications how it was affecting the community, it was mostly about 10 years ago, mostly affecting older folks. Now we are seeing a lot of younger folks commit suicide or suicidal attempts. So there is a lot of work in that respect as [00:15:00] well. These are also some of the very crucial topics to work on. But as an organization, we are taking baby steps toward being able to efficiently address the community needs. I missed some of them, but overall, our organizational goal is to empower the community in one way or the other. And one of the tools that we use is focusing on youths because youths in the community, similar to other immigrant communities, our youths are mostly bilingual, bicultural, and many times they're the translators and system navigators for their whole family. And in many cases their extended family as well. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. There are so many layers to the work that you all do. From developing leaders to run for office, to supporting mental health, to helping folks navigate voting and helping folks access higher education or career pathways.[00:16:00]  That's such a wide scope, and I imagine it takes a lot to hold all of that. How do you all manage to balance so much, especially with a small team, is that right?  Pratik (ARU): Yes. Technically we only have one full-time staff. Most are part-time, but ranging from. 10% to 80%. Largely we rely on the community members, volunteers, and we pay the volunteers when we can. And other times, I think it speaks to how much time and effort and how genuinely, folks like Robin, who is the co ED of ARU and Parsu who is the office manager, and other folks in Harrisburg, connected with different community leaders, folks of different subgroups over the years. So. When ARU moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania post pandemic, it took them a while to get the hang of the community, the growing community. Back then it used to [00:17:00] be 10, 20,000 max in central PA and now our estimation is like 70, 80,000 in central PA. It took them a while to create space of trust, that ARU are people that they can come for when they run into problems. And even when we don't have a lot of resources, people show up. People volunteer. People volunteer their time, their spaces for meetings and events. Yeah. And that's how we've been running it. I feel like we do five or 10 x amount of work with the resources that we have, but that's largely because of the perception the community has about Robin, about Parsu, about other individuals, and about the organization.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. ARU clearly has such deep community roots, not just through the incredible work that of course Robin, [00:18:00] Parsu and so many others you have named have done to build lasting relationships that now sustain the work in the organization, but also I think it's also evident in the examples you've shared through Camp for Emerging Leaders, how you all really listen to youth and learn from their experiences. And you all shape programs that respond directly to the needs that you're seeing. And in that same spirit of care and commitment that is reflected in ARU's amazing staff and volunteers. I'm curious, are there any moments or memories from camp for emerging leaders that stand out to you? I imagine there must be so many.  Pratik (ARU): Yeah. Many stories. I started attending and facilitating the sessions for the camp I from 2022 cohort and maybe even 23 cohort. I think this is the third one that I'm doing. I'll talk about Kamana. [00:19:00] Kamana joined the 23 cohort and at that time she was still in high school. But you know, she was bubbly, full of energy and she was one of the pretty active members of the cohort and eventually after the cohort, she ended up joining ARU as initially, I think as an intern, and now she is the lead of the education program. She will be a sophomore or rising junior, starting this fall. But now she'll be running the education program, First Step Forward. Primarily it was internally us staff, we see the growth in them with experience. But also I think one of the things that ARU does is we create a sort of non-hierarchical structure within our office space in the sense that anyone can [00:20:00] design a program or any idea, and they do not feel intimidated to speaking up. I think because of that, people like Kamana, I can talk about other folks like Nawal. Them growing within ARU space shows not just with experience, but also I think the kind of open and inclusive and non hierarchical space that we create they feel comfortable enough in leading. A lot of times when we have , X, y, and Z needs to be done in the group chat, people just volunteer. Even when they don't get paid, we see our staff, our volunteer base just show up time and time again. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. ARU is such a special container. You've created this beautiful space where people can grow and then also have agency to shape that container in whatever way that they want. That is so special. How can listeners support your work this [00:21:00] summer? Whether that's showing up or donating or volunteering or spreading the word.  Pratik (ARU): One of the things is for the listeners, I feel like not a lot of folks know about Bhutanese community much. So yes, they speak Nepali. They sometimes they identify as Nepali because it's just easy. , Bhutanese folks normally identify as either Bhutanese or Nepali or American or any combination of those three identities. A lot of folks do not know, including folks from Nepal about the atrocity, the trauma that the community went through had to go through the forced persecution out of Bhutan and then living under very limited means while in the refugee camps in Nepal and even the number of challenges the community still [00:22:00] faces. I talked a little bit about mental health needs. There's. There are needs around, health seeking behavior and similar to other immigrant communities as well, but also, on education. Because of the historical division around caste and class and other demographic details, certain folks in the community are geared towards success versus others aren't. And we see that. We see the pattern quite distinct by their indigeneity, by their caste, by their last names. In our community you can tell what their caste is, what their ethnic background is with their last names. So I would invite the audience to learn a little bit more about this community and if you have that space and resources [00:23:00] to be, if you're a researcher, if you want to do some research studies, if you want to bring some programs. If you have scholarship ideas, if you want to create any scholarship for the kids in the community, or if you have means, and if you can donate, either or. It doesn't have to be just, financial resources. It can be sometimes being available as mentor to some of the kids to show them these are the possibilities. To summarize, learn more about the community if you don't know already including some of the new atrocities, the community's facing right now with ICE detention and deportation, even when the community was brought in to this country after years and years of approval through the process. And if you have resources and means help with knowledge sharing, being available or with [00:24:00] financial means either or. I just wanted to mention that I work with ARU and I work with the Bhutanese community, but like I said, I'm not from the Bhutan community. I grew up in Nepal. I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent, but I definitely cannot speak for the experience of going and living as a refugee. So,, if you have any question, if you want to learn more about that, Cheryl and I, we are happy to put you in touch with folks with incredible stories, inspiring stories of resilience in the community. Cheryl (Host): Thank you so much. All of the links, whether to learn more, donate or get involved, as well as information about the disappearances impacting the Bhutanese American community will be included in our show notes. A huge thank you to Pratik from Asian Refugees United for joining us tonight. We're deeply grateful for the work you do and the love you carry for our [00:25:00] communities. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We're going to take a quick music break and when we come back we'll hear more about the summer programming happening across the AACRE network with folks from Lavender Phoenix, and Hmong innovating politics. So don't go anywhere. Next up, you're listening to a track called “Juniper” by Minjoona, a project led by Korean American musician, Jackson Wright. This track features Ari Statler on bass, josh Qiyan on drums, and Ryan Fu producing. Juniper is the lead single from Minjoona's newest release, the Juniper EP, a five track p roject rooted in indie rock, 60 throwback vibes, and lyric forward storytelling. You can follow Minjoona on Instagram at @minjoonamusic or find them on Spotify to keep up with upcoming releases. We'll drop the links in our show notes. Enjoy the track and we'll be right back. [00:26:00] [00:27:00] [00:28:00] [00:29:00] [00:30:00]  And we're back!!. You're listening to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. That was “Juniper” by Minjoona.  Huge thanks to Jackson Wright and the whole crew behind that track [00:31:00] Before the break, we were live with Pratik from Asian Refugees United, talking about the powerful summer programming, supporting the Nepalese speaking Bhutanese community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Now I'm joined by from Blair Phoenix. From Lavender Phoenix, who's here to share about her experiences as a summer organizer In Lav N'S annual summer in Lav N's annual summer organizer in Lav N'S annual summer organizing program. Hi Mar. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Okay. Mar, do you mind for our listeners out there who are just tuning in, do you mind introducing yourself? Mar (LavNix): Yes. Thank you, Cheryl. Hi, y'all. My name is Mar Pronouns, [00:32:00] she/siya/any! I come from the lands of the Ibaloi people in the Philippines or “Maharlika”. I am a queer Muslim and yeah, I'm just happy to be here. Cheryl (Host): Yay. We're so happy to have you here, mar! For those who might not be familiar, Mar is joining us from Lavender Phoenix as part of this year's summer organizing program. Mar,, could you start by giving our listeners a quick introduction to Lavender Phoenix? And then could you tell us a little bit about the summer organizing program and what it's all about? Mar (LavNix): Yeah, of course. Cheryl. Let's start with Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix is a really awesome nonprofit over here in the Bay Area who focus on trans queer, API. Work basically. I really love Lavender Phoenix because of their unwavering commitment to collective liberation [00:33:00] and the very specific focus and centering around trans queer API leadership because our leadership is often underrepresented and because there's so many intersections there, we need to have trans queer API leadership to be able to move the work. And so really fond of lavender Phoenix's ethos and mission values. This year for the summer 2025, I'm part of their summer organizer program, which is a cohort of organizers both emerging, established and wanting to learn, and we learn a lot of transformative interpersonal organizing skills, but also building our more technical skill sets alongside with that. So we're actually three weeks from graduation [00:34:00] nooooooooo!. Anyways, yeah, just really happy to be in this cohort. I'm feeling really aligned in that I am here and it is transforming me in the way I had intentions for when I applied for it. Cheryl (Host): Wow. It sounds like this was a really impactful program for you. I wanna know what kinds of projects are you all working on?  Mar (LavNix): Yeah, so it's really beautiful because it's not just like a single project the cohort works on, it's kind of a myriad of things. We have two folks who are doing projects with other organizations, and then we have the rest of the folks working on two projects within Lavender Phoenix's programming. And so for my group, my very awesome group, we are doing the River of Life Project, and the River of Life Project is a five week long cohort where we practice storytelling in a very vulnerable and honest way, and this is for the [00:35:00] purpose to really witness one another and to cultivate our storytelling skills because our stories and narratives is so important. There's whole states and governments trying to take that away from us, and so our project is to guide and facilitate this project and meet with members across rank. It's super cool seeing the different facets of lavender Phoenix come together and be down, to be in the act of vulnerability and honesty and that is their praxis for collective liberation. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Yeah. Yeah. That's so well said. And it's so important that we have these spaces to practice that vulnerability because we are so often punished for being who we are. Right. So, mm-hmm. These programs are so crucial as you have uplifted for us. I am so curious to learn more about this River of Life project, but [00:36:00] also before we even get to that, I wanna zoom out a little bit and focus on your growth and who are you now as you get closer three weeks from graduation?  Mar (LavNix): Ooh, that is such a beautiful question, Cheryl. Yeah. I've been really reflecting on how this program transformed me this summer and to bring us back to when I first applied. I first applied sometime in March, I believe. I remember 'cause it was around Ramadan. I was at a point in my life where I felt stagnant in my organizing journey. I would attend all these workshops, I would keep reading, but there was a disconnect in how my mind wanted to move next. So here we are in 2025, I was accepted into the program. I was like, yay, my people. And you know, [00:37:00] my expectations was met. In fact, it was exceeded. Very exceeded because I didn't know these things that i'm learning now. I didn't know how much I needed them until I learned them. In my time with Lavender Phoenix, as I'm reflecting to this point, graduation being three weeks out, I realized that before joining this cohort, my heart and my spirit was in a really bad place, and I think a lot of people could resonate. There's genocides, ethnic cleansings, and just terrible things happening all over the world, and there's like a dichotomy of people who are trying so hard and then there's a dichotomy of people who are unaffected by it. And so my spirit and my heart was so broken down seems really dramatic, but it wasn't being rejuvenated for sure. And so, being in this space and being in a [00:38:00] container that's just honesty and vulnerability and it's all rooted in each other's liberation really replenish that cup. The teachings and the knowledge and the wisdom that I'm getting, it's helping me add more to my North Star, which I'm really thankful of because I didn't know this is what I needed in March. Cheryl (Host): That is so beautiful. So much of what's going on right now by the systems that be, the powers that be, it's meant to isolate us and to make us feel exactly what you said. Capitalism isolates us and keeps us in that place because that's how it benefits . So Lavender Phoenix is summer organizing program, what I'm hearing from you is this revolutionary space that is counter to that. It's filled with hope and dreaming for a better world. So how is that being informed in River of Life, in the storytelling leadership development that you are developing within Lavender Phoenix's membership?  Mar (LavNix): Oh, yes. I'm [00:39:00] understanding the responsibility on how I move in this space. And so before the cohort of the River of Life project presents, it's actually gonna be me and another facilitator going to share our stories. And so we're also in the act of being vulnerable and honest and really wanting the others to witness us as we will witness them. We've removed kind of that superiority in that space. When I think of this, it brings me back to Freire's idea of an engaged pedagogy, but not necessarily like an educator and a student, but like removing hierarchies, which I think is really, a value that's rooted in, or lavender Phoenix is rooted in that value. There's no hierarchy, but there is ranks and we all see each other as equals. It's really beautiful to be able to see that and then know how I move in this [00:40:00] space to prepare our cohort. I hope that my storytelling, I can only hope, I do not know how it's gonna be received inshallah it's received super well. But I really do hope that they see how vulnerable I also get and how I'm doing this so that I could build deeper relationships with these people as I continue my journey with Lavender, Phoenix and to them as well. I hope these values, if not already present in our people, this project helps them cultivate that even further.  Cheryl (Host): I wanna ask what is something you want to share with our listeners who were in a similar space as you who felt lost and that they wanted something to grow in. What advice would you give?  Mar (LavNix): This is a really beautiful question [00:41:00] and So many things flooded my brain as you were asking this question, but i'm feeling more pulled and called to share this one thing . As I'm going through the summer organizer program, I really realized the importance of tending to myself so that I could show up for others. I have to be able to know how to advocate for my needs and what I need so that I can be in spaces with other people. It's so important that I know how to acknowledge my shame or whatever pain points I'm experiencing and let that not be a hindrance to the work, but integrate it in a way that I will tend to it, and by tending to it, I can continue doing the work. And I know it's really [00:42:00] hard to prioritize yourself when it feels like you should prioritize everything else in the world right now, but I am really learning that that's what I needed to do. When I say prioritize myself, I'm not saying oh, I need to go do this and I need to go drink all my water. Yes, also care for our physical bodies and our mental bodies, but also taking time to know who I am as a person and what I could offer to the movement, and knowing how to communicate to others in the movement so that I could show up as a better organizer. And so the final words that I will have to share is I hope everyone who's hearing this shows the love that they have for other people to themselves [00:43:00] too.  Cheryl (Host): That was so beautiful. What you just shared right now about tending to yourself that's part of the work too. And that's so counterintuitive, I feel. This project that you're leading, the river of life where the focus is so much on your story and honoring who you are, I think that is the true essence of what it means to be trans and queer. Showing up with your whole self and embracing that. And in turn, by doing that, you are holding everybody else too, that very practice. To find out more about Lavender Phoenix Mar, how can our listeners plug into Lavender Phoenix's work?  Mar (LavNix): Follow us on Instagram or check out Lavender, Phoenix website. We post a lot. Sign up for the newsletter. Volunteer. We're really cool. Or just look at the staff and see if anybody calls you and you wanna hit them up. We're so awesome. Cheryl (Host): Thank you for joining us on tonight's show, Mar, and for sharing your experiences on Lavender Phoenix's [00:44:00] summer organizing program with all of All of the links that Mar mentioned on how to stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix's work be available in our show notes as per usual. We are so grateful, thank you again, Mar! Next up, we're joined by Katie from Hmong Innovating Politics. Katie. Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on our show tonight. Would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Katie (HIP): Hi everyone. My name is Katie. I use she her pronouns. My Hmong name is ING and I mainly introduce myself as ING to my community, especially elders because one ING is my given name. Katie is like a self-assigned name. In my work with HIP I've been trying to figure out what feels more natural when, but I do catch myself introducing myself to my Hmong community. And yeah, I'm totally cool if folks referring to me as Katie Oring and my ask is just pronouncing my name correctly. Who are my people? Who's my community? I would say my community is my family. And then the young people that I work [00:45:00] with, the elders in my community, the ones who would like to claim me, my team. I would say Hmong women that I've met through some of the work that I do at my volunteer org, and oh my goodness, there're so many people. My friends, oh my gosh, if my friends are listening to this, my friends are my community, they're my people. They keep me grounded, alive and fun. My siblings. All of the folks in Fresno and Sacramento that have been a part of the spaces that I've shared at HIP and the spaces that we've created together.  Cheryl (Host): You are a community leader through and through . For folks who are listening and don't know, Hmong Innovating Politics is one of the AACRE groups and it has two different hubs basically in Central California, one in Sacramento, and one in Fresno. Katie, do you mind sharing a little bit about HIP and the work that you all do? Katie (HIP): Yeah. So, we are a power building organization and what does that mean, right? One is that we are [00:46:00] a part of empowering and supporting our community to become active change makers in their community. We believe that those who are most impacted by issues should also be the ones that receive resources and training to lead solutions and design, the dreams of their community. A framework that we use is called Belong Believe Become. We want to create space where young people feel their belongingness, know that they are rooted here in their community, and that they have a place. The believing part of our framework is that we want young people to also see themselves and see themselves as leaders. In their community and leadership can mean many forms, right? There's like passive and active leadership, and we want young people to know that there is enough space in this world for everyone in whichever capacity, they're choosing to show up in their community. The important piece of believing is that, believing that you also like matter and that your decisions are also impactful. And then become is that. [00:47:00] we share this framework and it's circular because we notice that some people can come into our space feeling like I know exactly who I'm gonna be. I know exactly what I wanna do, and feel really disconnected from their history and their, and the multiple parts of their identities. belong, believe become is cyclical and it's wherever you're at. And in this third piece of becoming it is that our young people know that they are leading the charge and transforming systems. That they are shifting the narratives of our community, that they get to own the narratives of our community, and that they are a part of the Power building our community as well. Cheryl (Host): Yeah, I love that . As we're talking, I'm noticing that you talk so much about young people and how so much of your work's framework is centered around young people. Do you mind giving context into that? So much of HIP's programming is on youth leadership, and so I'm wondering what does that look like programming wise and especially right now in the summer? Katie (HIP): Yeah, so it's more [00:48:00] recently that HIP has been identifying ourselves as a power building organization. Before we had claimed our work as base building, and this is through our civic engagement work for voter engagement and empowerment, and turning out the vote that, that is like what we, our organization was like centered on. Through that work, what we noticed was that like cycles and seasons after season, it was young people coming back and then they started asking are you all gonna have like consistent programming space for us, or is it just gonna always be around the election cycle? Through our civic engagement work, a framework that we use is the IVE model, integrated voter engagement. And that is that you are relationship building year after year, even outside of the election season. And so then it was how do we be more intentional about centering the people who are coming to us and centering the people who are shifting and challenging and pushing our leadership. And that was to [00:49:00] then move and prioritize the young people in our community. I think it's been maybe four or five years since this shift where we've really prioritized young people and really centered our work around youth justice. So then we had to create these spaces. Civic engagement work had primarily consisted of phone banking and canvassing and through that I think a lot of young people were then getting firsthand experience of this is like what it's like to be angry about these issue in my community. This is also what it's like to hold space for other people to go through and process their emotions. And then it was like, how do we train and skill up our young people to not only listen to their community, but be able to strategize and lead and take their ideas and dreams and put 'em into action. At the time folks working in our civic engagement programs were high school youth, college transitional age, young adults who are not in college. And we even had parent [00:50:00] age folks in our programs as well. In figuring out how do we better support our young folks was that a lot of young people were asking for more like designated space for youth that are in high school. The other request was can you all not be college based because not all young adults go to college in our community, yet we still wanted to access the programs. We had to strategize around these pieces. Also at the time when we were running civic engagement program, we were also building up our trans and queer work in the Central Valley and figuring out like what is HIP's place in this work? So that landed us into three programs. We have a program called Tsev which is TSEV. Um, and that means House in Hmong, but it's an acronym. It stands for Transforming Systems, empowering Our Village, and the reason why we named our youth program that is in the Hmong community, we refer to our community a lot “lub zos” which means village in English. And so that is why we wanted to name our program with something around the word village and then also [00:51:00] home, belongingness, right? We wanted our program to signify belonging. And so that is what landed us in this program. This program is based at a high school and we train cohorts of youth and the curriculum that we cover in all of our programs are pretty similar, but they are adjusted to be more relevant to the age group and the experiences that we are serving. So we have our high school program. We have our trans and queer young adult program called QHIP, queer Hmong intersectional Pride. And then we also have a young adult program called the Civic Engagement Fellowship, but I feel like we're gonna be revamping next year, so we might have a new name next year. And that one is, open to all young adults of all gender and sexuality. The projects that is focused in that is what's coming up on the election. So specific propositions and measures or whatever we are bringing to the ballot. And then with QHIP, it is very focused on intentionally building up leadership in the trans and queer community. [00:52:00] Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): You all tackle power building in so many different intersections, and I think that's so brilliant. You really tailor these spaces to the needs of your community and you're always listening to your community. That is honestly such a theme within the AACRE network. Could you tell us how these groups stay active during the summer?  Katie (HIP): Yeah! During the summer, we close off the cohort in June when the school year ends. And so we're actually in the assessment phase of this program right now. Our seniors throughout the summer go through a one-on-one exit with one of the staff in Fresno or Sacramento. After the senior exit closes out, then we'll be doing a overall annual assessment with all of the young people that were in the program this year. We're actually closing both these pieces out next week. We try to make things fun, right? So for the one-on-ones, we'll all come to the office and we'll have the one-on-one exit interviews and after that we'll go get lunch. somewhere cute, somewhere fun. Then with the end of the year evals, after we complete them for everyone, we'll just hang out. This [00:53:00] year we're planning to do like a paint by numbers night. And then we always somehow end up karaoking. For QHIP, our trans and queer young adult program we actually partner with Lavender Phoenix and have them attend the leadership exchange program that's happening right now. We did our own onboarding and then we celebrated the month of pride. And we also celebrated the trans march. Then after that transition into the leadership exchange program at Lavender Phoenix. After that program, I believe our lead members are going to be designing some projects this summer. And then they'll have the rest of the summer and hours to do their projects, and then we'll eventually close out with a retreat with them. Cheryl (Host): And for our listeners out there, do you mind giving a quick a preview on what lavender, Phoenix's leadership exchange program is and how you all work in tandem with each other?  Katie (HIP): Yeah. Okay. I know in the past, we've sent our more new to organizing leaders [00:54:00] to the leadership exchange program. This year the intention is that we wanted to send leaders from our community who might already have some organizing experience who have some experience in social justice and movement work. And so, during this I think some of my favorite things from the leadership exchange program is teaching folks how to ask for help. I think a lot of our young adults navigate their lives not knowing who to turn to for help and how to formulate and ask that is clear and supportive of their needs. So that's something that we really appreciate through the leadership exchange program. And another piece is mutual aid funding. Lavender Phoenix trains up leaders around fundraising support and that's something I'm really looking forward to our young people gaining. The other piece is ultimately training of trans and queer leaders in our community so that we can continue to sustain this movement and this lifelong work of trans and queer liberation. The leadership exchange program has been able to equip folks with very necessary skills so that they can continue to sustain trans and queer [00:55:00] leadership. I bring in the fundraising piece because, I think a lot of young people that I work with, they're so scared to ask for resource support, especially money. And I think a lot of it comes with our own family trauma around finances, right? So, I'm excited to see what they debrief about and what they reflect on.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. It really sounds like all of these programs that you all do are really building up leaders for the long term of our movements. Asking for help is so related to navigating money, trauma and is so key in shaping liberatory futures. For folks out there who wanna get plugged into some of HIP's programming work, how can we stay in touch with you all? Katie (HIP): Our Instagram is the best spot. And then on our Instagram you can click on the little short link to sign up for our newsletter. We have some volunteer opportunities coming up in the month of August so if folks in the Central Valley wanna support with one of our community engagement [00:56:00] surveys, either to partake in the survey or to support us in doing the outreach and getting the word out so that folks complete the survey. There's two ways that you can participate with us. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Thanks, Katie, and of course all of those links will be available in our show notes. Thanks so much for coming on our show tonight, Katie, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll see you next time. [00:57:00] [00:58:00]  The post APEX Express – August 21, 2025 Sumer Programming in the AACRE Network appeared first on KPFA.

Of course we cannot do the Minnesota State Fair without food so we talked (and ate food) with Chef Yia Vang of Hmong Union Kitchen serving up some pork-shrimp toast!

Khiav Dim 3. This is a daily reading from the Hmong Bible by Lo Lee. Season “36“ Episode “3“ from the book of “Exodus“. Enjoy. Disclaimer. God's word the Bible is an important part of those who follows him and it can change the life of those who take it seriously. The intention of this audio recording is to spread the word of God to anyone who understand Hmong. This audio can be downloaded and is only for personal use. It is not to be copy, edit in any shape or form, commercialize, upload to the internet, or change in any way. All background music is provided by Anchor and Pixabay at pixabay.com that this podcast creator has the right to use. Thank you for your interest in The Hmong Bible and may you be change as you listen to the word of God.

In this episode we explore the “what if” moments in the story of the Hmong people group coming to Christ. Listen in as Ed welcomes back professor, missionary, and FEBC broadcaster Frank Gray. Frank is with us to give details about the work of God's Spirit in Laos before and during the Vietnam war. Find out how FEBC shortwave broadcasts and the ministry of John Lee were used to communicate the saving message of Christ to the Hmong people in this perilous time. You will be amazed at how God was moving behind the scenes to bring hundreds of thousands of people into the family of God…Until All Have Heard. 

Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. In this week's Episode, Emily features a discussion with artist Pao Houa Her. Pao's exhibit, 'The Imaginative Landscape,' showcases her exploration of the Hmong community's history and culture through photography and art. The artist details her inspiration from family stories, her travels back to Laos, and her work's focus on themes like home, community, and deception. They also discuss Pao's background, including her education and achievements, and her desire to tell visual stories that resonate with the Hmong community. About Artist Pao Houa Her:Pao Houa Her was born somewhere in the northern jungles of Laos. She fled Laos with her family when she was a baby, crossed the Mekong on her mother's back, was fed opium to keep from crying, lived in the refugee camps in Thailand and landed in America on a silver metal bird in the mid 1980s. She is a visual artist in Minnesota who works within multiple genres of photography. Her received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and her MFA from Yale University. Visit Pao's Website:  PaoHHer.comFollow Pao on Instagram:  @PaoHouaHerFor more about Pao's Exhibit: "The Imaginitive Landscape" - San Jose Museum of Art  and John Michael Kohler Arts Center--About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWilFollow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast--CREDITS:Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 LicenseThe Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com

Khiav Dim 2. This is a daily reading from the Hmong Bible by Lo Lee. Season “36“ Episode “2“ from the book of “Exodus“. Enjoy. Disclaimer. God's word the Bible is an important part of those who follows him and it can change the life of those who take it seriously. The intention of this audio recording is to spread the word of God to anyone who understand Hmong. This audio can be downloaded and is only for personal use. It is not to be copy, edit in any shape or form, commercialize, upload to the internet, or change in any way. All background music is provided by Anchor and Pixabay at pixabay.com that this podcast creator has the right to use. Thank you for your interest in The Hmong Bible and may you be change as you listen to the word of God.

- Muerte nocturna Asociado a demonios ancestrales y espíritus malignos, la etnia Hmong, originaria de Laos, arrastra un extraño mal que hace que cientos de ellos, jóvenes y sanos, mueran de forma súbita durante la noche. La ciencia no tiene explicación, por lo que los Hmong hablan de demonios nocturnos. Pablo Tresgallo nos da todos los detalles de este fenómeno tan inquietante. - El secreto de los cuentos. ¿Por qué la capa de caperucita es roja y porqué el lobo no se la comió cuando tuvo la oportunidad? ¿Qué significa el zapato de cristal de la cenicienta? ¿Qué se esconde tras el cuento de Hansel y Gretel? Los cuentos clásicos guardan una simbología oculta y su significado esta lejos de ser un relato infantil. El escritor y experto crítico literario #JoséRuizMata nos descubre sus secretos. - La extraña señal de la Antártida A 40 km sobre la gélida superficie de la Antártida, un experimento científico que consiste en una serie de antenas de radio suspendidas en un globo de helio ha captado una serie de señales 'incómodas', de esas que no encajan con nada conocido. con Jose Manuel Nieves

It's farmers market season — and that means fresh-picked, fresh-cut flowers and bouquets. But where do those flowers come from? And who is behind all the work?

A quiet apartment in 2013 becomes the center of a growing fear: that something might have attached itself to the man he loved. From unexplained voices to sleep paralysis, loud phantom claps, and a night when the blinds “moved” without moving at all, Peter slowly comes to believe the haunting wasn't tied to a place—but a person. With cultural insight from his Hmong background and a shaman's warning in coded words, this story lingers long after it ends. If you have a real ghost story or supernatural event to report, please write into our show or call 1-855-853-4802! If you like the show, please help keep us on the air and support the show by becoming a Premium Subscriber.  Subscribe here: http://www.ghostpodcast.com/?page_id=118 or at or at http://www.patreon.com/realghoststories Watch more at: http://www.realghoststoriesonline.com/ Follow Tony: Instagram: HTTP://www.instagram.com/tonybrueski TikToc: https://www.tiktok.com/@tonybrueski Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tony.brueski 

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.   Important Resources: Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram | Learn about the Disappearances of Bhutanese American refugees: Website | Toolkit Hmong Innovating Politics: Website | Instagram Lavender Phoenix: Website | Instagram Minjoona Music: Instagram   Transcript: Cheryl (Host): Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. I'm your host, Cheryl, and tonight we're diving into the vibrant summer programming happening across the AACRE network. That's the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Network. AACRE is made up of 11 Asian American social justice organizations working together to build collective power and create lasting movements .  Throughout tonight's show, we'll be spotlighting a few of these groups [00:01:00] and the incredible work they're leading this summer. First up, we're joined by Pratik from Asian refugees United Pratik. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself and to kick things off in the spirit of tonight's show, maybe share what's something that's been bringing you joy this summer? Pratik (ARU): Hello, namaste everyone. My name is Pratik Chhetri. He, him. I'm the program manager at ARU, Asian Refugees United in Pennsylvania. I'm originally from Nepal. I grew up in Nepal. I am an immigrant, came to the for college long time ago. And I've been working in social justice, health justice field for over 15 years now. Initially it was mostly around advocacy policy relating to access to medicines, issues, especially in lower and middle income countries, and the past six, seven. More than seven [00:02:00] years. I also started an organization, a nonprofit organization in Nepal, that works at the intersection of social, economic and climate justice. And with ARU, I got introduced to ARU back in 2020. So by that time I had some skills that I felt I could bring to the community. Even though I'm not from Bhutanese refugee community, I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent. So I felt with the linguistic skill I could be of some help. I think right around that time COVID happened, everything and end of 2021 is when I reconnected with Robin and started talking about possibilities. For about two years, I was part of the CAMP for Emerging Leaders, the leadership program ARU has, and [00:03:00] starting last year, early this year formally, I am a staff, for ARU. I'm in charge of programs under wellness, education, and civic engagement largely but depending on time and resources, I become available for other programs as well. It's a joy working with ARU. I was just telling Cheryl earlier that it doesn't feel like work ‘ cause I enjoy it, working with people, getting to work on impactful programs, and being a part of an organization that has so much potential, so much responsibility, but also trying to find new ways to become, useful for the community. That's very exciting. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): That's great. I'm glad that your work is what's bringing you joy this summer. That's so special. And before we get into some of that impactful programming that you've been running this summer, could you [00:04:00] tell us a little bit about, ARU, Asian Refugees United  Pratik (ARU): Sure. ARU started back in 2016 in California and back then all of the programs used to be in California. The community that ARU serves since then, and even to this day are Nepali speaking, Bhutanese refugee community and Vietnamese community, Korean and other Pan-Asian community. After the pandemic, there has been a lot of secondary migration of the Bhutanese folks from across the United States to two major locations. One being central PA around Harrisburg area and Pennsylvania, and the second one around Columbus, Ohio, and other major cities in Ohio. The secondary migration mostly to Pennsylvania triggered a, shifting of ARU programs, to Pennsylvania as well in addition to [00:05:00] California. So at this point in 2025, the Pennsylvania side of ARU caters to the Nepali speaking Bhutanese folks. And the California side of ARU works with Vietnamese, Korean, and other Asian communities. I work with the Pennsylvania, ARU, and here we have four different pillars around health and wellness, education, art and storytelling. And the fourth one is civic engagement, and that is the newest one. I can talk about programs under each of the pillars but for summer the programs that is bringing me joy, not only for me, but also ARU's staffs is this longitudinal five month long leadership program called Camp for Emerging Leaders, where we recruit Nepali speaking folks from all across United States, and they go through virtual sessions every other [00:06:00] week on, history to the story of displacement, intergenerational trauma. How it started, how it used to be back in Bhutan, how it used to be in the refugee camps in Nepal, and now how it is in the US and Canada, wherever they are. So end of summer, end of July, early August is when all of those cohort members, the youth leaders will come physically to Harrisburg and we'll spend a few days here connecting with each other, building that trust, but also working together to build projects for the community, addressing community challenges that's happening. And for that I think five or six of the ARU staff from California are also coming. We have guest speakers. I think one of them is coming from all the way from Australia. It's fun. Largely I think [00:07:00] I'm looking forward to meeting with all of these youth leaders who have so much potential to do, so much good, not only for Bhutanese community, Nepali speaking, south Asian community, but also, their potential goes beyond that, yeah.  Cheryl (Host): It is powerful to hear how ARU's work has evolved and now spans across the nation, and also how Camp for Emerging Leaders is creating space for Nepali speaking Bhutanese youth to reflect their community's history, build deep connections, and grow as leaders. You mentioned that during the summer youth leaders gather in Harrisburg to create community projects. Could you share more about what kinds of projects they're working on and what kind of issues they're hoping to address? Pratik (ARU): For education, one of the main ones that we just concluded is, so we started high school success program called First Step Forward. And the interesting thing, the exciting thing about this program [00:08:00] is the concept of First Step forward from one of the Camp for Emerging Leaders cohort from two years ago. And similarly so that's how most of ARU programs have been. The ARU Youth Center, the ARU Office, that concept also started from the camp for emerging leaders. There are a couple other programs ARU does. Youth Wellness Day. That started from the camp as well. For the First Step Forward, what we do is early winter of, I think January or February we accepted a cohort of 10. These were high school juniors and seniors, and largely the purpose of the program is to make sure that they are well equipped for college and for any other professional avenues they end up going even if higher education is not for them. We did a lot of like leadership sessions, public speaking [00:09:00] sessions, like how to write essays, how to apply for different scholarships. We just concluded it literally last Saturday, we went hiking and went to one of the Six Flags amusement parks. But learning from that program, we are scaling it up. We're taking 20 people next year, and we will do it a year long cohort. So starting from September up until May, June. We'll integrate college tours, not only for the kids, but also for their family because in Bhutanese community and Nepali speaking folks a lot of the times the parents do not understand how the system works, even with their best intent and best intention. So along with the students, it is very important for us to work with the family, the parents as much as possible to take them through the process, right? On education, we also do a lot of cultural navigation training to [00:10:00] different county level and different governance agencies. Some of the cultural navigation trainings that we did in the past year that I can think of is we did one for the. Panel of judges from Dauphin County, which is where Harrisburg is. We did similar thing for different school districts in Dauphin and Cumberland County, different nearby counties for juvenile probation unit, child and youth services. And while we do that, as an organization, it gave us a better sense of where the gaps are, especially for parents to run into difficulties. 'cause a lot of times, for example, if a kid is sent home with a sheet of paper, even when it's bilingual, because their movement happened from Nepal to Bhutan, such a long time ago, a lot of the folks in the community speak the language but do not understand how to read or write the [00:11:00] language. So there are double language barrier, right? When a kid is called into a meeting or a disciplinary meeting, the parents a lot of times don't even look at the sheet of paper or don't know where to show up or how to show up or what to expect. Based on those things we're using that knowledge and experience to design further programs in the future. That's just for education. With civic engagement, for example, this 2024 cycle was the first election for our community members to vote in their lifetime. Back in Bhutan they didn't have that opportunity and then they spent decades in refugee camps, and it took most of them some time to get the green cards and five years after Green card to secure their citizenship. So we saw a lot of even elderly folks show up to voting. That was their first time that they were voting. And when that happens, it's not [00:12:00] just generic voter education. It's teaching the community how to register, where to register, where to show up at the precincts. A lot of precincts we were seeing, 30 to 40% of the folks show up to the wrong precincts. So there's a lot of need, but also in 2024 we saw, unfortunately, a lot of folks fall victim to misinformation and disinformation. So there's that need to do something about that part as well in the future. One of the things we started doing under civic engagement work is not just teach folks where to register, how to register on voter education, but also preparing some of the community members to run for office.  Two or three weeks ago, mid-June, we did our first round of run for office training. We partner up with another organization called Lead PA. And even for the folks who showed up, all of us [00:13:00] are politically inclined, educated to a certain extent, and a lot of the things that were shared in that training, it was mostly new to us, especially around local government. Like what are the positions that they are and how so many important positions, people run unopposed and what kind of ramifications that might have for our daily lives. Right. Starting 2026 election cycle, we're hoping some of our trainees run for office as well, starting from school board to all the way, wherever they want to. And there are wellness focused events, youth wellness Day that I talked about, around mental health is one of the great needs for the community. One piece of data might be very important to mention, based on CDCs 20 12 data, there was a report out, the research was conducted in 2012, and the report came out in 2014, basically what it said [00:14:00] was, Bhutanese folks in the US have the highest of suicide in the whole nation, and that's something that has not received a lot of attention or resources because generally those numbers get mixed up with generic Asian data and the numbers get diluted. Right. So one of the things, what, as an organization, what we are trying to do is bring awareness to that number. And the other thing is like, it's been over 10 years since that study happened and there has not been a follow-up study. What we are seeing is previously how mental health and it's ramifications how it was affecting the community, it was mostly about 10 years ago, mostly affecting older folks. Now we are seeing a lot of younger folks commit suicide or suicidal attempts. So there is a lot of work in that respect as [00:15:00] well. These are also some of the very crucial topics to work on. But as an organization, we are taking baby steps toward being able to efficiently address the community needs. I missed some of them, but overall, our organizational goal is to empower the community in one way or the other. And one of the tools that we use is focusing on youths because youths in the community, similar to other immigrant communities, our youths are mostly bilingual, bicultural, and many times they're the translators and system navigators for their whole family. And in many cases their extended family as well. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. There are so many layers to the work that you all do. From developing leaders to run for office, to supporting mental health, to helping folks navigate voting and helping folks access higher education or career pathways.[00:16:00]  That's such a wide scope, and I imagine it takes a lot to hold all of that. How do you all manage to balance so much, especially with a small team, is that right?  Pratik (ARU): Yes. Technically we only have one full-time staff. Most are part-time, but ranging from. 10% to 80%. Largely we rely on the community members, volunteers, and we pay the volunteers when we can. And other times, I think it speaks to how much time and effort and how genuinely, folks like Robin, who is the co ED of ARU and Parsu who is the office manager, and other folks in Harrisburg, connected with different community leaders, folks of different subgroups over the years. So. When ARU moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania post pandemic, it took them a while to get the hang of the community, the growing community. Back then it used to [00:17:00] be 10, 20,000 max in central PA and now our estimation is like 70, 80,000 in central PA. It took them a while to create space of trust, that ARU are people that they can come for when they run into problems. And even when we don't have a lot of resources, people show up. People volunteer. People volunteer their time, their spaces for meetings and events. Yeah. And that's how we've been running it. I feel like we do five or 10 x amount of work with the resources that we have, but that's largely because of the perception the community has about Robin, about Parsu, about other individuals, and about the organization.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. ARU clearly has such deep community roots, not just through the incredible work that of course Robin, [00:18:00] Parsu and so many others you have named have done to build lasting relationships that now sustain the work in the organization, but also I think it's also evident in the examples you've shared through Camp for Emerging Leaders, how you all really listen to youth and learn from their experiences. And you all shape programs that respond directly to the needs that you're seeing. And in that same spirit of care and commitment that is reflected in ARU's amazing staff and volunteers. I'm curious, are there any moments or memories from camp for emerging leaders that stand out to you? I imagine there must be so many.  Pratik (ARU): Yeah. Many stories. I started attending and facilitating the sessions for the camp I from 2022 cohort and maybe even 23 cohort. I think this is the third one that I'm doing. I'll talk about Kamana. [00:19:00] Kamana joined the 23 cohort and at that time she was still in high school. But you know, she was bubbly, full of energy and she was one of the pretty active members of the cohort and eventually after the cohort, she ended up joining ARU as initially, I think as an intern, and now she is the lead of the education program. She will be a sophomore or rising junior, starting this fall. But now she'll be running the education program, First Step Forward. Primarily it was internally us staff, we see the growth in them with experience. But also I think one of the things that ARU does is we create a sort of non-hierarchical structure within our office space in the sense that anyone can [00:20:00] design a program or any idea, and they do not feel intimidated to speaking up. I think because of that, people like Kamana, I can talk about other folks like Nawal. Them growing within ARU space shows not just with experience, but also I think the kind of open and inclusive and non hierarchical space that we create they feel comfortable enough in leading. A lot of times when we have , X, y, and Z needs to be done in the group chat, people just volunteer. Even when they don't get paid, we see our staff, our volunteer base just show up time and time again. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. ARU is such a special container. You've created this beautiful space where people can grow and then also have agency to shape that container in whatever way that they want. That is so special. How can listeners support your work this [00:21:00] summer? Whether that's showing up or donating or volunteering or spreading the word.  Pratik (ARU): One of the things is for the listeners, I feel like not a lot of folks know about Bhutanese community much. So yes, they speak Nepali. They sometimes they identify as Nepali because it's just easy. , Bhutanese folks normally identify as either Bhutanese or Nepali or American or any combination of those three identities. A lot of folks do not know, including folks from Nepal about the atrocity, the trauma that the community went through had to go through the forced persecution out of Bhutan and then living under very limited means while in the refugee camps in Nepal and even the number of challenges the community still [00:22:00] faces. I talked a little bit about mental health needs. There's. There are needs around, health seeking behavior and similar to other immigrant communities as well, but also, on education. Because of the historical division around caste and class and other demographic details, certain folks in the community are geared towards success versus others aren't. And we see that. We see the pattern quite distinct by their indigeneity, by their caste, by their last names. In our community you can tell what their caste is, what their ethnic background is with their last names. So I would invite the audience to learn a little bit more about this community and if you have that space and resources [00:23:00] to be, if you're a researcher, if you want to do some research studies, if you want to bring some programs. If you have scholarship ideas, if you want to create any scholarship for the kids in the community, or if you have means, and if you can donate, either or. It doesn't have to be just, financial resources. It can be sometimes being available as mentor to some of the kids to show them these are the possibilities. To summarize, learn more about the community if you don't know already including some of the new atrocities, the community's facing right now with ICE detention and deportation, even when the community was brought in to this country after years and years of approval through the process. And if you have resources and means help with knowledge sharing, being available or with [00:24:00] financial means either or. I just wanted to mention that I work with ARU and I work with the Bhutanese community, but like I said, I'm not from the Bhutan community. I grew up in Nepal. I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent, but I definitely cannot speak for the experience of going and living as a refugee. So,, if you have any question, if you want to learn more about that, Cheryl and I, we are happy to put you in touch with folks with incredible stories, inspiring stories of resilience in the community. Cheryl (Host): Thank you so much. All of the links, whether to learn more, donate or get involved, as well as information about the disappearances impacting the Bhutanese American community will be included in our show notes. A huge thank you to Pratik from Asian Refugees United for joining us tonight. We're deeply grateful for the work you do and the love you carry for our [00:25:00] communities. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We're going to take a quick music break and when we come back we'll hear more about the summer programming happening across the AACRE network with folks from Lavender Phoenix, and Hmong innovating politics. So don't go anywhere. Next up, you're listening to a track called “Juniper” by Minjoona, a project led by Korean American musician, Jackson Wright. This track features Ari Statler on bass, josh Qiyan on drums, and Ryan Fu producing. Juniper is the lead single from Minjoona's newest release, the Juniper EP, a five track p roject rooted in indie rock, 60 throwback vibes, and lyric forward storytelling. You can follow Minjoona on Instagram at @minjoonamusic or find them on Spotify to keep up with upcoming releases. We'll drop the links in our show notes. Enjoy the track and we'll be right back. [00:26:00] [00:27:00] [00:28:00] [00:29:00] [00:30:00]  And we're back!!. You're listening to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. That was “Juniper” by Minjoona.  Huge thanks to Jackson Wright and the whole crew behind that track [00:31:00] Before the break, we were live with Pratik from Asian Refugees United, talking about the powerful summer programming, supporting the Nepalese speaking Bhutanese community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Now I'm joined by from Blair Phoenix. From Lavender Phoenix, who's here to share about her experiences as a summer organizer In Lav N'S annual summer in Lav N's annual summer organizer in Lav N'S annual summer organizing program. Hi Mar. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Okay. Mar, do you mind for our listeners out there who are just tuning in, do you mind introducing yourself? Mar (LavNix): Yes. Thank you, Cheryl. Hi, y'all. My name is Mar Pronouns, [00:32:00] she/siya/any! I come from the lands of the Ibaloi people in the Philippines or “Maharlika”. I am a queer Muslim and yeah, I'm just happy to be here. Cheryl (Host): Yay. We're so happy to have you here, mar! For those who might not be familiar, Mar is joining us from Lavender Phoenix as part of this year's summer organizing program. Mar,, could you start by giving our listeners a quick introduction to Lavender Phoenix? And then could you tell us a little bit about the summer organizing program and what it's all about? Mar (LavNix): Yeah, of course. Cheryl. Let's start with Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix is a really awesome nonprofit over here in the Bay Area who focus on trans queer, API. Work basically. I really love Lavender Phoenix because of their unwavering commitment to collective liberation [00:33:00] and the very specific focus and centering around trans queer API leadership because our leadership is often underrepresented and because there's so many intersections there, we need to have trans queer API leadership to be able to move the work. And so really fond of lavender Phoenix's ethos and mission values. This year for the summer 2025, I'm part of their summer organizer program, which is a cohort of organizers both emerging, established and wanting to learn, and we learn a lot of transformative interpersonal organizing skills, but also building our more technical skill sets alongside with that. So we're actually three weeks from graduation [00:34:00] nooooooooo!. Anyways, yeah, just really happy to be in this cohort. I'm feeling really aligned in that I am here and it is transforming me in the way I had intentions for when I applied for it. Cheryl (Host): Wow. It sounds like this was a really impactful program for you. I wanna know what kinds of projects are you all working on?  Mar (LavNix): Yeah, so it's really beautiful because it's not just like a single project the cohort works on, it's kind of a myriad of things. We have two folks who are doing projects with other organizations, and then we have the rest of the folks working on two projects within Lavender Phoenix's programming. And so for my group, my very awesome group, we are doing the River of Life Project, and the River of Life Project is a five week long cohort where we practice storytelling in a very vulnerable and honest way, and this is for the [00:35:00] purpose to really witness one another and to cultivate our storytelling skills because our stories and narratives is so important. There's whole states and governments trying to take that away from us, and so our project is to guide and facilitate this project and meet with members across rank. It's super cool seeing the different facets of lavender Phoenix come together and be down, to be in the act of vulnerability and honesty and that is their praxis for collective liberation. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Yeah. Yeah. That's so well said. And it's so important that we have these spaces to practice that vulnerability because we are so often punished for being who we are. Right. So, mm-hmm. These programs are so crucial as you have uplifted for us. I am so curious to learn more about this River of Life project, but [00:36:00] also before we even get to that, I wanna zoom out a little bit and focus on your growth and who are you now as you get closer three weeks from graduation?  Mar (LavNix): Ooh, that is such a beautiful question, Cheryl. Yeah. I've been really reflecting on how this program transformed me this summer and to bring us back to when I first applied. I first applied sometime in March, I believe. I remember 'cause it was around Ramadan. I was at a point in my life where I felt stagnant in my organizing journey. I would attend all these workshops, I would keep reading, but there was a disconnect in how my mind wanted to move next. So here we are in 2025, I was accepted into the program. I was like, yay, my people. And you know, [00:37:00] my expectations was met. In fact, it was exceeded. Very exceeded because I didn't know these things that i'm learning now. I didn't know how much I needed them until I learned them. In my time with Lavender Phoenix, as I'm reflecting to this point, graduation being three weeks out, I realized that before joining this cohort, my heart and my spirit was in a really bad place, and I think a lot of people could resonate. There's genocides, ethnic cleansings, and just terrible things happening all over the world, and there's like a dichotomy of people who are trying so hard and then there's a dichotomy of people who are unaffected by it. And so my spirit and my heart was so broken down seems really dramatic, but it wasn't being rejuvenated for sure. And so, being in this space and being in a [00:38:00] container that's just honesty and vulnerability and it's all rooted in each other's liberation really replenish that cup. The teachings and the knowledge and the wisdom that I'm getting, it's helping me add more to my North Star, which I'm really thankful of because I didn't know this is what I needed in March. Cheryl (Host): That is so beautiful. So much of what's going on right now by the systems that be, the powers that be, it's meant to isolate us and to make us feel exactly what you said. Capitalism isolates us and keeps us in that place because that's how it benefits . So Lavender Phoenix is summer organizing program, what I'm hearing from you is this revolutionary space that is counter to that. It's filled with hope and dreaming for a better world. So how is that being informed in River of Life, in the storytelling leadership development that you are developing within Lavender Phoenix's membership?  Mar (LavNix): Oh, yes. I'm [00:39:00] understanding the responsibility on how I move in this space. And so before the cohort of the River of Life project presents, it's actually gonna be me and another facilitator going to share our stories. And so we're also in the act of being vulnerable and honest and really wanting the others to witness us as we will witness them. We've removed kind of that superiority in that space. When I think of this, it brings me back to Freire's idea of an engaged pedagogy, but not necessarily like an educator and a student, but like removing hierarchies, which I think is really, a value that's rooted in, or lavender Phoenix is rooted in that value. There's no hierarchy, but there is ranks and we all see each other as equals. It's really beautiful to be able to see that and then know how I move in this [00:40:00] space to prepare our cohort. I hope that my storytelling, I can only hope, I do not know how it's gonna be received inshallah it's received super well. But I really do hope that they see how vulnerable I also get and how I'm doing this so that I could build deeper relationships with these people as I continue my journey with Lavender, Phoenix and to them as well. I hope these values, if not already present in our people, this project helps them cultivate that even further.  Cheryl (Host): I wanna ask what is something you want to share with our listeners who were in a similar space as you who felt lost and that they wanted something to grow in. What advice would you give?  Mar (LavNix): This is a really beautiful question [00:41:00] and So many things flooded my brain as you were asking this question, but i'm feeling more pulled and called to share this one thing . As I'm going through the summer organizer program, I really realized the importance of tending to myself so that I could show up for others. I have to be able to know how to advocate for my needs and what I need so that I can be in spaces with other people. It's so important that I know how to acknowledge my shame or whatever pain points I'm experiencing and let that not be a hindrance to the work, but integrate it in a way that I will tend to it, and by tending to it, I can continue doing the work. And I know it's really [00:42:00] hard to prioritize yourself when it feels like you should prioritize everything else in the world right now, but I am really learning that that's what I needed to do. When I say prioritize myself, I'm not saying oh, I need to go do this and I need to go drink all my water. Yes, also care for our physical bodies and our mental bodies, but also taking time to know who I am as a person and what I could offer to the movement, and knowing how to communicate to others in the movement so that I could show up as a better organizer. And so the final words that I will have to share is I hope everyone who's hearing this shows the love that they have for other people to themselves [00:43:00] too.  Cheryl (Host): That was so beautiful. What you just shared right now about tending to yourself that's part of the work too. And that's so counterintuitive, I feel. This project that you're leading, the river of life where the focus is so much on your story and honoring who you are, I think that is the true essence of what it means to be trans and queer. Showing up with your whole self and embracing that. And in turn, by doing that, you are holding everybody else too, that very practice. To find out more about Lavender Phoenix Mar, how can our listeners plug into Lavender Phoenix's work?  Mar (LavNix): Follow us on Instagram or check out Lavender, Phoenix website. We post a lot. Sign up for the newsletter. Volunteer. We're really cool. Or just look at the staff and see if anybody calls you and you wanna hit them up. We're so awesome. Cheryl (Host): Thank you for joining us on tonight's show, Mar, and for sharing your experiences on Lavender Phoenix's [00:44:00] summer organizing program with all of All of the links that Mar mentioned on how to stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix's work be available in our show notes as per usual. We are so grateful, thank you again, Mar! Next up, we're joined by Katie from Hmong Innovating Politics. Katie. Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on our show tonight. Would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Katie (HIP): Hi everyone. My name is Katie. I use she her pronouns. My Hmong name is ING and I mainly introduce myself as ING to my community, especially elders because one ING is my given name. Katie is like a self-assigned name. In my work with HIP I've been trying to figure out what feels more natural when, but I do catch myself introducing myself to my Hmong community. And yeah, I'm totally cool if folks referring to me as Katie Oring and my ask is just pronouncing my name correctly. Who are my people? Who's my community? I would say my community is my family. And then the young people that I work [00:45:00] with, the elders in my community, the ones who would like to claim me, my team. I would say Hmong women that I've met through some of the work that I do at my volunteer org, and oh my goodness, there're so many people. My friends, oh my gosh, if my friends are listening to this, my friends are my community, they're my people. They keep me grounded, alive and fun. My siblings. All of the folks in Fresno and Sacramento that have been a part of the spaces that I've shared at HIP and the spaces that we've created together.  Cheryl (Host): You are a community leader through and through . For folks who are listening and don't know, Hmong Innovating Politics is one of the AACRE groups and it has two different hubs basically in Central California, one in Sacramento, and one in Fresno. Katie, do you mind sharing a little bit about HIP and the work that you all do? Katie (HIP): Yeah. So, we are a power building organization and what does that mean, right? One is that we are [00:46:00] a part of empowering and supporting our community to become active change makers in their community. We believe that those who are most impacted by issues should also be the ones that receive resources and training to lead solutions and design, the dreams of their community. A framework that we use is called Belong Believe Become. We want to create space where young people feel their belongingness, know that they are rooted here in their community, and that they have a place. The believing part of our framework is that we want young people to also see themselves and see themselves as leaders. In their community and leadership can mean many forms, right? There's like passive and active leadership, and we want young people to know that there is enough space in this world for everyone in whichever capacity, they're choosing to show up in their community. The important piece of believing is that, believing that you also like matter and that your decisions are also impactful. And then become is that. [00:47:00] we share this framework and it's circular because we notice that some people can come into our space feeling like I know exactly who I'm gonna be. I know exactly what I wanna do, and feel really disconnected from their history and their, and the multiple parts of their identities. belong, believe become is cyclical and it's wherever you're at. And in this third piece of becoming it is that our young people know that they are leading the charge and transforming systems. That they are shifting the narratives of our community, that they get to own the narratives of our community, and that they are a part of the Power building our community as well. Cheryl (Host): Yeah, I love that . As we're talking, I'm noticing that you talk so much about young people and how so much of your work's framework is centered around young people. Do you mind giving context into that? So much of HIP's programming is on youth leadership, and so I'm wondering what does that look like programming wise and especially right now in the summer? Katie (HIP): Yeah, so it's more [00:48:00] recently that HIP has been identifying ourselves as a power building organization. Before we had claimed our work as base building, and this is through our civic engagement work for voter engagement and empowerment, and turning out the vote that, that is like what we, our organization was like centered on. Through that work, what we noticed was that like cycles and seasons after season, it was young people coming back and then they started asking are you all gonna have like consistent programming space for us, or is it just gonna always be around the election cycle? Through our civic engagement work, a framework that we use is the IVE model, integrated voter engagement. And that is that you are relationship building year after year, even outside of the election season. And so then it was how do we be more intentional about centering the people who are coming to us and centering the people who are shifting and challenging and pushing our leadership. And that was to [00:49:00] then move and prioritize the young people in our community. I think it's been maybe four or five years since this shift where we've really prioritized young people and really centered our work around youth justice. So then we had to create these spaces. Civic engagement work had primarily consisted of phone banking and canvassing and through that I think a lot of young people were then getting firsthand experience of this is like what it's like to be angry about these issue in my community. This is also what it's like to hold space for other people to go through and process their emotions. And then it was like, how do we train and skill up our young people to not only listen to their community, but be able to strategize and lead and take their ideas and dreams and put 'em into action. At the time folks working in our civic engagement programs were high school youth, college transitional age, young adults who are not in college. And we even had parent [00:50:00] age folks in our programs as well. In figuring out how do we better support our young folks was that a lot of young people were asking for more like designated space for youth that are in high school. The other request was can you all not be college based because not all young adults go to college in our community, yet we still wanted to access the programs. We had to strategize around these pieces. Also at the time when we were running civic engagement program, we were also building up our trans and queer work in the Central Valley and figuring out like what is HIP's place in this work? So that landed us into three programs. We have a program called Tsev which is TSEV. Um, and that means House in Hmong, but it's an acronym. It stands for Transforming Systems, empowering Our Village, and the reason why we named our youth program that is in the Hmong community, we refer to our community a lot “lub zos” which means village in English. And so that is why we wanted to name our program with something around the word village and then also [00:51:00] home, belongingness, right? We wanted our program to signify belonging. And so that is what landed us in this program. This program is based at a high school and we train cohorts of youth and the curriculum that we cover in all of our programs are pretty similar, but they are adjusted to be more relevant to the age group and the experiences that we are serving. So we have our high school program. We have our trans and queer young adult program called QHIP, queer Hmong intersectional Pride. And then we also have a young adult program called the Civic Engagement Fellowship, but I feel like we're gonna be revamping next year, so we might have a new name next year. And that one is, open to all young adults of all gender and sexuality. The projects that is focused in that is what's coming up on the election. So specific propositions and measures or whatever we are bringing to the ballot. And then with QHIP, it is very focused on intentionally building up leadership in the trans and queer community. [00:52:00] Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): You all tackle power building in so many different intersections, and I think that's so brilliant. You really tailor these spaces to the needs of your community and you're always listening to your community. That is honestly such a theme within the AACRE network. Could you tell us how these groups stay active during the summer?  Katie (HIP): Yeah! During the summer, we close off the cohort in June when the school year ends. And so we're actually in the assessment phase of this program right now. Our seniors throughout the summer go through a one-on-one exit with one of the staff in Fresno or Sacramento. After the senior exit closes out, then we'll be doing a overall annual assessment with all of the young people that were in the program this year. We're actually closing both these pieces out next week. We try to make things fun, right? So for the one-on-ones, we'll all come to the office and we'll have the one-on-one exit interviews and after that we'll go get lunch. somewhere cute, somewhere fun. Then with the end of the year evals, after we complete them for everyone, we'll just hang out. This [00:53:00] year we're planning to do like a paint by numbers night. And then we always somehow end up karaoking. For QHIP, our trans and queer young adult program we actually partner with Lavender Phoenix and have them attend the leadership exchange program that's happening right now. We did our own onboarding and then we celebrated the month of pride. And we also celebrated the trans march. Then after that transition into the leadership exchange program at Lavender Phoenix. After that program, I believe our lead members are going to be designing some projects this summer. And then they'll have the rest of the summer and hours to do their projects, and then we'll eventually close out with a retreat with them. Cheryl (Host): And for our listeners out there, do you mind giving a quick a preview on what lavender, Phoenix's leadership exchange program is and how you all work in tandem with each other?  Katie (HIP): Yeah. Okay. I know in the past, we've sent our more new to organizing leaders [00:54:00] to the leadership exchange program. This year the intention is that we wanted to send leaders from our community who might already have some organizing experience who have some experience in social justice and movement work. And so, during this I think some of my favorite things from the leadership exchange program is teaching folks how to ask for help. I think a lot of our young adults navigate their lives not knowing who to turn to for help and how to formulate and ask that is clear and supportive of their needs. So that's something that we really appreciate through the leadership exchange program. And another piece is mutual aid funding. Lavender Phoenix trains up leaders around fundraising support and that's something I'm really looking forward to our young people gaining. The other piece is ultimately training of trans and queer leaders in our community so that we can continue to sustain this movement and this lifelong work of trans and queer liberation. The leadership exchange program has been able to equip folks with very necessary skills so that they can continue to sustain trans and queer [00:55:00] leadership. I bring in the fundraising piece because, I think a lot of young people that I work with, they're so scared to ask for resource support, especially money. And I think a lot of it comes with our own family trauma around finances, right? So, I'm excited to see what they debrief about and what they reflect on.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. It really sounds like all of these programs that you all do are really building up leaders for the long term of our movements. Asking for help is so related to navigating money, trauma and is so key in shaping liberatory futures. For folks out there who wanna get plugged into some of HIP's programming work, how can we stay in touch with you all? Katie (HIP): Our Instagram is the best spot. And then on our Instagram you can click on the little short link to sign up for our newsletter. We have some volunteer opportunities coming up in the month of August so if folks in the Central Valley wanna support with one of our community engagement [00:56:00] surveys, either to partake in the survey or to support us in doing the outreach and getting the word out so that folks complete the survey. There's two ways that you can participate with us. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Thanks, Katie, and of course all of those links will be available in our show notes. Thanks so much for coming on our show tonight, Katie, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll see you next time. [00:57:00] [00:58:00]  The post APEX Express – July 17, 2025: Summer Programming in the AACRE Network appeared first on KPFA.

Seo Gia Vang (Yia Vaj) tawm tswv yim tias vim li cas nws thiaj tsim lub Hmong AI app siv.

John Craemer is in the house with the Green Bay Press Times' Headlines segment, and Mai Nu Vang and Tou Yang join him from the Hmong community in Green Bay to talk about some of the events they have been a part of this year. They also discuss the strength and resilience in the community. Then Maino is joined by Adriana Vander Leest and Chef Lauren Rue from the Oshkosh Marriott Waterfront Hotel & Convention Center. As the hotel undergoes the third phase of renovations, they're excited to kick off the Grand Opening for the "Anchor & Port" restaurant inside the Marriott. The event is planned for July 29th. Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-9 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Appleton/Oshkosh. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast lineup. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor! Guests: John Craemer, Mai Nu Vang, Tou Yang, Lauren Rue

When Father Dennis Lewis was assigned to St. Michael’s parish in Milwaukee, he discovered a growing number of Hmong and Laotians seeking refuge from the Vietnam War. Many were subjected to a terrible slumlord and so Father decided to start a homebuying ministry that helped coach them through the process. 33 years later, Acts Housing has helped 4,000 low-income families purchase homes!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Father Dennis Lewis was assigned to St. Michael’s parish in Milwaukee, he discovered a growing number of Hmong and Laotians seeking refuge from the Vietnam War. Many were subjected to a terrible slumlord and so Father decided to start a homebuying ministry that helped coach them through the process. 33 years later, Acts Housing has helped 4,000 low-income families purchase homes!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jason talks to Brett Anderson from the NY Times who profiled a pair of Hmong chefs in Minneapolis, on today's "DeRusha Eats"!

Welcome to Season 5, Episode 26! With the fall of Saigon happening about 50 years ago, it's important to recognize related additional moments in the history of Asians and Asian Americans. We're talking about the Secret War in Laos which was closely tied to the Vietnam War. This will be Part 1 of 2 on the topic. Laos is in Southeast Asia, a key region that the U.S. worried about during the Cold War. The Secret War in Laos was led by the CIA and fought predominantly by the Hmong, an ethnic minority in the country, and it's a major reason so many Hmong and Laotian people became refugees after the Fall of Saigon and retreat of U.S. forces. So in this episode, we dig into the geopolitical situation that was present in Southeast Asia, the U.S. role in battling the spread of communism there, the key local soldiers recruited by the CIA, and the amount of damage the U.S. did to the area.  We begin the episode by catching up on current events, including celebrating newly elected mayor of San Antonio Gina Ortiz Jones as well as all the Tony winners of Asian Pacific descent. We also give our thoughts on the push for Asian American History in Arizona. We end the episode with the recurring segment What are We Watching? In this installment, we talk about the streaming show Deli Boys and the feature film Sinners.  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 our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Introduction and Current Events 04:59 The History of the Secret War in Laos 14:40 What are We Watching? Deli Boys and Sinners

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 Producer Swati Rayasam showcases a community panel of how discriminatory exclusion policies during times of heightened fears of national security and safety have threatened our communities in the past, and how the activities of the current administration threaten our core constitutional rights, raising the specter of politicization and polarization of citizenship, immigration visas, naturalization rights, and the right to free speech.   Deport. Exclude. Revoke. Imprison – “Wong Kim Ark is for All of Us” SHOW TRANSCRIPT Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to APEX Express on KPFA. My name is Swati Rayasam and I'm back as your special producer for this episode. Tonight we have an incredible community panel titled Deport. Exclude. Revoke. Imprison. This panel explores the history of how discriminatory exclusion policies during times of heightened fears of national security and [00:01:00] safety have threatened our communities in the past, and how the activities of the current administration threaten our core constitutional rights, raising the specter of politicization and polarization of citizenship, immigration visas, naturalization rights, and the right to free speech. I'll pass it on to UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Professor Mike Chang to kick us off. Mike and Harvey: We're starting on Berkeley time, right on time at three 10, and I want to introduce Harvey Dong. Harvey Dong: Okay. The sponsors for today's event include, AADS- Asian American and Diaspora studies program, uc, Berkeley, Asian American Research Center, the Center for Race and Gender Department of Ethnic Studies- all part of uc, Berkeley. Off campus, we have the following community groups. Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Law Caucus, [00:02:00] Asian Prisoners Support Committee, and East Wind Books. Okay, so that's, quite a few in terms of coalition people coming together. My name is Harvey Dong and I'm also a lecturer in the AADS program and part of the ethnic studies department. I can say that I exist here as the result of birthright citizenship won by Ancestor Wong Kim Ark in 1898. Otherwise, I would not be here. We want to welcome everyone here today, for this important panel discussion titled: Deport, Exclude, Revoke, Imprison – Immigration and citizenship rights during crisis. Yes, we are in a deep crisis today. The Chinese characters for crisis is way G in Mandarin or way gay in [00:03:00] Cantonese, which means danger and opportunity. We are in a moment of danger and at the same time in a moment of opportunity. Our communities are under attack from undocumented, documented, and those with citizenship. We see urgency in coming together. In 1898, the US Supreme Court case, US versus Wong Kim Ark held that under the 14th Amendment birthright, citizenship applies to all people born in the United States. Regardless of their race or their parents' national origin or immigration status. On May 15th this year, the Supreme Court will hear a President Donald Trump's request to implement an executive order that will end birthright citizenship already before May 15th, [00:04:00] deportations of US citizen children are taking place. Recently, three US citizen children, one 2-year-old with cancer have been deported with their undocumented parents. The numbers of US citizen children are much higher being deported because it's less covered in the press. Unconstitutional. Yes, definitely. And it's taking place now. Also today, more than 2.7 million southeast Asian Americans live in the US but at least 16,000 community members have received final orders of deportation, placing their lives and families in limbo. This presents a mental health challenge and extreme economic hardship for individuals and families who do not know whether their next day in the US will be their last. Wong Kim Ark's [00:05:00] struggle and the lessons of Wong Kim Ark, continue today. His resistance provides us with a grounding for our resistance. So they say deport, exclude, revoke, imprison. We say cease and desist. You can say that every day it just seems like the system's gone amuk. There's constant attacks on people of color, on immigrants and so forth. And our only solution, or the most important solution is to resist, legally resist, but also to protest, to demand cease and desist. Today brings together campus and community people. We want you all to be informed because if you're uninformed , you can't do anything. Okay? You have to know where things are at. It's nothing new. What they're trying to do, in 1882, [00:06:00] during times of economic crisis, they scapegoated Asian Americans. Today there's economic, political crisis. And the scapegoating continues. They're not doing anything new. You know, it's old stuff, but we have to realize that, and we have to look at the past in terms of what was done to fight it and also build new solidarities today. Wong Kim Ark did not take his situation sitting down. He went through, lots of obstacles. He spent three months in Angel Island he was arrested after he won his case because he was constantly being harassed wherever he went. His kids when they came over were also, spotted as being Wong Kim Ark's, children, and they too had to spend months at Angel Island. So Wong Kim Ark did not take his situation sitting down. We need to learn from him today. Our [00:07:00] next, special guest is Mr. Norman Wong, a good friend of mine. He was active here in the third world Liberation Front strike that led to ethnic studies. He did a lots of work for the development of Asian American studies and we've been out in touch for about, what, 40 years? So I'm really happy that he's able to come back to Berkeley and to talk about yourself, if you wish, maybe during the Q and a, but to talk about , the significance of your great-grandfather's case. Okay, so Norman Wong, let's give him a hand. Norman Wong: Hello, my name's Norman Wong. I'm the great grandson, Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark was [00:08:00] born in the USA, like my great-grandfather. I, too was born American in the same city, San Francisco, more than 75 years after him. We are both Americans, but unlike him, my citizenship has never been challenged. His willingness to stand up and fight made the difference for his struggles, my humble thanks. Wong Kim Ark however, was challenged more than once. In late 1889 as an American, he traveled to China in July, 1890. He returned to his birth city. He had his papers and had no problems with reentry. In 1895, after a similar trip, he was stopped from disembarking and was placed into custody for five months aboard ship in port. [00:09:00] Citizenship denied, the reason the Chinese exclusion Act 1882. He had to win this case in district court, provide $250 bail and then win again in the United States Supreme Court, March 28th, 1898. Only from these efforts, he was able to claim his citizenship granted by birthright from the 14th Amendment and gain his freedom. That would not be the last challenge to his being American. My mother suffered similar treatment. She like my great-grandfather, was born in America. In 1942, she was forced with her family and thousands of other Japanese Americans to relocation camps an experience unspoken by her family. [00:10:00] I first learned about Japanese American internment from history books. Executive order 9066 was the command. No due process, citizenship's rights stripped. She was not American enough. Now we have executive order 14160. It is an attack on birthright citizenship. We cannot let this happen. We must stand together. We are a nation of immigrants. What kind of nation are we to be with stateless children? Born to no country. To this, I say no. We as Americans need to embrace each other and [00:11:00] cherish each new life. Born in the USA. Thank you. Harvey Dong: Thank you, Norman. And Annie Lee, will moderate, the following panel, involving campus and community representatives who will be sharing their knowledge and experience. Annie Lee, Esquire is an attorney. She's also the, managing director of policy for Chinese Affirmative Action, and she's also, heavily involved in the birthright citizenship issue. Annie Lee: Thank you so much Harvey for that very warm welcome and thank you again to Norman for your remarks. I think it's incredible that you're speaking up at this moment, to preserve your ancestors' legacy because it impacts not just you and him, but all of us [00:12:00] here. So thank you. As Harvey said, my name is Annie Lee and I have this honor of working with this amazing panel of esteemed guest we have today. So I will ask each of them to introduce themselves. And I will start, because I would love to hear your name, pronouns. Title and organization as well as your personal or professional relationship with the US Immigration System. So my name's Annie. I use she her pronouns. I'm the managing Director of policy at Chinese for Affirmative Action, which is a non-profit based in San Francisco Chinatown. We provide direct services to the monolingual working class Chinese community, and also advocate for policies to benefit all Asian Americans. My relationship with the immigration system is I am the child of two Chinese immigrants who did not speak English. And so I just remember lots of time spent on the phone when I was a kid with INS, and then it became U-S-C-I-S just trying to ask them what happened to [00:13:00] a family member's application for naturalization, for visas so I was the interpreter for them growing up and even today. I will pass it to Letty. Leti Volpp: Hi everybody. Thank you so much, Annie. Thank you Harvey. Thank you, Norman. That was profoundly moving to hear your remarks and I love the way that you framed our conversation, Harvey. I'm Leti Volpp. I am the Robert d and Leslie k Raven, professor of Law and Access to Justice at the Berkeley Law, school. I'm also the director of the campus wide , center for Race and Gender, which is a legacy of the Third World Liberation Front, and the 1999, student movement, that led to the creation of the center. I work on immigration law and citizenship theory, and I am the daughter, second of four, children of my mother who was an immigrant from China, and my father who was an immigrant [00:14:00] from Germany. So I'll pass it. Thank you. Ke Lam: Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Norman. So my name's Key. I go by he, him pronouns or Nghiep “Ke” Lam, is my full name. I work for an organization called Asian Prison Support Committee. It's been around for like over two decades now, and it started behind three guys advocating for ethics study, Asian and Pacific Islander history. And then it was starting in San Quent State Prison. All three of them pushed for ethics study, hard and the result is they all was put into solitary confinement. And many years later, after all three got out, was Eddie Zang, Mike Romero and Mike no. And when they got out, Eddie came back and we pushed for ethics study again, and we actually got it started in 2013. And it's been going on to today. Then the programs is called Roots, restoring our Original True Self. So reconnecting with who we are. And one of Eddie's main, mottos that really stuck with me. He said, we need to all connect to our chi, right? And I'm like, okay, I understand what chi is, and he said no. He [00:15:00] said, you need to connect to your culture, your history, which result to equal your identity, who you are as a person. So, the more we study about our history and our culture, like, birthright citizen, it empower us to know, who we are today. Right? And also part of that is to how do we take down the veil of shame in our community, the veil of trauma that's impacting our community as well. We don't talk about issue that impact us like immigration. So I'm a 1.5 generation. So I was born in Vietnam from Chinese family that migrant from China to Vietnam started business after the fall of Vietnam War. We all got kicked out but more than that, I am directly impacted because I am a stranded deportee, somebody that got their, legal status taken away because of criminal conviction. And as of any moment now, I could actually be taken away. So I live in that, right at that threshold of like uncertainty right now. And the people I work with, which are hundreds of people, are fixing that same uncertainty.[00:16:00] Annie Lee: Thank you, Ke. I'm gonna pass it to our panelists who are joining us virtually, including Bun. Can you start and then we'll pass it to Chris after. Bun: Hey everybody, thank you for having me. My name is Bun. I'm the co-director of Asian Prison Support Committee. I'm also, 1.5 generation former incarcerated and under, direct impact of immigration. Christopher Lapinig: Hi everyone. My name is Christopher Lapinig, my pronouns are he, him and Sha. I am a senior staff attorney on the Democracy and National Initiatives Team at Asian Law Caucus, which you may know is the country's first and oldest legal aid in civil rights organization, dedicated to serving, low income immigrant and underserved AAPI communities. In terms of my connection to the immigration system, I am, I also am a beneficiary of a birthright citizenship, and my parents are both immigrants from the Philippines. I was born in New York City. My [00:17:00] extended family spans both in the US and the Philippines. After graduating law school and clerking, my fellowship project was focused on providing litigation and immigration services to, survivors of labor trafficking in the Filipino community. While working at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles, I also was engaged in, class action litigation, challenging the first Trump administration's practices, detaining immigrants in the Vietnamese and Cambodian communities. Annie Lee: Thank you, Chris. Thank you Bun. Let's start off by talking about birthright citizenship since it's a big topic these days. On the very, very first day of Trump's administration, he issued a flurry of executive orders, including one that would alter birthright citizenship. But I wanna take us back to the beginning because why do we have this right? It is a very broad right? If you were born in the United States, you are an American citizen. Where does that come from? So I wanna pose the first question to Letty to talk about the [00:18:00] origins of birthright citizenship., Leti Volpp: Very happy to. So what's being fought about is a particular clause in the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, which says, all persons born are naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Okay, so that's the text. There's been a very long understanding of what this text means, which says that regardless of the immigration status of one's parents, all children born here are entitled to birthright citizenship with three narrow exceptions, which I will explain. So the Trump administration executive order, wants to exclude from birthright citizenship, the children of undocumented immigrants, and the children of people who are here on lawful temporary visas. So for example, somebody here on an [00:19:00] F1 student visa, somebody on a H one B worker visa, somebody here is a tourist, right? And basically they're saying we've been getting this clause wrong for over a hundred years. And I will explain to you why I think they're making this very dubious argument. Essentially when you think about where the 14th amendment came from, in the United States, in the Antebellum era, about 20% of people were enslaved and there were lots of debates about citizenship. Who should be a citizen? Who could be a citizen? And in 1857, the Supreme Court issued a decision in a case called Dread Scott, where they said that no person who was black, whether free or enslaved, could ever be a citizen. The Civil War gets fought, they end slavery. And then the question arose, well, what does this mean for citizenship? Who's a citizen of the United States? And in 1866, Congress [00:20:00] enacts a law called the Civil Rights Act, which basically gave rights to people that were previously denied and said that everybody born in the United States is a birthright citizen. This gets repeated in the 14th Amendment with the very important interpretation of this clause in Norman's great-grandfather's case, the case of Wong Kim Ark. So this came before the Supreme Court in 1898. If you think about the timing of this, the federal government had basically abandoned the reconstruction project, which was the project of trying to newly enfranchised, African Americans in the United States. The Supreme Court had just issued the decision, Plessy versus Ferguson, which basically legitimated the idea that, we can have separate, but equal, as a doctrine of rights. So it was a nation that was newly hostile to the goals of the Reconstruction Congress, and so they had this case come before them, whereas we heard [00:21:00] from Norman, we have his great-grandfather born in San Francisco, Chinatown, traveling back and forth to China. His parents having actually left the United States. And this was basically presented as a test case to the Supreme Court. Where the government tried to argue, similar to what the Trump administration is arguing today, that birthright citizenship, that clause does not guarantee universal birthright citizenship saying that children of immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because their parents are also not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The Supreme Court took over a year to decide the case. They knew that it would be controversial, and the majority of the court said, this provision is clear. It uses universal language. It's intended to apply to children of all immigrants. One of the things that's interesting about [00:22:00] what the, well I'll let Chris actually talk about what the Trump administration, is trying to do, but let me just say that in the Wong Kim Ark decision, the Supreme Court makes very clear there only three narrow exceptions to who is covered by the 14th Amendment. They're children of diplomats. So for example, if the Ambassador of Germany is in the United States, and, she has a daughter, like her daughter should not become a birthright citizen, right? This is why there's diplomatic immunity. Why, for example, in New York City, there are millions of dollars apparently owed to the city, in parking tickets by ambassadors who don't bother to pay them because they're not actually subject to the jurisdiction in the United States. Okay? Second category, children of Native Americans who are seen as having a sovereign relationship of their own, where it's like a nation within a nation, kind of dynamic, a country within a country. And there were detailed conversations in the congressional debate about the [00:23:00] 14th Amendment, about both of these categories of people. The third category, were children born to a hostile invading army. Okay? So one argument you may have heard people talk about is oh, I think of undocumented immigrants as an invading army. Okay? If you look at the Wong Kim Ark decision, it is very clear that what was intended, by this category of people were a context where the hostile invading army is actually in control of that jurisdiction, right? So that the United States government is not actually governing that space so that the people living in it don't have to be obedient, to the United States. They're obedient to this foreign power. Okay? So the thread between all three of these exceptions is about are you having to be obedient to the laws of the United States? So for example, if you're an undocumented immigrant, you are subject to being criminally prosecuted if you commit a crime, right? Or [00:24:00] you are potentially subjected to deportation, right? You have to obey the law of the United States, right? You are still subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Okay? But the Trump administration, as we're about to hear, is making different arguments. Annie Lee: Thank you so much, Leti for that historical context, which I think is so important because, so many different communities of color have contributed to the rights that we have today. And so what Leti is saying here is that birthright citizenship is a direct result of black liberation and fighting for freedom in the Civil War and making sure that they were then recognized as full citizens. And then reinforced, expanded, by Wong Kim Ark. And now we are all beneficiaries and the vast majority of Americans get our citizenship through birth. Okay? That is true for white people, black people. If you're born here, you get your ci. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to go to court. You don't have to say anything. You are a US citizen. And now as Leti referenced, there's this fringe legal theory that, thankfully we've got lawyers like [00:25:00] Chris who are fighting this. So Chris, you're on the ALC team, one of many lawsuits against the Trump administration regarding this unlawful executive order. Can you tell us a little bit about the litigation and the arguments, but I actually really want you to focus on what are the harms of this executive order? Sometimes I think particularly if you are a citizen, and I am one, sometimes we take what we have for granted and you don't even realize what citizenship means or confers. So Chris, can you talk about the harms if this executive order were to go through? Christopher Lapinig: Yeah. As Professor Volpp sort of explained this executive order really is an assault on a fundamental constitutional right that has existed for more than a hundred years at this point, or, well, about 125 years. And if it is allowed to be implemented, the harms would really be devastating and far reach. So first, you know, children born in the us, the [00:26:00] parents without permanent status, as permissible said, would be rendered effectively stateless, in many cases. And these are of course, children, babies who have never known any other home, yet they would be denied the basic rights of citizen. And so the order targets a vast range of families, and not just undocument immigrants, but also those with work visas, student visas, humanitarian productions like TPS, asylum seekers, fleeing persecution, DACA recipients as well. And a lot of these communities have deep ties to Asian American community. To our history, and of course are, essential part, of our social fabric. In practical terms, children born without birthright citizenship would be denied access to healthcare through Medicaid, through denied access to snap nutritional assistance, even basic IDs like social security numbers, passports. And then as they grow older, they'd be barred from voting, serving on juries and even [00:27:00] working. And then later on in life, they might be, if they, are convicted of a crime and make them deportable, they could face deportation to countries that they never stepped, foot off basically. And so this basically is this executive order threatened at risk, creating exactly what the drafters of the 14th Amendment wanted to prevent the creation of a permanent underclass of people in the United States. It'll just get amplified over time. If you can imagine if there's one generation of people born without citizenship, there will be a second generation born and a third and fourth, and it'll just get amplified over time. And so it truly is just, hard to get your mind around exactly what the impact of this EO would be. Annie Lee: Thanks, Chris. And where are we in the litigation right now? Harvey referenced, a hearing at the Supreme Court on May 15th, but, tell us a little bit about the injunction and the arguments on the merits and when that can, when we can expect [00:28:00] that. Christopher Lapinig: Yeah, so there were a number of lawsuits filed immediately after, the administration issued its exec order on January 20th. Asian Law Caucus we filed with the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project. Literally we were the first lawsuit, literally hours after the executive order was issued. By early February, federal judges across the country had issued nationwide preliminary injunctions blocking implementation of the order. Our case is actually not a nationwide injunction. And so there're basically, I believe three cases that are going up to the Supreme Court. And, the Trump administration appealed to various circuit courts to try to undo these injunctions. But all circuit courts upheld the injunctive relief and and so now the Supreme Court is going to be hearing arguments on May 15th. And so it has not actually ruled on whether or not the executive order is constitutional, but it's going to. I mean, it remains to be seen exactly what they're going to decide but may [00:29:00] 15th is the next date is the big date on our calendar. Annie Lee: Yeah. So the Trump administration is arguing that these judges in a particular district, it's not fair if they get to say that the entire country, is barred from receiving this executive order. Is that procedurally correct. Judges, in order to consider whether to grants an injunction, they have a whole battery of factors that they look at, including one, which is like likelihood of winning on the merits. Because if something is unconstitutional, it's not really great to say, yeah, you can let this executive order go through. And then like later when the court cases finally worked their way, like a year later, pull back from that. And so that's, it's very frustrating to see this argument. And it's also unfair and would be very messy if the states that had republican Attorneys General who did not litigate, why would you allow the executive order to go forward in those red states and not in these blue state? It really, I would say federalism run terribly amuck. Swati Rayasam: [00:30:00] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley,. 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. Annie Lee: But anyway, let's see back off from the actual case because I think what we're really talking about and what Chris has alluded to is, these cases about birthright citizenship, all the immigration policy is essentially determining who belongs here. Who belongs here. That's what immigration policy is at its heart. And we see that the right wing is weaponizing that question, who belongs here? And they are going after very vulnerable populations, undocumented people, people who are formerly incarcerated. So Bun if you can talk about how, is the formerly incarcerated community, like targeted immigrants, targeted for deportation? What is going on with this community that I feel like most people might not know about? Thank [00:31:00] you. Bun: Yes. For our folks that are incarcerated and former incarcerated, we are the easiest target for deportation because we are in custody and in California, CDCR colludes with ICE and on the day that we are to be paroled they're at the door, cuffing us up and taking us to detention. I'm glad to hear Harvey say, this is a time of fear for us and also opportunity. Right now, our whole community, the Southeast Asian community, mainly are very effective with immigration. In the past 25 years, mostly it was the Cambodian community that was being targeted and deported. At this moment, they are targeting, all of the Southeast Asian community, which historically was never deported because of the politics and agreements, of the Vietnamese community. And now the Laos community thats more concerning, that are being targeted for deportation. Trump have opened a new opportunity for us as a community to join [00:32:00] together and understand each other's story, and understand each other's fear. Understand where we're going about immigration. From birthright to crimmagration. A lot of times folks that are under crimmigration are often not spoken about because of our cultural shame, within our own family and also some of our community member felt safe because the political agreements. Now that everybody's in danger, we could stand together and understand each other's issue and support each other because now we could see that history has repeated itself. Again, we are the scapegoat. We are here together fighting the same issue in different circumstances, but the same issue. Annie Lee: But let me follow up. What are these, historical agreements that you're talking about that used to feel like used to at least shield the community that now aren't in place anymore? Bun: Yeah. After the Clinton administration, uh, passed the IRA [immigration reform act] a lot of Southeast Asian nations were asked to [00:33:00] take their nationals back. Even though we as 1.5 generation, which are the one that's mostly impacted by this, had never even stepped into the country. Most of us were born in a refugee camp or we're too young to even remember where they came from. Countries like Cambodian folded right away because they needed the financial aid and whatever, was offering them and immediately a three with a MOU that they will take their citizens since the early two thousands. Vietnam had a stronger agreement, which, they would agree to only take folks that immigrated here after 1995 and anybody before 1995, they would not take, and Laos have just said no until just a few months ago. Laos has said no from when the, uh, the act was passed in 1995, the IRRIRA. Mm-hmm. So the big change we have now is Vietnam had signed a new MOU saying that they will take folks after 1995 [00:34:00] in the first administration and more recently, something that we never thought, happened so fast, was Laos agreeing to take their citizen back. And then the bigger issue about our Laos community is, it's not just Laos folks. It's the Hmong folks, the Myan folks, folks, folks that are still in danger of being returned back 'cause in the Vietnam War, they colluded and supported the Americans in the Vietnam War and were exiled out and kicked out, and were hunted down because of that. So, at this moment, our folks are very in fear, especially our loud folks, not knowing what's gonna happen to 'em. Ke Lam: So for folks that don't know what IRR means it means, illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. It actually happened after the Oklahoma bombing, which was caused by a US citizen, a white US citizen. Yeah. But immigration law came out of it. That's what's crazy about it. Annie Lee: Can you tell us, how is APSC advocating to protect the community right now because you [00:35:00] are vulnerable? Ke Lam: So we had to censor a lot of our strategies. At first we used to use social media as a platform to show our work and then to support our community. But the government use that as a target to capture our people. So we stopped using social media. So we've been doing a lot of on the ground movement, such as trying to get local officials to do resolutions to push Governor Newsom to party more of our community members. The other thing is we hold pardon workshops, so try and get folks to get, either get a pardon or vacate their sentence. So commute their sentence to where it become misdemeanor is not deportable anymore. Support letters for our folks writing support letters to send to the governor and also to city official, to say, Hey, please help pardon our community. I think the other thing we are actually doing is solidarity work with other organizations, African American community as well as Latin communities because we've been siloed for so long and we've been banned against each other, where people kept saying like, they've taken all our job when I grew up. That's what they told us, right? [00:36:00] But we, reality that's not even true. It was just a wedge against our community. And then so it became the good versus bad narrative. So our advocacy is trying to change it it's called re-storying you know, so retelling our story from people that are impacted, not from people, not from the one percenters in our own community. Let's say like we're all good, do you, are there's parts of our community that like that's the bad people, right? But in reality, it affects us all. And so advocacy work is a lot of different, it comes in a lot of different shapes and forms, but definitely it comes from the community. Annie Lee: Thanks, Ke. You teed me up perfectly because there is such a good versus bad immigrant narrative that takes root and is really hard to fight against. And that's why this administration is targeting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated folks and another group that, are being targeted as people who are accused of crimes, including Venezuelan immigrants who are allegedly part of a gang. So, Leti how is the government deporting [00:37:00] people by simply accusing them of being a part of a gang? Like how is that even possible? Leti Volpp: Yeah, so one thing to think about is there is this thing called due process, right? It's guaranteed under the constitution to all persons. It's not just guaranteed to citizens. What does it mean? Procedural due process means there should be notice, there should be a hearing, there should be an impartial judge. You should have the opportunity to present evidence. You should have the opportunity to cross examinee. You should have the opportunity to provide witnesses. Right? And basically Trump and his advisors are in real time actively trying to completely eviscerate due process for everybody, right? So Trump recently said, I'm doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our country. But the courts don't seem to want me to do that. We cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take without exaggeration, 200 years. And then Stephen Miller said the judicial process is for Americans. [00:38:00] Immediate deportation is for illegal aliens. Okay. Quote unquote. Right. So I think one thing to notice is, as we're hearing from all of our speakers are like the boxes, the categories into which people are put. And what's really disturbing is to witness how once somebody's put in the box of being quote unquote criminal gang banger terrorists, like the American public seems to be like, oh, okay you can do what you want to this person. There's a whole history of due process, which exists in the laws which was created. And all of these early cases actually involved Asian immigrants, right? And so first they were saying there's no due process. And then in a case called Yata versus Fisher, they said actually there is due process in deportation cases, there's regular immigration court proceedings, which accord with all of these measures of due process. There's also a procedure called expedited removal, [00:39:00] which Congress invented in the nineties where they wanted to come up with some kind of very quick way to summarily exclude people. It was motivated by a 60 Minutes episode where they showed people coming to Kennedy Airport, who didn't have any ID or visa or they had what seemed to be fake visas and they were let into the United States. And then they disappeared, right? According to the 60 Minutes episode. So basically Congress invented this procedure of, if you appear in the United States and you have no documents, or you have what an immigration inspector thinks are false documents, they can basically tell you, you can leave without this court hearing. And the only fail safe is what's called a credible fear screening. Where if you say, I want asylum, I fear persecution, I'm worried I might be tortured, then they're supposed to have the screening. And if you pass that screening, you get put in regular removal [00:40:00] proceedings. So before the Trump administration took office, these expedited removal proceedings were happening within a hundred miles of the border against people who could not show that they had been in the United States for more than two weeks. In one of his first executive orders. Trump extended this anywhere in the United States against people who cannot show they've been in the United States for more than two years. So people are recommending that people who potentially are in this situation to carry documentation, showing they've been physically in the United States for over two years. Trump is also using this Alien Enemies Act, which was basically a law Congress passed in 1798. It's only been used three times in US history it's a wartime law, right? So it was used in 1812, World War I, and World War II, and there's supposed to be a declared war between the United States and a foreign nation or government, or [00:41:00] there's an incursion threatened by a foreign nation or government, and the president makes public proclamation that all natives of this hostile nation, 14 and up shall be liable to be restrained and removed as alien enemies. Okay? So we're obviously not at war with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, right? They have not engaged in some kind of invasion or predatory incursion into the United States, but the Trump administration is claiming that they have and saying things like, oh, they're secretly a paramilitary wing of the Venezuelan government, even as the Venezuelan government is like cracking down on them. It's not a quasi sovereign, entity. There's no diplomatic relationships between Tren de Aragua and any other government. So these are legally and factually baseless arguments. Nonetheless, the administration has been basically taking people from Venezuela on the basis of tattoos. A tattoo of a crown of a [00:42:00] rose, right? Even when experts have said there's no relationship between what Tren de Aragua does and tattoos, right? And basically just kidnapping people and shipping them to the torture prison in El Salvador. As I'm sure you know of the case of Kimber Abrego Garcia, I'm sure we'll hear more about this from Christopher. There's a very small fraction of the persons that have been sent to this prison in El Salvador who actually have any criminal history. And I will say, even if they had a criminal history, nobody should be treated in this manner and sent to this prison, right? I mean, it's unbelievable that they've been sent to this prison allegedly indefinitely. They're paying $6 million a year to hold people there. And then the United States government is saying, oh, we don't have any power to facilitate or effectuate their return. And I think there's a struggle as to what to call this. It's not just deportation. This is like kidnapping. It's rendition. And there are people, there's like a particular person like who's completely [00:43:00] disappeared. Nobody knows if they're alive or dead. There are many people in that prison. People don't know if they're alive or dead. And I'm sure you've heard the stories of people who are gay asylum seekers, right? Who are now in this situation. There are also people that have been sent to Guantanamo, people were sent to Panama, right? And so I think there questions for us to think about like, what is this administration doing? How are they trying to do this in a spectacular fashion to instill fear? As we know as well, Trump had said oh, like I think it would be great when he met with Bukele if you build four more or five more facilities. I wanna house homegrown people in El Salvador, right? So this is all the more importance that we stick together, fight together, don't, as key was saying, don't let ourselves be split apart. Like we need a big mass coalition right? Of people working together on this. Annie Lee: So thank you leti and I think you're absolutely right. These Venezuelans were kidnapped [00:44:00] in the middle of the night. I mean, 2:00 AM 3:00 AM pulled out of bed, forced to sign documents they did not understand because these documents were only available in English and they speak Spanish, put on planes sent to El Salvador, a country they've never been to. The government didn't even have to prove anything. They did not have to prove anything, and they just snatch these people and now they're disappeared. We do have, for now the rule of law. And so Chris, there are judges saying that, Kimber Abrego Garcia has to be returned. And despite these court orders, the administration is not complying. So where does that leave us, Chris, in terms of rule of law and law in general? Christopher Lapinig: Yeah. So, I'm gonna make a little personal. So I graduated from Yale Law School in 2013, and you might know some of my classmates. One of my classmates is actually now the Vice President of the United States. Oh man. [00:45:00] Bless you. As well as the second lady, Usha Vance. And a classmate of mine, a good friend Sophia Nelson, who's a trans and queer, was recently on, I believe CNN answering a question about, I believe JD Vice President Vance, was asked about the administration's sort of refusal to comply with usual orders. Yeah. As we're talking about here and JD had said something like, well, courts, judges can't tell the president what he can't do, and sophia, to their credit, said, you know, I took constitutional law with JD, and, we definitely read Marbury Versus Madison together, and that is the semial sort of Supreme Court case that established that the US Supreme Court is the ultimate decider, arbiter, interpreter, of the US Constitution. And so is basically saying, I know JD knows better. He's lying essentially, in all of his [00:46:00] communications about, judicial orders and whether or not a presidential administration has to comply , with these orders. So, to get to your question though, it is of course unprecedented. Really. It is essentially, you know, it's not, if we not already reached. The point of a constitutional crisis. It is a constitutional crisis. I think it's become clear to many of us that, democracy in the US has operated in large part, and has relied on, on, on the good faith in norms, that people are operating good faith and that presidents will comply when, a federal judge issues an injunction or a decision. It kind of leaves us in an interesting, unprecedented situation. And it means that, lawyers, we will continue to litigate and, go to court, but we can't, lawyers will not save the country or, immigrants or communities. We need to think extensively and creatively. [00:47:00] About how to ensure, that the rule of law is preserved because, this administration is not, abiding by the longstanding norms of compliance and so we have to think about, protests, advocacy, legislatively. I don't have the answers necessarily, but we can't rely on the courts to fix these problems really. Annie Lee: Oof. That was very real, Chris. Thank you. But I will say that when there is resistance, and we've seen it from students who are speaking up and advocating for what they believe is right and just including Palestinian Liberation, that there is swift retaliation. And I think that's partly because they are scared of student speech and movement and organizing. But this is a question to all of you. So if not the courts and if the administration is being incredibly retaliatory, and discriminatory in terms of viewpoint discrimination, in people and what people are saying and they're scouring our social [00:48:00] media like, Ke warns, like what can everyday people do to fight back? That's for all of you. So I don't know who, which of you wants to take it first? Ke Lam: Oh man. I say look at history, right? Even while this new president, I wanna say like, this dude is a convicted felon, right? Don't be surprised at why we country is in the way it is, because this dude's a convicted felon, a bad business person, right? And only care about the billionaires, you know? So I'm not surprised how this country's ending up the way it is 'cause it is all about money. One way that we can stand up is definitely band together, marched on the streets. It's been effective. You look at the civil right movement, that's the greatest example. Now you don't have to look too far. We can actually, when we come together, they can't fight us all. Right? It is, and this, it's like you look at even nature in the cell. When things band together, the predators cannot attack everyone. Right? They probably could hit a few of us, but in the [00:49:00] long run, we could change the law. I think another thing is we, we, as the people can march to the courts and push the courts to do the job right, despite what's going on., We had judges that been arrested for doing the right thing, right? And so, no matter what, we have to stand strong just despite the pressure and just push back. Annie Lee: Thanks, Ke. Chris? Christopher Lapinig: What this administration is doing is you know, straight out of the fascist playbook. They're working to, as we all know, shock and awe everyone, and make Americans feel powerless. Make them feel like they have no control, make them feel overwhelmed. And so I think first and foremost, take care of yourself , in terms of your health, in terms of your physical health, your mental health. Do what you can to keep yourself safe and healthy and happy. And do the same for your community, for your loved ones, your friends and family. And then once you've done that do what you can in terms of your time, treasure, [00:50:00] talent to, to fight back. Everyone has different talents, different levels of time that they can afford. But recognize that this is a marathon and not necessarily a sprint because we need everyone, in this resistance that we can get. Annie Lee: Thank you, Chris. Leti Volpp: There was a New Yorker article called, I think it was How to Be a Dissident which said, before recently many Americans, when you ask them about dissidents, they would think of far off countries. But they interviewed a lot of people who'd been dissidents in authoritarian regimes. And there were two, two things in that article that I'm taking with me among others. One of them said that in surveying like how authoritarian regimes are broken apart, like only 3.5% of the population has to oppose what's going on. The other thing was that you should find yourself a political home where you can return to frequently. It's almost like a religious or [00:51:00] spiritual practice where you go and you get refreshed and you're with like-minded people. And so I see this event, for example as doing that, and that we all need to find and nurture and foster spaces like this. Thank you. Annie Lee: Bun, do you have any parting words? Bun: Yeah. Like Ke said, to fight back, getting together, understanding issues and really uplifting, supporting, urging our own communities, to speak Up. You know, there's folks that can't speak out right now because of fear and danger, but there are folks here that can speak out and coming here learning all our situation really give the knowledge and the power to speak out for folks that can't speak down [unclear] right now. So I appreciate y'all Annie Lee: love that bun. I was gonna say the same thing. I feel like there is a special obligation for those of us who are citizens, citizens cannot be deported. Okay? Citizens have special rights based [00:52:00] on that status. And so there's a special responsibility on those of us who can speak, and not be afraid of retaliation from this government. I would also urge you all even though it's bleak at the federal level, we have state governments, we have local governments. You have a university here who is very powerful. And you have seen, we've seen that the uni that the administration backs down, sometimes when Harvard hit back, they back down and that means that there is a way to push the administration, but it does require you all putting pressure on your schools, on your local leaders, on your state leaders to fight back. My boss actually, Vin taught me this. You know, you think that politicians, lead, politicians do not lead politicians follow. Politicians follow and you all lead when you go out further, you give them cover to do the right thing. And so the farther you push and the more you speak out against this administration, the more you give them courage to do the right thing. And so you absolutely have to do that. A pardon [00:53:00] is critical. It is critical for people who are formerly incarcerated to avoid the immigration system and deportation. And so do that. Talk to your family, talk to your friends. My parents, despite being immigrants, they're kinda old school. Okay guys, they're like, you know, birthright citizenship does seem kind of like a loophole. Why should people like get like citizenship? I'm like, mom, we, I am a birthright citizen. Like, um, And I think for Asian Americans in particular, there is such a rich history of Asian American civil rights activism that we don't talk about enough, and maybe you do at Berkeley with ethnic studies and professors like Mike Chang. But, this is totally an interracial solidarity movement. We helped bring about Wong Kim Ark and there are beneficiaries of every shade of person. There's Yik wo, and I think about this all the time, which is another part of the 14th Amendment equal protection. Which black Americans fought for that in San Francisco. [00:54:00] Chinatown made real what? What does equal protection of the laws even mean? And that case was Seminole. You've got Lao versus Nichols. Another case coming out of San Francisco. Chinatown about English learner rights, the greatest beneficiary of Lao v Nichols, our Spanish speakers, they're Spanish speaking children in schools who get access to their education regardless of the language they speak. And so there are so many moments in Asian American history that we should be talking about, that we should educate our parents and our families about, because this is our moment. Now, this is another one of those times I wanna pass it to Mike and Harvey for questions, and I'm so excited to hear about them. Mike and Harvey: Wow, thank you so much. That's a amazing, panel and thank you for facilitating annie's wanna give it of a great value in terms of that spiritual home aspect. Norm how does your great grandfather's , experience in resistance, provide help for us [00:55:00] today? Norman Wong: Well, I think he was willing to do it. It only took one, if no one did it, this, we wouldn't be having the discussion because most of us would've never been here. And we need to come together on our common interests and put aside our differences because we all have differences. And if we tried, to have it our way for everything, we'll have it no way for us. We really need to, to bond and bind together and become strong as a people. And I don't mean as a racial or a national group. Mm-hmm. I mean, we're Americans now. We're Americans here think of us as joining with all Americans to make this country the way it's supposed to be. The way [00:56:00] we grew up, the one that we remember, this is not the America I grew up believing in. I'm glad he stood up. I'm proud that he did that. He did that. Him doing that gave me something that I've never had before. A validation of my own life. And so yes, I'm proud of him. Wong Kim Ark is for all of us. It's not for me to own. Yeah. Wow. Really not. Thank you so much. Wong Kim Ark is for all of us. And, and , talking about the good , that we have here and, the optimism that Harvey spoke about, the opportunity, even in a moment of substantial danger. Thank you so much everybody. Mike and Harvey: This was amazing and really appreciate sharing this space with you and, building community and solidarity. Ke Lam: But is there any, can I leave with a chant before we close off? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. So this is a chant that we use on the ground all the time. You guys probably heard it. When I said when we fight, you guys said we [00:57:00] win when we fight. We win when we fight, we win. When we fight, we win up. Swati Rayasam: Thanks so much for tuning into APEX Express. Please check out our website at kpfa.org/program/apexexpress 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, along with Jalena Keene-Lee, Ayame Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Ravi Grover, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support, and have a good [00:58:00] night.   The post APEX Express – 6.26.25-Deport. Exclude. Revoke. Imprison – Wong Kim Ark is for All of Us appeared first on KPFA.

This is an episode of massive importance. My deepest thanks to my guest, Becky Nulle, who endured horrific experiences of rape and sexual assault from multiple perpetrators, one of which was the Deputy Superintendent of Chicago Schools, James Moffat, in the late 70's and early 80's. Becky was one of 5 victims that suffered rape and sexual assault from Moffat who was finally charged and prosecuted in the mid-80's.   But Becky's story starts with parents who, as she puts it, were neglectful. Becky was victimized by bullies at school, vulnerable, and easy prey to “Darrel” who promised her protection but became her first sexual abuser. He was also the person who trafficked Becky to Moffat. And then, as a result of Becky searching for safety and connection, she fell victim to several other adults who took advantage of Becky's vulnerability and exposure on the streets of Chicago.  This story is tragic…and yet triumphant. Because Becky sought out help and healing. And found it through her therapist, Jan Spangler, who introduced Becky to brainspotting, a very effective trauma therapy method, according to Becky.  She says that brainspotting saved her life, helping her recognize and deal with her hidden traumas, saved her marriage, and provided her with the ability to pursue her bachelor's degree, as well as the pathway of writing a book.  The book is Anger, Alcohol, and Healing through Brainspotting, now available for pre-release ordering. ( Becky also provided me with a brief bio that I want to include: Becky Nulle is a soon to be published author and a volunteer who helps the Hmong community in Northern Wisconsin. She is a Sexual Assault/Rape Survivor of James Moffat, a powerful man who was second in charge of the Chicago Public School System at one time. Becky is married, has a Doberman and eight ducks. She is currently working on her Bachelors Degree in Communications. This is an episode that you'll not want to miss. And I encourage you to copy the link to this episode and share it with family, friends, and acquaintances. The impact will help bring justice to victims and survivors of rape and sexual assault, and help educate those who listen in. And, it may just save someone's life. This episode is filled with substance, reflection, and a deep commitment to the healing process. It's a powerful reminder that survivor stories don't stop when the episode is over—and that advocacy can take many forms, including quiet reflection. This one is for every voice that hasn't been heard yet—and every listener who's ready to believe, support, and speak up. An important side note: if you're finding value in these episodes, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating on your podcast platform. AND, please send me a note of support. I can't tell you how much your emails mean to me—they fuel my passion to keep this podcast going. Here's my email address:    I truly look forward to hearing from you! On another note: I am a strong advocate and supporter of Survivor School (SS), founded and directed by CEO Arci Grey (another former guest on SASS). In fact, Arci has made me a consultant to SS as she maneuvers the intricacies of directing and managing the content and growth of her amazing organization. I encourage you to strongly consider becoming a member of SS, and as an affiliate would appreciate it, if you do decide to become a member, to use this link:  Additional links that are specific to this episode are: Thanks again for listening! As always, listed below are some additional important and meaningful websites I hope you'll take a look at and learn more about.   My email address:  

In this episode, I sit down with award-winning Hmong American pastry chef and restaurant owner, Diane Moua. We talk about her journey from being the eldest daughter in a traditional Hmong household to opening Diane's Place in Minneapolis, MN—a restaurant that honors her roots by serving dishes she grew up eating. Diane shares how not being surrounded by super sweet desserts growing up shaped her approach to pastry dishes, how moderation allows you to enjoy the foods you love, and how cultural food isn't what's making us unhealthy. It's the disconnection from our roots, forgetting that our Hmong elders have always eaten simply and intentionally. This is such a grounding conversation if you've ever felt pressure to water down your cultural dishes or give up the foods you love to “be healthy". Here's what we covered in this episode: --Your culture already taught you moderation. Diane reminds us that many Hmong desserts are naturally light, which helps us practice moderation before diet culture taught us to avoid sweets. --Don't water down your food to make it “healthy.” Instead of swapping out ingredients to make cultural dishes more "acceptable", learn how to portion so you can eat the real thing without feeling guilty. --You can enjoy sweets, just pick the one you actually want. If you're going to eat dessert, make it count. Diane shares how she eat one croissant or candy she truly craves and enjoys it especially being surrounded by food everyday. --Eating with your eyes matters. Presentation makes healthy eating more joyful. Whether you're at Diane's Place or at home, how your food looks on your plate can change how much you want to eat. To connect with Diane Moua, visit Diane's Place in Minneapolis, MN and follow her on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/pastrydiane/https://www.instagram.com/dianesplacemn Apply for 1:1 Coaching: Ready to lose 10-20 pounds while eating foods you love? My 1:1 coaching program is designed to help women of color like you ditch restrictive diets and eat your cultural foods to keep the weight off for good. Choose between a 3-month (lose 10 pounds) or 6-month (lose 20 pounds) program. Book a free sales call here to apply: https://superlysam.com/coaching Stay Connected With Me: Join the consistency club weekly email series: https://superlysam.com/emails Learn more about me: https://superlysam.com/about Follow + connect with me on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/superlysam Follow + connect with me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/superlysam Want to know what kind of eater are you? Take the Quiz: here: https://www.tryinteract.com/share/quiz/65b148513f80c00014711569

Saturday on PBS News Weekend, Israel mobilizes forces for a new ground offensive in Gaza. How the Trump administration’s cuts to federal grants may affect groundbreaking breast cancer research. A look back at a largely forgotten tragedy 40 years ago this week when police bombed a home in Philadelphia. Plus, a Hmong family’s history and journey to America. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

The Hmong are an ethnic group living primarily in China and Southeast Asia. There are communities of Hmong migrants across the globe. For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Isabella Jibilian of Rhode Island PBS Weekly spoke with a Hmong family about their history and their journey to America. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

This episode contains particularly graphic descriptions of violence and gore. Know your own limits and proceed accordingly.Today Justin sits down with Steven Schofield. Steve enlisted into the US Army and completed training as an 18 Delta Special Forces Medic in 1967. He then deployed to Okinawa and later to Vietnam, where he served with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group. Afterwards, he left the US Army to join the US Agency for International Development and spent nearly six years working in Laos, providing medical services to the local population, and supporting the Secret War effort in the region. He's here to discuss his years in Southeast Asia and his lifelong support of the Hmong population, both in Laos and now in the United States, all of which he detailed in his book.Check out the book, Secret War in Laos, here.https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Laos-Green-Berets/dp/1694374114Connect with Spycraft 101:Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.spycraft101.comIG: @spycraft101Shop: shop.spycraft101.comPatreon: Spycraft 101Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.History by MailWho knew? Not me! Learn something new every month. Use code JUSTIN10 for 10% off your subscription.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show