Podcasts about southeast asian americans

Today's poem is Negro Hero (to Suggest Dorie Miller) by Gwendolyn Brooks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. It's fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week's episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age. In this episode, Major writes… “When I last taught this poem, I asked a student to recite it. A Southeast Asian-American student could not mouth the once acceptable word “Negro.” Instead, without warning, she replaced the word with human, so that the title was “Human Hero,” and the black newspapers were “human weeklies.” It was heartbreaking. She simply could not say the word that, to her ear, sounded too close to the racial epithet with which we are all familiar. The class then discussed the nature of language and how context and time alter the meaning of words.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

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 artivists from the upcoming exhibition at Edge on the Square opening this Saturday June 29 and running through February 2025!   TRANSCRIPT Walking Stories: Artivists POV   Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Miko Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening this is Miko Lee and welcome to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us. We are going to be talking about something really personal to me tonight. We are talking about the new interactive exhibition at Edge on the Square in San Francisco, Chinatown. The whole exhibition is called Walking Stories and it is stories from our Asian American community. And we invite you to join us. It opens June 29th and runs all the way through December. Opening night, June 29th is going to be interactive performances and amazing little goodies so we really invite you to join us for opening, but if you can make it that night, we're running all the way through the end of December. Okay, so a little bit of background. Some of you might know that I have been a host on Apex Express for the past seven and a half years, and it has truly been a delight and a joy. As part of that time, I learned that Apex Express is part of a network of Asian American progressive groups. That's called AACRE, which is short for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. And about two and a half years ago, I joined the staff of AACRE, which has been such a joy to be around colleagues that share the same values and passions and beliefs in supporting and uplifting our community. For the past year, we have been working on a narrative strategy, really trying to reframe how Asian Americans are portrayed in the media, how we're perceived within our own community. We were initially going to do this with the Pacific Islander community as well. But in talking to our sister colleagues, they are going through their own process of a PI narrative strategy and I totally respect that. At some point we will merge and join those voices together. So right now we're focusing on Asian American stories. Through the past year through wonderful funding from San Francisco foundation's Bay Area Creative Corps we were actually able to fund approximately 37 different artists and embed them in different AACRE groups to be able to create narratives that resonate with their own communities. So that in this exhibit Walking Stories, we're going to hear stories about Hmong folks and formerly incarcerated folks, folks that are queer and trans and folks that have stories to share, because we all have important stories to share. Our exhibit is inviting folks to think about how they can get involved, how they can share their own stories, how they can join us in this collective movement for rewriting our history of the kind of silent, quiet model minority that sits in the background that's used as the wedge issue for larger things like reparations and affirmative action and really reframes that and brings back our Asian American activist past because we know that is who we are. That is our history going back from the first time that we came into this country. We invite folks in the community to join us to see more about who these stories are, to find out, to get involved to see what resonates with them and even what doesn't resonate with them. But really join us in this conversation. So tonight I'm really pleased to be talking with just a few of the artists that are in Walking Stories. So that you can get some insight into their process and how they made the piece that they're going to be sharing.   The exhibit itself will be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. When you walk in, you are going to see this timeline of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. That's about an Asian American activist history. You're going to see a really cool, nourishing power piece, which we're going to talk to the artists about, that is about how potlucks were used as a tool for queer and trans organizing. You are going to learn more about Hmong dance. And what does that look like, and what does it feel like in your own body? You're going to learn about ancestors, the power of our ancestors and how we can bring that to help us in our healing and moving forward. You're going to see in the exhibit about a Hmong story cloth reimagined with a modern perspective, you're going to see stories of south Asians activists and what they represent. And what does it mean to be a south Asian Muslim in America today? You're going to hear some of these stories. You're going to see them. We hope that you'll experience them. Then we hope that you'll learn more and find out about what we're doing and how you can get involved. So join me on this little journey through some of the artivists—that's artists that are also activists—that are part of our exhibit called Walking Stories. Come board. Join us. Welcome Hà Trần to Apex Express. We're so happy to have you with us. Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:40] Thank you for having me.   Miko Lee: [00:05:41] So you are amazing artist, but I want to start and go back and for you to tell us who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:52] Ooh, oh my god, that's such like a big question. I guess my people are the people at Asian Prisoner Support Committee. I come from like a lineage of like Vietnamese refugees, and I think about like the ways that our communities have been impacted by the legacy of imperialism, which includes like incarceration, deportation, and things of that nature. I would say my community are folks who are impacted by, those kinds of pipelines and violences, Southeast Asian folks broadly.   Miko Lee: [00:06:14] And what legacy do you carry with you from them?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:18] I think the easy answer is like resilience clearly. To exist and survive under so many different violences and still move forth and create such beautiful communities.   Miko Lee: [00:06:25] Hà how did you get started working with Asian Prisoner Support Committee?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:29] It actually started from an interpersonal relationship. My best friend who also works at the organization now. They actually explained to me that a APSC was doing all this work in regards to like stopping the prison to deportation pipeline, how like so many of our Southeast Asian American community members were impacted by this kind of incarceration and things of that nature. At that point, it just became my political home after many, many years.   Miko Lee: [00:06:50] Thanks for sharing that. Then tell us about the work that you have in the new exhibit that is opening up called Walking Stories. Can you tell us the title of your piece and then describe it for us?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:07:01] The piece I'm making is a comic called We Was Girls Together. It's a quote from Sula by Toni Morrison. The comic is about my friend Maria Legarda. She's a re-entry coordinator at the Asian Prisoner Support Committee. She's also a Filipino immigrant who's facing deportation to the Philippines now after she was incarcerated in CCWF for 14 years. We met each other through APSC I know her as a very generous and kind person who loves crocheting. She's always been like an extreme light every time I come to the office and interact with her. But I also know that Maria is like someone who frankly, knows all these like incarcerated women or like formerly and currently incarcerated women. She really shows me what it looks like to be, like, an abolitionist feminist despite the kind of struggles and difficulties that she's moving through as someone who's literally currently still facing deportation because of her quote unquote, deportable offense. My comic is about Maria Legarda. It starts with like her story, her migration story from the Philippines. She was born under the Marcos regime, which basically socioeconomically destabilized the Philippines. She came to the US for economic opportunity. But clearly she had a really hard time adjusting, and then eventually she made some choices that led her to a federal offense that led to her decades of incarceration. When she was in prison, she met all these, wonderful women of color who also were survivors of sexual and gendered violence, so I just follow her story through her healing. Despite the fact that she's healed so deeply and she's shown so much care to other people and she has these communities she still is deportable to a country that she hasn't been to in 30 or so years, and doesn't consider home anymore.   Miko Lee: [00:08:27] Share with me a little bit about how zines are your choice of art medium?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:08:32] I love the nature of how like accessible they are. I think I kind of started out as an illustrator and an essayist separately. But then I realized as I was like writing essays I couldn't necessarily share those things immediately with my mom. She's not super fluent in English, right? But like when I combined the medium of illustration and writing into creating a comic in a zine, I could show that to my mom and even if she can't fully understand all the writing she could still access, like the actual medium. And then the form of the zine is something that is meant to be taken away. It's meant to be shared with other people. I started going to a lot of zine fests last year and it just made me realize like, oh yeah, I want all my stuff to be accessible, right? Like I don't want it necessarily to be underneath a pay wall or things of that nature. I think there's something like, you know, for lack of a better word, very like, democratic about zine making, and as well as, comics generally.   Miko Lee: [00:09:20] I love how you do the mom test.   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:22] Yes. It's funny, I wrote, an essay about my grandmother, actually, in the Asian American Writers Workshop like 2021, and I had to literally translate the entire thing for her to read it to make sure all the details were right, and I was like, wait, I could have just made this easier by like illustrating some of it to make it accessible across language barriers and things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:09:40] And has Maria read through the scene?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:42] Yes, she has.   Miko Lee: [00:09:44] What has been her take on it?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:46] She actually sent me a very long signal which like made me cry because I was like, oh my god, I can't believe she actually thought this about the work. She was talking about how it helped her reflect on everything she's gone through but also like these relationships that have really sustained her. Namely like, I mentioned this person named Granny in the comic who I've met who's essentially like the person who adopted Maria when she just became incarcerated and was dealing with the fallout and trauma of sexual violence and things of that nature. The comic reminds Maria of just her growth essentially over all these years, but also all these rich relationships that still continue to sustain her like across carceral walls and things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:10:17] And what do you hope people that come and see your work and take one of your zines, what do you hope that they walk away with?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:10:25] The obvious answer to the question is, like, how cruel the prison to deportation pipeline is. For someone to build such wonderful communities in the United States and for borders being so arbitrary and things of that nature that they can be stolen away from these communities at any point, and how cruel and unnecessary that all feels for immigrants and refugees who have been criminalized to experience this kind of double punishment. I think the other element of it is the ways that women, specifically currently and formerly incarcerated women create these networks of care amongst each other that, in light of the state not supporting them and their healing, whether they've experienced gendered or sexual violence, these people will find each other, these women will find each other and they'll be able to support each other and help each other through these processes of healing and also like fighting sexual violence in the carceral system. Yeah, just like highlighting those kinds of like organic networks and that relationship building that we don't necessarily get to see in like, for example, like mainstream media or like policy making or things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:11:18] What will people see when they walk into the Rdge on the Square exhibit space?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:23] Yes, you will see 15 comic pages in acrylic frames and then underneath that will be a table with actually takeaways. So feel free to take the comic away in like a booklet form as well, but you can also read it out on the wall when you walk in.   Miko Lee: [00:11:35] Thank you so much for sharing with us about your artistry and your vision and your story about Maria and your connection with Asian Prisoner Support Committee. We look forward to seeing your work.   Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:45] Thank you, Miko. Pleasure speaking with you.   Miko Lee: [00:11:48] Next up, listen to “Staygo” from DARKHEART, A Concert Narrative by singer and songwriter Golda Sargento.   MUSIC   That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipinx futurism punk rock sci-fi DARKHEART. Katie Quan, artist, activist, ethnic studies teacher. I'm so happy to have you on Apex Express. And the first question I want to ask you is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Katie Quan: [00:16:51] I would say that my people, I really strongly identify with Asian American movement artists, makers, and shakers from like the 60s and 70s. It was my first introduction to really seeing Chinese Americans be out there and be really vocal, be excited, and be loud and angry about all these different topics. And so I've really gravitated towards just all that excitement, all that energy over the past decade just after learning more about them. I really just enjoyed seeing what that looks like and how we can continue that energy, especially for East Asian Americans here in the States, as we move into a new generation of game makers.   Miko Lee: [00:17:38] Tell us about how you carry that legacy of feisty activism into your work as an artist.   Katie Quan: [00:17:44] I like to consider myself a legacy of the Asian American movement. My grandparents came here in the 30s and 40s. I also have great grandparents and great great grandparents who traveled between the US and China, back and forth, back and forth and so I find myself really attached to their stories as well as how they've overcome a lot of those obstacles that Chinese Americans had to face during that time frame. My parents are both second generation Chinese American. They met at Self-Help for the Elderly, which was a organization that came from the Asian American movement in terms of making sure that our elderly are actually taken care of and have culturally relevant care. My parents were very much interested in enrolling us into bilingual education. Bilingual education was not a popular educational pedagogy at that point, partly because people thought that if you learned another language that was not English, that you would lose your Americanness in a lot of ways. And so one of the things that I really like to bring into my art is making sure that legacy and that history is always challenged and always, it feels relevant to where we are now, but also can meet other people where they're at. I do understand that not everyone gets to have a lot of those kinds of privileges where they see themselves, in their role models or that they didn't grow up around the history, I understand that that's the case. And so making sure that the work that I always produce meets people where they need to be at, is something of interest and something that I carry with me in all my work.   Miko Lee: [00:19:32] Thank you, Katie. Can you talk about the work that you have been doing with Chinese for Affirmative Action and tell us about the reparations zine that you've been developing?   Katie Quan: [00:19:43] Me and a team of other artists, academics and activists have been working to make a reparations zine alongside Chinese for Affirmative Action. Here in San Francisco reparations is still a very contentious issue. So one of the things that we're trying to really bring about and inform, especially the Chinese American demographics, is what reparations are and how we can support the work that black communities need and what they're doing at the moment. Within the zine, we are really covering what reparations are, how African Americans in San Francisco have contributed to the making of the city and also the Bay Area, how their community has been bulldozed in many, many ways, whether it's through health, environmental justice, redlining, all of these different issues. What's happened in the past 50, 60 years reparations is that first step in terms of saying sorry and, how can we begin to mend this wound that the United States has created consistently over time with this particular population.   Miko Lee: [00:20:54] What has surprised you about this process?   Katie Quan: [00:20:58] It's hard. [Laughs] And not that I didn't think it wasn't going to be hard. But I think the team that we've been working with, we've been really fortunate because we have some, second, third and fourth generation activists and artists, but we also have a team of other people who are new immigrants, and we've been really fortunate to learn from their perspective. And so rather than approaching it in a lens that talks about anti-blackness, sometimes it's talking about what it means to be American. And how do we participate in democracy? It's bringing a very positive spin, or just kind of a different spin to topics that we already know, and then that we talk about all the time, but making sure that it's accessible to everybody.   Miko Lee: [00:21:46] So this zine is going to be available for free in the Edge on the Square exhibition. Can you talk about what people will see when they walk into the exhibition and see your work? What are they going to see? What are they going to experience?   Katie Quan: [00:21:59] Yeah, we are hoping to make sure that our exhibition is big and it's bold, but at the same time it feels simple in its messaging. Asking people a little bit about what they know about reparations, being able to challenge their own thinking of what they know about black communities here in San Francisco, what they've done. Also talking about how we ourselves get information, how do we learn the things that we know and how can we challenge that? Or how can we push that forward? And so we will have an interactive element, but we will also have the zine there available, which will be created both in English and in Chinese for anybody who needs it. We will also have additional resources via QR code so that if anybody has any other questions or want to learn more about it, want to act on their excitement for this particular issue that they can also do so.   Miko Lee: [00:22:58] And what do you hope that people will walk away from your after taking away your zine after seeing the exhibit? What are you hoping that they will learn or or do after seeing your work?   Katie Quan: [00:23:10] One of the things that we kind of came across when creating the zine is that people had very strong opinions about reparations. They didn't always have all the information, but they had very strong opinions and they had very particular beliefs that come from their own life experiences. Our goal for this is not necessarily to persuade one way or the other, but it's to make sure that they're informed and just making sure that they have all the facts so that they can make a decision that best suits their own life experiences. We're also hoping that people walk away feeling like they know a little bit more and that they can share that with their own communities in a way that makes sense for them.   Miko Lee: [00:23:51] Katie Quan, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.   Katie Quan: [00:23:54]Yes, thank you so much.   Miko Lee: [00:23:55] Next up, take a listen to “Live It Up” by Bay Area's Power Struggle.   MUSIC   That was “Live It Up”by Bay Area's Power Struggle. Welcome Tsim Nuj to Apex Express.   Tsim Nuj: [00:27:32] Hi, Miko. Thank you so much for having me today.   Miko Lee: [00:27:37] Can I start with just by asking you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Tsim Nuj: [00:27:46] Who are my people and what legacy do I carry with me? My people are Hmong. My ancestors were living in northern Laos, in the mountains and in the jungles and farming. That's where my lineage and then my ancestors had to flee their homes because of the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos to find refuge in Thailand and then now we're here in the US. specifically in Merced, California in the Central Valley on indigenous Yokut land. So yeah, that's my, those are my people. I think that my community here in Merced that I organize with, who are also queer and trans folks of color are also my people. And I think that the legacy that I carry is this legacy of, I carry this legacy of love. I think that in moments of having to find home and having to survive, I think that love really grounded my people and my people's families. And so I think that I'm really holding onto this act of loving. That I think really grounds me and really affirms who I am and the journey as I honor my ancestors. And I really, as I think about the descendants, right, my descendants, the young people who are a emerging and, you know, the future generations that are coming. And so I think that there's this really special moment where I feel like I'm really longing to connect with my ancestors, especially those who were queer and trans, my queer and trans Hmong ancestors. And I've been also connecting with my descendants. And then I think that there's also this present moment, right, where I'm also connected deeply with my community, who consists of being children of immigrant refugees, you know, queer and trans folks, and folks that are really reimagining and really fighting for a world where we can all be liberated and be our full, authentic, genuine, loving selves.   Miko Lee: [00:29:58] Thank you for sharing. Your art form is as a dancer, as a movement person, and you've created a video for the Walking Stories exhibition. Can you tell us the name of that video and what inspired you to create that?   Tsim Nuj: [00:30:14] I feel really honored to be a part of the Walking Stories exhibit, and this is actually my first exhibit that I get to be a part of and share my work in and so it feels very exciting and it feels very, like such an honor that I get to be a part of this project that's a collection of works who the artists and yeah, the folks that are a part of this are just such like incredible, brilliant beings, sharing our stories. And so my dance video The title of it is Our Queer Hmong Love Dance. What really inspired this piece was this idea of being home, right? And this idea of belonging. There's, there's so much ideas that came up for me. And I think that these ideas were coming up because of a recent transition. Last year, around this time, actually, I graduated from UC San Diego, and I was coming home, right, after five years. And so I think that this piece is really about connecting with my roots and finding home specifically in Merced and in the Central Valley. And really trying to think about who I am as a Hmong person. But it was also about who I was as a Hmong and queer person, right? A queer and Hmong person. And so I started to think about these rituals or these sounds and these movements that I really needed to explore. And so a lot of that exploration and that work. I got to practice and be in process and I think it's really what I needed in this moment. And so I'm really grateful I'm really grateful that I get to share it with my community and I'm really grateful that I get to share with my community and the folks that come and see our exhibit and I really I'm really hopeful that folks will resonate with it and really get to just witness me.   Miko Lee: [00:32:14] And so folks will come to the exhibit, they'll see all these different works, they'll see a booth that will have your film playing in it. Is there something that you want to have your audience lingering with or thinking about after they watch your work?   Tsim Nuj: [00:32:30] Yes. I really want my audience, the folks that come to the exhibit, feel invited to witness my piece, my video in the booth. I want them to allow themselves to really feel, right, whatever they're feeling, whatever is coming up for them. Whether it's the sounds that are guiding them, whether it's the visuals, right. Whether it's, you know, there might be some words or some images that come up, and I really want the audience to just really be with their bodies. Be with their minds, their spirits, right? And I, I hope that they allow themselves to just feel it. And I, I remember having a conversation with you Miko about this like meditative presence. And so I'm hoping that my audience or the folks that come and witness the entire exhibit, right? I hope that they are curious, and that they really allow themselves to just be with the work, whatever that means for them. I don't want to tell people how to watch my work, right? But I do want them to just really, be with it, right? And, and if you can, I hope that you'll be able to watch it for its entirety. I think that there's something really beautiful happening, with how I have put this video together and so I hope that you can be with it. Take the deep breaths. Take those breaths, right, pay attention to the sensations that you experience in your body.   What I want the audience to take away from after seeing my piece, I hope that they get to receive it and that they breathe it in and they're with it, right. And that they really see me and see the people that are in this video. And I hope that they see parts of themselves in it, and parts of their stories and their journeys. And I also really want them to think about these questions that I propose and that I ask, right? That I'm also asking myself. This piece is a dedication, right? I think that I'm creating this piece for my ancestors. I'm dancing for my descendants, and I think I'm also asking them, I'm in conversation with them, right? About where is home? Especially for folks who have been displaced, because of very violent histories of war and persecution and having to flee our homes, right, and survive all that, like, thinking about our indigenous relatives here on Turtle Island and thinking about Palestinians in Gaza. I think that, there's in this moment, this piece, I do ask, and I am trying to find this home, this idea of going home. And also how do we dance there, right? Like, how do we dance towards home? And so what is dance for us? I'm just really inspired by, black queer and trans feminists, specifically Prentiss Hemphill, and just the conversations that Prentiss has shared on their Spotify podcast, go and check it out. I think that this piece is also about remembering and honoring the folks who have come before me and the folks that will arrive after me.   Miko Lee: [00:35:32] Tsi Nuj, thank you so much for sharing your story. And we look forward to seeing your dance piece in Walking Stories.   Tsim Nuj: [00:35:41] Thank you so much, Miko, for your time and for creating the space for me. Yeah, I like, I think there's a lot of excitement that I feel in my body. And so like, I want to talk about the work, but please, please, please, for whoever is listening, come and be with us. Come and experience our work and be in conversation with us. I think it's really important in this moment for us to uplift one another's voices and really affirm each other's stories. When we think about collective liberation, it really is doing this work, right? Of thinking about what is collective care and collective love look like, how do we lean into our creativity, our ancestral technologies and practices to really make meaning of how we show up in this world, right? And to really empower us, right? To, you know, continue showing up for one another and because we know that this work is lifelong. Healing and, you know, really creating this world where we are all free. I hope that the folks that are listening to this and the folks that come to the exhibit and everybody, right, I really hope that we can feel how important it is for each one of us and all of us to be in this movement towards the liberation of everybody, right? Because our liberations are, are so deeply intertwined and connected. So thank you.   Miko Lee: [00:37:04] Thank you so much. That was great. Let's take a listen to one of Byron Au Young's compositions called “Know Your Rights.” This is part of the trilogy of the activists songbook. This multi-lingual rap gives steps to know what to do when ICE officers come to your door.   MUSIC   That was “Know Your Rights” performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jafferis and composed by Byron Au Young. Welcome Visibility Project and Related Tactics to Apex Express. I'm so happy to have you all with me this evening, and I would love to just ask you all the question I love asking for people, which is what is your story? What's your background? And what legacy do you carry with you? And let's start with Weston.   Weston Teruya: [00:40:12] I am a Japanese American and Okinawa American from Hawaii. I identify as an Asian American and person of color, and I draw on the histories of cross-racial solidarity between communities as a strategic alliance and community building effort for justice.   Miko Lee: [00:40:34] Thanks, Weston. And Michelle, how about you? Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:40:41] Hi, thanks, Miko. I'm Korean American. I grew up in Seattle, Washington and spent most of my time on the West Coast. I, similar to Weston, operate in a realm of cross racial solidarity, linking myself often to histories of racial solidarity justice movements. Weston and I are representing Related Tactics, which is an artist collective that also anchors itself within these histories of cross racial solidarity. We make all sorts of artistic works at the intersection of race and culture.   Miko Lee: [00:41:18] Thanks, Michelle. And finally, Mia Nakano, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Mia Nakano: [00:41:24] Thank you so much for having me here. I'm Mia Nakano she/her pronouns and I'm the executive director of the Visibility Project. I am a queer fourth generation Japanese American woman. I am the daughter of a single mother and the sibling of a deaf adult. And I think that all of those relationships and intersectional identities bring forth all of the work that I do. And so I think about queer ancestors, I think about accessibility in the deaf community, I think about all of the really powerful women that have been incredibly present in my life to shape who I am today.   Miko Lee: [00:42:10] Thank you, Mia. And you are two different groups of artists. One is Visibility Project. The other is Related Tactics. Can you share with us a little bit about how this collaboration came about?   Mia Nakano: [00:42:22] I was invited to participate as a contributing artist in one of Related Tactics' very first shows back in, I believe, in 2016, and have been following their work as a growing artistic practice and a collective for quite some time. I've always been thinking about how could the Visibility Project as a queer led, you know queer, LGBTQ, archiving and organizing artistic practice collaborate with this cross racial, very intersectional, collective in Related Tactics. One of the ideas that has sort of been percolating for me over a long period of time was that so many queer Asian American organizations and so many queer spaces have all come out of the idea and like the gathering around potluck spaces, right? So potlucks being safe spaces for queer folks, for folks of color, for marginalized communities who didn't have safe spaces to gather. And many queer Asian organizations started off with potlucks that then turned into social and political groups, which then shifted into political advocacy and culture change, and then ultimately like legislative change. And I saw such deep connections in terms of how I see related tactics and experience related tactics. It's building roots and planting seeds for multiple relationships and collaborations through the different intersecting ways that our communities have been able to come together over the past few years.   Miko Lee: [00:44:18] So how did this collaboration begin working on this concept around potlucks?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:44:24] This is Michelle from Related Tactics. The three of us have known each other for a long time and Mia and I have worked together in a lot of different capacities over the years. I think Related Tactics, at the core of what we do is coming together with this kind of shared belief and shared value system around collectivity as this really productive material and tool and method for creative action in the world. I think at the core of that is understanding that we don't have all the information and we don't like to be the only voice in the room and we are not the ones that necessarily should be telling the stories for everyone. Related Tactics, when we often get an opportunity, one of our common strategies is just to figure out a way to share that out and to bring more voices into the room to be in concert with our own. When we understood that the Visibility Project was also going to be a part of this project, we're like we should join forces and bring our communities together. And I think we've been looking for a way to do that over the years.   Miko Lee: [00:45:35] Talk to me about the title, Nourishing Power. Where does that come from? What is that about?   Mia Nakano: [00:45:41] I think because of the individual artistic practices, And the people who comprise Related Tactics, and myself at the Visibility Project, we are all so incredibly busy, that all of our contributions to our various communities, whether it's at universities, in social justice movements, in artistic organizations, we're all about cultivating the power of other people while putting artists into artistic practices and people first, right? Like you have to, put on your oxygen mask first before you're able to really step out and fully do the work that you want to be doing. And to do that, you have to nourish yourself, you have to nourish your power. And I think that there's also the idea of the collectivity and framework that Related Tactics brings where we can all also do that for one another, right? When one person is at 10 percent capacity, the other two people can step forth and we can all move and lift each other up together rather than doing it as individuals.   Miko Lee: [00:46:52] Thank you. And Weston, what can people expect when they walk into Edge on the Square, the corner of Grant and Clay? What will they see that will show them your work?   Weston Teruya: [00:47:04] So the center point of our installation is going to be these carts with an array of takeaways that people are free to engage with in different ways, and they are essentially prompt for various potlucks that, we've contributed as a themes and as collaborators and then have also invited a group of additional artists to contribute as well. One of the modes that Related Tactics works in is in the form of the takeaway and part of the impetus behind that is that we want to provide the seed for people to create their own sort of spaces and gatherings and encounters with people beyond the gallery walls. We don't want art to just be this thing that only exists in these defined spaces. We've had different projects that use that mode, and this is one of them. We invite people to engage with it, take these ideas, plant the seeds for their own potlucks beyond the walls of the gallery and hopefully have these opportunities to build community, in their own spaces, in their own worlds, amongst their own networks of people.   Miko Lee: [00:48:12] I love the accessible takeaway. I still have a divest yourself matchbox from one of your shows. [Laughs] I love that. Michelle, what's a concrete example of a takeaway from Nourishing Power?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:48:27] One of the examples I would talk about is, one of the artists we've invited, Joy Enriquez, has created like hundreds of tiny ceramic spoons. They're thinking a lot about how does one articulate when they need support. They talk about it as if one only has so many spoons to use in a day, but you have way more things you need to do with those spoons. How do you survive that? How do you ask for support? How do you allocate those spoons to this kind of overwhelming existence? They have all these really beautiful prompts that will be printed on a card to take away, but then also you can take away a ceramic spoon that they've been spending many hours in a ceramic studio, making and firing. I think there's this idea too, that there's many, many ways one can use that spoon that can exist to support your day to day that you might not think about. So they have some things that are about how one might hold or touch the spoon or things you might do with it that isn't just about eating. That also really embodies the spirit of this project, that it's also not just about potlucks in the sense of like, bring food to a table, but that it's about this kind of space to share knowledge, to share resources, to exchange things when you don't feel like you have the thing you're supposed to bring, or you can't meet the expectation, the greater expectations of what is supposed to occur in that moment. But that the potluck is a space for us to share and support each other in ways that we maybe have not been able to imagine yet.   Miko Lee: [00:50:06] Ooh, I love that. And Mia, how many different artists are there? How many, and how did you go about selecting all these different artists that are participating?   Mia Nakano: [00:50:15] There's over a dozen artists who are participating, and we collectively just started brainstorming and extending out invitations to our various communities and folks that we've worked with in the past, folks who, have participated in Related Tactic shows or know, you know, through other pathways and connections. And then I just reached out to a few Visibility Project participants, even folks going back that I interviewed over 15 years ago to ask if they would be willing to participate. Each person was invited to create one prompt, one initial prompt of what the potluck would be, like if they were to have a potluck, right? So we have somebody who put forth a potluck for screaming, a potluck for nourishing. So different artists are putting forth their own individual potlucks, and one prompt connected to that, and then folks will be able to use that as a seed to create their own gathering spaces in the future.   Miko Lee: [00:51:15] If there's an action word that you would want people to walk away with, what's that action word after they go to see your exhibit? What is the verb that you want them to do?   Weston Teruya: [00:51:27] I think it might be gather. That's sort of the crux of what we're hoping to seed.   Miko Lee: [00:51:33] What about an emotion? Is there an emotion you want folks to walk away with?   Mia Nakano: [00:51:38] I like the idea of gathering, in that also kind of to be able to connect, right? Like we're not just coming together, like we're building something that we want to connect and maintain.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:51:50] Yeah. And I think also like exchanging, right? It's like something really active is happening, there's an exchange, everybody's kind of, there's like a reciprocity too. That you know, that nobody is hosting, like everybody's coming and sharing and exchanging and giving and receiving and maybe nourish is actually the right, I don't know if nourish is an emotion, but I think in the social justice world it is. [Laughs] So it feels like nourish actually is probably a useful emotion. I think reciprocity is also like a feeling that should happen, that when you are giving you're not doing so to the point of extraction because you are also receiving. And that's I think one of the core things about this project wasn't just about Related Tactics and or Visibility Project offering ideas. It was like, we have created a prompt for a potluck and in many ways audience members will come into the show and see our potluck because it will have all these contributions from all these other artists. And so you get to kind of leave with like a goodie bag, doggie bag that is like the kind of residue of our potluck. We hope that folks go home and do that for themselves within their communities, either using our prompts or using our prompts as a platform to create their own space.   Miko Lee: [00:53:18] Is there a perfect amount of people to attend a potluck? Like how many dishes do you want at your potluck?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:53:26] I feel like we're in like a seven to ten vibe. Like 15 tops, then it's too many. You know, it's like, because not too many, but it, there's a different thing that's happening when you get over 15 people in a room. But like, I feel like 10 is the zone where you can still have kind of like close intimate, you know, conversations where you can like build trust, you can spend some time, get around to see everyone, get a little bit of everybody's, you know, contribution, and then, but it's not like so small that it's like you and one other person and you're on a very awkward blind date or something.   Miko Lee: [00:54:09] And are you all down for the themed potlucks or do you like them to be just open ended, bring whatever you want?   Mia Nakano: [00:54:17] I love a themed potluck. I love just like some sort of container where you're going in and you're acknowledging I've got dessert, or we're gonna go over to Southeast Asia, rather than everybody showing up with ten pots of rice and they're just eating rice all night.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:54:35] Or tortilla chips, or like Trader Joe's brownie bites, like five containers of those. No shame on brownie bites.   Miko Lee: [00:54:44] Okay, how can folks find out more about your work?   Mia Nakano: [00:54:48] So folks want to check out what the Visibility Project is doing, you can go to visibilityproject.org and learn about all the participants and hear their stories and even go on an LGBTQ digital history tour of the Asian American community in the Bay Area.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:55:04] If you want to find out more about Related Tactics, you can go to relatedtactics.com or find us on Instagram and our handle is just at Related Tactics.   Miko Lee: [00:55:15] Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing your work in the show and feeling nourished and planning my next potluck. Thank you so much. So that was a chance to listen to just a few of the artivists that are part of Walking Stories. You got a little insight into where they're coming from and how they created their pieces. And there's so many more artivists that you didn't get to hear from. So I hope you'll come to our exhibit that runs June 29th through the end of December. We'll be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. We'll put a link in the show notes at our website kpfa.org backslash programs, backslash apex express. We hope that you'll join us and share your story too, because all of us have important stories to tell. Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.   The post APEX Express – 6.27.24 – Walking Stories appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, Host Miko Lee speaks with artivists from the upcoming exhibition at Edge on the Square.   TRANSCRIPT Walking Stories: Artivists POV   Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Miko Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening this is Miko Lee and welcome to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us. We are going to be talking about something really personal to me tonight. We are talking about the new interactive exhibition at Edge on the Square in San Francisco, Chinatown. The whole exhibition is called Walking Stories and it is stories from our Asian American community. And we invite you to join us. It opens June 29th and runs all the way through December. Opening night, June 29th is going to be interactive performances and amazing little goodies so we really invite you to join us for opening, but if you can make it that night, we're running all the way through the end of December. Okay, so a little bit of background. Some of you might know that I have been a host on Apex Express for the past seven and a half years, and it has truly been a delight and a joy. As part of that time, I learned that Apex Express is part of a network of Asian American progressive groups. That's called AACRE, which is short for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. And about two and a half years ago, I joined the staff of AACRE, which has been such a joy to be around colleagues that share the same values and passions and beliefs in supporting and uplifting our community. For the past year, we have been working on a narrative strategy, really trying to reframe how Asian Americans are portrayed in the media, how we're perceived within our own community. We were initially going to do this with the Pacific Islander community as well. But in talking to our sister colleagues, they are going through their own process of a PI narrative strategy and I totally respect that. At some point we will merge and join those voices together. So right now we're focusing on Asian American stories. Through the past year through wonderful funding from San Francisco foundation's Bay Area Creative Corps we were actually able to fund approximately 37 different artists and embed them in different AACRE groups to be able to create narratives that resonate with their own communities. So that in this exhibit Walking Stories, we're going to hear stories about Hmong folks and formerly incarcerated folks, folks that are queer and trans and folks that have stories to share, because we all have important stories to share. Our exhibit is inviting folks to think about how they can get involved, how they can share their own stories, how they can join us in this collective movement for rewriting our history of the kind of silent, quiet model minority that sits in the background that's used as the wedge issue for larger things like reparations and affirmative action and really reframes that and brings back our Asian American activist past because we know that is who we are. That is our history going back from the first time that we came into this country. We invite folks in the community to join us to see more about who these stories are, to find out, to get involved to see what resonates with them and even what doesn't resonate with them. But really join us in this conversation. So tonight I'm really pleased to be talking with just a few of the artists that are in Walking Stories. So that you can get some insight into their process and how they made the piece that they're going to be sharing.   The exhibit itself will be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. When you walk in, you are going to see this timeline of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. That's about an Asian American activist history. You're going to see a really cool, nourishing power piece, which we're going to talk to the artists about, that is about how potlucks were used as a tool for queer and trans organizing. You are going to learn more about Hmong dance. And what does that look like, and what does it feel like in your own body? You're going to learn about ancestors, the power of our ancestors and how we can bring that to help us in our healing and moving forward. You're going to see in the exhibit about a Hmong story cloth reimagined with a modern perspective, you're going to see stories of south Asians activists and what they represent. And what does it mean to be a south Asian Muslim in America today? You're going to hear some of these stories. You're going to see them. We hope that you'll experience them. Then we hope that you'll learn more and find out about what we're doing and how you can get involved. So join me on this little journey through some of the artivists—that's artists that are also activists—that are part of our exhibit called Walking Stories. Come board. Join us. Welcome Hà Trần to Apex Express. We're so happy to have you with us. Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:40] Thank you for having me.   Miko Lee: [00:05:41] So you are amazing artist, but I want to start and go back and for you to tell us who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:52] Ooh, oh my god, that's such like a big question. I guess my people are the people at Asian Prisoner Support Committee. I come from like a lineage of like Vietnamese refugees, and I think about like the ways that our communities have been impacted by the legacy of imperialism, which includes like incarceration, deportation, and things of that nature. I would say my community are folks who are impacted by, those kinds of pipelines and violences, Southeast Asian folks broadly.   Miko Lee: [00:06:14] And what legacy do you carry with you from them?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:18] I think the easy answer is like resilience clearly. To exist and survive under so many different violences and still move forth and create such beautiful communities.   Miko Lee: [00:06:25] Hà how did you get started working with Asian Prisoner Support Committee?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:29] It actually started from an interpersonal relationship. My best friend who also works at the organization now. They actually explained to me that a APSC was doing all this work in regards to like stopping the prison to deportation pipeline, how like so many of our Southeast Asian American community members were impacted by this kind of incarceration and things of that nature. At that point, it just became my political home after many, many years.   Miko Lee: [00:06:50] Thanks for sharing that. Then tell us about the work that you have in the new exhibit that is opening up called Walking Stories. Can you tell us the title of your piece and then describe it for us?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:07:01] The piece I'm making is a comic called We Was Girls Together. It's a quote from Sula by Toni Morrison. The comic is about my friend Maria Legarda. She's a re-entry coordinator at the Asian Prisoner Support Committee. She's also a Filipino immigrant who's facing deportation to the Philippines now after she was incarcerated in CCWF for 14 years. We met each other through APSC I know her as a very generous and kind person who loves crocheting. She's always been like an extreme light every time I come to the office and interact with her. But I also know that Maria is like someone who frankly, knows all these like incarcerated women or like formerly and currently incarcerated women. She really shows me what it looks like to be, like, an abolitionist feminist despite the kind of struggles and difficulties that she's moving through as someone who's literally currently still facing deportation because of her quote unquote, deportable offense. My comic is about Maria Legarda. It starts with like her story, her migration story from the Philippines. She was born under the Marcos regime, which basically socioeconomically destabilized the Philippines. She came to the US for economic opportunity. But clearly she had a really hard time adjusting, and then eventually she made some choices that led her to a federal offense that led to her decades of incarceration. When she was in prison, she met all these, wonderful women of color who also were survivors of sexual and gendered violence, so I just follow her story through her healing. Despite the fact that she's healed so deeply and she's shown so much care to other people and she has these communities she still is deportable to a country that she hasn't been to in 30 or so years, and doesn't consider home anymore.   Miko Lee: [00:08:27] Share with me a little bit about how zines are your choice of art medium?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:08:32] I love the nature of how like accessible they are. I think I kind of started out as an illustrator and an essayist separately. But then I realized as I was like writing essays I couldn't necessarily share those things immediately with my mom. She's not super fluent in English, right? But like when I combined the medium of illustration and writing into creating a comic in a zine, I could show that to my mom and even if she can't fully understand all the writing she could still access, like the actual medium. And then the form of the zine is something that is meant to be taken away. It's meant to be shared with other people. I started going to a lot of zine fests last year and it just made me realize like, oh yeah, I want all my stuff to be accessible, right? Like I don't want it necessarily to be underneath a pay wall or things of that nature. I think there's something like, you know, for lack of a better word, very like, democratic about zine making, and as well as, comics generally.   Miko Lee: [00:09:20] I love how you do the mom test.   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:22] Yes. It's funny, I wrote, an essay about my grandmother, actually, in the Asian American Writers Workshop like 2021, and I had to literally translate the entire thing for her to read it to make sure all the details were right, and I was like, wait, I could have just made this easier by like illustrating some of it to make it accessible across language barriers and things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:09:40] And has Maria read through the scene?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:42] Yes, she has.   Miko Lee: [00:09:44] What has been her take on it?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:46] She actually sent me a very long signal which like made me cry because I was like, oh my god, I can't believe she actually thought this about the work. She was talking about how it helped her reflect on everything she's gone through but also like these relationships that have really sustained her. Namely like, I mentioned this person named Granny in the comic who I've met who's essentially like the person who adopted Maria when she just became incarcerated and was dealing with the fallout and trauma of sexual violence and things of that nature. The comic reminds Maria of just her growth essentially over all these years, but also all these rich relationships that still continue to sustain her like across carceral walls and things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:10:17] And what do you hope people that come and see your work and take one of your zines, what do you hope that they walk away with?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:10:25] The obvious answer to the question is, like, how cruel the prison to deportation pipeline is. For someone to build such wonderful communities in the United States and for borders being so arbitrary and things of that nature that they can be stolen away from these communities at any point, and how cruel and unnecessary that all feels for immigrants and refugees who have been criminalized to experience this kind of double punishment. I think the other element of it is the ways that women, specifically currently and formerly incarcerated women create these networks of care amongst each other that, in light of the state not supporting them and their healing, whether they've experienced gendered or sexual violence, these people will find each other, these women will find each other and they'll be able to support each other and help each other through these processes of healing and also like fighting sexual violence in the carceral system. Yeah, just like highlighting those kinds of like organic networks and that relationship building that we don't necessarily get to see in like, for example, like mainstream media or like policy making or things of that nature.   Miko Lee: [00:11:18] What will people see when they walk into the Rdge on the Square exhibit space?   Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:23] Yes, you will see 15 comic pages in acrylic frames and then underneath that will be a table with actually takeaways. So feel free to take the comic away in like a booklet form as well, but you can also read it out on the wall when you walk in.   Miko Lee: [00:11:35] Thank you so much for sharing with us about your artistry and your vision and your story about Maria and your connection with Asian Prisoner Support Committee. We look forward to seeing your work.   Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:45] Thank you, Miko. Pleasure speaking with you.   Miko Lee: [00:11:48] Next up, listen to “Staygo” from DARKHEART, A Concert Narrative by singer and songwriter Golda Sargento.   MUSIC   That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipinx futurism punk rock sci-fi DARKHEART. Katie Quan, artist, activist, ethnic studies teacher. I'm so happy to have you on Apex Express. And the first question I want to ask you is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Katie Quan: [00:16:51] I would say that my people, I really strongly identify with Asian American movement artists, makers, and shakers from like the 60s and 70s. It was my first introduction to really seeing Chinese Americans be out there and be really vocal, be excited, and be loud and angry about all these different topics. And so I've really gravitated towards just all that excitement, all that energy over the past decade just after learning more about them. I really just enjoyed seeing what that looks like and how we can continue that energy, especially for East Asian Americans here in the States, as we move into a new generation of game makers.   Miko Lee: [00:17:38] Tell us about how you carry that legacy of feisty activism into your work as an artist.   Katie Quan: [00:17:44] I like to consider myself a legacy of the Asian American movement. My grandparents came here in the 30s and 40s. I also have great grandparents and great great grandparents who traveled between the US and China, back and forth, back and forth and so I find myself really attached to their stories as well as how they've overcome a lot of those obstacles that Chinese Americans had to face during that time frame. My parents are both second generation Chinese American. They met at Self-Help for the Elderly, which was a organization that came from the Asian American movement in terms of making sure that our elderly are actually taken care of and have culturally relevant care. My parents were very much interested in enrolling us into bilingual education. Bilingual education was not a popular educational pedagogy at that point, partly because people thought that if you learned another language that was not English, that you would lose your Americanness in a lot of ways. And so one of the things that I really like to bring into my art is making sure that legacy and that history is always challenged and always, it feels relevant to where we are now, but also can meet other people where they're at. I do understand that not everyone gets to have a lot of those kinds of privileges where they see themselves, in their role models or that they didn't grow up around the history, I understand that that's the case. And so making sure that the work that I always produce meets people where they need to be at, is something of interest and something that I carry with me in all my work.   Miko Lee: [00:19:32] Thank you, Katie. Can you talk about the work that you have been doing with Chinese for Affirmative Action and tell us about the reparations zine that you've been developing?   Katie Quan: [00:19:43] Me and a team of other artists, academics and activists have been working to make a reparations zine alongside Chinese for Affirmative Action. Here in San Francisco reparations is still a very contentious issue. So one of the things that we're trying to really bring about and inform, especially the Chinese American demographics, is what reparations are and how we can support the work that black communities need and what they're doing at the moment. Within the zine, we are really covering what reparations are, how African Americans in San Francisco have contributed to the making of the city and also the Bay Area, how their community has been bulldozed in many, many ways, whether it's through health, environmental justice, redlining, all of these different issues. What's happened in the past 50, 60 years reparations is that first step in terms of saying sorry and, how can we begin to mend this wound that the United States has created consistently over time with this particular population.   Miko Lee: [00:20:54] What has surprised you about this process?   Katie Quan: [00:20:58] It's hard. [Laughs] And not that I didn't think it wasn't going to be hard. But I think the team that we've been working with, we've been really fortunate because we have some, second, third and fourth generation activists and artists, but we also have a team of other people who are new immigrants, and we've been really fortunate to learn from their perspective. And so rather than approaching it in a lens that talks about anti-blackness, sometimes it's talking about what it means to be American. And how do we participate in democracy? It's bringing a very positive spin, or just kind of a different spin to topics that we already know, and then that we talk about all the time, but making sure that it's accessible to everybody.   Miko Lee: [00:21:46] So this zine is going to be available for free in the Edge on the Square exhibition. Can you talk about what people will see when they walk into the exhibition and see your work? What are they going to see? What are they going to experience?   Katie Quan: [00:21:59] Yeah, we are hoping to make sure that our exhibition is big and it's bold, but at the same time it feels simple in its messaging. Asking people a little bit about what they know about reparations, being able to challenge their own thinking of what they know about black communities here in San Francisco, what they've done. Also talking about how we ourselves get information, how do we learn the things that we know and how can we challenge that? Or how can we push that forward? And so we will have an interactive element, but we will also have the zine there available, which will be created both in English and in Chinese for anybody who needs it. We will also have additional resources via QR code so that if anybody has any other questions or want to learn more about it, want to act on their excitement for this particular issue that they can also do so.   Miko Lee: [00:22:58] And what do you hope that people will walk away from your after taking away your zine after seeing the exhibit? What are you hoping that they will learn or or do after seeing your work?   Katie Quan: [00:23:10] One of the things that we kind of came across when creating the zine is that people had very strong opinions about reparations. They didn't always have all the information, but they had very strong opinions and they had very particular beliefs that come from their own life experiences. Our goal for this is not necessarily to persuade one way or the other, but it's to make sure that they're informed and just making sure that they have all the facts so that they can make a decision that best suits their own life experiences. We're also hoping that people walk away feeling like they know a little bit more and that they can share that with their own communities in a way that makes sense for them.   Miko Lee: [00:23:51] Katie Quan, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.   Katie Quan: [00:23:54]Yes, thank you so much.   Miko Lee: [00:23:55] Next up, take a listen to “Live It Up” by Bay Area's Power Struggle.   MUSIC   That was “Live It Up”by Bay Area's Power Struggle. Welcome Tsim Nuj to Apex Express.   Tsim Nuj: [00:27:32] Hi, Miko. Thank you so much for having me today.   Miko Lee: [00:27:37] Can I start with just by asking you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Tsim Nuj: [00:27:46] Who are my people and what legacy do I carry with me? My people are Hmong. My ancestors were living in northern Laos, in the mountains and in the jungles and farming. That's where my lineage and then my ancestors had to flee their homes because of the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos to find refuge in Thailand and then now we're here in the US. specifically in Merced, California in the Central Valley on indigenous Yokut land. So yeah, that's my, those are my people. I think that my community here in Merced that I organize with, who are also queer and trans folks of color are also my people. And I think that the legacy that I carry is this legacy of, I carry this legacy of love. I think that in moments of having to find home and having to survive, I think that love really grounded my people and my people's families. And so I think that I'm really holding onto this act of loving. That I think really grounds me and really affirms who I am and the journey as I honor my ancestors. And I really, as I think about the descendants, right, my descendants, the young people who are a emerging and, you know, the future generations that are coming. And so I think that there's this really special moment where I feel like I'm really longing to connect with my ancestors, especially those who were queer and trans, my queer and trans Hmong ancestors. And I've been also connecting with my descendants. And then I think that there's also this present moment, right, where I'm also connected deeply with my community, who consists of being children of immigrant refugees, you know, queer and trans folks, and folks that are really reimagining and really fighting for a world where we can all be liberated and be our full, authentic, genuine, loving selves.   Miko Lee: [00:29:58] Thank you for sharing. Your art form is as a dancer, as a movement person, and you've created a video for the Walking Stories exhibition. Can you tell us the name of that video and what inspired you to create that?   Tsim Nuj: [00:30:14] I feel really honored to be a part of the Walking Stories exhibit, and this is actually my first exhibit that I get to be a part of and share my work in and so it feels very exciting and it feels very, like such an honor that I get to be a part of this project that's a collection of works who the artists and yeah, the folks that are a part of this are just such like incredible, brilliant beings, sharing our stories. And so my dance video The title of it is Our Queer Hmong Love Dance. What really inspired this piece was this idea of being home, right? And this idea of belonging. There's, there's so much ideas that came up for me. And I think that these ideas were coming up because of a recent transition. Last year, around this time, actually, I graduated from UC San Diego, and I was coming home, right, after five years. And so I think that this piece is really about connecting with my roots and finding home specifically in Merced and in the Central Valley. And really trying to think about who I am as a Hmong person. But it was also about who I was as a Hmong and queer person, right? A queer and Hmong person. And so I started to think about these rituals or these sounds and these movements that I really needed to explore. And so a lot of that exploration and that work. I got to practice and be in process and I think it's really what I needed in this moment. And so I'm really grateful I'm really grateful that I get to share it with my community and I'm really grateful that I get to share with my community and the folks that come and see our exhibit and I really I'm really hopeful that folks will resonate with it and really get to just witness me.   Miko Lee: [00:32:14] And so folks will come to the exhibit, they'll see all these different works, they'll see a booth that will have your film playing in it. Is there something that you want to have your audience lingering with or thinking about after they watch your work?   Tsim Nuj: [00:32:30] Yes. I really want my audience, the folks that come to the exhibit, feel invited to witness my piece, my video in the booth. I want them to allow themselves to really feel, right, whatever they're feeling, whatever is coming up for them. Whether it's the sounds that are guiding them, whether it's the visuals, right. Whether it's, you know, there might be some words or some images that come up, and I really want the audience to just really be with their bodies. Be with their minds, their spirits, right? And I, I hope that they allow themselves to just feel it. And I, I remember having a conversation with you Miko about this like meditative presence. And so I'm hoping that my audience or the folks that come and witness the entire exhibit, right? I hope that they are curious, and that they really allow themselves to just be with the work, whatever that means for them. I don't want to tell people how to watch my work, right? But I do want them to just really, be with it, right? And, and if you can, I hope that you'll be able to watch it for its entirety. I think that there's something really beautiful happening, with how I have put this video together and so I hope that you can be with it. Take the deep breaths. Take those breaths, right, pay attention to the sensations that you experience in your body.   What I want the audience to take away from after seeing my piece, I hope that they get to receive it and that they breathe it in and they're with it, right. And that they really see me and see the people that are in this video. And I hope that they see parts of themselves in it, and parts of their stories and their journeys. And I also really want them to think about these questions that I propose and that I ask, right? That I'm also asking myself. This piece is a dedication, right? I think that I'm creating this piece for my ancestors. I'm dancing for my descendants, and I think I'm also asking them, I'm in conversation with them, right? About where is home? Especially for folks who have been displaced, because of very violent histories of war and persecution and having to flee our homes, right, and survive all that, like, thinking about our indigenous relatives here on Turtle Island and thinking about Palestinians in Gaza. I think that, there's in this moment, this piece, I do ask, and I am trying to find this home, this idea of going home. And also how do we dance there, right? Like, how do we dance towards home? And so what is dance for us? I'm just really inspired by, black queer and trans feminists, specifically Prentiss Hemphill, and just the conversations that Prentiss has shared on their Spotify podcast, go and check it out. I think that this piece is also about remembering and honoring the folks who have come before me and the folks that will arrive after me.   Miko Lee: [00:35:32] Tsi Nuj, thank you so much for sharing your story. And we look forward to seeing your dance piece in Walking Stories.   Tsim Nuj: [00:35:41] Thank you so much, Miko, for your time and for creating the space for me. Yeah, I like, I think there's a lot of excitement that I feel in my body. And so like, I want to talk about the work, but please, please, please, for whoever is listening, come and be with us. Come and experience our work and be in conversation with us. I think it's really important in this moment for us to uplift one another's voices and really affirm each other's stories. When we think about collective liberation, it really is doing this work, right? Of thinking about what is collective care and collective love look like, how do we lean into our creativity, our ancestral technologies and practices to really make meaning of how we show up in this world, right? And to really empower us, right? To, you know, continue showing up for one another and because we know that this work is lifelong. Healing and, you know, really creating this world where we are all free. I hope that the folks that are listening to this and the folks that come to the exhibit and everybody, right, I really hope that we can feel how important it is for each one of us and all of us to be in this movement towards the liberation of everybody, right? Because our liberations are, are so deeply intertwined and connected. So thank you.   Miko Lee: [00:37:04] Thank you so much. That was great. Let's take a listen to one of Byron Au Young's compositions called “Know Your Rights.” This is part of the trilogy of the activists songbook. This multi-lingual rap gives steps to know what to do when ICE officers come to your door.   MUSIC   That was “Know Your Rights” performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jafferis and composed by Byron Au Young. Welcome Visibility Project and Related Tactics to Apex Express. I'm so happy to have you all with me this evening, and I would love to just ask you all the question I love asking for people, which is what is your story? What's your background? And what legacy do you carry with you? And let's start with Weston.   Weston Teruya: [00:40:12] I am a Japanese American and Okinawa American from Hawaii. I identify as an Asian American and person of color, and I draw on the histories of cross-racial solidarity between communities as a strategic alliance and community building effort for justice.   Miko Lee: [00:40:34] Thanks, Weston. And Michelle, how about you? Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:40:41] Hi, thanks, Miko. I'm Korean American. I grew up in Seattle, Washington and spent most of my time on the West Coast. I, similar to Weston, operate in a realm of cross racial solidarity, linking myself often to histories of racial solidarity justice movements. Weston and I are representing Related Tactics, which is an artist collective that also anchors itself within these histories of cross racial solidarity. We make all sorts of artistic works at the intersection of race and culture.   Miko Lee: [00:41:18] Thanks, Michelle. And finally, Mia Nakano, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   Mia Nakano: [00:41:24] Thank you so much for having me here. I'm Mia Nakano she/her pronouns and I'm the executive director of the Visibility Project. I am a queer fourth generation Japanese American woman. I am the daughter of a single mother and the sibling of a deaf adult. And I think that all of those relationships and intersectional identities bring forth all of the work that I do. And so I think about queer ancestors, I think about accessibility in the deaf community, I think about all of the really powerful women that have been incredibly present in my life to shape who I am today.   Miko Lee: [00:42:10] Thank you, Mia. And you are two different groups of artists. One is Visibility Project. The other is Related Tactics. Can you share with us a little bit about how this collaboration came about?   Mia Nakano: [00:42:22] I was invited to participate as a contributing artist in one of Related Tactics' very first shows back in, I believe, in 2016, and have been following their work as a growing artistic practice and a collective for quite some time. I've always been thinking about how could the Visibility Project as a queer led, you know queer, LGBTQ, archiving and organizing artistic practice collaborate with this cross racial, very intersectional, collective in Related Tactics. One of the ideas that has sort of been percolating for me over a long period of time was that so many queer Asian American organizations and so many queer spaces have all come out of the idea and like the gathering around potluck spaces, right? So potlucks being safe spaces for queer folks, for folks of color, for marginalized communities who didn't have safe spaces to gather. And many queer Asian organizations started off with potlucks that then turned into social and political groups, which then shifted into political advocacy and culture change, and then ultimately like legislative change. And I saw such deep connections in terms of how I see related tactics and experience related tactics. It's building roots and planting seeds for multiple relationships and collaborations through the different intersecting ways that our communities have been able to come together over the past few years.   Miko Lee: [00:44:18] So how did this collaboration begin working on this concept around potlucks?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:44:24] This is Michelle from Related Tactics. The three of us have known each other for a long time and Mia and I have worked together in a lot of different capacities over the years. I think Related Tactics, at the core of what we do is coming together with this kind of shared belief and shared value system around collectivity as this really productive material and tool and method for creative action in the world. I think at the core of that is understanding that we don't have all the information and we don't like to be the only voice in the room and we are not the ones that necessarily should be telling the stories for everyone. Related Tactics, when we often get an opportunity, one of our common strategies is just to figure out a way to share that out and to bring more voices into the room to be in concert with our own. When we understood that the Visibility Project was also going to be a part of this project, we're like we should join forces and bring our communities together. And I think we've been looking for a way to do that over the years.   Miko Lee: [00:45:35] Talk to me about the title, Nourishing Power. Where does that come from? What is that about?   Mia Nakano: [00:45:41] I think because of the individual artistic practices, And the people who comprise Related Tactics, and myself at the Visibility Project, we are all so incredibly busy, that all of our contributions to our various communities, whether it's at universities, in social justice movements, in artistic organizations, we're all about cultivating the power of other people while putting artists into artistic practices and people first, right? Like you have to, put on your oxygen mask first before you're able to really step out and fully do the work that you want to be doing. And to do that, you have to nourish yourself, you have to nourish your power. And I think that there's also the idea of the collectivity and framework that Related Tactics brings where we can all also do that for one another, right? When one person is at 10 percent capacity, the other two people can step forth and we can all move and lift each other up together rather than doing it as individuals.   Miko Lee: [00:46:52] Thank you. And Weston, what can people expect when they walk into Edge on the Square, the corner of Grant and Clay? What will they see that will show them your work?   Weston Teruya: [00:47:04] So the center point of our installation is going to be these carts with an array of takeaways that people are free to engage with in different ways, and they are essentially prompt for various potlucks that, we've contributed as a themes and as collaborators and then have also invited a group of additional artists to contribute as well. One of the modes that Related Tactics works in is in the form of the takeaway and part of the impetus behind that is that we want to provide the seed for people to create their own sort of spaces and gatherings and encounters with people beyond the gallery walls. We don't want art to just be this thing that only exists in these defined spaces. We've had different projects that use that mode, and this is one of them. We invite people to engage with it, take these ideas, plant the seeds for their own potlucks beyond the walls of the gallery and hopefully have these opportunities to build community, in their own spaces, in their own worlds, amongst their own networks of people.   Miko Lee: [00:48:12] I love the accessible takeaway. I still have a divest yourself matchbox from one of your shows. [Laughs] I love that. Michelle, what's a concrete example of a takeaway from Nourishing Power?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:48:27] One of the examples I would talk about is, one of the artists we've invited, Joy Enriquez, has created like hundreds of tiny ceramic spoons. They're thinking a lot about how does one articulate when they need support. They talk about it as if one only has so many spoons to use in a day, but you have way more things you need to do with those spoons. How do you survive that? How do you ask for support? How do you allocate those spoons to this kind of overwhelming existence? They have all these really beautiful prompts that will be printed on a card to take away, but then also you can take away a ceramic spoon that they've been spending many hours in a ceramic studio, making and firing. I think there's this idea too, that there's many, many ways one can use that spoon that can exist to support your day to day that you might not think about. So they have some things that are about how one might hold or touch the spoon or things you might do with it that isn't just about eating. That also really embodies the spirit of this project, that it's also not just about potlucks in the sense of like, bring food to a table, but that it's about this kind of space to share knowledge, to share resources, to exchange things when you don't feel like you have the thing you're supposed to bring, or you can't meet the expectation, the greater expectations of what is supposed to occur in that moment. But that the potluck is a space for us to share and support each other in ways that we maybe have not been able to imagine yet.   Miko Lee: [00:50:06] Ooh, I love that. And Mia, how many different artists are there? How many, and how did you go about selecting all these different artists that are participating?   Mia Nakano: [00:50:15] There's over a dozen artists who are participating, and we collectively just started brainstorming and extending out invitations to our various communities and folks that we've worked with in the past, folks who, have participated in Related Tactic shows or know, you know, through other pathways and connections. And then I just reached out to a few Visibility Project participants, even folks going back that I interviewed over 15 years ago to ask if they would be willing to participate. Each person was invited to create one prompt, one initial prompt of what the potluck would be, like if they were to have a potluck, right? So we have somebody who put forth a potluck for screaming, a potluck for nourishing. So different artists are putting forth their own individual potlucks, and one prompt connected to that, and then folks will be able to use that as a seed to create their own gathering spaces in the future.   Miko Lee: [00:51:15] If there's an action word that you would want people to walk away with, what's that action word after they go to see your exhibit? What is the verb that you want them to do?   Weston Teruya: [00:51:27] I think it might be gather. That's sort of the crux of what we're hoping to seed.   Miko Lee: [00:51:33] What about an emotion? Is there an emotion you want folks to walk away with?   Mia Nakano: [00:51:38] I like the idea of gathering, in that also kind of to be able to connect, right? Like we're not just coming together, like we're building something that we want to connect and maintain.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:51:50] Yeah. And I think also like exchanging, right? It's like something really active is happening, there's an exchange, everybody's kind of, there's like a reciprocity too. That you know, that nobody is hosting, like everybody's coming and sharing and exchanging and giving and receiving and maybe nourish is actually the right, I don't know if nourish is an emotion, but I think in the social justice world it is. [Laughs] So it feels like nourish actually is probably a useful emotion. I think reciprocity is also like a feeling that should happen, that when you are giving you're not doing so to the point of extraction because you are also receiving. And that's I think one of the core things about this project wasn't just about Related Tactics and or Visibility Project offering ideas. It was like, we have created a prompt for a potluck and in many ways audience members will come into the show and see our potluck because it will have all these contributions from all these other artists. And so you get to kind of leave with like a goodie bag, doggie bag that is like the kind of residue of our potluck. We hope that folks go home and do that for themselves within their communities, either using our prompts or using our prompts as a platform to create their own space.   Miko Lee: [00:53:18] Is there a perfect amount of people to attend a potluck? Like how many dishes do you want at your potluck?   Michelle K Carlson: [00:53:26] I feel like we're in like a seven to ten vibe. Like 15 tops, then it's too many. You know, it's like, because not too many, but it, there's a different thing that's happening when you get over 15 people in a room. But like, I feel like 10 is the zone where you can still have kind of like close intimate, you know, conversations where you can like build trust, you can spend some time, get around to see everyone, get a little bit of everybody's, you know, contribution, and then, but it's not like so small that it's like you and one other person and you're on a very awkward blind date or something.   Miko Lee: [00:54:09] And are you all down for the themed potlucks or do you like them to be just open ended, bring whatever you want?   Mia Nakano: [00:54:17] I love a themed potluck. I love just like some sort of container where you're going in and you're acknowledging I've got dessert, or we're gonna go over to Southeast Asia, rather than everybody showing up with ten pots of rice and they're just eating rice all night.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:54:35] Or tortilla chips, or like Trader Joe's brownie bites, like five containers of those. No shame on brownie bites.   Miko Lee: [00:54:44] Okay, how can folks find out more about your work?   Mia Nakano: [00:54:48] So folks want to check out what the Visibility Project is doing, you can go to visibilityproject.org and learn about all the participants and hear their stories and even go on an LGBTQ digital history tour of the Asian American community in the Bay Area.   Michelle K Carlson: [00:55:04] If you want to find out more about Related Tactics, you can go to relatedtactics.com or find us on Instagram and our handle is just at Related Tactics.   Miko Lee: [00:55:15] Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing your work in the show and feeling nourished and planning my next potluck. Thank you so much. So that was a chance to listen to just a few of the artivists that are part of Walking Stories. You got a little insight into where they're coming from and how they created their pieces. And there's so many more artivists that you didn't get to hear from. So I hope you'll come to our exhibit that runs June 29th through the end of December. We'll be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. We'll put a link in the show notes at our website kpfa.org backslash programs, backslash apex express. We hope that you'll join us and share your story too, because all of us have important stories to tell. Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.   The post APEX Express – June 13, 2024- Walking Stories appeared first on KPFA.

Since its founding in 2018, Chopsticks Alley Art has been a platform that elevates the perspectives and cultures of Southeast Asian Americans through a blend of cultural events, traditional art forms education, and carefully curated gallery exhibitions. The programming at Chopsticks Alley Art has provided a voice for young artists and empowered them to create positive changes within their communities.Trami Nguyen Cron, author and visionary behind Chopsticks Alley Art, has a personal connection to the organization's mission. Growing up amidst a tapestry of diverse world cultures, she experienced the struggles of Vietnamese immigrants fleeing post-war Vietnam. Her journey as a Vietnamese American, chronicled in her work, is a testament to her commitment to empowering her community and reclaiming their narrative. Trami's inspiring story has been featured in episode #31 of the Content Magazine Podcast and Issue 12.2, “Sight & Sound.”Join Chopsticks Alley Art this summer for Artist Phuc Van Dang's residency on view through August 11, their youth summer arts camp through July 26, and their Second Wednesday CreativiTEA Monthly Open Mic.Mark your calendars for Thursday, June 13, when Creekside Socials and Chopsticks Alley will collaborate. Stay Tuned. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/content-magazine/support

In The Refugee Aesthetic: Reimagining Southeast Asian America (Temple University Press, 2021), Timothy K. August centers Southeast Asian American writers and artists to develop a theory of refugee aesthetics as a way of considering how aesthetic forms are created and contested by refugees, nonrefugees, and institutions alike. On this episode of New Books in Asian American Studies, Timothy K. August discusses the contradictions in how refugee stories are read as arising from exceptional circumstances even as the ever-increasing number of refugees renders refugeeness a remarkably everyday experience; the importance of aesthetics as a means by which refugees are able to contest—and reimagine—the refugee narratives that have been created through institutional and bureaucratic definitions of refugees; how refugee writers reconcile demands that they explain their experiences or perform their humanity within their own art and writing; and more. The Refugee Aesthetic examines a range of literary and artistic works by refugees, including poems, novels, graphic novels, and visual art, by writers and artists including Bao Phi, Monique Truong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohsin Hamid, Gia-Bao Tran, and more, to argue for the agency of refugees as cultural producers who are redefining a politically, bureaucratically produced refugee image and instead imagining a plural form of refugee aesthetics. Please note that this episode was recorded prior to the events of October 7, 2023. Timothy August is an Associate Professor of English at Stony Brook University. Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and researcher based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Refugee Aesthetic: Reimagining Southeast Asian America (Temple University Press, 2021), Timothy K. August centers Southeast Asian American writers and artists to develop a theory of refugee aesthetics as a way of considering how aesthetic forms are created and contested by refugees, nonrefugees, and institutions alike. On this episode of New Books in Asian American Studies, Timothy K. August discusses the contradictions in how refugee stories are read as arising from exceptional circumstances even as the ever-increasing number of refugees renders refugeeness a remarkably everyday experience; the importance of aesthetics as a means by which refugees are able to contest—and reimagine—the refugee narratives that have been created through institutional and bureaucratic definitions of refugees; how refugee writers reconcile demands that they explain their experiences or perform their humanity within their own art and writing; and more. The Refugee Aesthetic examines a range of literary and artistic works by refugees, including poems, novels, graphic novels, and visual art, by writers and artists including Bao Phi, Monique Truong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohsin Hamid, Gia-Bao Tran, and more, to argue for the agency of refugees as cultural producers who are redefining a politically, bureaucratically produced refugee image and instead imagining a plural form of refugee aesthetics. Please note that this episode was recorded prior to the events of October 7, 2023. Timothy August is an Associate Professor of English at Stony Brook University. Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and researcher based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

In The Refugee Aesthetic: Reimagining Southeast Asian America (Temple University Press, 2021), Timothy K. August centers Southeast Asian American writers and artists to develop a theory of refugee aesthetics as a way of considering how aesthetic forms are created and contested by refugees, nonrefugees, and institutions alike. On this episode of New Books in Asian American Studies, Timothy K. August discusses the contradictions in how refugee stories are read as arising from exceptional circumstances even as the ever-increasing number of refugees renders refugeeness a remarkably everyday experience; the importance of aesthetics as a means by which refugees are able to contest—and reimagine—the refugee narratives that have been created through institutional and bureaucratic definitions of refugees; how refugee writers reconcile demands that they explain their experiences or perform their humanity within their own art and writing; and more. The Refugee Aesthetic examines a range of literary and artistic works by refugees, including poems, novels, graphic novels, and visual art, by writers and artists including Bao Phi, Monique Truong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohsin Hamid, Gia-Bao Tran, and more, to argue for the agency of refugees as cultural producers who are redefining a politically, bureaucratically produced refugee image and instead imagining a plural form of refugee aesthetics. Please note that this episode was recorded prior to the events of October 7, 2023. Timothy August is an Associate Professor of English at Stony Brook University. Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and researcher based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In The Refugee Aesthetic: Reimagining Southeast Asian America (Temple University Press, 2021), Timothy K. August centers Southeast Asian American writers and artists to develop a theory of refugee aesthetics as a way of considering how aesthetic forms are created and contested by refugees, nonrefugees, and institutions alike. On this episode of New Books in Asian American Studies, Timothy K. August discusses the contradictions in how refugee stories are read as arising from exceptional circumstances even as the ever-increasing number of refugees renders refugeeness a remarkably everyday experience; the importance of aesthetics as a means by which refugees are able to contest—and reimagine—the refugee narratives that have been created through institutional and bureaucratic definitions of refugees; how refugee writers reconcile demands that they explain their experiences or perform their humanity within their own art and writing; and more. The Refugee Aesthetic examines a range of literary and artistic works by refugees, including poems, novels, graphic novels, and visual art, by writers and artists including Bao Phi, Monique Truong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohsin Hamid, Gia-Bao Tran, and more, to argue for the agency of refugees as cultural producers who are redefining a politically, bureaucratically produced refugee image and instead imagining a plural form of refugee aesthetics. Please note that this episode was recorded prior to the events of October 7, 2023. Timothy August is an Associate Professor of English at Stony Brook University. Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and researcher based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In The Refugee Aesthetic: Reimagining Southeast Asian America (Temple University Press, 2021), Timothy K. August centers Southeast Asian American writers and artists to develop a theory of refugee aesthetics as a way of considering how aesthetic forms are created and contested by refugees, nonrefugees, and institutions alike. On this episode of New Books in Asian American Studies, Timothy K. August discusses the contradictions in how refugee stories are read as arising from exceptional circumstances even as the ever-increasing number of refugees renders refugeeness a remarkably everyday experience; the importance of aesthetics as a means by which refugees are able to contest—and reimagine—the refugee narratives that have been created through institutional and bureaucratic definitions of refugees; how refugee writers reconcile demands that they explain their experiences or perform their humanity within their own art and writing; and more. The Refugee Aesthetic examines a range of literary and artistic works by refugees, including poems, novels, graphic novels, and visual art, by writers and artists including Bao Phi, Monique Truong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohsin Hamid, Gia-Bao Tran, and more, to argue for the agency of refugees as cultural producers who are redefining a politically, bureaucratically produced refugee image and instead imagining a plural form of refugee aesthetics. Please note that this episode was recorded prior to the events of October 7, 2023. Timothy August is an Associate Professor of English at Stony Brook University. Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and researcher based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Does Asian American solidarity exist? How can nonprofits genuinely engage with the community? How do Asian Americans interact with politics and organizing? In June 2023, seven Asian-led organizations in the Twin Cities hosted a community event, Spring into Action: Cultivating Grassroots Asian Power. As nonprofits whose mission is to uplift the community, we must also be accountable to what the community wants and needs. During the event, attendees had the opportunity to participate in a live podcast recording as a way to ground our work in community voices and provide an empowering space for young people to tell their stories. In Part 2 of this installment, three of the organizers of Spring into Action, Jacqueline (she/her), Marie (she/they), and Tri (he/anh), sit down to talk in-depth about the prompts we posed to our community members at the event. Tune in to hear us discuss topics like affirmative action, ABGs, and eating egg sandwiches in Minneapolis. In Part 1, you will hear the raw audio and stories from participants at the event. Attendees as young as eleven years old share their perspectives on their neighborhoods, issues they care about, and building Asian power. Head over to the previous episode to listen. Thank you to our partner organizations, The SEAD Project, Siengkane Lao MN, SEIU Asian Pacific Islanders Caucus, MN8, Coalition of Asian American Leaders, and Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League, and to Tri Vo from The SEAD Project for collaborating on this audio project with us. For more info on AAOP, head to our: Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Participate in Tri's project at SEAD, Brave Harbors, which aims to strengthen the framing of and tools available to Southeast Asian peoples needed to build up a world from our hopes and imagination. To build this new world, SEAD needs to hear from you! Head to tinyurl.com/summerSEAD to share your thoughts and feelings as a Southeast Asian American.

What do young Asian Americans care about? What issues are important to them? What is their vision for their neighborhoods and communities? In June 2023, seven Asian-led organizations in the Twin Cities hosted a community event, Spring into Action: Cultivating Grassroots Asian Power. As nonprofits whose mission is to uplift the community, we must also be accountable to what the community wants and needs. During the event, attendees had the opportunity to participate in a live podcast recording as a way to ground our work in community voices and provide an empowering space for young people to tell their stories. In Part 1 of this installment of New Narratives, you will hear the raw audio and stories from participants at the event. Attendees as young as eleven years old share their perspectives on their neighborhoods, issues they care about, and building Asian power. In Part 2, three of the organizers of Spring into Action, Jacqueline (she/her), Marie (she/they), and Tri (he/anh), sit down to talk in-depth about the prompts we posed to our community members at the event. Head on over to the next episode to hear us discuss topics like affirmative action, ABGs, and eating egg sandwiches in Minneapolis. Thank you to our partner organizations, The SEAD Project, Siengkane Lao MN, SEIU Asian Pacific Islanders Caucus, MN8, Coalition of Asian American Leaders, and Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League, and to Tri Vo from The SEAD Project for collaborating on this audio project with us. For more info on AAOP, head to our: Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Participate in Tri's project at SEAD, Brave Harbors, which aims to strengthen the framing of and tools available to Southeast Asian peoples needed to build up a world from our hopes and imagination. To build this new world, SEAD needs to hear from you! Head to tinyurl.com/summerSEAD to share your thoughts and feelings as a Southeast Asian American.

Replay: Southeast Asian American ArchitectsLeaders of the profession share diverse perspectives on race, equity, and architecture.Practice Disrupted is committed to elevating conversations on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion to teach, empower, and build greater awareness across the industry. Building from prior diversity conversations, this week we learn about Southeast Asian Architects. Guests:Meghana Joshi, AIA, NOMA is a strong proponent of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice in the architecture profession. At SoCal NOMA, she is a Director of Outreach and Recruitment for Project Pipeline and works towards increasing minority representation in architecture through summer camps for middle and high school students. She founded AIA Orange County's Women in Architecture Committee in 2015 to give a platform for Orange County firms to meaningfully contribute towards the improvement of professional conditions for women in architecture. She joined AIA Orange County's Board of Directors in 2019 and founded EDI+J Committee to increase minority representation through mentorship in leadership. She founded “Project Amplify” to amplify voices and works of minority architects in the AEC industry. She is an active member of ULI-OC/IE's Office and Commercial Product Council. She is currently engaged in bringing ULI's Urban Plan program to educate underrepresented demographics and communities. She is also an active member and advocate for “Belong at Little” – Little's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force.Suyama Bodhinayake, Assoc. AIA diverse experience in architecture spans three continents, shaping his commitment to design excellence, sustainability and service. He currently resides and works in Southern California. Throughout his career, Suyama appreciates the opportunities to contribute to international and national award-winning projects, as well as the opportunities to serve the profession through a variety of leadership roles within the AIA. Since 2018, he has been a member of the AIA Orange County (AIA OC) Committee on the Environment (COTE) and a founding member of the COTE Southern California Coalition in 2019. In 2020, he joined the AIA OC's Board of Directors and has since served as the chapter's Director of Sustainability and the Chair of COTE, leading a multi-faceted approach to promoting sustainability. As a member of the AIA California COTE Advocacy Task Force, he advocates for building decarbonization policies at a local and state level. Suyama is committed to sustainability as part of design excellence. As a member of AIA OC's Design Awards committee, he guided the process of how every AIA OC design awards submission must now comply with the AIA's Framework for Design Excellence. Additionally, Suyama advocates for architects to be recognized as stewards of the built environment. He was nominated, and currently serves as AIA Orange County's first Director of Advocacy. He has advanced AIA's role as a leader in sustainability within communities around Orange County, California. He has been supporting education in architecture since 2016, serving on the Advisory Board for the Architectural Technology Program at Orange Coast College.As a champion of causes that impact our future, Suyama firmly believe in the Native American saying, “we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Farah Naz Ahmad is an Architect and LEED Accredited Professional based in New York City, specializing in building sustainability and green building standards. Her public sector experience in city government agencies includes sustainable design review of projects, assessment and development of technical standards and energy code compliance. Additionally, Farah is engaged in green building journalism, spreading awareness on environmental policy and...

Twelve award-winning and bestselling East and Southeast Asian American authors explore themes of identity and belonging in You Are Here: Connecting Flights, edited by Ellen Oh. With interwoven stories all taking place in a teeming Chicago airport, the book details the entwined experiences of young people whose family roots may extend to East and Southeast Asia, but who are themselves distinctly American. An incident at a TSA security check point sows chaos and rumors, creating a chain of events that impacts twelve young Asian Americans in a crowded and restless airport. As their disrupted journeys crisscross and collide, they encounter fellow travelers—some helpful, some hostile—as they discover the challenges of friendship, the power of courage, the importance of the right word at the right time, and the unexpected significance of a blue Stratocaster electric guitar. With stories from Linda Sue Park, Erin Entrada Kelly, Randy Ribay, Grace Lin, Traci Chee, Mike Chen, Meredith Ireland, Mike Jung, Minh Le, Ellen Oh, Christina Soontornvat, and Susan Tan, YOU ARE HERE: CONNECTING FLIGHTS is the premier release from HarperCollins Children's Books' new imprint, Allida. Created to publish books for children and teens, the imprint's mission is to encourage marginalized writers and artists to explore the stories they are most passionate about and to craft narratives that defy expectations.

Twelve award-winning and bestselling East and Southeast Asian American authors explore themes of identity and belonging in You Are Here: Connecting Flights, edited by Ellen Oh. With interwoven stories all taking place in a teeming Chicago airport, the book details the entwined experiences of young people whose family roots may extend to East and Southeast Asia, but who are themselves distinctly American. An incident at a TSA security check point sows chaos and rumors, creating a chain of events that impacts twelve young Asian Americans in a crowded and restless airport. As their disrupted journeys crisscross and collide, they encounter fellow travelers—some helpful, some hostile—as they discover the challenges of friendship, the power of courage, the importance of the right word at the right time, and the unexpected significance of a blue Stratocaster electric guitar. With stories from Linda Sue Park, Erin Entrada Kelly, Randy Ribay, Grace Lin, Traci Chee, Mike Chen, Meredith Ireland, Mike Jung, Minh Le, Ellen Oh, Christina Soontornvat, and Susan Tan, YOU ARE HERE: CONNECTING FLIGHTS is the premier release from HarperCollins Children's Books' new imprint, Allida. Created to publish books for children and teens, the imprint's mission is to encourage marginalized writers and artists to explore the stories they are most passionate about and to craft narratives that defy expectations.

In this episode, Elin and Christina have a conversation about data. Not just talking about how data can be used and understood to do our job as educators but how it can make REAL change. Join them as they talk with Rattana Yeang, a data analyst for a large school district. Rattana Yeang, a data analyst from Oakland Unified School District's department of Research, Assessment & Data. Rattana has served Oakland schools since 2008 and his day-to-day involves helping educators make more informed, data-driven decisions that empower Oakland Unified kids. Outside of OUSD, Rattana has devoted much of his time to community and advocacy work. December 2022 marks his official retirement from serving as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster youth in Alameda County. As a CASA Rattana provided one-on-one court advocacy to abused, neglected, and abandoned children who are dependents of the juvenile court. Before that, he served 6 years on the Board of Directors for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), the only national civil rights organization that focuses on the needs of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American communities and in 2016, Rattana Co-Chaired the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund (NSRCF) which awarded $50,000 worth of scholarship money to college-bound Southeast Asian American students from the Bay Area. With most of his volunteer commitments behind him, he's devoting most of his time and energy to memoir writing. --- Buy our Book: The Power of Reflection Book a Call with Us for 1:1 Coaching Free Vision & Mission Guide Follow us on Instagram: @elinandchristina Facebook: Empowered Conversations with Elin & Christina Check out our website at www.empoweredconversationspodcast.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/elinandchristina/support

Mike Hoa Nguyen, assistant professor of education, faculty affiliate at the Institute for Human Development and Social Change, and faculty affiliate at the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools at New York University, leads the conversation on affirmative action. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to CFR's Higher Education Webinar. I'm Irina Faskianos, Vice President of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Mike Hoa Nguyen with us to discuss affirmative action. Dr. Nguyen is assistant professor of education at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He's also a faculty affiliate at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools and a faculty affiliate at NYU's Institute for Human Development and Social Change. Additionally, Dr. Nguyen is a principal investigator of the Minority Serving Institutions Data Project. And prior to coming to NYU he was at the University of Denver. He has extensive professional experience in the federal government and has managed multiple complex, long-term intergovernmental projects and initiatives, focusing on postsecondary education and the judiciary and has published his work widely, including in Educational Researcher, The Journal of Higher Education, and The Review of Higher Education. So Mike, thanks very much for being with us today to talk about affirmative action. Could you give us an overview of where we are, the history of affirmative action, where we are now, and examples of criteria that are used by different institutions? NGUYEN: Well, hello. And thank you so much, Irina. And also thank you to the Council on Foreign Relations for having me here today. It's a real honor. And thank you to many of you who are joining us today out of your busy schedules. I'm sure that many of you have been following the news for Harvard and UNC. And, of course, those cases were just heard at the Supreme Court about a month ago, on Halloween. And so today thank you for those questions. I'd love to be able to spend a little bit of time talking about the history of sort of what led us to this point. I also recognize that many joining us are also experts on this topic. So I really look forward to the conversation after my initial remarks. And so affirmative action, I think, as Philip Rubio has written, comes from centuries-old English legal concept of equity, right, or the administration of justice according to what is fair in a particular situation, as opposed to rigidly following a set of rules. It's defined by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1977 as a term that is a broad—a term, in a broad sense, that encompasses any measure beyond a simple termination of discriminatory practice adopted to correct for past or present discrimination or to prevent discrimination from recurring in the future. Academics have defined affirmative action simply as something more than passive nondiscrimination, right. It means various organizations must act positively, affirmatively, and aggressively to remove all barriers, however informal or subtle, that prevent access by minorities and women to their rightful places in the employment and educational institutions of the United States. And certainly one of the earliest appearances of this term, affirmative action, in government documents came when President Kennedy, in his 1961 executive order, where he wrote that the mandate stated that government contractors, specifically those that were receiving federal dollars to, quote, take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and employees are treated during employment without regard of their race, creed, color, or national origin. Certainly President Kennedy created a committee on equal employment opportunity to make recommendations for this. And then later on President Johnson later expressed—I'm sorry—expanded on President Kennedy's approach to take a sort of more active antiracist posture, which he signaled in a commencement speech at Howard University. In the decades following, of course, political-legal attacks have rolled back on how affirmative action can be implemented and for what purposes. So in admissions practices at U.S. colleges and universities today, really they can only consider race as one of many factors through a holistic process or holistic practices if so-called race-neutral approaches to admissions policies have fallen short in allowing for a campus to enroll a racially diverse class in order to achieve or reap the benefits of diversity, the educational benefits of diversity. Federal case law established by the courts have affirmed and reaffirmed that colleges may only consider race as one of many factors for the purposes of obtaining the educational benefits in diversity. So starting with the Bakke decision in the late 1970s, the Court limited the consideration of race in admissions and replaced the rationale for the use of race, specifically the rationale which was addressing historic and ongoing racism or systemic and racial oppression, instead in favor of the diversity rationale. So, in other words, if a college or university wishes to use race in their admissions, they can only do so with the intention of enhancing the educational benefits of all students. It may not legally use race as a part of their admissions process for the purpose of acknowledging historical or contemporary racism as barriers to equity in college access. If we fast-forward to something more recent, the two cases out of Michigan, the Grutter and Gratz case, what we saw there were really—significant part of the discussions of these two cases were really informed and conversations really about the educational benefits of diversity. That was really a key aspect of those cases. Lawsuits challenging the use of race in college admissions after those two cases now can sort of be traced to Edward Blum, a conservative activist, and his organization, Students for Fair Admission, or SFFA. So Blum has really dedicated his life to establishing what he calls a colorblind American society by filing lawsuits with the goal of dismantling laws and policies seeking to advance racial justice. This includes redistricting, voting rights, and, of course, affirmative action. So in 2000—in the 2000s, he recruited Abigail Fisher to challenge the University of Texas in their admissions program. The Court, the Supreme Court, ultimately ruled in favor of Texas in the second Fisher case—Fisher II, as we call it. And so that's actually where we saw Ed Blum alter his tactics. In this case he established SFFA, where he then purposefully recruited Asian Americans as plaintiffs in order to sue Harvard and UNC. So the cases now at Harvard—are now certainly at the Supreme Court. But one sort of less-known case that hasn't got a whole lot of attention, actually, was—that was sort of on the parallel track, actually originated from the U.S. Department of Justice more recently, during the Trump administration, which launched an investigation into Yale's admissions practices, which also focus on Asian Americans. And this was around 2018, so not too long ago. And certainly Asian Americans have been engaged in affirmative action debate since the 1970s. But these lawsuits have really placed them front and center in sort of our national debate. And so I think it's really important to also note that while empirical research demonstrates and shows that the majority of Asian Americans are actually in support of affirmative action, a very vocal minority of Asian Americans are certainly opposed to race-conscious admissions and are part of these lawsuit efforts. But interestingly enough, they've received a large and disproportionate share of media attention and sort of—I stress this only because I think popular press and media have done a not-so-great job at reporting on this. And their framing, I think, sometimes relies on old stereotypes, harmful stereotypes, about Asian Americans, and written in a way that starts with an assumption that all Asian Americans are opposed to affirmative action when, again, empirical research and national polls show that that's certainly not the case, right, and much more complex than that. But anyway, so back to what I was saying earlier, in sort of the waning months of the Trump administration the Department of Justice used those investigations into Yale to file a lawsuit charging that Yale in its admissions practices discriminates against Asian Americans. This lawsuit, the DOJ lawsuit, was dropped in February of 2021 when President Biden took office. So in response to that, SFFA submitted its own lawsuit to Yale based upon similar lines of reasoning. So I think what's—why bring this up? One, because it doesn't get a lot of attention. But two, I think it's a really interesting and curious example. So in the Yale case, as well as in the previous DOJ complaint, Ed Blum notes specifically that they exclude Cambodian Americans, Hmong Americans, Laotian Americans, and Vietnamese Americans from the lawsuit, and thus from his definition of what and who counts as Asian American. I think this intentional exclusion of specific Southeast Asian American groups in Yale, but including them in Harvard, is a really interesting and curious note. I've written in the past that, sort of at the practical level, it's a bit—it's not a bit—it's a lot misleading. It's manipulative and advances a bit of a false narrative about Asian Americans. And I think it engages in what we call sort of a racial project to overtly reclassify the Asian American racial category, relying again on old stereotypes about Asian American academic achievement. But it also sort of counters state-based racial and ethnic classifications used by the Census Bureau, used by the Department of Education, used by OMB, right. It does not consider how Southeast Asian Americans have been and are racialized, as well as how they've built pan-ethnic Asian American coalitions along within and with other Asian American subgroups. So the implications of this sort of intentional racialized action, I think, are threefold. First, this process, sort of trying to redefine who is Asian American and who isn't, demonstrates that SFFA cannot effectively argue that race-conscious admissions harms Asian Americans. They wouldn't be excluded if that was the case. Second, it illustrates that Ed Blum and his crusade for sort of race—not using race in college admissions is actually really not focused on advancing justice for Asian Americans, as he claims. And then finally, I think that this maneuver, if realized, will really disenfranchise educational access and opportunity for many Asian Americans, including Southeast Asian Americans and other communities of color. Of course, this case hasn't received a lot of attention, given that we just heard from Harvard and UNC at the Supreme Court about a month ago. But I think it provides some really important considerations regarding the upcoming Supreme Court decision. Nonetheless the decision for Harvard and UNC, we're all sort of on pins and needles until we hear about it in spring and summer. And I was there in Washington for it, and so what I'd actually like to do is actually share some interesting notes and items that sort of struck out to me during the oral arguments. So I think in both cases we heard the justices ask many questions regarding the twenty-five-year sunset of using race in college admissions, right, something that Justice O'Connor wrote in the Michigan case. I think the solicitor general, Solicitor General Prelogar's response at the conclusion of the case was really insightful. She said—and I'm sort of paraphrasing here about why we—in addressing some of the questions about that twenty-five-year sunset, she basically said that society hasn't made enough progress yet. The arc of progress is slower than what the Grutter court had imagined. And so we just suddenly don't hit 2028—that's twenty-five years from the decision—and then, snap, race is not used in college admissions anymore. There was also a lot of discussion regarding proxy approaches to so-called race-neutral admissions, right, yet still being able to maintain some or similar levels of racial diversity. I think what we know from a lot of empirical research out there is that there's really no good proxy variables for race. Certainly Texas has its 10 percent plan, which really only works to a certain extent and does not actually work well for, say, private schools that draw students from across all fifty states and the territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. And again, as the solicitor general stated, it doesn't work well for the service academies either, for really similar reasons. I do think the line of questioning from the chief justice again related to what sounded like a carveout exemption for our U.S. military schools, our service academies. What's really interesting, and might be of actually specific interest for the CFR community, of course, our service academies practice affirmative action and are in support of it. And this was also argued in an amicus brief written by retired generals and admirals. And they argued that race-conscious admissions is necessary to build a diverse officer corps at both the service academies as well as ROTC programs at various universities across the country, which, in their words, they say builds a more cohesive, collaborative, and effective fighting unit, especially, quote, given recent international conflicts and humanitarian crises which require our military to perform civil functions and call for heightened cultural awareness and sensitivity in religious issues. And so, to a certain extent, I think that same line of logic can also be extended to, for example, our diplomatic corps, and certainly many corporations. We also saw briefs from the field of medicine, from science and research, have all written in support of race-conscious admissions, along the same sort of pipeline issues as their companies and organizations. And they argue that their work benefits from a highly educated, diverse workforce. But what was interesting, was that there wasn't much discussion about Asian Americans. It was only brought up sort of a handful of times, despite the fact that certainly that's sort of the origin story of the sets of lawsuits. And perhaps—to me perhaps this is simply an indication that the case was really never about Asian Americans from the beginning. And certainly the finding from the district court shows that Asian Americans are not discriminated in this process at Harvard. And so we will all sort of see how the Court rules next year, if they uphold precedent or not, and if they do not, how narrow or how broad they will go. Justice Barrett did have an interesting question in the UNC part of the case about affinity groups and affinity housing on campus. So, for example, my undergraduate alma mater, UC Berkeley, has this for several groups. They have affinity housing for Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, women in STEM, the LGBTQ+ community, Latinx students, among many, many others, actually. So I think a possible area of concern is if they go broad, will we see a ban on these types of race-based practices on campus? Would that impact sort of thinking about recruitment efforts? So these so-called race-neutral approaches, sort of recruitment and outreach services for particular communities. Or would that impact something like HBCUs and tribal colleges, HSIs and AANAPISIs, or other MSIs? How does that all fit in, right? I think that line of questioning sort of sparked a bit of concern from folks and my colleagues. But I think, though, in conversation, we don't think the Court has really any appetite to go that far. And I'm certainly inclined to agree. But end of the day, that line of questioning was rather curious. And so, with that, I thank you for letting me share some of my thinking and about what's going on. And I would really love to be able to engage in conversation with all of you. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you so much. And we'd love to hear now from you all questions and comments, and if you could share how things are happening on your campuses. Please raise—click on the raised-hand icon on your screen to ask a question. If you're on an iPad or tablet, you can click the More button to access the raised-hand feature. I'll call on you, and then accept the unmute prompt, state your name and affiliation, followed by your question. You can also submit a written question in the Q&A box or vote for questions that have been written there. And if you do write your question, it would be great if you could write who you are. I'm going to go first to a raised hand, Morton Holbrook. And there you go. Q: I'm there, yeah. Morton Holbrook from Kentucky Wesleyan College in Kentucky. Thanks, Professor Nguyen. Sort of a two-part question here. One is, how do you reconcile apparent public support for affirmative action with the number of states, I think ten or twelve states, that have banned affirmative action? Are their legislators just out of touch with their people, or what? And the second part is, a recent article in the Washington Post about UC Berkeley's experience, where the number of African American students simply plummeted down to about 3 percent, and at the same time that campus is still very diverse in other respects. Have you made a study of all the states that have banned affirmative action? Have they all had that same result with regard to African Americans? Or where does that stand? Thank you. NGUYEN: Thank you. Thank you for the really excellent question. I think it's about—I think you're right—around nine, ten or so states that have banned affirmative action. You know, I'll be completely honest with you. I'm really just familiar with the bans that were instituted both in California and in Michigan, and those were through state referendums, right, and not necessarily legislature. So in this case, this is the people voting for it. And so I think that's a really tough nut to crack about how do you reconcile these bans at the state level versus sort of what we see at the national level. And so I think this is sort of the big challenge that advocates for racial equity are facing in places like California. They actually tried to repeal this in California recently, in the last decade. And again, that failed. And so I think part of the issue here is there's a whole lot of misinformation out there. I think that's one key issue. I sort of said in my opening remarks there that, at least in some of the popular media pieces today about these cases, the way Asian Americans are sort of understood and written about is really not aligned with a lot of the rich empirical research out there that shows quite the contrary, as well as sort of historical research that shows quite the contrary. And so I think there's a lot of public opinion being formulated as well as, again, just sort of misinformation about the topic that might be leading folks to think one way or another. To your second question about UC Berkeley, my alma mater, you're right. After that Prop 209 ban, you saw a huge decline in undergraduate enrollment, specifically of African American students. And so Berkeley has been trying every which way to figure out a race—a so-called race-neutral approach in order to increase those numbers. And I think they are trying to—they are really trying to figure it out. And I think that's why UC Berkeley, UCLA, other institutions submitted amicus briefs in support of Harvard, in support of UNC, because they know that there are not a lot—when you can't use race, that's a result that you end up with. And that's because there are just not good proxy variables for race. SES or economic status is often talked about a lot. That again isn't a good variable. Geography can—to a certain extent can be used. All these can sort of certainly be used in some combination. But again, they do not serve well as proxy variables. And I think that's why we see those numbers at Berkeley. And I think that's why Berkeley was so invested in this case and why all those campus leaders submitted amicus briefs in support of Harvard and UNC. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next written question or first written question from Darko Spasevski, who's at the University of Skopje, North Macedonia: Do you think that in order to have successful affirmative actions in the higher education this process should be followed by affirmative actions in the workplace? Are the benefits—if the affirmative actions are only promoted at the level of higher education but are not at the same time continuing at the workplace? I guess it would be the opposite. Is it—you know, basically, should affirmative action be promoted in the workplace as well— NGUYEN: Yeah, I think— FASKIANOS: —once you get past the higher education? NGUYEN: Got it. Yeah, I think I understand that question. Actually, this was something that came up during this recent Supreme Court case. Again, the solicitor general was talking about specifically the briefs from the retired generals and admirals, as well as from various executives and corporations, talking about how affirmative action is so important at the university level because then it helps build a pipeline to recruit folks to work at those organizations or serve in the military, as well as that it trains all students, right, and lets them access and achieve the benefits of diversity and use that in their future employment, which research from areas of management show that that increases work productivity. It increases their bottom line, et cetera, et cetera. And so actually, in that argument, the—I think it was Justice Alito that asked, are you now arguing for this in the private sector, in corporations? And the solicitor general quickly said no, no. The context of this lawsuit is specifically or the position of the United States is specifically just focused here on higher education. And I think that certainly is relevant for this conversation today, as well as sort of my own area of expertise. But I think my colleagues in the areas of management and a lot of that work shows, I think, similar types of results that, when you have diverse workforces, when you have folks who can reap the benefits of diversity interactions, interracial interactions, then there are certainly a lot of benefits that come from that, in addition to creativity, work efficiency, so many things. And so, again, I'm not here to sort of put a position down regarding affirmative action in professional settings, only because that's not my area of expertise. But certainly other areas of research have pointed in similar directions as what's sort of shown in the higher-education literature. FASKIANOS: (Off mic) Renteln? And let's see if you can unmute yourself. If you click on the unmute prompt, you should be able to ask your question. Not working? Maybe not. OK, so I will read it. So— Q: Is it working now? FASKIANOS: It is, Alison. Go ahead. Q: Thank you. I'm sorry. It's just usually it shows me when I'm teaching. Thank you for a really interesting, incisive analysis; really enjoyed it. I wanted to ask about whether it's realistic to be able to implement policies that are, quote, race-neutral, unquote, given that people's surnames convey sometimes identities, ethnic and religious identities, and also activities that people participated in in professional associations. And when people have references or letters of recommendation, information about background comes out. So I'm wondering if you think that this debate really reflects a kind of polarization, a kind of symbolitics, and whether, while some worry about the consequences of the Supreme Court's decisions, this is really something that's more symbolic than something that could actually be implemented if the universities continue to be committed to affirmative action. NGUYEN: Really great question. Thank you so much for asking it. This was actually a big chunk of the conversation during oral arguments for both at UNC and both at Harvard, right. The justices were asking, so how do you—if you don't—and this was sort of the whole part about when they were talking about checking the box, checking sort of your racial category during the application process. And so they asked, if you get rid of that, what happens when students write about their experiences in their personal statements or, as you said, recommenders in their letters in about that? And so this was where it got really, really—I think the lawyers had a really hard time disentangling it, because for people of color, certainly a lot of their experiences, their racialized experiences, are inextricably linked to their race and their identity. And so removing that is, at an operationalized level, pretty hard to do and pretty impossible, right. So they actually had some interesting examples, like one—and so they're asking hypotheticals. Both lawyers—both the justices on all the various spectrum of the Court were asking sort of pointed questions. Where I think one justice asked, so can you talk about—can you talk about your family's experiences, particularly if your ancestors were slaves in the United States? And so the lawyers—this is the lawyer for SFFA saying that would not—we cannot use that. They cannot be used in admissions, because that is linked to their race. But can you—so another justice asked, can you talk about if, you know, your family immigrated to the United States? Can you—how do you talk about that? Can you talk about that? And the lawyers said, well, that would be permissible then, because that doesn't necessarily have to be tied to a racial group or a racial category. So again, it's very—I think what they were trying to tease out was how do you—what do you actually—what would actually be the way to restrict that, right? And so I guess, depending on how the justices decide this case, my assumption is or my hope is, depending on whatever way they go, they're going to—they will, one way or another, define or sort of place limits if they do end up removing the use of race. But I completely agree with you. Operationally, that's not an easy thing to do, right? And when do you decide what fits and what doesn't fit? And that will be the—that will be a big, big struggle I think universities will face if the courts ban the use of race in college admissions. FASKIANOS: Let me just add that Alison Dundes Renteln is a professor of political science at the University of Southern California. So I'm going to go to the next written question, from Clemente Abrokwaa at Penn State University: Do you think affirmative action should be redefined to reflect current social-demographic groups and needs? NGUYEN: Oh, that's such a fun question, and particularly for someone who studies race and racial formation in the United States. And so I—you know, this is—this is an interesting one. I think—I think sort of the way we think about—at least folks in my profession think about race versus sort of the way—the way it's currently accounted for in—by state-based classifications/definitions, those tend to be a little bit behind, right? That's normal and natural. But I think what we've seen in the United States over time is race has—or, racial classifications and categories have changed over time and continue to evolve, right? The Census—the Census Bureau has an advisory group to help them think through this when they collect this data. And so—and so I'll be honest with you, I don't have a good answer for you, actually. But I think—I think that certainly, given the fact that racial categories do shift and change over time and the meaning ascribed to them, we certainly need to take a—if we continue using approaches for—race- or ethnic-based approaches in college admissions, that's something that absolutely needs to be considered, right? But at the same time, it also means, as we think about sort of the future and what does that look like—and maybe, for example, here we're talking about folks who are—who identify as mixed race. But at the same time, we need to look historically, too, right? So we don't want to—the historical definitions and the way people would self-identify historically. And so I think—I think, certainly, the answer, then, would be—would be both, right? But what a fun question. Thanks for that question. FASKIANOS: I'm going to take the moderator prerogative here and ask you about: How does affirmative action in higher education in the United States relate to, you know, relations abroad? NGUYEN: Yeah. Well— FASKIANOS: Have you looked at that connection? NGUYEN: Sure. I think—I think that—I think that's really, really interesting. So something that we wrote in our amicus brief particularly regarding—it was sort of in response to SFFA's brief and their claim, which was about sort of why Asian Americans here were so exceptional in their—in their academic achievements. I think that's a—tends to be a big stereotype, model minority stereotype. That is how Asian Americans are racialized. So one thing that we sort of wrote in our brief was this actually is really connected to a certain extent, right—for some Asian American groups in the United States, that's linked to U.S. foreign policy and U.S. immigration policy about who from Asia is allowed to immigrate to the United States, what their sort of educational background and requirements are. And so I think when we think about the arguments being made in this lawsuit and the way Asian Americans are discussed, certainly one key aspect there is certainly connected to historic U.S. foreign policy, particularly around—as well as immigration policy, particularly around the 1965 Immigration Act. So certainly they are connected and they're linked. And something that we—that I wish more people could—more people would read our brief, I guess, and get a good understanding of, sort of to add to the complexity of this lawsuit. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to go back to Morton Holbrook. Q: Yes. Still here at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Speaking of amicus briefs, what do you think of the Catholic college brief from Georgetown University? Here we have a Court that's been very partial towards religious beliefs, and they're arguing that their religious beliefs requires them to seek diversity in college admissions. How do you think they'll fare in that argument? NGUYEN: Yeah. This was also brought up in—during oral arguments. I can't remember if it was during the UNC part or the Harvard part. And I'll be completely honest with you, I haven't read that brief yet. There's just so many and I wasn't able to read them all. But this was a really interesting—really interesting point that was sort of raised in the courts. And I don't—I don't—I don't have a good answer for you, to be completely honest. I'm not sure how they're going to, particularly given that these—that this Court seems to be very much in favor of religious liberty, right, how they would account for that amicus brief from the Catholic institutions. And so that will be an interesting one to watch and to see—to see how it's framed, and certainly it would be interesting if they played an outsized role in the justices' decision-making here. But great question. Great point to raise and something I'll add to my reading list for this weekend. FASKIANOS: So Alison Renteln came back with a question following on mine: Why are numerical quotas acceptable in other countries like India but not in the United States? NGUYEN: Yeah. Great, great question there. You know, also in other places like in Brazil. And so we, in fact, used to use numerical quotas before the Bakke decision. It was the Bakke decision, University of California v. Bakke, that eliminated the use of racial quotas, also eliminated the use of what I said earlier about sort of the rationales for why we can practice race-conscious admissions, which was it cannot be used to address historic racism or ongoing racism. In fact, the only rationale for why we can use affirmative action today as a—as a factor of many factors, is in order to—for universities to build campus environments—diverse campus environments of which there are benefits to diversity, the educational benefits of diversity that flows for all students. And so, yeah, it was the—it was the Supreme Court in the late 1970s that restricted the use of quotas among many other—many other rationales for the practice of race-conscious admissions. Thank you for that question. FASKIANOS: Great. And I'm going to go to next to raised hand from Emily Drew. Q: Great. Thank you. I'm listening in from Oregon, where I'm a sociologist. Thank you for all of these smart comments. My question is a little bit thinking out loud. What do you think about—it feels like there are some perils and dangers, but I'm hoping you'll reframe that for me, of some racialized groups like indigenous people saying, well, we're not a race anyway—we're tribes, we're nations—so that they're not subject to the ban on race-conscious practices, which, it's true, they're a tribe. They're also a racialized group. And so I'm struggling with groups kind of finding a political way around the ban or the potential ban that's coming, but then where does that leave us in terms of, you know, each group, like, take care of your own kind of thing? Can you just react a little bit to that? NGUYEN: Yeah. Thanks for that really wonderful question. Fascinating point about, yeah, the way to say: We're not a racial group. We're sovereign nations or sovereign tribes. I think what we're going to see, depending on how the courts go, are folks trying—schools potentially trying a whole host of different approaches to increase diversity on their campuses if they're not allowed to use some of these racial categories like they've been doing already, in a holistic approach. And so, yeah, that might be a fascinating way for indigenous communities to advance forward. I will say, though, there was one point, again, in the—during oral arguments where they started talking about sort of generational connections to racial categories. And so they're saying if it's my grandparents' grandparents' grandparents, right, so sort of talking almost about, like—at least the way I interpreted it, as sort of thinking about connecting one to a race via blood quantum. And so when does that—when does that expire, right? And so is it—is it—if you're one-sixteenth Native American, is that—does that count? So there was a short line of questioning about that, and I think the—I think the lawyer tried to draw a line in the sand about, like, at what point do you not go—what point does it count and when does it not count. And I think that's actually a bit of a misstep, primarily because that should be determined by the sovereign nation, by the tribe, about who gets to identify as that—as a member of that nation or that tribe and how they—I think—you know, I think, talking to indigenous scholars, they would say it's about how you engage in and how you live in it, rather than—rather than if it's just a percentage. So, again, those will be the tensions, I think, that will—that already exist, I should say, regardless of the Court decision. But a fascinating point about states sort of exercising indigenous law there to see if that would be a way to counter that. Certainly, I should—I should have said at the top of this I'm not trained as a lawyer. And so I have no idea how that would be sort of litigated out, but certainly I imagine all different entities will find ways to move through this without—in various legal fashions. And I was talking to a colleague earlier today about this and he said something about at the end of the day this might be something that, if Congress decided to take up, they may—this would be an opportunity for Congress to take up, to maybe develop a narrow path for institutions. But certainly it's—the courts seem to be the favored way for us to talk about affirmative action. FASKIANOS: There's a written question from John Francis, who is a research professor of political science at the University of Utah: If the Court were to strike down affirmative action, would state universities give much more attention to geographic recruitment within their respective states and encourage private foundations to raise scholarship funds to support students of color who live in those areas? NGUYEN: Great, great question there. And I think that would be one of many things that universities are doing. We're seeing schools where the states have banned affirmative action do things like this, in Michigan and certainly in California. But to a certain extent, it actually doesn't work—I guess in California's context—that well. I think, if I'm not mistaken, the head of admissions for UC Berkeley said in one of many panels—he's wonderful, by the way—on one of many panels, like, that doesn't work very well in the California context because only so many schools have sort of that large concentration of African American students and for them to sort of go there and recruit out of that. So it's not a—the sort of geographic distribution is not so easy and clean cut as—I think as one would normally perceive. And so it actually develops a big, big challenge for state institutions, particularly state flagship institutions, in particular geographic contexts. Now, I don't know if that's the case, say, in other parts of the country. But certainly within the UC system, that seems to be a prevailing argument. And I think more than ever now, everyone has been looking to the UC system for insight on what they—on how to approach this if the courts decide next year to ban the use of race. I should also admit that—or, not admit, but proudly declare that I'm a product of the UC system. All of my postsecondary education is from those schools. And so I know that this has been a constant and ongoing conversation within the UC system, and I imagine that will be the case for schools both public and private across the country. But I think part of that calculation then requires institutions to think about not just from private donors, but really from state legislatures as well as the institutions themselves have to really think about how they want to dedicate resources to achieving diversity if they don't—if they're unable to use race. I think a tremendous amount of resources. So, to a certain extent, it's going to make institutions put their money where their mouth is. And so we'll see if that—this will all be interesting areas to investigate, depending on how the courts decide come next year. FASKIANOS: There's a raised hand or there was a raised hand from Jeff Goldsmith. I don't know if you still have a question. Q: Yeah. So I've been trying to figure out exactly how I might want to pose this question, but I was struck by—sorry, this is Jeff Goldsmith from Columbia University. I was struck by the line of questioning that you mentioned from Justice Barrett about affinity housing and your thoughts about how narrow or far-reaching a decision striking down affirmative action might be. And I guess it seems like there is the potential for at least some gray area. And you know, we run things like summer research programs that are intended to bolster diversity. There are in some cases—you just sort of mentioned the scholarship opportunities focused on increasing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds. And I guess I'm just sort of curious if you have any speculation about how narrow or far-reaching a decision might be. NGUYEN: Thanks for that question. Yeah. So I think this was—we—prior to the—to oral arguments, people had sort of talked about this a little bit. Would this be consequential? And I—in fact, the day before—the day before oral arguments, I was on a different panel and I sort of brought this up. And actually, a federal judge in the audience came up to me afterwards and said, you know, I don't think the Court's got a lot of appetite for that. And I said, hey, I completely agree with you, but certainly, you know, we've—in recent times we've seen the Court do more interesting things, I guess, if you'll—if I can use a euphemism. And so—and so, it almost feels like everything's on the table, right? But I think, generally speaking, I'm inclined to agree that if the courts strike down race-conscious admissions, they will do it in a very narrow and highly-tailored way. That was my feeling going in. That was my feeling on October 30, right? Then, on Halloween—October 31—while listening to the—to the oral arguments, you had that very short exchange between Justice Barrett, specifically during the UNC case, ask about affinity groups and affinity housing, and it felt like it sort of came out of left field. And not—and so I think that raised some curiosity for all of us about what—about why that was a line of questioning. But nonetheless, I think at least my—I've never been a gambling person, but if I were I would say that if they do strike it down that I think the justices wholesale don't—I don't think they would have a large appetite to do something so broad and sweeping like that. At least that's my hope, if that's the direction we're moving in. But I guess that's why I said earlier that we're sort of all on pins and needles about that. And if that is struck down, then I think that's got a lot of consequences for scholarships, recruitment programs, summer bridge programs, potentially minority-serving institutions, and all of the above. So, yeah, I—again, it seems like that's a big reshaping of postsecondary education, not just in admissions but sort of the way they operate overall. And I don't know if that would happen so quickly overnight like that. But that, at least, is my hope. FASKIANOS: (Off mic.) There you go. Q: (Laughs.) Thank you so much for your talk. Clemente Abrokwaa from Penn State University. And my question is, right now there is a push for diversity, equity, and inclusion in many areas. How is that different from affirmative action? NGUYEN: Well, great question. And actually, that's a really difficult one for me to answer only because I think if we were to go and ask ten people on the street what did we mean by diversity, equity, and inclusion, everyone would give you sort of a very different and potentially narrow or a very broad definition of what it means, right? But I think with respect to affirmative action, particularly in a higher-education context, it is specifically about college admissions, specifically about admissions and how do you review college admissions. And in this case here, there is a very narrow way in which it can—it can be used for race—in this case for race, that it's got to be narrowly tailored, that it can only be a factor among a factor in a broad holistic approach, that you can't use quotas, that it can't be based on rectifying previous or historical racism, and that the only utility for it is that it is used to create learning environments where there are educational benefits that flow from diversity and the interactions of diversity. Versus, I think, broader conversations about DEI, while of course centered on admissions, right, which is sort of one of many dimensions in which you achieve DEI, right? We like to think that—and I'm going to be sort of citing a scholar, Sylvia Hurtado, out of UCLA, who argues that, admissions help contribute to one dimension, which is the composition of a university, the sort of just overall demographics and numbers of that university. But there are many other dimensions that are important in order to create learning environments in which we can achieve DEI-related issues. That means that we have to look at the institution and the way it's acted historically and contemporarily. We have to look at behavioral interactions between people on a university. There are psychological dimensions, among many others. And so that's how I think about it. I think that's how at least my area of scholarship and in our academic discipline we think about it and for folks who study education think about it. And so hopefully that answers your question. And, yeah, hopefully that answers your question. FASKIANOS: I'm going to take the next question from Alison Renteln: What policies appear to be the best practices to increase diversity at universities, including disability? And what are the best practices from other countries? NGUYEN: Oh, wow, that's a really good question. So we—you know, I think—I think a lot of other countries use quotas. Brazil might be sort of the example that most folks think about when they think about the way affirmative action's practiced abroad. And certainly that's not something that we can do here in the United States. So that's—that—really, really important consideration. Sort of other practices that I think that are—that are not sort of the ones that are narrowly tailored by the courts are what I said earlier about sort of what the UC system has to really do and has to really grapple with, right, are using every sort of—everything that they can think of under the sun to go out and try to do outreach and recruit and build those pipelines throughout the entire education system. There's been some work by some wonderful folks in our field—Dominique Baker, Mike Bastedo—who looked at even sort of just a random sampling, if you were able to do a lottery system, and that has actually found that that doesn't actually increase diversity either, and so—racial diversity either. And so I think that's—so, again, this all points to how crucial affirmative action is in being able to use race in order to achieve compositional diversity on a college campus, and that other proxy variables just don't even come close to being able to help estimate that. And so, yeah, that's—I should also note that really, we're only talking about a dozen or so schools. Oh, I'm sorry, more than a dozen, but a handful of schools that this is really a big issue for. Most schools in the United States don't necessarily—are not at this level of selectivity where it becomes a big issue of concern for the national public. Nearly half of all of our college-going students are at community college, which tend to be open-access institutions. And so something also to keep in mind when we talk about affirmative action. FASKIANOS: Thanks. We only have a few minutes left. Can you talk a little bit more about the work of NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools? NGUYEN: Yeah. So I'm a faculty affiliate there, and maybe I'll preface by saying I'm new to NYU. I just came here from the University of Denver, and so I'm still learning about every wonderful thing that Metro Center is doing. It's led by a wonderful faculty member here named Fabienne Doucet and really focused on sort of a handful of pillars—certainly research on education, but also a real big tie for communities. So real direct engagement with schools, school systems in order to advance justice in those schools. And so they have a lot of contracts with school districts and public entities, as well as nonprofit groups that come in and work as an incubator there on a host of issues. And so I think the work there is really exciting and really interesting. It tends to be—and I should say also very expansive. So the whole sort of K-12 system, as well as postsecondary. And I think that's the role that I'm looking to play there, is to help contribute to and expand their work in the postsecondary education space. FASKIANOS: Great. And maybe a few words about your other—you have many, many hats. NGUYEN: Oh. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: NYU's Institute for Human Development and Social Change. NGUYEN: Yeah. They do some really wonderful, interesting work. And it's really, actually, a center and a space for faculty to come in and run a lot of their research projects, including my own, which is the MSI Data Project, where we are looking at all the various different types of minority-serving institutions in the United States, how they change over time, and how the federal government thinks about them and accounts for them, as well as how do the schools themselves think about them, all with the goal here in order to work with students of colors and give them access and opportunity. I should say, depending on how you count them, MSIs enroll a huge and significant proportion of all students of color, almost half, in the country, despite making up such a small percentage, about 20 percent, of all college and universities. And so this is—certainly when we talk about affirmative action, we—I think a lot of folks center it around racial justice or social justice. I think sort of the other side of the same coin here are schools like minority-serving institutions which enroll and provide access to and graduate a really significant proportion and number of students of color and certainly an area that we need to bring a lot more attention to when we talk about issues of race and education. FASKIANOS: OK, I'm going to take one—try to sneak in one last question from John Francis, who's raised his hand. You get the last one, John. Q: OK, can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. Q: Oh, that's great. So my question is—has a certain irony to it, but there's been a great deal of discussion of late that men are not succeeding in college, but that women are, and that certainly should be encouraged, but also there should be ways to find perhaps even changing when people start out in elementary school how that may be shifted to help men later on. And in this discussion, when we're looking at that issue and it's gaining some latitude, some strength, should we think about that as a possible consideration that universities should have greater latitude in making decisions to reflect the current set of demographic issues, be it race or gender or others? Has this argument come to play any kind of role? NGUYEN: Great question and a good last one, and if I can be completely honest, not an area that I'm—gender-based issues are not an area that I've done a whole lot of work in, if really any work, but I will attempt to answer your question as best as I can here, which is, I think—and sort of connected to sort of the larger conversation and question that we had that someone posed earlier about sort of the complexity and changing nature of racial and ethnic categories and what does that mean, and how do universities address that? And I think this is again where it requires universities to have some flexibility and nimbleness and autonomy to be able to address a lot of these issues, including what you're talking about, John, depending on the context and the times in which we are in. You know, certainly one big area also connected to—for men in postsecondary education is sort of the huge gap we see for men of color from particular groups, and really we see foundations, we see the Obama administration really play—invest in this work. So, John, from what it sounds like, it sounds like I agree with you here about—that universities need flexibility and autonomy to be able to address these issues. Now, that may—at the same time, we don't want to dismiss the fact that the experiences of women in postsecondary education—while certainly we see numbers increasing in enrollment in a lot of aspects, in certain disciplines we see a sharp decline; we see—in STEM and engineering fields, in the way those disciplines may be organized to sort of push out women. And so I think, again, this is why it requires some nimbleness and some autonomy from the universities to be able to design approaches to support students of different types of diversity on their campuses, in particular areas, disciplines, and majors. And so I think that's the—I think that's the challenge, is that we need to be a lot more intentional and think more precisely and run our analyses in ways that make sense for particular intersectional groups on campus and in the areas of which they're studying. So yeah, I think that's the—one of the big challenges that universities are facing today and certainly depending on how the courts rule, we'll see if that ends up restricting autonomy and removing tools or allowing those tools to remain for various types of targeted interventions for various minoritized groups. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Well, Mike Nguyen, thank you very much for this terrific hour and to all of you for your questions and comments. This is really insightful and we appreciate it. Welcome to New York, Mike, your first New York—holidays in New York. So we will be resuming the series in January and we will be sending out also the lineup for our winter/spring semester of the Academic Webinar series, which is really designed for students, later this month. We do wish you all luck with administering finals this week and grading them and all those papers; I don't envy you all. We have different deadlines under—at the Council that we're working on right now, so it will be a busy month, but we hope that everybody enjoys the holidays. We will resume in January, in the new year, and I encourage you all to follow us at @CFR_Academic on Twitter. Visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Again, thanks, Mike, for this, and to all of you. NGUYEN: Thank you so much for having me. Really an honor. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Take care, everybody. (END)

Tita's Thots has a very special guest today: the one and only Wendy Sashimi! Join these two Southeast Asian American women discuss their sexuality in this raw, unfiltered and fun episode. Should we separate our personal identity from our professional one? Can we REALLY bring our authentic selves to work? Should a queer and woke woman pay for porn? Who still uses battery charged sex toys? Are women better at sex? Would you rather go on OnlyFans or be a sugar baby?  Tune in to hear our thoughts on these questions, and so much more! Thank you Wendy Sashimi for sharing your vulnerable and fun perspective on all things sex and relationships as a queer Cambodian woman.  Follow Trish on IG and TikTok: @TitasTh0tsPodcast GET 10% OFF LELO WITH CODE: THOTS10 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/titasthotspodcast/support

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 interviews Cathy Ceniza Choy author of Asian American Histories of the United States. Show Transcripts [00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It's time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. [00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We're bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. [00:00:22] Miko Lee: This is Miko Lee. And in August, I had the wonderful opportunity of hosting a live event. One of the first live events. That KPFA was offering at the back room in Berkeley. And it was an interview with Catherine Cinzia Choi on her new book Asian-American histories of the United States. So take a listen to the interview. You're going to hear some clapping and some noise because it was a live audience. we hope you enjoy it and find out more information at our website kpfa.org. take a listen welcome to KPFAS live virtual event. I'm Miko Lee from apex expressed in your host for tonight. A big round of applause to our producers of K PFA events that are here. Kevin Hunt, Sanger, and Brandy Howell in the back of the room. Wow, it's so great to be in front of a live audience. Thank you to Sam Rudin and the back room. This amazing glorious space for hosting us this live evening. Okay. Y'all we're coming back. We're coming out. We're still pandemic land. People are in their beautiful masks, but we're coming back and KPFA has a few more upcoming events. I wanna do a land acknowledgement, and I want to acknowledge that K P F a is located on unseated, Cho Chino speaking, Lonni land known as the Huk, as journalists and community members. We have the responsibility to engage critically with the legacy of colonists. Colonialist violence and to uplift the active and ongoing indigenous struggles connected to the land that we are gathered on tonight. If you wanna check out more, go to native land dot California, and if you live in the east bay, I'm asking, do you pay the Shmi land tax, which is led by indigenous women, find out more about Ante's work of reation and returning in indigenous lands to the people establishing a cemetery to reinter stolen alone, ancestral remains and building urban gardens, community centers and ceremonial spaces. So current and future generations of indigenous people can thrive in the bay area. Thank you so much for joining us. We are honored tonight to welcome author Cathy Cenzia Choy. Cathy is currently a professor of ethnic studies at our own UC Berkeley, and she has published multiple books around Asian American identity. And is here tonight to chat with us about her latest book, Asian American histories of the United States. Welcome Cathy. Yes. Thank you. Okay. I'm gonna do anode to the great poet Chinaka Hodges, and ask, who are your people and where do you come from? [00:03:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I am the daughter of Filipino immigrants born and raised in New York city. I've been in Berkeley since 2004, and UC Berkeley has been a very important institution and community for me. And it's just such an honor to be. Your presence today and tonight I wanna thank you Miko for taking the time to, to host this. I wanna acknowledge my family and friends who are in the audience, my husband and my daughter are here. And I'm so pleased about that. And I feel like I'm with my people right now. [00:04:03] Miko Lee: what are the legacies that you carry with you from your ancestors? [00:04:11] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Wow. These are really Deep questions. I know. I feel like I care, even though sometimes I'm not aware. All the details. I feel like I carry the histories of my ancestors, even though, as I write in the book. So many of us in including myself didn't grow up knowing much about Asian American history because it wasn't taught to us in our schools. And even with that I feel my ancestors' presence with me. And I especially thank my mother Petri, za and other family members for also making that presence alive in so many ways while I was growing [00:04:57] Miko Lee: up in New York city. And are there certain elements that you carry with you on the daily? [00:05:05] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I don't know. In terms of the daily, because now I'm at this point in my life where I've had many experiences and I. Learned more to own my voice. And I feel owning that voice like through speaking and through writing is something I've learned and carried from them. But it took me also some time to, to get to this point. And even though I've talked to so many people in public spaces I always feel still some, some. nerves every time. [00:05:50] Miko Lee: So maybe it's self-expression and passing on the torch to the next generation around storytelling, around [00:05:56] Cathy Cenzia Choy: teaching. Absolutely. I think one of the things that I try to impart in, in my teaching at UC Berkeley at university of Minnesota twin cities, where I had taught for six years prior to coming to Berkeley, I try to impart that, that lesson of learning to, to cultivate your confidence and to own your voice. [00:06:19] Miko Lee: Your book is such an interesting collection because you're talking about some deep Asian American history stories, and then you're intertwining it with your own personal stories. And I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about your personal family story and your her story and how that intertwines with Asian American, her story. [00:06:39] Cathy Cenzia Choy: One of the things that is different from in terms of this book compared to my previous two books, is that it was intended for a very broad audience. And given what Asian Americans have been going through in this country since 2020 in many ways it was also born out of some very difficult, challenging circumstances. And I've experienced like many Asian Americans have experienced since 2020, a level of fear and anxiety and grief, at what has been happening with the surgeon anti-Asian violence, its relation to coronavirus related anti-Asian racism and. all of this has infused a different approach to writing in this book. And I write in the first person, the second person in one chapter on, on world war II. And I write in the more traditional third person which is typical and scholarly history books. So when I write in the first person, I share personal experiences that are intertwined to these histories. And this includes some of the fear and anxiety I was already mentioning. And that concern about the surge in anti-Asian violence and that when I see those stories on the media I see my family members, I see my elders and. in the book. I talk about how I've talked to my children and I realize that they see me. And so that's one personal experience, but my husband is. And his family's history is also on the, in the book. There's one chapter titled 19, 19 declaration of independence and 1919, that declaration of independence is referring to the declaration of. Korean independence, both in Korea against Japanese imperialism but also a Korean Congress that came to Philadelphia in April 19, 19. And my husband's parents on his father's side were among those Korean independence activists in the early 20th century. And I share experiences also how we've tried to pass on Asian American history to our children. And I talk about a moment where we brought our son to the Japanese American Memorial garden in tan Farran, which is now a shopping mall, but used to be a horse racing track and then was converted into an assembly center or what they would call a relocation center which forcibly relocated Japanese Americans here in, in the bay area there before. Forcibly incarcerating them in internment camps during world Wari. So there's quite a bit of my history, my family's history in this, even though the, of, it's not the, all of the histories that I talked about, you're [00:09:50] Miko Lee: telling part of your family stories, but then you're also telling a bunch of personal stories, small stories of people to help really illuminate a moment in history. And I'm wondering how you went about the process of selecting those individual stories to help shed light on a bigger [00:10:03] Cathy Cenzia Choy: issue. Yeah that's a great question. I think that's one of the challenges with history, which has story in it history and is about communicating stories and the choices we make matter. So I chose stories that I felt reflected key moments events, groups in Asian American histories over the past almost 200 years. And the idea also was that in selecting these stories, many of which came from research, I had done in the past and also my teaching. But I also wanted to create this feeling in the book of engaging and inviting readers to think about what stories would they want to include and not to cut it off and say, these are the stories we need to know, but rather these are the stories of. People's families and communities. And what are the stories of your families and communities? [00:11:09] Miko Lee: So in a way, it's an invitation for the readers and the audience members to look at your personal stories and how they intertwine with Asian American [00:11:17] Cathy Cenzia Choy: history. Yes. I hope that one of my hopes is that the book is as accessible as possible and that it is shared across an incredibly diverse audience. Also multi-generational and it would mean a great deal to me, for people to share the histories in this book with their elders and people of their generation and younger generations. [00:11:44] Miko Lee: And speaking of stories and connections, one of the biggest connections of a API community is around our food. people. It doesn't matter where you are, people know about Asian food and Asian Pacific Islander food. And you have a whole section in your book that is an interlude around food. And I'm wondering if you can just read the bolded sections of the interlude to the audience as a teaser, and then we'll talk about it some [00:12:08] Cathy Cenzia Choy: more. Okay. Yes. I'd love that. Okay. We, [00:12:13] Miko Lee: so for those of you that haven't read the book, , here's a little bit of a teaser of what the book has to offer Yes. And just the fact there, there's an interlude in the book. Which is also do you wanna talk about that now or after you pretty different? [00:12:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy:  It's just it was, getting at a point that I had made earlier about how I wanted to write differently. I also felt compelled to write differently. And there's an interlude in the book and it's entitled 1965 reprise the faces behind the food. And I'm going to read an abridged version because this way of reading, it makes it like a shout out poem.yeah. So 1965 reprise the faces behind the food. This is for the Asian American faces behind the food that nourishes Americans and enriches American cuisine. The general public knows. So little about Asian American people, but our food is everywhere at one's exotic and mainstream. This is for Larry. I Italy on the Filipino American farm workers who started the grape strike in Delano, California in 1965. This is for Dawn Baan and those who champion labor history. This is for the over 300,000 Asian migrants, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino, whose labor made sugar production, Hawaii top industry. This is for the Chinese workers who transformed tens of thousands of acres of California, swamp land into airable land, and who applied their ingenuity to orchards from Oregon to Florida. This is for the Chinese, Japanese and Filipino workers in the canned salmon industry of the Pacific Northwest. This is for the Japanese fruit and vegetable farmers. This is for the Asian, Indian, agricultural workers. Many of whom found work in California's fields in the early century. This is for the restaurant workers like chinch wing, who started working at an Americanized Chinese restaurant in 1936 in New York city. This is for the food service workers in cafeteria. This is for the writer and migrant worker, Carlos bloon. This is for de leaping sound who in 1956 became the first person of Asian descent elected to serve as a us representative and champion the farmers of his Southern California district. This is for Thai American. Who have a complicated relationship with Thai food because they are often conflated with it. This is for the monos. Mono is a term that conveys respect for Filipino elders in the 1920s and 1930s, they followed the crops from California to the Pacific Northwest. The Mons demonstrated their militancy. The 1965 grape strike was not an exception, but rather a singular point on a continuum. In the age of COVID 19 Asian Americans continued to be the many faces behind the food, using their creativity and leadership to promote communal care during a critical time. This is for Hannah DRA, a self-identified Pakistani American Muslim, and the co-founder of transformation. A technology platform that redistributes leftover, prepared food from restaurants and companies to places that need them like homeless shelters. This is for heart of dinner, whose mission is to nourish New York, city's Asian elders with love and food every week, the irony of Asian Americans producing America's food and enlivening, the overall food experience and the context of hate and violence has not been lost on them historically. And in the present day in March, 2021, people gathered at North Dakota state university in Fargo to protest against anti-Asian hatred. One poster red love us. Like you love our food. [00:16:51] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. Yes. Can make some noise. That's good. And if I may add, this is for. Adding all of your stories so that our Asian American history and tapestry can become richer and deeper. Thank you so much, Kathy, for sharing that. Now talk about why you wanted a kind of musical interlude in the middle of the book. [00:17:15] Cathy Cenzia Choy: It had to do with the histories the multiplicity that I emphasize in the book that there are multiple origins of Asian American history. And we should refer to these as Asian American histories, because my approach in the book is less about a linear, a traditional linear approach which can sometimes suggest causality or. Progress all the time and rather than take a linear approach. One of the things that's distinctive about the book is that the first substantive chapter begins with the year 2020. And the book concludes with 1869 and then each of the chapters. So it goes back in time and each of the chapters moves forward and back in time. So one of the chapters is titled 1965. And it's about the faces of post 1965 Asian America. And it's referring to the immigration and nationality act of 1965, which dramatically changed the democratic the demographics of our country. And. Yet, it was difficult to weave in seamlessly the story of Larry Italy and the Filipino farm workers and how important that grape strike was in, in Delano, California. And I thought to myself I don't ne I, I don't wanna put a, another chapter entitled 1965. So I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do this interlude and then, and write in a different way to give people a break from the style and then encourage you to give shout outs of your own. [00:18:57] Miko Lee: Thank you. Speaking of Larry Iley who in a bunch of your book, you talk about erasure or as Helen Z talks about missing in history. What are those moments that are MIH? And Larry I. Long is one of those many stories we always hear about Cezar Chavez and the great boycott when it was actually a Filipino man, Larry Ile that you write about. And I'm wondering after doing this exhaustive research for your book and as a professor, what are some kind of key missing in history moments? Do you think stand out in Asian American Pacific Islander history? [00:19:30] Cathy Cenzia Choy: There are key moments in every chapter in this book. In the first chapter on, on 2020 I talk about the disproportionate toll of COVID 19 on Filipino nurses in this country. And so one of the things that's MIH, which I've tried to address in my own research and was the topic of my first book was why and how the Philippines became the world's leading sending country of professional nurses and a specifically to, to the United States. And so in, in every chapter, the chapter after 2020 is one on 1975, and it's about Southeast Asian Americans and the refugee experience, but also the descendants of refugees in Southeast Asian immigrants. And so much of their stories are MIH because we are familiar with the Vietnam war, but often from the American perspective. And we, the. Participation of and Laosian Americans were part of a secret army and a secret war. So there's so many instances of that in every single chapter where this I, ideas of erasure secrecy being overlooked like Larry Ile who worked closely with Suor Chavez for years, they were director and assistant director of the U F w but many of us yes, know that story. [00:20:58] Miko Lee: I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the great former photojournalist quirky Lee and his impact, because I think one of those things about missing a history are those that have stood up to try and tell that story again, and you profile quirky. Can you tell a little bit the audience about Corky Lee and what he did. [00:21:14] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yeah, well, thanks for giving me the opportunity Corky Lee was one of the most important, I think photo journalists of the late 20th and early 21st century and is such a pioneer in Asian American journalism. And he is just one of the over 1 million people we have lost in the United States as a result of COVID 19. And I wanted to honor his memory in the book. He was well known for taking a photograph of a sick American after nine 11 and so many sick Americans in our country after nine 11 were targeted for anti-Asian violence, they were conflated with the stereotypical image of what a terrorist might, might look like in our country. And so we took this photograph of a sick man wearing a red turban with the United States flag draped around his shoulders. And the other thing he's also very well known for is something that is a major theme in this book, which is the theme of erasure of Asian American history and experience in the overall us experience and that era. one of the key moments is in 1869 with the completion of the building of the first transcontinental railroad, which took place at a Ary summit in Utah. And this is a very important moment in, in the history of our nation as a symbol of our modern progress that, enabled us expansionism across the continent. And eventually also into the Hawaiian islands and Asia and Chinese workers at were. About 90% of the labor force of the central Pacific here in the Western region of building [00:23:17] Miko Lee: my family that railroad. Yes. Yeah. My ancestors built that railroad. [00:23:21] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. I re we talked about that briefly and there might be other descendants here too of the railroad workers. And when they finally met at Promentory summit, there was a celebratory photo it's quite known and there was not a single Chinese worker in this photo. Not a single Chinese worker and quirky Lee. When he was in grade school, he remembered, learning about Chinese participation in the building of this railroad. And so he looked at that photo and he noticed that absence and erasure. And so I believe it was the hundred and 45th anniversary of the building of. that railroad. And he rest staged that iconic photograph. And this time he included the descendants of the Chinese railroad workers and other Asian Americans. And it was a joyous moment. And he referred to these moments, photographic justice. [00:24:24] Miko Lee: I love that whole even ethos of photographic justice. And you wrote in your book that was a 2014, that's so recent that this has happened. It's just this and also one person. And it also shows the power. Hello, ethnic studies, professors in the house, the power that he, this one, man heard this story and said, why isn't this being told, right? [00:24:46] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. And that's the, one of my hopes for the book is you'll notice that in, throughout the book in the various chapters, I oppose these questions. No questions for us to think about. It's not solely about here's the experience and here are the dates and the years and the events, but it's the way we all participate in history, but by what we choose to remember to reflect upon and how we use that historical knowledge to, to move forward, [00:25:20] Miko Lee: next up listen to girl gang by Rubia barra That was girl gang by the amazing Ruby Abara. [00:27:26] Miko Lee: You are tuned into apex express on 94.1 K PFA and 89.3 K P F B. Now let's get back to my interview with author Kathleen. Cinzia joy. [00:27:41] Miko Lee: Keeping on with this conversation about erasure and representation, you quote this study by Nancy Angwin, who is amazing. That is it really recent last year, 2021 study that says 40% of films have no zero Asian American Pacific Islander representation and of the films that do have representation over 25% of the characters die, violent. talk to us a little bit more about what does that say? How is that connected to erasure? What does that mean to the broader multicultural universe? What does it say about Asian Americans? [00:28:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy: In that chapter I'm gonna paraphrase since I'm not directly reading from it, but in that chapter, I reflect on that study and those statistics. And one of the things that if you wanna look directly at that study because in the notes, there's the URL to it. You, you will read that those statistics are juxtaposed with statistics about anti-Asian violence in 20, 20 and 2021. And I posed the question in that chapter. Are you, are we human? If we're not portrayed in a dignified and humane way. in popular culture. And if the only representations or the major representations of you are as, one dimensional flat stereotypes. And if it gets to the point where you're so used to the narrative on screen, that you can expect that Asian or Asian American character to die and not make it, what does that do to our psyche and how we view real world Asian Americans. So I didn't share this in the book, but when my children were younger, I actually had this experience. We, we brought them to this action film and this Asian American character was on screen. and I remember putting my head down thinking, oh I really hope this character doesn't die. and I turned to my son who was quite young at the time, and I tried to like, prepare him for that. And then the character did die in, in, in the film. So it's that feeling of why are we seeing such similar stories over and over again? And how can we begin to change that narrative? [00:30:14] Miko Lee: Connected to that and connected to your earlier book about Filipino nurses. One of my pet peeves, I love watching doctor shows as just totally fluff. And one of my pet peeve is that there are never enough Asian doctors and I am in the bay area. Every single one of my doctors is Asian. So I've always been like, this is such I don't understand. And especially with how many Filipinos are in the medical profession. So can you expand a little bit more of that and bringing in your last book, which is empire of care, nursing and migration and Filipino American history? [00:30:50] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes, I oh the present the past present and future of American nursing is inextricably linked to the presence of Filipino American nurses in this country. And Filipino American nurses have been in the United States for six. Decades. Many of them are immigrants, so they were born and raised in the Philippines, but the United States has been their home and they have made this incredible contribution to us healthcare delivery. And California we are one of the beneficiaries of their labor they're in hospitals, they're in elder care. And in the book I mentioned the Emmys, I forgot what year that was, but one of the co-host Michael Shay actually, said can you believe, Hollywood is a diversity problem and can you believe they did 15 seasons of ER without one single Filipino nurse? And have you been to a hospital in this country? And I feel also that frustration and that irony and it's, I have to say it's. It was especially painful since 2020 because Filipino nurses and other Asian American healthcare workers were also among the targets of anti-Asian violence. And hate in this country, even while they were wearing medical scrubs. For example, there was testimony given and there's one hospitalist in, in New York who I I quote in, in the book who, who talked about this paradox that here they are contributing to the health of our nation and putting their lives on the line yes. Through exposure and dealing with this hate and violence. And he said, it's really challenging being. celebrated and villainized at the same time. And that's the problem when so much of our common understanding or what we think is an understanding of Asian Americans is based on stereotypes. Because stereotypes are flat. They're one dimensional. They dehumanize even the most seemingly positive ones. [00:33:13] Miko Lee: Okay. I wanna talk about a different topic, which is in 1997, time magazine released this cover and on the cover where all these cute Asians, and it said the model minority. And I remember being in school and my teacher bringing that in and showing that magazine cover the class and pointing to me and I just had this like visceral gut reaction to it. Can you talk about how the model minority, the whole ethos of model minority has been used as a tool for white SuPM. [00:33:49] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I, I appreciate you phrasing the question that way. The model minority stereotype, which is a myth is such a complex stereotype. And some people might say, the model minority is about Asian Americans being smart and economically successful. And what's wrong with that? Isn't that positive? Isn't that the best kind of branding any group or could ask for. And it is a tool of divide and conquer. It is a tool of white supremacy which is, I think the way I understand. You're phrasing of the question because it too has a history. And part of that history is emerging in the late 1960s during civil rights and other, social movement protests, and having media stories quoting academics as experts contrasting Asian Americans as successful model minorities who don't complain. Don't ask for government help pull themselves up by their bootstraps in contrast to black Americans. And it was really direct like that now in, in contrast to African Americans who are protesting and demanding justice and change from the government this is a. Strategy of divide and conquer and prevent us from seeing. So in some ways it's another form of erasure that I talk about in the book that there's this longer history of Asian American and black solidarity and friendship living in neighborhoods together, working together in organizing [00:35:39] Miko Lee: together, [00:35:39] Cathy Cenzia Choy: organizing together work, interracial relationships and families. And we're [00:35:45] Miko Lee: talking about you, Grace Lee [00:35:46] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Boggs yes, I right. Grace Gracely BOS is certainly, part of that, one of many right. One, one of many who was married to James Boggs, a a black auto worker and author and activist. And they were married for a long time and together created. Summer which was this community, youth based organization and out of that love and marriage and mutual activism created something which is relating to another main theme in the book of resistance. It's like that creative spark like Detroit summer to create community gardens and to paint murals and to have intergenerational dialogues and to move forward in, in the most hopeful and an inclusive. Possible. And that's just one example. [00:36:42] Miko Lee: Yeah. I appreciate how in the book you're talking about erasure, you're having resistance stories, and then you did bring up talking about mixed race and global adoption. And I know your former book was around global families. So I am you share some really lovely tidbits in there, like about Punjabi Mexican communities that I think maybe folks don't know about, or maybe folks in the bay area went to go see the amazing Bonura ballet folk, Loco production that told that whole story in dance that Joti sing and Zenon Beon did. But you also talk about Kip full books' book about Hopper's mixed race folks. So do you feel that and your own kids are mixed race? My own kids are also mixed race different Asian ethnicities together. I'm wondering. Okay, sorry, this is a long question, but I'm thinking back to years ago, the amazing performer David photo Moto did a production where he came out, dressed in Scottish. It came out, dressed in entire Kabuki outfit with a kimono and a face, and he did a whole entire Kabuki dance and then picked up his bagpipe and played a Scottish bagpipe. And it was such a great combo of his two cultures that he meshed together and that he was sharing about himself with the audience. So with that being said, and with your both personal family story, and you're having written this book, what is your take on cross racial adoption and mixed race folks being a bridge to the future? [00:38:17] Cathy Cenzia Choy: well, so it's an interesting way of saying that because I think in that chapter, which is titled 1953 mixed race lives I don't necess, I do say they're about our future because our future is multiracial. And we know that since the 2000 census and in the most recent 20, 20 census we know that an exponential number. The largest growing group are of people who I identify as more than one racial category. But one of the key things I key points that I make in that chapter is that being a mixed race and multiracial is not solely about our future, but it's also about our past and our present. and we have a multiracial past. And that includes some key examples in the, in that chapter are early 19th century Chinese and Irish marriages and in New York city and east Bengali Puerto Rican, African American, west Indian families and communities in Harlem and Filipino and Irish multiple generational families in new Orleans. And you had mentioned, P Punjabi Mexican Americans from Texas to California and MES Filipino, Mexican family is especially in Southern California. That is just as much about our past and our present as, as well as our future and the adoptees also figure in, in, in that chapter and 1953 each year serves as a touchstone for going back and forth in time. 1953 is referring to the end of the Korean war and how foundational the international adoption, especially by American families of mixed race Korean and American children, born of us servicemen and Korean women. How important that group was in terms of transforming the United States into an international adoption nation to. Which, which leads the world in terms of internationally adopting children. And even though Russia, Guatemala Romania, Ukraine are also major sending countries of adoptive children to the United States. Most of those adoptive children are from Asian countries and Korea plays an important role in that history, but so does Japan and Vietnam as, as well. And they're an important part of Asian American history that I also think tends to be marginalized in our understanding of the Asian American experience. [00:41:09] Miko Lee: Okay. My last questions before we open it up to our lovely audiences, juicy questions is what would you like readers to walk away with after reading your book? [00:41:20] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I would love for readers to walk away with a more. nuanced and deeper understanding of Asian American histories and to reflect upon how relevant that is for this moment. This is a moment when so many of us are confronting so many different existential crises from climate to economic insecurity, but since 2020 for Asian Americans, this this dual crises of the pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate has really made an impact on so many of us and our communities. And I believe that understanding Asian American histories, understanding them as multidimensional human beings, who are part of the American experience Is one important step to, to reduce and end this violence. Thank [00:42:24] Miko Lee: you. Okay. We're passing out cards. Do we have, oh, we have some collected. Rolling. Does anybody have any questions? Does anybody have any questions? Oh, wow. [00:42:34] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yeah, jump in the [00:42:35] Miko Lee: card. Okay. I read this. Can you talk a little bit about medical scapegoating, which you mentioned in your book? [00:42:44] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. One of the things that we are observing since 2020, and since COVID 19 has become a pandemic, is that medical scapegoating of Asian Americans. And in the book, I talk about how there's a long history of anti-Asian medical scapegoating that is as old as the oldest migration. Oldest mass migration of Asians to, to the United States. And in the second half of the 19th century Chinese and by extension Chinese American bodies were blamed for smallpox outbreaks. Japanese immigrants were blamed for typhoid. South migrants were associated with hookworm. And what this does is that it scapegoats people, it dehumanizes them and makes them targets for egregious forms of violence. And that what we are experiencing today is not new. And this relates to that point about kind of one of my hopes for the book is that learning and engaging about these histories is really important. To end this medical scapegoating and the violence that accompanies it. [00:44:02] Miko Lee: I think people don't even realize that China towns were burned down during those times, too. [00:44:07] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes, I in addition to erasure and resistance violence is a third major theme, of the book and violence means many different things. We, in the media, it often focuses on the most egregious forms of violence like mass shooting. But the anti-Asian hate incidents and violence have ranged from bullying and harassment in schools, spitting on Asian Americans name calling I'm telling Asian Americans to go back to where they, they came from and you were referring to arson and burning down of Chinatowns and , this was something here in California and in, in the Pacific Northwest the method of anti-Asian violence was all often in the form of expulsion of Chinese from their communities through arson shooting stoning threats, [00:45:04] Miko Lee: right. You talked a little bit in the beginning, and this is an audience question. You talked a little bit in the beginning about the order of the book and we had you read the interlude and you said that it was done in a different order, starting with, 20, 20. Can you talk a little bit more about your thought process in creating the book in this kind of non-linear time structure? [00:45:24] Cathy Cenzia Choy: In the preface I write and also in the acknowledgements I give thanks to my students over so many years at university of Minnesota UC Berkeley especially but also other institutions that earlier in, in my career, I've learned so much from my students, from listening to them from engaging in dialogue about what we're reading. And in spring of 2021, I taught this class on Asian American history in the age of COVID 19. And some of the students were telling me that they really appreciated having taken previous courses in Asian American history, but how sometimes the courses they would go in that linear approach and then primarily end. Maybe in like the 1980s or maybe the, the glass class would be here, are these contemporary issues now related to all the things that we've talked about. And they were just voicing, some concern about how is history relevant today. And so I played with the chronology using a non-linear approach to make this point that Asian American history is relevant. Now, it's relevant in 2020, it's relevant in 1975. It's relevant in 1953. It's relevant in 1869. And it's relevant right now. And we're all we're all a part [00:46:59] Miko Lee: of it. So I'm gonna combine a few questions here. And this one is really about the different waves of Asian American immigration and how those impacted the storytelling. And I think. The different, there's different immigrant communities have gone into really specific fields for instance, Chinese laundries and, Vietnamese nail salons, Cambodian donut shops. Can you talk a little bit about how the storytelling is connected to the different waves of immigration first generation second, third generation? [00:47:35] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes that's a great question. And the book is not organized that way in the sense, like this year represents a particular wave and so does the next year. But there are particular chapters in the book that refer to immigration waves. And one of the chapters not the 1965 reprise, but there is a chapter 1965 about the faces of post 1965 Asian America and 1965 referring to the immigration act. Of 1965 is often considered this a major wave and a new kind of immigration that was different from late 19th and then early 20th century waves of immigration. Because by that point, immigration policy had created preferences for highly educated persons with needed skills. And one of the reasons why we are seeing so many Asian immigrant professionals in the United States is not an outcome of our innate ability in stem. But is also an outcome of but is an outcome of immigration policy. It's not in any ability there's quite a bit of training, that, that goes into it. And I actually didn't have much talent in the stem fields, even though I write sometimes about them like, like nursing but in the chapter, 1975 trauma and transformation, I talk about waves theory and how there's often the conceptualization of three different kinds of waves to describe Southeast Asian refugees to the United States with. the first wave beginning immediately after the fall of psych on in 1975 tended to be this wave of people who Southeast Asians who had connections to the us military there, I had worked with them and were more highly educated. And that was part of the first wave. And then the second wave, which is sometimes referred to as the boat people, even though a number of Asian American studies scholars have criticized the use of that term because it obscures their heroic will to live, but more, more, much more di diverse, ethnically a lot of Chinese Vietnamese people of farming backgrounds from rural areas in contrast to the first and then like this third wave that, that came later that involved groups like ations and even later than that also immigrants through immigration policy as opposed to, to refugee policy. And what I also point out is that these kinds of conceptualizations are important. They help us, understand historically some major changes in terms of Southeast Asian American demographics in this country. But I wanted to emphasize, so I write in the book, waves are constantly moving and taking different shapes. And in 2000 there was a new group of refugees who were resettled in Minnesota. And this is a living history and that newer waves of refugees are coming from Myanmar and Butan and who are working in places like. The state of Iowa and working in our meat packing plants and who also have been exposed disproportionately to COVID 19 because then president Donald Trump had invoked the defense production act to keep meat, packing plants open. So waves are important, but they're not set and they're always moving and flowing like our histories [00:51:16] Miko Lee: as a follow up to that. One of our audience members has a question about how many immigrants have when they first arrive have been exploited in their labor positions. And they're wondering if you could share some positive stories and I M I wonder if you could share with the audience about uncle Ted and what he did with donuts [00:51:35] Cathy Cenzia Choy: well, I think. it isn't it isn't as though there are positive and negative stories, oftentimes when you are really deeply engaging with these histories and these stories, there's often these moments that might be negative and then others that are more positive. And I think that adds to the humanity of people. And so just to give an, the example of the Filipino healthcare workers, some of 'em are nurses, but are also working in elder care. And some of those conditions that they're working in are very challenging. It's very challenging to be a caregiver. And at the same time, so many of them also take pride in their. I don't wanna portray them as just solely being, having a negative experience. They're proud of their caregiving and we need to care for our caregivers a bit more in this country. In terms of positive stories, so one thing I'll share is there's this and this is an example. I, I feel of resistance and that creative spark there's something called the south Asian American digital archive SAA D and they have this project called the first day's project. And it's a project where immigrants, regardless of immigrants from around the world can share their story on this digital platform to describe their first days in, in the United States. And. Even though these first days have a mix of like positive and negative aspects. I have to say while reading these stories it brought just smile and joy. For me and reading these stories that are so unique and universal at the first time, same time. And so one of the stories was of this young girl who was nine years old back in, in the early 2000 tens and she was from Nepal. And so she came from Nepal and she was. I imagine they were, they landed at SFO and then they had to go to San Pablo and she wrote she said I was disappointed that what I saw wasn't like, TV shows of New York city with all those tall buildings and all that fun stuff, but she took her first Bart ride. And she said that was just so amazing. She had never been on this kind of faster public transportation that brought them from San Francisco to San Pablo and something like 40 minutes. And then she said, she was working really hard. She was like nine years old. And then she became, because her, both her parents were working, I believe in the fast food industry. And she had a younger sister, so she had to learn how to cook for her parents and her. Her sister and even some extended family. And so she said I learned English from like watching, watching the joy of painting with Bob Ross. Wow. Yes. And then she said she watched shows with Rachel Ray and em, Emerald Lagosi like on food network and, and she said like she wanted to become, she learned from those shows. She wanted to become really famous. And so she would do the cooking in like she was on her own food network show in front of the audience. Her younger sister, [00:55:00] Miko Lee: so cute. So cute and shout out to VIN G and bar go, who founded that and also run the Berkeley south Asian radical history walking tour. If you haven't been on that, you should because it's amazing. I am sad to say that this brings our evening to a close. Thank you so much for joining us. I wanna just say that back in the corner, we have the most amazing east wind books, our local bookstore, yay. East wind books. And we didn't touch on one of the questions that I wanted to ask, but about Asian American, the terminology, Asian American Pacific Islander actually. Expressed a whole episode on that interviewing Harvey, Don, who is the founder of east wind books and is a fellow professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. [00:55:49] Cathy Cenzia Choy: And one of the veterans of the strike is also here from the late 1960s both that took place in San Francisco state college as it was then as, as well as UC Berkeley. And that's part of the reason why I have my livelihood and is it part of the legacy? This book is part of that legacy. [00:56:09] Miko Lee: So check out our legacy Asian American history is of the United States by our amazing guest, Kathy Cena Cho, you can get the books and get autographed back in the corner. We thank you for supporting independent bookstores. [00:56:24] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Thank. [00:56:31] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us, please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program. Backslash apex express. To find out more about our 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. Because your voices are important. Apex express is a proud member of the acre network, Asian Americans for civil rights and equality apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Paige Chung, Hien Nguyen and Nate Tan and with special editing by Swati Rayasaman. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support. Have a great The post APEX Express – 10.27.22 Cathy Ceniza Choy appeared first on KPFA.

Dr. Phitsamay Uy is an Associate Professor of Leadership in Schooling and the Graduate Coordinator for Ed.D Programs. She is also the Co-director of the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received her doctorate of education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Dr. Uy is a Lao American K-21 educator, a community advocate, and an equity trainer. Her research focuses on the academic achievement of immigrant and refugee students, with a particular interest in Southeast Asian American students. She is also interested in family and community engagement of immigrant and refugee populations. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast.    Learn more about Dr. Phitsamay Uy: https://www.uml.edu/education/faculty-staff/faculty/uy-phitsamay.aspx Email Dr. Phitsamay Uy: Phitsamay_Uy@uml.edu Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell: https://www.uml.edu/research/caas/ Instagram for The Southeast Asian Digital Archive (SEADA) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell: instagram.com/seada_uml/ Digital Collection: https://umlseada.omeka.net/ Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC) https://www.searac.org/ Laotian American National Alliance (LANA) https://www.lanausa.org/ Smithsonian Learning Lab: https://learninglab.si.edu/resources/view/5630945 Legacies of War: https://legaciesofwar.org/   Educators and Immigration Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/educatorsandimmigration Educators and Immigration Website: https://educatorsandimmigration.com Educators and Immigration Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/educatorsandimmigration/

Author Liann Yamashita discusses her article, "'I Just Couldn't Relate to That Asian American Narrative': How Southeast Asian Americans Reconsider Panethnicity" published in the April 2022 issue of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.

This episode is not about a particular historical figure, but about an embattled group of women known as the nyai, housekeepers, companions, and concubines in the former Dutch East Indies, or present-day Indonesia. We'll learn about them through several narratives, the most popular of which is Nyai Ontosoroh's story from the 1980 novel, This Earth of Mankind. We're going to start with a bit of background – how Indonesia was colonized and how the nyai came to be. Then we'll end with the life stories of several nyai as immortalized in novels and newspapers of the time. Click here for the trailer of the 2019 Indonesian film, Bumi Manusia. The cover image is a hand-tinted photograph of a nyai by Jacobus Anthonie Meessen, c. 1867 As always thank you to our Patrons: Kheiro, Xiaomeiby by Milish, Jennifer, Christina, Raul, Raymond, Chito, Matt, Shereen, Charlie, Chanda, Yati, Kara, and Mando. This month's ad is Tuktuk Box. They are a specialty food retailer offering curated Southeast Asian boxes and products founded by two Southeast Asian American women who recognized the need to create a cross-cultural bridge to foster social change. They partner with vetted small business owners and local farmers to share carefully crafted ingredients and recipes from their own community. If you're in the US, go check them out! Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, @herstoryseapod! For a copy of the show notes, a shout out at the end of the next episode, access to the resource library, regional current events updates, the occasional bonus episode, and your own Spotify scannable magnet of the podcast, join us on Patreon.

Welcome to "Fermented Feelings", SEAD's digital audio storytelling jar! ຂອບໃຈ. cảm ơn. ua tsaug. អរគុណ. thank you for listening. You are listening to the first episode of an audio reflection series for the Rad Café pilot program that asks what role critical thinking plays in how Southeast Asian Americans relate to and engage with the big political problems that impact all the communities we care about in the present, past, and future. Unedited transcription for this podcast conversation can be viewed here. Ua tsaug and major thanks to SEAD's Autumn 2021 Cultural Organizer, Quincy Yangh, for conducting the interview. We're excited for your next chapter teaching English and engaging in environmental geography studies during your Fulbright Scholarship awarded stay in Taiwan! More about what happened at Rad Café below Rad Café was a political co-learning pilot program that was designed, administered, and facilitated by Tri Vo, a cultural organizer at SEAD in 2021. This audio reflection series features conversations whose guests were active participants in this pilot program. Between 8-10 longform audio episodes will be released in the month of January 2022. Don't miss this series! Rad Café was an attempt for SE Asians in the U.S to co-design an intentional dialogue circle space for expanding and challenging our political imaginations and practical frameworks. In this series, we did this by politicizing the mundane of our everyday lives; things as common as a popular cultural dish, a well-known song or artist, the topics we're taught in class, the visions of success that the adults and peers in our lives reinforce on us, and so forth. We incrementally zoom out from these subjects of the everyday to explore the political economies, or the social, political, and economic processes, shaping the ways that these things impact us in ways both minor and widely-pervading. The goals of the Rad Café program included: Equipping cohort members with skills to engage, analyze, and share high level political topics and themes in a variety of communities and audiences Applying SEAD's storytelling approach to change, equipping 1st person narratives with big picture frameworks Building healthy community and relationships around dialogues surrounding these topics and themes You can view the various drafts of research notes self-compiled by Rad Café cohort members at this Rad Café Notion interactive webpage. Please send any inquiries regarding Rad Café to Tri at tri.m.vo4@gmail.com or connect via Instagram @tritactoe. Send inquiries regarding The SEAD Project to hi@theseadproject.org.

We've partnered with Self Evident, and are excited to share an episode from their show! Self Evident is a podcast focused on the full range of Asian American perspectives, which are too often erased from the national discourse. In this episode, a daughter of Vietnamese refugees seeks out Southeast Asian Americans with criminal convictions who are at risk for deportation under the Trump administration — and the organizers fighting to keep them in the only home they've known. Learn more about Self Evident at selfevidentshow.com, and subscribe to them wherever you get your podcasts!

Episode 057: Southeast Asian American ArchitectsLeaders of the profession share diverse perspectives on race, equity, and architecture. Practice Disrupted is committed to elevating conversations on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion to teach, empower, and build greater awareness across the industry. Building from prior diversity conversations, this week we learn about Southeast Asian Architects.  Guests: Meghana Joshi, AIA, NOMA is a strong proponent of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice in the architecture profession. At SoCal NOMA, she is a Director of Outreach and Recruitment for Project Pipeline and works towards increasing minority representation in architecture through summer camps for middle and high school students. She founded AIA Orange County's Women in Architecture Committee in 2015 to give a platform for Orange County firms to meaningfully contribute towards the improvement of professional conditions for women in architecture. She joined AIA Orange County's Board of Directors in 2019 and founded EDI+J Committee to increase minority representation through mentorship in leadership. She founded “Project Amplify” to amplify voices and works of minority architects in the AEC industry. She is an active member of ULI-OC/IE's Office and Commercial Product Council. She is currently engaged in bringing ULI's Urban Plan program to educate underrepresented demographics and communities. She is also an active member and advocate for “Belong at Little” – Little's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force.

Creator/host Rita Phetmixay of Healing Out Lao'd was invited to be a part of a virtual launch event hosted by SEARAC + partners on March 25, 2021. This audio recording captured SEARAC's debrief of their new report titled: "The Right to Heal: Southeast Asian American Mental Health in California,” which highlights both the challenges and the solutions for addressing mental health disparities among Southeast Asian Americans in California and across the country. The full report can be downloaded here.Other helpful links: Event recordingReport/factsheetsSocial media toolkitIf you felt excited about this report launch, you can register and attend a similar event coming up on September 22: The Right to Heal: Centering Mental Health Multiracial Equity in California. Rita will be featured on Workshop #1: “Healing Within: Finding a Culturally Competent Healer” from 1-1:50pm PST.----------SUBSCRIBE x FOLLOW x RATE x REVIEW! Healing Out Lao'd is created/hosted by Rita Phetmixay and manifested by a collective Lao diaspora voice. HOL is a podcast and virtual practice space exploring Lao diaspora storytelling, healing, and tools for sustainability. Learn more at healingoutlaod.org Support HOL by leaving us a 5-star rating and a positive review to help this space flourish!!!----------SUSTAIN HOL: Help sustain this space for future generations by becoming a monthly sustainer at patreon.com/healingoutlaod OR by making a one-time donation via PayPal and write in the description “#HOLdonation”JOIN THE COMMUNITY of HOL @healingoutlaod on all major streaming and social media platforms including Instagram & Twitter  & Facebook. Who are you and what is your story as a child of the Lao diaspora? Comment/share and let us know!!! Music: Andrew David VilaythongLogo design: Salong Namsa of Laos SupplyWebsite: KitsCreativ (Tony Innouvong x La Keodouangkham)HOL Advisory Board: Wanda Pathomrit, Saengthong Douangdara, Kulap VilaysackHuge shout out to JoJo Ramirez at UC San Diego for assisting in the Critical Refugee Studies Collective sponsorship of HOL SZN 2.0's episodes. Funded by the UC Office of the President's Multi-campus Research Programs and Initiatives, the Critical Refugee Studies Collective envisions a world where all refugees are treated and embraced as fellow human beings with all fundamental rights and privileges. Learn more at criticalrefugeestudies.com KOP JAIII LAI DERRR P'NONG!!! (THANK YOU VERY MUCH, FAM!)Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16105981)

Since the inception of the Asian American Movement, Filipino Americans, South Asian Americans, and Southeast Asian Americans have consistently vocalized feelings of marginalization and exclusion within the pan-ethnic Asian American umbrella often associated with East Asians. In order for Asian Americans to further advance as a political voice in the United States, it is imperative to address historical hierarchies, community dynamics, and inter-ethnic conflicts. Further, in order for Asian Americans of all ethnic groups to feel invested in advocating for a pan-Asian umbrella group, they must all feel included and must believe that their best interests are acknowledged.

The fabled phases episode. Future Nostalgia. Take a trip with us down memory lane. Emulating Britney Spears in the iconic Baby One More Time video. Discovering rap via Missy Elliot. Not fitting in with the Indie kids. Sad girl Americana phase all thanks to Lana del Rey. Tati and Nithia have had multiple identity crises through the years due to the lack of Southeast Asian American representation in mainstream media. Let’s talk about it! Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @yourveryannoyingfriends As well as Twitter @annoyingpod Link below to donate to Daunte Wrights funeral https://www.gofundme.com/f/dauntewright?utm_campaign=p_nacp+share-sheet&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Julie Connell sits down with Nkauj Iab Yang from Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) to deliver an engaging and educational episode centered around trauma–from how it's defined to the long-term consequences that unfold when trauma goes unaddressed. This episode covers a wide variety of trauma with trauma being defined as emotionally and physically distressing experiences that challenge one's ability to cope. The conversation starts off with a focus on the older generation who lived through the war in Southeast Asia and fled their homeland for the sake of their well being and safety. Besides having experienced violence firsthand, these individuals had to face many stressors that came with resettling in a foreign country. Faced with language barriers and lack of access to resources and information regarding higher education, many Southeast Asian communities suffer from high rates of unemployment and poverty. Many people had to learn how to navigate America on their own since there was no pre-existing Southeast Asian community to provide guidance or emotional support. Because survival was of the highest priority, people oftentimes found themselves too busy to find time to cope with their trauma. This results in 1) unaddressed trauma that gets more harsh and violent as it is passed from one generation to the next and 2) lack of positive, community-defined coping mechanisms. The conversation now shifts to the younger generation who are negatively impacted by intergenerational trauma while also having to deal with present-day stressors as a result of data aggregation. Because the data of all Asian American communities get grouped together, many of the nuanced problems faced by the Southeast Asian community often gets overlooked. Although in reality there is an education and wealth disparity gap between the Southeast Asian and East Asian communities, the perception that they all fall under the Model Minority Myth has hindered Southeast Asian communities from accessing necessary services and resources. Yang emphasizes how we need to focus on highlighting appropriate and accurate data that reflects the story and situation of these communities. We end the podcast reflecting on the importance of speaking out about trauma and combating the stigmatization of mental health as a form of collective healing. SEARAC is a national civil rights organization that empowers Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American communities to create a socially just and equitable society. As representatives of the largest refugee community ever resettled in the United States, SEARAC stands together with other refugee communities, communities of color, and social justice movements in pursuit of social equity. Website: www.searac.org Facebook: @searac NKAUJ IAB YANG is the Director of California Policy and Programs. She works closely with Southeast Asian American led and serving organizations throughout California to build a statewide Southeast Asian American equity agenda, identify the appropriate strategies, and advocate for local and state policy change. Nkauj Iab spent the last 13 years committed to youth organizing, youth development, and policy advocacy. She holds a Master of Arts in ethnic studies from San Francisco State University and a bachelor of arts in ethnic studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Facebook: @nkaujiab Summary by Joanne Nguyen

(S2, EP 13.2) For this week's part 2 episode, I interviewed guest Sina Sam, a longtime Cambodian-American community leader from Washington State. She became the first Cambodian American woman to serve as the Commissioner for the Asian Pacific American Affairs for Governor Inslee's office in Washington State. She is the co-founder of the Khmer Anti Deportation Group and is now serving as the Field Director for SEARAC otherwise known as Southeast Asia Resource Center. For part 2, she talked about how her experience as a teen mom would lead her to be actively involved in reproductive justice rights, and eventually in Cambodian-American / Southeast Asian civic engagement. She talked about the issues concerning deportations in the Southeast Asian American communities across the US and the group she co-founded to advocate against the deportations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special thanks to my sponsor, Lawrence and Argyle, a Viet-American owned merchandise line representing immigrant empowerment. Get yourself a pin, hoodie or t-shirt and show off your immigrant pride. Visit them at www.lawrenceandargyle.com or on Instagram @lawrenceandargyle or on their Facebook page. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bio: Sina Sam is a 1.5 generation Khmer American, born in a Thai refugee camp and raised in Seattle, WA. Before her appointment as the first Cambodian woman to serve on the Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs (CAPAA) of Washington State, Commissioner Sam has been an active organizer in the Khmer community for almost two decades. Co-founder of the Khmer Anti-deportation Advocacy Group (KhAAG) and an organizer with F.I.G.H.T, her advocacy work centers around addressing high rates of incarceration and deportation for Southeast Asian Americans (SEAAs), and other vulnerable populations. Currently, she is the Field Director in transition at the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), Chair of CAPAA's Civil Rights & Immigration Committee, and is the first woman to be elected to lead the API Caucus of WA State Democrats. Understanding that hard work alone will not guarantee better opportunities, that there are structural barriers for some and not for others, much of Sina's personal, professional and community building work are guided by a passion towards intersectional and restorative justice, and trauma-informed healing --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/banhmichronicles/support

Welcome to S1 Ep5 of "The Banh Mi Chronicles" podcast. I bring to you Hac Tran, a 2nd generation Viet-American who speaks about his experience being involved in the Chicago Uptown community, specifically in the "Asia on Argyle" street neighborhood (also nicknamed as "Little VIetnam" or "New Chinatown"). In our conversation, he speaks about the Vietnamese diaspora, the gentrification issues in the Chicago Uptown neighborhood, and the Haibayo event (a Southeast Asian-American themed late night party held once a month in the Asia on Argyle neighborhood) that he and his partner Jennifer "Nuky" Pham co-founded and organized together. Be sure to check more about the Haibayo event on Instagram @hai_bayo, and their website at www.haibayo.com Bio: Hac Tran is an urban planner, community development professional, and cultural producer born in Chicago. His experiences range from youth development with Americorps Jumpstart and capacity building in Vietnam with Save the Children and Global Village Foundation, to human services with various community-based organizations in Uptown and food & cultural focused event planning throughout Chicago. Hac holds a BA in Political Science from DePaul University and a Masters in Urban Planning and Policy (MUPP) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently the Diversity Business Outreach Manager for Business Partners, The Chamber for Uptown. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/banhmichronicles/support

Under the Trump administration, the United States has pushed aggressively to deport Southeast Asian Americans with criminal records. Hurt that members of the Vietnamese community would support this action, guest producer Thanh Tan (creator of the podcast “Second Wave”) seeks out the people at risk of deportation — and the organizers fighting to keep them in the only home they’ve known. Along the way, she learns to embrace a new direction for Vietnamese Americans confronting the deeply rooted narrative of “the good refugee.” We need your help! Please take this 1-minute survey, so we can have better conversations with partners and sponsors and keep this show growing. It’s fast, easy, and anonymous. Resources and Recommended Reading Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress and prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones. "Know Your Rights" resources to prepare for ICE raids written in Arabic, Bangla, Burmese, Chinese, Dar/Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Karen, Khemer, Korean, Nepali, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese, compiled by the Asian American Federation in NY. Primary sources: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which laid much groundwork for today’s deportations The 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Vietnam President Trump’s Jan 25, 2017 Executive Order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement President Trump’s Jan 25, 2017 Executive Order declaring that the presence of “removable aliens” from “foreign nations that refuse the repatriation of their nationals” is “contrary to the national interest” Text of President Trump’s Jan 27, 2017 Executive Order temporarily ceasing admission of refugees to the United States (a.k.a. “the travel ban”) Migration Policy Institute dataset on U.S. annual refugee resettlement ceilings and refugee admissions, starting from 1980 ICE datasets on deportations from FY 2011 through FY 2018 Reporting and analysis on the federal government’s role in detention and deportation of immigrants: “City of Fear” by New York Magazine and The Marshall Project “The Disastrous, Forgotten 1996 Law That Created Today’s Immigration Problem” by Dara Lind, for Vox “ICE and the Banality of Spin” by Eileen Guo, for Topic “U.S.: 20 Years of Immigrant Abuses,” a summary of reports by Human Rights Watch on harm caused by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act Reporting and analysis on the detention and deportation of Vietnamese Americans and Cambodian Americans: “As Cambodian Deportations Resume, Community Looks for Ways to Cope” by Agnes Constante, for NBC Asian America “Deported: A Grassroots Movement” (5-part docuseries) by Sahra V. Nguyen, for NBC Asian America “Fear Grips Immigrants Who Fled Here to Escape Genocide” by Matt Driscoll, for The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington “A State of Captivity: Immigrants Detained Repeatedly for Old Crimes” by Anjali Enjeti, for Guernica Magazine “Trump Is Pushing Vietnam to Accept Deportees Who Have Lived in the US for Over 20 years” by Dara Lind, for Vox “Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees” by Charles Dunst and Krishnadev Calamur, for The Atlantic “The U.S. Ambassador Who Crossed Trump on Immigration” by Mike Ives, for the New York Times Shout Outs John Woo and Kerry Donahue voiced the English translations of Thanh’s parents. Thanks to Julia Preston and Willoughby Mariano for their advice on reporting this story. Credits Produced by Thanh Tan and James Boo Edited by Julia Shu and Cheryl Devall Production support by Austin Jenkins, Jamala Henderson, Kevin Rinker, and Merk Nguyen Sound engineering by Timothy Lou Ly Theme music by Dorian Love Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound Self Evident is a Studiotobe production. Season 1 is presented by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), the Ford Foundation, and our listener community. Our show was incubated at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP. About CAAM: CAAM (Center for Asian American Media) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. CAAM does this by funding, producing, distributing, and exhibiting works in film, television, and digital media. For more information on CAAM, please visit www.caamedia.org. With support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CAAM provides production funding to independent producers who make engaging Asian American works for public media.

MEET HOL GUEST: Haylee ThikeoIn episode 7 of HOL, Haylee joins Rita for a conversation about her journey into writing + vulnerable storytelling as tools for healing, navigating her identity as a child of Lao refugees in Boston, and why she decided to move to Oakland from Boston for a period in her life. Today, Haylee works at a software company called Community Brands that supports nonprofit clients use software at fundraising events to promote positive social change. She gets to travel all over the country to galas, fashion shows, and other outings for this purpose. As Haylee’s passion is vulnerable storytelling and writing, Haylee recently launched the “Don’t Say Sorry” podcast which focuses on shedding light on taboo topics such as sex, intimacy, trauma, and healing from the lens of two Southeast Asian American womxn! Check out the first season now on apple podcasts and spotify! ---As a brand new podcast, HOL needs your support!!! Please subscribe, give a 5-star rating, and a leave us a positive review to help us continue. KOP JAIII LAI DERRR P'NONG!!! (THANK YOU VERY MUCH, FAM!)CONNECT WITH HAYLEE: Instagram @hayleethikeoEmail hayleethikeo@gmail.comWebsite: www.withlovehaylee.comREFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!Lao American Writer’s SummitBell Hooks All About Love Brene BrownLaos AngelesLAOSD @PHILAODELPHA@onbeinginyourbody Crazy Rich Asians MovieASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response)Bryan Thao WorraJOIN THE COMMUNITY:Join the community of HOL @healingoutlaod on Instagram & Twitter & Facebook All costs going towards this podcast are out-of-pocket. Healing Out Lao'd is currently facilitated by one-person with amazing guests and collaborators who volunteer their time to support. Consider donating any funds if you are in the position to do so! Help Rita cover costs by becoming a monthly sustainer at patreon.com/healingoutlaod OR you may make a one-time donation via PayPal. HUGE SHOUT OUTS TO:Laos Angeles Roots Members Andrew David Vilaythong for mixing/producing the beats for HOL and "mystery person" @LaosSupply for the beautiful logo design! *SPECIAL KOP JAI & THANKS* to KITS Creativ for designing HOL's website & sponsoring this episode*To provide feedback, let us know of current issues/topics you'd like to bring up and/or suggest people to be guests on this podcast, you may send an email to healingoutlaod@gmail.cSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16105981)

Nancy Ly and Paul Champy get real about the impacts of shame as Vietnamese and Cambodian Asian-Americans, whose families had fled from the mass killings of war. Paul shares harsh realities and insights into the hidden stories and journey to greater individuality and independence as a Cambodian-American from a refugee family, and how Cambodians experience […]

MEET HOL GUEST: Latana ThavisethIn episode 6 of HOL, Latana joins Rita for a conversation about her trajectory into higher education coming from a legacy of her own parents being Lao/Southeast Asian refugee community leaders. Latana emphasizes the importance of education instilled in her as young child and ways she has learned how to navigate educational spaces as a 2nd generation Lao American. Today, Latana is the Assistant Director to Stanford University’s Asian American Activities Center, a Ph.D. student at UCLA and scholar activist. Her research focuses on the experiences of Southeast Asian (American) students in community colleges and their transition into 4-year colleges/universities. ---As a brand new podcast, HOL needs your support!!! Please subscribe, give a 5-star rating, and a leave us a positive review to help us continue. KOP JAIII LAI DERRR P'NONG!!! (THANK YOU VERY MUCH, FAM!)CONNECT WITH LATANA: FacebookStanford University's Asian American Activities Center SEAASTER Collective (under construction)REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE: WTO RiotsUC Berkeley Physicist Chien-Shiung WuAung San Suu KyiUniversity of WashingtonUCLA Equity Diversity and Inclusion Graduate Student Welcome DayHigher Education and Organizational Change Ph.D. Program at UCLAMasters of Arts in Asian American Studies at UCLAJOIN THE COMMUNITY:Join the community of HOL @healingoutlaod on Instagram & Twitter & Facebook All costs going towards this podcast are out-of-pocket. Healing Out Lao'd is currently facilitated by one-person with amazing guests and collaborators who volunteer their time to support. Consider donating any funds if you are in the position to do so! Help Rita cover costs by becoming a monthly sustainer at patreon.com/healingoutlaod OR you may make a one-time donation via PayPal. HUGE SHOUT OUTS TO:Laos Angeles Roots Members Andrew David Vilaythong for mixing/producing the beats for HOL and "mystery person" @LaosSupply for the beautiful logo design! *SPECIAL KOP JAI & THANKS* to KITS Creativ for designing HOL's website & sponsoring this episode*To provide feedback, let us know of current issues/topics you'd like to bring up and/or suggest people to be guests on this podcast, you may send an email to healingoutlaod@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your feedback!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16105981)

TRAKTIVIST Radio continues our celebration of Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Heritage Month! Each show in the month of May focuses on the amazing music made by the artists within each community. On this show of the radio series with SOUTHEAST ASIAN AMERICANS, playing music from #Yuna #CarmitBachar of the #PussyCatDolls #Satica #HoneyC #StupidYoung #Bambu #PLo #RubyIbarra #Tyga #anders #MIKNNA #timothydelaghetto #erantik & #MasiaOne !

Centering welcomes our first guest: Cambodian-American minister Ken Kong, the founder of Southeast Asian Ministries (http://seasianministries.com). Ken shares about his family's story of immigration and faith, his experience as a Southeast Asian American in Asian American circles, and the important work going on in Cambodian and Southeast Asian Christian communities.

Recently, a man by the name Edward Blum and the Students for Fair Admissions have teamed up to sue Harvard for discriminating against its Asian American applicants with its affirmative action policy. Affirmative action has been one of the hottest debates for a while within our community and I thought that it would be really helpful to have Quyen Dinh, Executive Director from the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, also known as SEARAC, on the podcast to share her personal story as well as SEARAC’s findings on the important impact affirmative action and data disaggregation has had on our Southeast Asian American community. Quyen Dinh is the Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC). As Executive Director, Quyen has advocated for Southeast Asian Americans on key civil rights issues including education, immigration, criminal justice, health, and aging.  Born to Vietnamese refugees, Quyen identifies as a second-generation Vietnamese American. She holds a Masters of Public Policy from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. Quyen was born in New Orleans, LA, and grew up in Orange County, CA and San Jose, CA.  She currently resides with her husband in Washington, DC.   Follow SEARAC on: https://twitter.com/SEARAC https://www.facebook.com/searac/ https://www.instagram.com/searac/

We are honored to be releasing a 3-episode special feature with SEARAC, also known as the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center. “SEARAC is a national civil rights organization that empowers Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American communities to create a socially just and equitable society. As representatives of the largest refugee community ever resettled in the United States, SEARAC stands together with other refugee communities, communities of color, and social justice movements in pursuit of social equity.” Each month from October to December 2018, Project Voice will be releasing an episode that highlights an important social justice issue that SEARAC is fighting for on behalf of Southeast Asian American families, students, and elders. This month, our topic of discussion will be on our current government’s immigration policies. Oftentimes, the fight for immigrant justice does not uplift or highlight the behind the scenes organizing anchored by the wives, sisters, and community members of those facing deportation, today we are going to have SEARAC share a new resource created by and for families who have been directly impacted by unjust deportation policies.  Particularly, this toolkit centers around the experience of the #ReleaseMN8 campaign in its rise to prominence since its creation in 2016. Katrina, SEARAC’s Director of National Policy, will be imparting us valuable findings from the Southeast Asian American Solidarity Toolkit: A Guide to Resisting Deportations and Detentions from The #ReleaseMN8 Campaign. What is “#ReleaseMN8”? “In August 2016, the families and supporters of eight Cambodian American men in Minnesota—collectively known as the MN8—decided to organize a campaign to fight the sudden detention and orders of deportation of their loved ones. The #ReleaseMN8 campaign wanted the men, all in their 30s and 40s, to return to the communities where they had faced and overcome countless difficulties in their lives. It also sought to inspire others to join the movement to restore human rights to all refugees and immigrants. The #ReleaseMN8 campaign went public in September 2016. The determination and commitment of the MN8, their families, and their supporters led to the eventual release of three of the eight men.”Katrina Dizon Mariategue is the Director of National Policy, leading and coordinating SEARAC’s national advocacy efforts promoting social justice and equity among Southeast Asian American communities. Prior to this role, she served as SEARAC’s Immigration Policy Manager for three years overseeing the organization’s immigration policy and racial healing work. Before coming to SEARAC, Katrina worked in the labor movement for six years at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). In 2011, she was elected to serve as DC chapter president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the only national Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) union membership organization. In this capacity, she led the chapter’s local advocacy campaigns and organizing work around immigrant workers’ rights, coordinated civic engagement programs for the 2012 elections, and strengthened local networks through extensive coalition building efforts. She also served on APALA’s National Executive Board and co-chaired the organization’s Young Leaders Council.Katrina holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also served as graduate coordinator at the Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy to advise, mentor, and educate AAPI students on campus. In her free time, Katrina enjoys playing with her 2-year-old daughter, food tripping with her husband, binge watching shows on Netflix, and watching Broadway musicals. Follow SEARAC on: https://twitter.com/SEARAC https://www.facebook.com/searac/ https://www.instagram.com/searac/

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu.

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political contestation and protest in late twentieth-century America. Children of Reunion offers food for thought in contemporary debates over refugee resettlement and family reunification as a principle for immigration policymaking. Ian Shin is C3-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the History Department at Bates College, where his teaching and research focus on the history of the U.S. in the world and Asian American history. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the politics of Chinese art collecting in the United States in the early 20th century. Ian welcomes listener questions and feedback at kshin@bates.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m starting off the season with a topic very close to my heart: growing up as a child of refugee immigrant parents. My friend, Saroeun, and I will be sharing our personal struggles growing up as first-born children of immigrant parents who moved because they didn’t have t choice - from overcoming barriers with the English language to helping our parents translate in day-to-day situations to guiding our younger siblings to a better life as Southeast Asian Americans. I hope that this 2-episode special will help people understand better where we’re coming from and why today’s immigration issue should hit close to everyone’s heart. Here is part 1. Look forward to next week for part 2! Here is part 2 of our 3rd season episode premiere. I made the conscious choice to not omit any parts of the conversation because I thought some of the emotional value would be lost if I had. I apologize for the length of the conversation but I do hope you understand why I’m leaving the conversation uncut. Saroeun Moungyiv is a 1st generation Cambodian American. She has a cosmetology license and is a nail technician at her mother's shop. Her ambition is simply to help her parents' dream of becoming business owners come true and hope to have people understand the value of true happiness in themselves and in life. Read our transcript here!: https://www.projectvoicepod.com/blog/2018/8/15/episode-20-im-proud-to-be-a-child-of-refugee-immigrant-parents-part-2 9.15.18: Project Voice has rebranded! Connect with us @projectvoicepod: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectvoicepod Instagram: http://instagram.com/projectvoicepod Twitter: http://twitter.com/projectvoicepod

SEASON 3 is FINALLY HERE! I’m starting off the season with a topic very close to my heart: growing up as a child of refugee immigrant parents. My friend, Saroeun, and I will be sharing our personal struggles growing up as first-born children of immigrant parents who moved because they didn’t have a choice - from overcoming barriers with the English language to helping our parents translate in day-to-day situations to guiding our younger siblings to a better life as Southeast Asian Americans. I hope that this 2-episode special will help people understand better where we’re coming from and why today’s immigration issue should hit close to everyone’s heart. Here is part 1. Look forward to next week for part 2! Saroeun Moungyiv is a 1st generation Cambodian American. She has a cosmetology license and is a nail technician at her mother's shop. Her ambition is simply to help her parents' dream of becoming business owners come true and hope to have people understand the value of true happiness in themselves and in life. Read our transcript here!: https://www.projectvoicepod.com/blog/2018/8/15/episode-19-im-proud-to-be-a-child-of-refugee-immigrant-parents-part-1   9.15.18: Project Voice has rebranded! Connect with us @projectvoicepod: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectvoicepod Instagram: http://instagram.com/projectvoicepod Twitter: http://twitter.com/projectvoicepod

Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press) All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War—a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations.  From a kaleidoscope of cultural forms—novels, memoirs, cemeteries, monuments, films, photography, museum exhibits, video games, souvenirs, and more—Nothing Ever Dies brings a comprehensive vision of the war into sharp focus. At stake are ethical questions about how the war should be remembered by participants that include not only Americans and Vietnamese but also Laotians, Cambodians, South Koreans, and Southeast Asian Americans. Too often, memorials valorize the experience of one’s own people above all else, honoring their sacrifices while demonizing the “enemy” —or, most often, ignoring combatants and civilians on the other side altogether. Visiting sites across the United States, Southeast Asia, and Korea, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers penetrating interpretations of the way memories of the war help to enable future wars or struggle to prevent them.   Drawing from this war, Nguyen offers a lesson for all wars by calling on us to recognize not only our shared humanity but our ever-present inhumanity. This is the only path to reconciliation with our foes, and with ourselves. Without reconciliation, war’s truth will be impossible to remember, and war’s trauma impossible to forget. Praise for Nothing Ever Dies: "Beautifully written, powerfully argued, thoughtful, provocative".--Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 "Nothing Ever Dies provides the fullest and best explanation of how the Vietnam War has become so deeply inscribed into national memory. Nguyen's elegant prose is at once deeply personal, sweepingly panoramic, and hauntingly evocative."--Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek" "Is there hope for an ethics of memory, or for peace? Nothing Ever Dies reveals that, in our collective memories of conflict, we are still fighting the Forever War. Nguyen's distinctive voice blends ideas with family history in a way that is original, unique, exciting. A vitally important book."--Maxine Hong Kingston, author of To Be a Poet" "Inspired by the author's personal odyssey, informed by his wide-ranging exploration of literature, film, and art, this is a provocative and moving meditation on the ethics of remembering and forgetting. Rooted in the Vietnam War and its aftermath, it speaks to all who have been displaced by war and revolution, and carry with them memories, whether their own or of others, private or collective, that are freighted with nostalgia, guilt, and trauma.--Hue-Tam Ho Tai, editor of The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam" Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Sympathizer, was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His stories have appeared in Best New American Voices, TriQuarterly, Narrative, and the Chicago Tribune and he is the author of the academic book Race and Resistance, and a new work of nonfiction, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press, March 2016). He teaches English and American Studies at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. He tweets at @viet_t_nguyen. 

Philip Nguyễn is the Executive Director of the Vietnamese American Roundtable (VAR). After graduating from UC Berkeley with B.A. degrees in Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, he earned his M.A. degree in Asian American Studies from the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses on Vietnamese American Literature and the History of the Vietnamese in the US. He has been involved with community-based organizations dedicated to amplifying and advocating for Asian American, Southeast Asian American, and Vietnamese American voices to the forefront through his involvement with the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, and the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy