Self Evident: Asian America's Stories

Why do Asian Americans have such deep relationships with fruit?

Cathy goes on a quest to find the answers — starting with her friendly neighborhood fruit vendor, Cece, then spending time with friends and listeners in our extended podcast fam.

Along the way, she hears stories about family heirloom trees, mango sharing techniques, persimmon obsessions, and an unbridled love for durian. Then, she calls up food writer Priya Krishna and heritage farmer Kristyn Leach to unpack all the personal stories she’s heard.

As Cathy learns the ways that Asian Americans across the country have instilled a reverence for fruit and upheld countless rituals with it in their lives, she realizes that our tastes are even more deeply rooted than we might think.

Credits

• Written by Cathy Erway
• Produced by James Boo, Harsha Nahata, and Julia Shu
• Edited by James Boo and Julia Shu
• Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound
• Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love

Shoutouts

Big thanks to everyone who shared their fruit stories and fruit feels with us for this episode:

• Ahmed Ali Akbar
• Ann Duong
• Dorothy Faye Pirtle
• Jack Shu
• Jenn De La Vega
• Jenn Wong
• Kristyn Leach
• Merk Nguyen
• Nidhi Prakash
• Niha Reddy
• Priya Krishna
• Raman Sehgal
• Stanford Chiou

We couldn’t fit everyone into the final cut, but you can see and hear bonus stories on our Instagram, using the hashtag #MyImmigrantFruitStory.

Reading, Listening, and Resources

• "If I'm Cutting Fresh Fruit For Dessert, I Probably Love You" by Priya Krishna for Bon Appetit 
• "A Bowl of Cut Fruit is How Asian Moms Say I Love You" by Yi Jun Loh for TASTES
• "How the simple art of cutting fruit can be an act of love" by Daniela Galarza for The Washington Post
• “Bok Choy Isn’t ‘Exotic’,” by Cathy Erway for Eater
• “Underground Aams Trade,” by Ahmed Ali Akbar for Proof (America’s Test Kitchen)
• Check out Priya’s recipes in her cookbook, Indianish
• Grow your own East Asian heritage crops and cook from recipes at Kristyn Leach’s Second Generation Seeds

When producer Erica Mu moved back to her hometown in 2014, she said goodbye to a past life without any idea what exactly her new life should look like. Looking for the most grounded place she could find, she went to the local mall early one morning, turned on her tape recorder, and started talking to everyone she could meet.

As Erica made her way through this sprawling landscape of mostly Chinese businesses in one of the most East Asian cities in the country, she peeked in the dreams, annoyances, and love lives of dim sum diners, shop owners, security guards, young children, young parents, weightlifters, all-night partiers, and one very skilled harmonica player.

But as she grasped for some universal truth that would tie all the threads of the mall, Erica realized that the unpredictable, unresolved mess of everyday life is exactly what makes it something to treasure.

Credits

• Produced and written by Erica Mu
• Edited by Liz Mak
• Co-produced by Rebecca Kanthor and Paulina Hartono
• Major recording help from Leslie Chang and Alyssa Kapnik Samuel
• Immense story input from George Lavender
• Final edits by James Boo and Julia Shu
• Music by Podington Bear
• Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love

Shoutouts

Big thanks to everyone who spoke with Erica during her time at the mall for this story!

Support from the California Council for the Humanities, and advisors:

• Al Letson
• Catherine Ceniza Choy
• Wei Li
• Oliver Wang
• Leila Day

Support from the Association of Independents in Radio, Mentor Martina Castro

Support from Third Coast International Audio Festival and Radio Residency

Fiscal sponsorship from Visual Communications, developing and supporting the voices of Asian American & Pacific Islander filmmakers and media artists

Countless friends and colleagues who have given their time to talk about all our stories

What happens when you come to America to marry the person you thought would take care of you, only to find yourself in an abusive family, losing all sense of self?

Guest producer Rosalind Tordesillas brings us this story about Joy, a woman whose dream marriage turned into a nightmare — and the advocates for survivors of domestic violence who helped her through the long journey to becoming whole.

Immigrant women like Joy often have an especially hard time getting help with domestic abuse because of immigration status, language, and cultural issues. Unfortunately, every one of these challenges has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading Joy and her advocates at the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK) to speak out.

In this episode, they share how Joy dealt with her situation and reveal the critical role that social workers, advocates, and lawyers play in supporting survivors who have no other path forward.

WARNING: Skip minutes 10:00-17:30 if you do not wish to hear descriptions of domestic abuse, including some graphic descriptions of violence. If this is an especially tough subject for you to hear about, then you may want consider skipping this episode.

Resources and Reading

If you are experiencing abuse or want to help someone who is, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233).

• The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (includes a 24-hour multilingual hotline for Boston area residents)
• “A Pandemic Within a Pandemic — Intimate Partner Violence during COVID-19”
• “Study Finds Rise in Domestic Violence during COVID” by Alan Mozes for WebMD
• “Why Can’t the Senate Pass the Violence Against Women Act?” by Jay Willis for GQ
• U.S. Department of Justice Memo on the implications of Congress’ failure to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act  since 2019

Credits

• Produced by Rosalind Tordesillas
• Edited by James Boo and Mia Warren
• Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly
• Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

This episode was made in partnership with Feet in 2 Worlds, a project that brings the work of immigrant journalists to digital news sites and public radio. Since their founding in 2004, Feet in 2 Worlds has brought the work of immigrant journalists from communities across the U.S. to public radio and online news sites.

Shoutouts

Thanks to Cristina Ayala (co-executive director) and the staff of ATASK for helping us produce this episode.

And big thanks to Blair Matsuura, one of our biggest supporters on Patreon!

If you want to join Blair in supporting our mission and making our work sustainable, please become a member at patreon.com/selfevidentshow.

During this year’s protests for Black lives, the national conversation was filled with calls to have uncomfortable conversations about anti-Blackness. This push, to talk about racism with our loved ones, has been both championed and criticized — but how do these conversations actually go down, and where do they lead?

To find out, we spoke with three cousins who created a conversation toolkit for Filipinx families, and made the nerve-wracking decision to test drive on a video call with their entire extended family.

Then we caught up with two friends who grew up in a redlined suburb of Detroit, to learn how their experiences with present-day school segregation have shaped their expectations about what’s needed to move towards justice.

To unpack our own thoughts on all of this, we hopped on the phone with our show’s co-founder, Talisa Chang, to hear about her experiences leading an abolition reading and discussion group for the past six months.

Along the way, we grappled with how these conversations can feel like way too much to handle, yet perhaps not enough to make a difference — and ultimately, how keeping these conversations going can help give Asian Americans the resolve and capacity to act in defense of Black lives in America.

During the 48 hours of uncertainty after November 3, 2020, our producer James called over a dozen people — not to talk about Trump vs. Biden, but about the more systemic problems that would stick with us after all the votes were counted.

These conversations with family and friends led him to reexamine a pivotal moment in his civic education: When he founded a chapter of the Junior State of America in the midst of the 2000 Presidential race, and learned that the act of democracy was a lot tougher than it seemed.

After speaking with Cris Aguila and Karl Kristian Flores (two of our youngest voting-age listeners) about their frustrations with our we vote for President, James dug up the phone number of the high school student who leads the same Junior State chapter that he had started a generation ago… and ended this week of cynicism with a surprising moment of hope.

How can Asian American communities create safety, when the harms of racism and xenophobia are so deeply rooted in our society?

We’ve spent time unpacking the simplistic solution of hate crime enforcement, then learning how local activists rallying against anti-Asian hate often reveal a much deeper history of neglect and under-resourcing of immigrant communities.

In this third of three episodes on community responses to anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, we speak with four people — Rachel Kuo of the Asian American Feminist Collective; Sammie Ablaza Wills of API Equality in Northern California; and Suja and Iram Amir from American Muslims Uncovered.

From seeking non-policing solutions for conflict management, to helping intergenerational communities understand how to express what they need most, to challenging the racism that festers in schools across the country, each voice in this episode challenges Asian Americans to ask for fundamental change in how we achieve safety for our communities.

Credits

• Produced by James Boo and Julia Shu
• Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly
• Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound
• Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love

Shout Outs

• Thanks to Rachel Kuo and the entire leadership of the Asian American Feminist Collective, Sammie Ablaza Wills of APIENC, Suja Amir of the Asian & Latino Solidarity Alliance of Central Virginia, and Iram Amir of American Muslims Uncovered for sharing their time with us.

Self Evident is a Studiotobe production, made with the support of our listener community. Our show was incubated at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP. 

Resources, Reading, and Listening

• “We Want Cop-Free Communities: Against the Creation of an Asian Hate Crime Task Force by the NYPD” by the Asian American Feminist Collective
• “Internal Affairs Investigating Columbus Park Incident” by The Lowdown
• “Charges Dropped in New York City Jaywalking Incident” by ABC News
• “Trusting Abundance: A Conversation With Sammie Ablaza Wills” by Lia Dun for Autostraddle
• “Race, Policing, and the Universal Yearning for Safety” featuring Phillip Atiba Goff for the Ezra Klein Show
• “The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd” by Aymann Ismail for Slate

The rise in xenophobic harassment, discrimination, and violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic has led to a rise in neighborhood watch groups in historic Chinatowns and other Asian immigrant communities across the country.

While these groups have made headlines for speaking out against racism, their motivations and actions reveal a deeper story about the pain of underserved communities and the role of policing in those communities.

In this second of three episodes on community responses to anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, we report on three neighborhood watch groups in historic Chinatown neighborhoods: the Manhattan Chinatown Blockwatch, the SF Peace Collective, and the United Peace Corps. The diverging approaches that they take reveal how much American communities rely on a “law-and-order” definition of safety.

Two incidents of anti-Asian racism — the beating of an elderly grandfather in a San Francisco park and the harassment of a mourning son in a New York pharmacy — reveal an ugly side of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the first of three episodes reporting on Asian American responses to anti-Asian hate incidents. Share your thoughts on the stories with us by emailing community@selfevidentshow.com.

To support our ongoing mission and work on stories like these, join our membership program via Patreon.

Credits

• Produced by James Boo
• Edited by Julia Shu
• Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly
• Reporting and production assistance by Prerna Chaudhary
• Interview recordings by Sonia Paul
• Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love
• Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound
• Sound effects by Soundsnap

Shout out to

• Cynthia Choi at Chinese for Affirmative Action SF for her help with research and reporting
• Sojung Yi and Charles Wang for sharing their stories with us and with the rest of the world
• Our intern Prerna, who learned roughly two million new skills to help us report, produce, and edit this episode

Resources and Reading

• To report a micro-aggression, bullying, hate speech, harassment, or violence incident, fill out a form at Stop AAPI Hate (multiple languages provided).
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resources to Stand Against Racism 
• Bystander Intervention Trainings To Stop Anti-Asian/Xenophobic Harrassment by Hollaback!
• I’m an Asian American doctor on the front lines of two wars: Coronavirus and racism by Sojung Yi, for The Lily
• Asian Americans Face Dual Challenges: Surging Unemployment and Racism By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil and Kimmy Yam, for NBC News
• “As anti-Asian hate incidents explode, activists push for aid” by Anh Do, for the Los Angeles Times

Self Evident is a Studitobe production, made with the support of our listener community. This episode was made with support from the Solutions Journalism Network, and from the National Geographic Society’s Emergency Fund for Journalists. Our show was incubated at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP.

You’ve said the words, “Black Lives Matter.” You’ve put your money where your mouth is. You’ve shown up for the marches.

What next? What exactly is the change we’re showing up for, and how exactly can we commit to making that change in our own communities?

In this bonus episode, we’re passing the mic to Jaime Sunwoo (a Korean American interdisciplinary artist and former housing advocate) and Brandon West (a longtime Black organizer for democracy rights and racial justice). Jaime and Brandon’s experiences in community service, city budgeting, and organizing work clarify why and how today’s movement for racial justice is asking us to defund the police.

Resources and Links

• Jaime Sunwoo (@jaimesunwoo) worked in homeless services from 2015-2017. She's a multidisciplinary artist and is developing Specially Processed American Me, a performance project on the significance of SPAM in the Asian diaspora. You can learn more about her at jaimesunwoo.com.
• Brandon West (@btwest) is a campaign manager for voting rights at the Center for Popular Democracy, and collaborates with a great many community organizers in Brooklyn. He’s also a candidate for New York City Council, which you can learn more about at westforcouncil.com (full disclosure: our Managing Producer James Boo is Brandon’s roommate, and volunteers for Brandon’s campaign).
• Both Jaime and Brandon support the work of Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of community groups seeking to defund the New York Police Department and create greater accountability for police misconduct.
• Jaime worked as a housing advocate for Breaking Ground, a non-profit organization that provides housing and wraparound services to over 8,000 New Yorkers a year.
• The Brooklyn Liberation march for Black trans lives ended up attracting an estimated total of 15,000 people. Many organizers intersecting with that action support the repeal of “Walking While Trans” laws across the country. You read about the underlying issues here.
• If you’re still looking for ways to learn and donate in support of Black lives, then check out our latest newsletter for a curated list of some of our favorite works (almost all by or centering Black voices) and Black-led groups.

Credits

• Produced by James Boo and Julia Shu
• Edited by Julia Shu, with assistance from Prerna Chaudhury
• Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly
• Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love
• Thanks to Dolly Li of Plum Radio for helping us record some of the protest tape heard on this episode!

The struggle to save lives from COVID-19 is far from over, and neither is America’s struggle against racism.

As we report on hate crime and anti-racist action, Cathy and James hop on the phone and check in with a couple of our friends in podcasting: Paola Mardo (who tells stories from the Filipino diaspora on Long Distance) and Ahmed Ali Akbar (who covers the social, cultural, and political experiences of American Muslims on See Something Say Something).

We took this time to unpack the ugly, reckon with the bad, and speak to the good that we hope comes out of this pivotal moment in history.

We hope you’re all getting the support you need out there, and would love to hear from you — just write to community@selfevidentshow.com, and please take care.

Resources and links:

“COVID-19 is not the great equalizer” — a short piece from Marketplace showing how hard this pandemic is hitting communities of color and the working poor.

If you want to dive into reports focused on anti-Asian racism and Asian American efforts to save lives from COVID-19, Next Shark has been relentlessly covering these beats. Big thanks to them for taking on all of the work required to keep this up.

We shared a list of anti-racism resources in a recent newsletter. Since circumstances evolve day by day, we’ll continue using the newsletter to bundle and share resources that might help you get through it all. You can sign up for that here.

Paola (@paolamardo) is working on a new episode of Long Distance about health care workers on the front lines. You can hear the full story of her recent encounter with racism here.

Ahmed (@radbrowndads) is working on “M Train,” a 6 part miniseries focused on Muslim life in New York, made as a collaboration between See Something Say Something and BRIC. You can listen here.

Cathy (@cathyerway) covered new efforts to save Manhattan Chinatown’s local businesses for NYMag’s Grubstreet. You can read that story here.

James (@actualjamesboo) wrote these show notes. If you’re wondering why he’s not a Governor Cuomo fan, read this Gothamist news piece and this op-ed by Prasanna Shah.

Credits

Produced by Julia Shu

Edited by Julia Shu and James Boo

Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly

Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love

When we started Self Evident, we were surprised at how many people wanted a new show but hadn’t heard about all the Asian American podcasts already out there.

In this bonus episode, our team shares clips from a few other independent podcasts, showing a wide range of Asian American stories and conversations.

Tell us what you think of our first season!

As we head into our off-season, we could use your help understanding what we're doing well and what can improve.

Please take this survey, even if you've only listened to one episode of Self Evident, to give us your honest feedback.

Resources

If you want to really dig deep into the world of Asian American & Asian diaspora podcasts, you can check out this extensive list of shows, maintained by the Asian American Podcasters group.

Here's what Cathy, Julia, and James share in this bonus episode:

• Long Distance, Season 1 Episode 6: "Filipino Tiki Bar" (and the Long Distance Radio Club Patreon)
• See Something Say Something: "Ramy" (and the See Something Say Something Patreon)
• Saturday School, Season 6 Episode 1: "Kal Ho Naa Ho" (and the Saturday School newsletter)
• Escape From Plan A, Episode 92: "Boba Liberalism vs. Asian Left Twitter" and Episode 86: "Yellow Asians, Brown Asians... Who's Asian?" (and the Plan A Patreon)

Shout Outs

We’ve been on a really long journey, with hopefully a long way to go! So we want to thank the podcasters and producers who took the time to give us advice and encouragement as we were creating Self Evident: Anne Saini, Erica Mu, Marvin Yueh, Vishal Janmohamed, and Stephanie Tam.

Credits

Produced and edited by James Boo

Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly

Long Distance theme music by C. Light and the Prisms

Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

We asked our listener community, “How did you learn where you come from?”

What came back was a wide range of personal stories about how tricky it can be to access our heritage. From kids going to culture camp, to adoptees making journeys to their birth countries, to Asian Americans of all ages realizing that they’re inevitably going to lose a piece of themselves — we explore how we fit in with what came before us and figure out what comes next.

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

• Misha recommends that Self Evident listeners check out episode 2 of Tell Them, I Am, “Deana.”
• Read some of Ansley’s poetry, accompanied by her own visual artwork, on Culturestrike.
• If you’d like to participate in Henry’s Chinese geneaology workshop, e-mail Henry [dot] Tom [at] Cox [dot] net.
• Mark, one of the voices on today’s episode, has told the full story of his trip to find his birth record in Korea on this episode of the Escape from Plan A podcast.
• Check out Leading Youth Forward, Chicago Desi Youth Rising, NQAPIA, and APIENC to see examples of Asian American spaces for cultural and political education.
• To learn more about “Love Boat” and how it’s impacted Asian Americans, check out Valerie Soe’s documentary, Love Boat: Taiwan, which is touring film festivals across the country.

Shout Outs

Shout out to Yin Kong and Yin Mei of Think!Chinatown for inviting us to the workshop where we met Henry Tom.

Thanks to everyone from our listener community who shared their experiences with us in the making of this episode: Alice Chou, Davey Kim, Gabor Fu, Jenni Wong, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Lily Susman, Lori Wanko, Mark from Plan A, Mark Zastrow, Merk Nguyen, Michelle Chu, Rekha Radhakrishnan, Waverly Colville, and Win-Sie Tow.

And very special thanks to our advisors for this season of the show: Alex Laughlin, Anika Gupta, Blair Matsuura, Christina Choi, Davey Kim, and Ted Hsieh.

Credits

Produced by James Boo

Edited by Julia Shu and Cheryl Devall

Editorial support from Davey Kim

Production support by Jaye McAuliffe

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.

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.

Three intimate conversations reveal how we deal with changes to our most deeply rooted identities, and how we tell the people who matter most.

“Unspoken”

Documentary filmmaker Patrick G. Lee tells Cathy about the unexpected ways that coming out affected his family.

“The Debut”

Producer Preeti Varathan and her cousin Srinidhi unpack complicated feelings about their larger-than-life, coming-of-age musical performances.

“Buzz Cut”

Old college friends L and Sindhu reunite to talk about why they decided to cut off their hair.

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

• To learn more about Patrick G. Lee’s documentary, “Unspoken,” follow the film on Facebook.
• Self Evident and Patrick will screen the film exclusively for our listeners in August, so if you want to see it online, subscribe to our mailing list. If you’re in New York on July 31, you can catch the big screen debut at the Asian American International Film Festival.
• There’s more at the intersection of LGBTQIA and Asian American identity than coming out, but our friends at Mochi Mag recently put together this sweet collection of coming-out stories from Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Singaporean Americans to celebrate Pride.
• And one of our favorite podcasts, Nancy, has lots of awesome stories and episodes about being queer and Asian American — including this favorite, about co-host Kathy Tu’s visit with family to Taiwan.
• To hear Preeti’s violin performance from this episode, check out this video of her last concert.
• For more about arangetrams, their history, and discussions about class and gender, Preeti recommends this primer from The Hindu and this deep look at T.M. Krishan, whose writing explores how to “de-Brahmanize” carnatic music.
• For more work from Pavana Reddy (the poet who Srinidhi collaborated with onstage), visit pavanareddy.com.
• You can check out L's writing and comics here.

Shout Outs

Thanks to Sindhu Gnanasambandan for the conversation with L, and all the members of our community panel who gave us feedback on these stories.

Credits

Produced by Julia Shu, Preeti Varathan, and Alex Laughlin

Edited by Cheryl Devall

Production support by James Boo

Sound engineering by Timothy Lou Ly

Theme music by Dorian Love

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

Sound effects by Soundsnap

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.

Gabe's always felt distant from his parents: not Filipino enough for his dad, not affectionate enough for his mom. But when he moves back to his white-bread hometown to donate a kidney to his dad and work alongside him at the “Fiesta in America,” Gabe is forced to rethink the way he's seen his family, his heritage, and his lifelong struggle to belong.

Share your story and keep the conversation going!

What food or dish reminds you of home? Let us know by writing, or sharing a photo, or even a recipe on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@selfevidentshow, with the hashtag #WeAreSelfEvident). Cathy and Gabe will kick it off, so watch out for their recipes and memories online!

Resources and Recommend Reading

The 21st annual Fiesta in America will take place on August 10-11, 2019 at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, NJ.

Here's some food for the soul, straight from our team:

Self Evident tells Asian American stories — but that term itself, “Asian American,” can mean many different things to different people. In this episode we present three stories from our listener community to explore the ways “Asian American” reflects both representation and exclusion, empowerment and stereotyping, under the diverse umbrella of Asian American identity.

Share your story and keep the conversation going!

We want to hear from you! Do you identify as Asian American? Why or why not? Email your story to community@selfevidentshow.com, or share with us on social media @SelfEvidentShow, with the hashtag #WeAreSelfEvident.

Resources and Recommend Reading:

Key Facts about Asian Americans research from the Pew Research Center

“Who Is Vincent Chin? The History and Relevance of a 1982 Killing” by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang from NBC Asian America

Census Suppression podcast episode of “In the Thick,” with Hansi Lo Wang from NPR and Dorian Warren from the Center for Community Change, for more discussion about the upcoming Census

The Asian American Movement, a history book recommended by Marissiko Wheaton

Activist Amy Uyematsu Proclaims the Emergence of “Yellow Power,” a 1969 article recommended by Marissiko Wheaton

Shout Outs:

In addition to the nearly 100 community members who shared their perspectives with us for this episode, we want to give a special shout out to everyone who sent in voice memos and had conversations with us about how they felt about the term “Asian American”: Akira Olivia Kumamoto, Alana Mohamed, Andrew Hsieh, Julia Arciga, Kelly Chan, Maha Chaudhry, Marissiko Wheaton, Mia Warren, Nicole Go, Sharmin Hossain, and Veasna Has.

This episode was made possible by the generous support of Noah Berland and the rest of our 1,004 crowdfund backers.

Credits:

Produced by Julia Shu and Cathy Erway

Edited by Cheryl Devall and Julia Shu

Tape syncs by Mona Yeh and Shana Daloria

Production support and fact checking by Katherine Jinyi Li

Editorial support from Davey Kim, Alex Laughlin, Managing Producer James Boo, and Executive Producer Ken Ikeda

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.

What does it mean to be excluded from the American Dream? Two stories, set 100 years apart, explore this question from the perspective of immigrants who think they’ve made it in America, only to find out that their dream comes at a cost.

"No Place Like Home"

At the height of America’s Exclusion era, an Indian immigrant’s quest for prosperity ends in a tragic realization that being a “good immigrant” isn’t enough to escape the realities of racism.

"Non-White Picket Fences"

A fight over a homeless shelter in one of America’s most Asian cities reveals the choices that Americans face in seeking suburban paradise.

Share your story and keep the conversation going!

Do you have a story about feeling excluded from the “American Dream”? Where or when in your life have you felt most like you belonged?

Email your story to community@selfevidentshow.com or share with us on social media @SelfEvidentShow, with the hashtag #WeAreSelfEvident.

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.

History of Angel Island Immigration Station, by the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

History of “Race, Nationality, and Reality” (including more about the Supreme Court decisions that declared only white people could be U.S. citizens) at National Archives

Primary Sources chronicling the life of Vaishno Das Bagai, preserved by the South Asian American Digital Archive

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee, published by Simon & Schuster

“Escape From Los Angeles: White Flight From Los Angeles and Its Schools, 1960-1980” by Jack Schneider, for the Journal of Urban History

“The Court Case That Forced OC to Stop Ignoring Its Homeless” by Jill Replogle, for LAist

Public Record of Irvine City Council Emergency Town Hall Meeting to discuss the proposal to place an emergency homeless shelter in the Orange County Great Park

Public Record of Orange County Board of Supervisors Meeting to discuss the proposal to place emergency homeless shelters in Huntington Beach, Irvine, and Laguna Niguel

The OC Needle Exchange Program research directory lists many sources of information regarding the public health outcomes of syringe exchanges

“In Fighting Homeless Camp, Irvine’s Asians Win, but at a Cost” by Anh Do, for the Los Angeles Times

“Asian Americans in Irvine Draw Outrage for Protesting Homeless Shelters” by Carl Samson, for NextShark

“Supervisors Defend Their Turf and Criticize Spitzer’s Homeless Warnings” by Nick Gerda, for Voice of OC

“Homelessness in Orange County: The Costs to Our Community,” a research report by UC Irvine faculty, sponsored by OC United Way and Jamboree Housing

Executive Summary of research on our national homelessness crisis done by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

"Student Housing Issues at UC Irvine," a recently released research report by Izzak Mirales at UC Irvine, based in part on data collected by the ASUCI Housing Security Commission.

"Irvine Student Housing Cost and Crowding Under Scrutiny in Report Presented at UCI" by Lilly Nguyen, for the Los Angeles Times

“Not in My Backyard: What the Shouting Down of One Homeless Housing Complex Means for Us All” by Jill Replogle for Southern California Public Radio

Shout Outs:

Erika Lee and Samip Mallick helped us connect with Rani Bagai.

Brandon Morales, Mike Carman and Molly Nichelson helped us report our story about homelessness in Irvine, California.

Anne Saini and Jill Replogle graciously consulted with our team on these stories.

We received feedback on this episode from Aileen Tieu, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy, Akira Olivia Kumamoto,  Alex Wong, Alicia Tyree, Anish Patel, Chris Lam, Emily Ewing Hays, Erica Eng, Irene Noguchi, Jen Young, Jennifer Zhan, Jon Yang, Jonathon Desimone, Kelly Chan, Kevin Do, Lynne Guey, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Marvin Yueh, Mia Warren, Rebecca Jung, Robyn Lee, and Tommy Tang.

This episode was made possible by the generous support of Stefan Mancevski and the rest of our 1,004 crowdfund backers.

Credits:

Produced by James Boo, Cathy Erway, and Associate Producer Kathy Im

Additional reporting by Anthony Kim

Edited by James Boo and Cheryl Devall

Tape syncs by Mona Yeh and Eilis O’Neill

Production support and fact checking by Katherine Jinyi Li

Editorial support from Davey Kim, Alex Laughlin, Senior Producer Julia Shu, and Executive Producer Ken Ikeda

Sound Engineering by Timothy Lou Ly

Theme Music by Dorian Love

Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound

Sound effects by Soundsnap

Self Evident is a Studiotobe production. Our show was incubated at the Made in New York Media Center by IFP. Season 1 is presented by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), the Ford Foundation, and our listener community.

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.

The first season of Self Evident: Asian America's Stories comes to a podcast app near you on May 21, 2019. Here's a peep into the stories we'll be presenting during this pilot run of 6 episodes (with a new episode coming out every 2 weeks).

Subscribe today, and visit selfevidentshow.com to learn how you can hear sneak previews and help shape the show!

With so much attention focused on the Presidential race and other federal elections right now, we hope you'll find it refreshing to hear from Yuh-Line Niou, the only Asian American woman in New York's state legislature.

In this conversation with Rock the Boat podcast host Lucia Liu, Yuh-Line explains how and why she got involved with local and state government, and how her experiences as an immigrant woman have enabled her to make a distinct impact in the New York state assembly.

The latest season of Rock the Boat, produced in partnership with Model Majority highlights Asian Americans working in government and civic engagement.

Reading and Viewing:

• "'I Can Still Smell Him': For 4 Legislators, the Child Victims Act Is Personal" by Corina Knoll for the New York Times
• Yuh-Line speaks against New York State Budget priorities during the peak of the pandemic's first wave in New York City

Rock the Boat is made by:

• Lucia Liu, Host
• Rachel Chou, Music & Sound Editor
• David Liu, Associate Producer
• Chia-Yi Hou, Blog Editor
• Emily Cheng, Email Marketing Manager
• Debbie Wong, Social Media Coordinator
• Margaret Zhao, Press & Partnerships
• Sung Hwang, Mental Health Events

When New York City became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, Brooklyn-based producer Beenish Ahmed struggled over whether to visit her parents in Ohio or stay put. Her parents — a landlord and hairdresser who immigrated from Pakistan in the ‘70s — begged her to come home. When Beenish finally decided to go in May, she recorded that journey, and the discoveries she made about her family’s relationship to America.

This story is an episode we're sharing from A Better Life?, a new podcast by our friends at Feet in 2 Worlds that explores how America’s failed response to COVID-19 has reshaped immigrants’ lives and their relationship to the United States.

Here's the team behind the story, and many other stories and conversations that you can hear on A Better Life? wherever you get podcasts:

• A Better Life? is hosted by Zahir Janmohamed.
• This episode was produced by Beenish Ahmed.
• It was edited by Mia Warren and John Rudolph.
• It was mixed by Jocelyn Gonzalez.
• Anna Dilena is our assistant producer.
• Alejandro Salazar Dyer is our development coordinator.
• Olivia Cunningham is our digital content manager.
• Kenny Leon is our intern.
• A Better Life?’s theme song was composed by Fareed Sajan.
• A Better Life? is produced by Feet in 2 Worlds, an organization that has supported the work of immigrant journalists since 2005.

Two Asian American olds (Cathy and James) watch the original Mulan for the first time, then join a seasoned fan (Julia) — for an animated discussion about the limitations of Hollywood representation, the saving grace of gender-bending innuendo, and what exactly it is about Mulan that resonates with so many Asian Americans who grew up with it.

Resources and Recommended Reading:

• Ariana Amour performs "Reflection"
• 'Mulan' Was the Most Bisexual Cartoon Ever
• What Mulan taught me about identity, honor, and drag saving China
• The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's 'Mulan'
• ‘Mulan’ remake drops Li Shang character because of #MeToo movement
• Pro-democracy boycott of Disney's Mulan builds online via #milkteaalliance

Sharmin Hossain, a member of New York’s Bangladeshi Feminist Collective, helps us take a hard look at the roles of class, colorism, and cultural education within the broader conversation about Asian representation in America.

This interview was one of many conversations we had when producing Episode 002: “The Non-United States of Asian America.”

To hear more about the impact of caste on South Asian Americans, check out friend of the show Sonia Paul's Code Switch piece, "When Caste Discrimination Comes to the United States."

Do you have a story about going to language classes, Saturday schools, religious community groups, clubs, music lessons, or other alternative classrooms where you learned about your culture or heritage? Was it a positive, negative, or mixed experience for you?

We're producing an episode of the podcast exploring the ways that we learn where we come from — for better or for worse. And we want this episode to be based in the experiences of you, our listeners.

So please share your story with us:

1. Record a voice memo on your phone. Please keep it to three minutes or less. It doesn’t have to be perfect!
2. Email your voice memo to community@selfevidentshow.com. Include your name, location, and age in the email.

We’re looking for a wide variety of stories and memories, including from people of South Asian, Southeast Asian, East Asian, and Pacific Islander descent; mixed-race folx; adoptees; kids; parents; grandparents; and people who speak a language other than English.

Got an idea for a person or community organization we should talk to about this episode? Please share this bonus episode with them, or email us at community@selfevidentshow.com.