Asian in Austin

Thank you so much to all of our listeners and supporters along the way. This month's episode is a short reflection celebrating the podcast and sharing our plans for the future. Follow us at @asianinatx on instagram to keep up with us! 

Chef Harold Villarosa, originally from the Philippines and raised in the South Bronx, shares his journey from fast food joints to working at world-renowned restaurants like Noma. Now residing in Austin, Texas, he talks about his new role as a father, his exciting culinary projects like OKO Austin, and his dedication to community building through authentic Filipino cuisine. Learn how Chef Harold is...

Speakers from Asian Family Support Services of Austin (AFSSA), Asian Texans for Justice (ATJ), Austin Asian American Film Festival (AAAFF), and Austin Asian Community Health Initiative (AACHI) joined us for a live moderated panel discussion at the Austin Asian Professional Summit in May this year. During the discussion we learned more about the direct services and support they offer to the AANHPI...

Nelson Lin is a retired Chinese restaurant child laborer, with decades of experience in the food industry and shoving down his feelings. He currently takes credit for running Soupleaf Hot Pot with his mom and brother, which is Austin's first all you can eat hot pot restaurant. He also runs a meme group called Subtle Asian Real Estate, with over 23,000 members helping each other get from 0 to 1 on...

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin MD is a board-certified psychiatrist, author, keynote speaker, and a contributor to The New York Times. Her debut book, REAL SELF-CARE: Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble-Baths Not Included, is an NPR Best Book of 2023 and a national best-seller. Real Self-Care has been featured by Good Morning America, NPR’s Code Switch, The New York Times, The Ezra Klein Show, The Guardian, and tr...

On the heels of her being announced as part of ACL Fest's 2024 line up, KUTX's artist of the month and more, we're talking to the pop rap artist promqueen to share more about her past year, her musical inspirations, and more!  promqueen (she/they) is a second generation queer Vietnamese American pop rap artist based in Austin, TX. As a daughter to Vietnamese born parents, promqueen draws lyrical i...

We've got a special episode recapping the opportunity to host an official AAPI meetup at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year along with teasing our new season this year. Topics Covered: • Our experience at SXSW this year and what we hope to see next year • A brief unofficial primer on SXSW along with a few pro tips on how to navigate the festival • Our plans for Season 3 and the podcast Materials...

Jenni Lee is an investigative reporter and Midday anchor at KVUE in Austin, Texas. Jenni joined the KVUE news Team in June 2015 as the Weekend Daybreak anchor and weekday reporter but the veteran journalist has worked in the Austin TV market since 2001. Before arriving in Austin, Jenni worked at KBTX-TV in Bryan and College Station after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. For more...

Yola Lu is a comedian and actress based out of Austin, TX. She is the co-founder of Y'all We Asian, Austin's first and only all-Asian American improv troupe. She also is the 2022 Austin Chronicle Best Actress winner, and is currently in post production of her short film, Patsy. You can see her perform with her all female-identifying improv troupe, Garage, every Thursday at the Fallout Theater, and...

The first-born child of immigrants, Zohaib 'Zo' Qadri is the first South Asian American and Muslim elected to serve on the Austin City Council. He was elected to represent District 9 in 2022 and serves the residents of some of Austin’s oldest neighborhoods, including Travis Heights, Hyde Park, and Downtown. He is committed to tackling Austin’s housing crisis, fighting for an expanded and equitable...

Sherry Kong is the co-founder of Mama Kong, a nomadic kitchen cooking up Cambodian food with her husband, Brandon since 2017. Her family immigrated to Austin in 1982 after fleeing the war in Cambodia. After teaching in Japan and New York’s Chinatown, she nad her husband decided to reset the button on life, move back home and introduce Austinites to Cambodian food. She trained and cooked with her m...

We kick off Season 2 with Ayshea Khan, former Asian American Community Archivist at the Austin History Center, Austin Public Library and current Equity & Inclusion Coordinator at the Austin Equity Office. Ayshea's worked in Austin as a storyteller, facilitator and community archivist for over 10 years and has been a longtime volunteer and collaborator with the South Asian American Digital Arch...

Benjamin Suh am currently a third-year student at the University of Texas at Austin studying economics. He's also the Social Media Director in (un)Jaded, an AAPI-centered mental health & social advocacy organization. Growing up in both the U.S. and South Korea, he was bombarded with two drastically different environments, and this unfortunately provided a lack of sense of community to him. How...

Lily Trieu is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and grew up in Southwest Houston, Texas. Currently she serves as the Interim Executive Director of Asian Texans for Justice, a statewide nonprofit with a mission to connect Asian and Pacific Islander Texans to meaningful civic action to build personal and political power.  This month we talk about her Chinese-Vietnamese heritage, family journey and...

Born-and-raised in Texas, Mars has been creating music under the stage name Honey Son for over a decade. In this month's episode, Mars shares more about growing up as bi-racially Filipino and Black in San Antonio, navigating the music scene in Austin, and staying true and authentic in his music.  Outside of music, he very much enjoys fathering his precocious 9 year-old daughter Olivia. Referenced...

Nadia Chaudhury, editor of Eater Austin, is a Austin-based photographer, writer, and New Yorker. She covers Austin's restaurant and dining scene and this month we learn about her journey with her Bangladeshi background weaved throughout her life, food and her work.  Referenced Materials in the Episode Eater Austin Partition Podcast Eater Austin: Welcome to Texas Wine Country Asian American Organiz...

Yen Tan is an Austin-based, Malaysian-born writer, director, and graphic artist. He premiered the critically-acclaimed "Pit Stop" at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. His NYT Critic's Pick feature, "1985," premiered at SXSW 2018. This month we hear from him on how the intersectionality of his Asian American and queer identities inspire his film work and storytelling projects. Yen also co-directe...

What is it like to navigate the world as a bi-racial child? Join us for this episode as we chat with Aisha Lewis, a social impact leader and DJ, of Black and Japanese descent. She shares her experiences of growing up with a Japanese mother and Black father in Los Angeles and what eventually led her to make her way to Austin, TX. She gives us intimate views into her cultures and what being Asian Am...

How do we even define Asian American and which ethnicities does it encompass? And what's the context that brought the first Asians to Austin? In this episode, we learn all that plus more about Dr. Eric Tang's own relationship to his Asian American identity, being a racialized subject and W.E.B. DuBois' Double Consciousness, and what the future holds for the Asian community in Austin with our speci...

The series premiere of Asian in Austin shares the purpose and goals for the podcast and we dive into our personal experiences and relationship to our Asian American identity as a gay Vietnamese American man and Vietnamese American woman. Each month, we will have a specific theme and invite special guests from the Asian American community in Austin to share more about their own relationship to thei...

Asian in Austin is a podcast to elevate the voices and stories of Asian Americans living in Austin, Texas while exploring what it means to come into one's own identity. The podcast will premiere May 2 and is hosted by Sandra Pham and Minh Vu.