Asian American History 101

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 27!  Our guest this episode is Miles Toriko Burks . He's a California-based cartoonist, writer, and illustrator whose work focuses on heartfelt stories about identity, friendship, queer joy, and emotional vulnerability. His debut print graphic novel Encore! was released June 2, 2026 through HarperAlley. It's the print adaptation of his very popular Webtoon series of th...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 26!  Our guests today are Jolene Gutierrez and Chris Sasaki … two of the creators of the picture book Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp , Published by Abrams. It's an incredibly moving story cowritten by Minoru (Min) Tonai, an advocate for Japanese American rights. Unbreakable is a great balance of historical information, lived e...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 25! Our guests today are Livia Blackburne and Julia Kuo , the author and illustrator of Bing's Cherries … A modern American tall tale woven by a girl and her father about Ah Bing, the Chinese immigrant behind the Pacific Northwest's most delicious cherries. The book was released on March 10, 2026. Julia Kuo is the author and illustrator of several books including Home...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 24!  Our guest today is Lian Cheun, the Executive Director of the impactful group Khmer Girls in Action . A 1.5 generation refugee from Cambodia, Lian grew up in the Bay Area and has spent more than two decades organizing Cambodian and Southeast Asian youth in Long Beach. Lian along with Khmer Girls in Action turn grassroots activism into real policy change, where yout...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 23!  Our guest today is Eve J. Chung , a Taiwanese American lawyer and women's human rights specialist. She has worked on a range of issues, including torture, sexual violence, contemporary forms of slavery, and discriminatory legislation, and she's also a best-selling author! Eve's latest novel is The Young Will Remember , a work of historical fiction set during the K...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 22!  Professor Ming Hsu Chen is the Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair and Faculty-Director of the Race, Immigration, Citizenship, and Equality Program , University of California Law, San Francisco. Chen teaches courses in constitutional law, citizenship, immigration, and race. She brings a socio-legal perspective to the study of race, immigration, and the adminis...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 21!  Erin Entrada Kelly is a multiple award-winning Filipino American author best known for her emotionally honest and deeply relatable novels for middle grade and young adult readers. Born in Louisiana to a Filipino mother, Kelly often draws from her own experiences growing up between cultures. She uses humor, vulnerability, and empathy to explore what it means to sea...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 20!  With Christina Baal Owens is a nationally recognized advocate and nonprofit leader dedicated to advancing racial and gender justice in the United States. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum , where she leads efforts to uplift the voices and rights of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Island...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 19!  Our guest today is Sruthi Chandrasekaran. She serves as The Asian American Foundation's Director of Data and Research. She leads strategy development and implementation for the Data and Research team and targeted studies that identify and address the needs of the AAPI community.   The Asian American Foundation, or TAAF , is the leading organization advancing safet...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 18!  Our guest today is the award-winning author and essayist Minh Lê . Whether writing picture books, middle grade graphic novels, or essays, his work often blends an engaging story with deeper lessons.   His latest picture book is Miles Ahead , the story of an adorable dog who helps his family welcome a new baby cousin. A lighthearted search ensues after their gift g...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 17!  We love stand-up comedy as well as books with diverse representation. So we're really excited that our guest today is Patricia Park , a professor of creative writing and an award-winning writer. Her latest book is Ambrosia Lee Drops the Mic , a YA novel about a Korean American former child actress who decides to branch out and stand out in order to pursue her newf...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 16!  Our guest this episode is Scott Kurashige , an award-winning Author, Educator, Activist, and Public Speaker, who has studied the problem of Anti-Asian Violence for 35+ years. He's a nonprofit organizational leader and changemaker who addresses racial equity and social justice issues from an intersectional framework. He currently serves as President of the James an...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 15!  Today our guests are two of the co-authors of the very cool new book Auntie Kristina's Guide to Asian American Activism … Jenessa Joffe and Professor Theodore Chao . Jenessa Joffe is a Los Angeles-based writer, director, producer, and mother who is passionate about creating social change through comedic, kid-focused content. Theodore Chao is an Assistant Professor...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 14!  With Dennis V. Tran. Dennis is a Vietnamese American storyteller, disability advocate, and inclusion strategist whose work focuses on neurodiversity, mental health, and accessibility—particularly within Asian American communities.   Dennis identifies as queer, partially blind, and neurodivergent, and he uses his lived experiences to advocate for more inclusive sys...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 13!  Our guest today is Professor Charlotte Brooks a Professor of History at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She's a scholar of race, immigration, and urban history, and has published widely on Asian American history, especially Chinese American and Chinese diaspora history. Her latest book is an epic biography called The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 12!  We're really excited that our guest this episode is Mirai , the acclaimed audiobook narrator who's also an actress, director and writer. She's a proud 3-time Audie Award Finalist for her audiobook narrating. Not sure what that is? It's like the Academy Award of narration.   Other than audiobook narration and Voice acting, she's been an actor on stage and screen wi...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode XX!  Our guest today is Shang Saavedra , the founder and CEO of Save My Cents, the popular site, blog, and coaching resources on personal finance. Saavedra teaches readers the key habits and behaviors needed to become less fearful of money and live life with joy. Saavedra was named one of the "Twenty-five Most Influential New Voices of Money" by TIME/NextAdvisor in 202...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 10!  You'd be hard pressed to find people who have absolutely never heard of the aerospace company Boeing. But have you heard of their first impactful aeronautical engineer? That person was Wong Tsu, a Chinese born prodigy who was educated in both the UK and US. He helped develop many of the practices still used today.   In today's episode, we talk about his life, his...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 09! On a few rare occasions, we've invited more than one guest at a time, and we're doing it for this episode! Today's guests are Julie Leung and Angie Kang . Both are award-winning creators. Julie is an author with multiple titles to her name while Angie is both an author and illustrator. Their latest work, Navigating Night , is written by Julie and illustrated by Ang...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 8!  What do you get when you mix Jamaican Reggae with Hawaiian music. This isn't the set-up for a joke, it's an episode on Jawaiian music, sometimes called Island Reggae. Today we talk about the origin of Jawaiian music, who some of the key musicians were, why it resonated with so many Hawaiians, and some of the small controversies around it.   We go more in-depth on t...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 7!  Our guest today is Lydia Kang , a professor, medical doctor, and acclaimed author, Her latest book is K-Jane , and it's the story of Jane Choi, a typical Nebraskan teen who loves Husker football and is a total banana. That all changes when her parents find out they're expecting a baby, and Jane goes on a mission to become an expert… or at least more knowledgeable a...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 6!  We're back with Part 2 on The History of the Patel Motel Phenomenon. If you haven't listed to Part 1 which was S06E04 , then we'd love it if you go back and list to that one for more context. In this episode, we continue the history, talking about what the predominantly Gujarati motel and hotel owners did when they were faced with racism from banks, insurance compa...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 5!  Our guest today is XiXi Tian who is both a lawyer and acclaimed author. Her latest work is the novel All the Way Around the Sun , a YA Romance that focuses on themes of belonging, identity, and overcoming trauma. In it, the main character Stella, a Chinese-American protagonist who's forced into a college roadtrip with her childhood friend turned rival. Their compli...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 04!  When it comes to immigrant groups in the U.S., especially Asian Pacific immigrant groups, it's not unusual to see certain industries become almost synonymous with specific communities of people. We saw it with Chinese laundromats, Thai restaurants, Vietnamese nail salons, Cambodian donut shops, and more.   For Indian Americans, one of those industries was the mote...

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 3!  Our guest today is the amazing author V.T. Bidania . She is of Hmong descent and was born in Laos and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. A prolific author with over 20 titles published already, her latest work is the very personal fictionalized memoir A Year Without Home which details her family's escape from Laos after the end of the Secret War in Laos and the Vietna...