Escape From Plan A

On August 20, 2020, Asian Americans Advancing Justice's Asian Law Caucus, along with dozens of Asian American and Civil Rights organizations, filed an amicus brief opposing the US government's increasing attacks on Chinese American scientists. In this special unlocked bonus episode, Teen and Diana discuss "The China Initiative," how and why something like this gets enacted, who it hurts and who it...

Diamond Yao joins Teen and Diana to discuss her article "Navigating Capitalist Mandates for Happiness and Collectivist Fears of Shame." What do "failure" and "success" mean in a culture of excess consumerism that dehumanizes and commodifies us? How do we get out of the white hand-me-down world? TWITTER: Diamond (@graceofyul) Teen (@Mont_Jiang) Diana (@discoveryduck) REFERENCED RESOURCES: "Navigati...

On September 19, 2020, Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump Administration's executive order that would remove WeChat and its software support from U.S. app stores, effectively banning the Chinese "superapp." ****** In this special unlocked bonus, Jess, Diana, Chris, and Teen dive into the details of the executive orders against WeChat and TikTok,...

This episode of Escape From Plan A is sponsored by NCRC. Content creation, research, and podcast guest scheduling was done in partnership with the Adoptee Rights Campaign. ***** Adam is joined by three guests, Leah, Sara and Mike. All three are international adoptees without citizenship in America. In their own voices, each of them share the legal, practical, and emotional implications and impact...

Adam and Diana discuss three readings: "Ghost Dance Prophecy," Chapter 10 of "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States," by Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz; "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy," by Andrea Smith; and "The Racist Origins of U.S. Policing: Demilitarization Will Require Decolonization," by Julian Go. The core of the United States' identity is white supremacy. Its...

Emily Dong returns to continue the discourse with Diana and Teen. What is Sinophobia and how does it differ from and interact with anti-Asian racism? How do we process such antagonism as Chinese Americans? How do we relate to Black Radicalism and police violence? There are no easy answers, only another sprawling conversation. SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gmail.com EFPA Opening Theme: "F...

Mike and Q discuss Inventing Reality: The Politics of New Media, by Michael Parenti. The book pulls no punches in explaining exactly how the people who own the news media creates what is (and isn't) news. What is news invariably serves elites, their investments, and right-wing corporate interests. What gets twisted or isn't shown at all is usually the information necessary for the people to collec...

Psychiatrist Joshua Blum joins CS and Teen for an expansive discussion that begins and ends with Asian American mental health and covers pretty much everything that Plan A has been pondering for the last three years. TWITTER: CS Taniguchi (@c_taniguchi) Teen (@Mont_Jiang) SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gmail.com EFPA Opening Theme: "Fuck Out My Face" by Ayekay (open.spotify.com/artist/16z...

This is a free extended preview. The full conversation (runtime ~2h51m) is available to Patreon supporters. Support us at https://www.patreon.com/planamag and get access to a private discord chat and all of the bonus episodes of Escape From Plan A. ***** It's estimated that porn constitutes ~30% of all internet traffic. One company dominates much of that traffic -- MindGeek -- but is not a househo...

*TECHNICAL NOTE* if you've had problem accessing episodes in the past couple of weeks, it's because we messed up a setting on our end and the URL's stopped working. We have it fixed now -- if you're still having trouble in your podcast app, (1) refresh the feed, and (2) clear out any 'downloading' Plan A episodes that are still trying to download, and try again. Friend of the pod Kang joins Teen a...

Author JS Lee joins Diana and Adam to premiere her soon-to-be-released novel, Everyone Was Falling. The book is a suspenseful thriller and jumping-off point for discussions of transracial adoption, trauma and recovery, and staying true to your artistic vision by any means necessary. TWITTER: JS Lee (@jessicasunlee) Diana (@discoveryduck) Adam (@snbatman) SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gma...

Sen, Filip, Diana, and Jess discuss "Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work" by Kimberly Kay Hoang. Asians in the diaspora are often highly critical of the exploitation of white "sexpats" in Asia. While the criticism is completely justified, it is also an incomplete and western-centric perspective. Dr. Hoang's exploration illuminates Viet...

(Almost) the whole team piles into this podcast to look back on 200 episodes of Escape From Plan A, dating back to September 2017. Jess, Chris, Diana, Filip, Teen, Adam, Q (and our friend Nia who just dropped by) talk about sticking it out for 3 years, what we think we accomplished, and what we see for the future. Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/planamag TWITTER: Filip (@filipgwriting) Chri...

NOTE: We have unlocked this bonus episode to inaugurate EPFA's Book Club Bonuses. BCB episodes will critically analyze the existing scholarship on the topics that Plan A keeps coming back to over and over, and contextualize key points to our present circumstances. This session, Mike Nguyen joins Q to discuss "A Critique of Ultra-Leftism, Dogmatism and Sectarianism" by Movement for a Revolutionary...

Diana and Teen join friend (and patron) David Nole, founder of AN Publishing, for a wide-ranging discussion about the urgency around creating independent non-white media. In particular, how ditching the profit-motive can open a huge array of possibilities. NOTE: We have unlocked this bonus episode to celebrate 200 episodes of EFPA. Many thanks to all our guests, listeners, and patrons. TWITTER: Di...

The second generation Asian American is often burdened with the guilt from the 'sacrifices' of the first generation. We mythologize the great difficult in 'crossing an entire ocean' to come to a new land where they 'had nothing.' Some of this is true, but much of it myth-making. Jess and Teen try and poke a hole through these stories and see if there's a different reality to consider. Support us o...

Pix joins Diana and Jess to contextualize the LA Riots and their relationship to today's protests against police brutality. In 1992, the media co-opted images of one immigrant community enacting destruction on another immigrant community to foment a Black-Asian conflict narrative. Today, liberals and conservatives both are using the image of K-town storeowners, "Rooftop Koreans," as symbols to pus...

Jessica Sun Lee joins Jess and Diana to talk about racism and sexism during the pandemic. Reports are in that Asian women suffer the majority of racist harassment and violence, and the rise in domestic violence and abusive relationships mean that many of us have no safe harbor at all in lockdown. How do we protect ourselves and how do we support each other? What should we expect after reopening? T...

Emily Dong joins Diana and Teen for an expansive chat about what the role of an Asian American actually is in America during these stressful times. What connects COVID, the protests against police murder, and the rampant Sinophobia of the New Cold War? Emily brings a perspective informed by Black Radicalism, which can bring a lot of clarity to an era of spiraling confusion. Support us on Patreon!...

You Peng joins Diana and Teen to discuss how to stay sane during the COVID pandemic. What does "psychological wellness" even mean as a racialized person in a country whose national healthcare policy is to just let us die? The mental health discourse pushes for internal resolutions to torturous external pressures. Who is this really benefiting? Or rather, whose resistance is this trying to suppress...

Phan Le, Thuc Nguyen, and Michelle Pham join Diana to critique Spike Lee's Vietnam War movie "Da 5 Bloods," and they pull no punches in dissecting the problems with the film. Why does a script originally written by two white guys about white vets and produced by three white people and Lee get to represent the Black American experience or speak for Vietnamese people? TWITTER: Phan (@phannyfishcakes...

Diana, Jess and Filip get together to talk about recent announcements from tech giants like Facebook and Shopify to have their work forces go remote-first. While this trend seems to offer freedom and choice for workers, how is it actually going to play out, and does it benefit the worker or the employer? The trio takes a closer look at a policy change that affects Asian Americans and H-1B visa hol...

Activist and organizer Tee Fansofa joins Diana to report on what's been going on in Sacramento: the police murders and protests, the rise and co-optation of BLM, the long-term work of organizing and the people doing it, and how, one night in late may, Tee got shot eight times in the face and chest by the police. TWITTER: Tee (@t_uxo) Diana (@discoveryduck) Sacramento SOUP (@Sacramento_Soup) AYA (@...

Teen and Adam shoot the shit about why America loves their heroes to come from basically nowhere, orphans or nearly so. From Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer all the way to Spiderman, why the particular obsession with it in America versus other cultures? This is the episode we made reference to in the last free episode, Ep. 190: Why do American Heroes Never Have Parents? (ft. Mtume) (https://soundcloud.co...

Teen and Adam are joined by friend and all around creative badass Mtume to discuss a common trope seen in much of American media that goes conspicuously unremarked upon, and that is the Orphan Hero. It's not unique to the United States, but most, if not all of the protagonists in the top entertainment franchises have an orphan hero main character. Star Wars with Luke Skywalker (and Rey Palpatine),...