One in a Billion

Sheetal Sheth is an Indian American actress, author and activist based in New York City. You may remember her breakout role as " Maya" co-starring with Albert Brooks in "Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World"  (2005) . Since then, Sheetal's star keeps rising, appearing in dozens of TV shows and films. In 2013, she got married and soon became a mother to two girls. Then, she was diagnosed with bre...

Neil Mody is a media entrepreneur, tech enthusiast and philosopher at heart.   In this open-hearted conversation, Neil shares snippets of his phone conversations with his father that would forever be seared into his mind. What did his father say? Why did Neil tell his mother not to wear a "sari" to his eighth grade graduation?  Why did he feel embarrassed by his "Indianness" growing up in New Jers...

Martial Arts, Kung Fu Master (師傅) , Yoga Instructor, Political Activist Mai Du was just eight years old when she aspired to learn Kung Fu. Then she became a refugee after the Vietnam war fleeing with her family through Thailand and the Philippines before arriving in America. Today, Mai du is a martial arts instructor, kung fu master and political activist.  What formed her fighting spirit? How d...

More than a decade after she was labeled as "Tiger Mom" for her 2011 memoir " The Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother, " Amy Chua reflects on her strict parenting style as she traces the roots of her culture to Fuzhou, China. Why did Amy feel right about raising her daughters the same way she was raised by her immigrant parents? What lessons has she learned from her critics in the West? What prompted he...

Have you ever felt abandoned by your parents? What would you do to reconcile with them? 24-year-old Angela Li was born in New York City but sent back to Fuzhou, China while an infant to be raised by her grandparents until she turned five. When she entered the U.S, she felt she'd closed the door on her childhood in China. Now, she is just beginning to reconcile with that as an adult.  In this podca...

Have you ever lost your sense of purpose after your loved one suddenly died? Whom do you turn to find strength to renew your mind and spirit? Born in Sorsogon, the Philippines,  Loida N. Lewis , traces the roots of her undying faith that revives her in her darkest hour after her husband Reginald F. Lewis died of brain cancer. Loida also talks about her new memoir,"Why Should Guys Have All the Fun?...

Have you ever felt the need to know your family history as a way to become whole? What can you remember about your parents' immigrant journey or struggle that would help you weave a cohesive narrative for their past sacrifices and your current success? Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Fran Chin, tells a compelling story about his father and mother's voyage from Guangdong, China to escape penury...

Have you stopped and considered what got you here? Who paved the way for you to learn and grow up in America? For first-generation Chinese American Paul Lee who was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, it is time for him and his siblings to remember their cultural roots, and to honor his parents' incredible immigrant journey to America. It is also time for us to thank his father Sen Lee for his serv...

Do you have a hard time identifying with this kind of Chinese, or that kind of American, and wanting to create a third category of cultural identity? Do you feel so foreign while visiting China as a Chinese American?  Irene Li is a James Beard Award Winning Chef,  Co-founder/Co-owner at Mei Mei Dumplings in Boston,  Massachusetts. She is also a tech founder,   and  WBUR (Boston NPR) CitySpace Mode...

Are you denying your roots if you ignore them? Why should one's culture be a forethought and not an afterthought? Who defines your cultural identity? Dr. Elaine Shiang is a retired Chinese American medical doctor at MIT with over 35 years of experience. Episode 1 Don't' Deny It   is her account of her family history in China, their journey to America, her parents' influence on her and her advice f...

How can you make a difference when you are still climbing the career ladder and have little money to spare? How much can you give when you already focus so much of your time and effort to gain acceptance, appreciation, and accolades at work and in life? Listen to my podcast conversation with Kyung B. Yoon - president and co-founder of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF). A television j...

Why would a Harvard-educated college graduate and medical school student get thrown out of a UCLA medical residency? What did he do wrong? What did he do right to get back in?  And why would he later quit his medical residency to pursue creative projects including documentary-filmmaking in China?  Most intriguingly, how did any of these paths pave the way for his eventual success as a cosmetic sur...

Why does an American-born Chinese philanthropist want to help young Chinese in America reconnect with their roots? Why is that important? What seeded that passion?  Tune into my conversation with Carolyn Hsu-Balcer in Episode #3 "Reconnecting with Your Roots." Carolyn Hsu-Balcer is a designer, philanthropist, and art collector based in Los Angeles and New York.   Having lived in Hong Kong, Thailan...

LifeChangers is about Asian philanthropists sharing stories about life-changing turning points that have shaped their mindset and inspired their philanthropic passion. Now, they feel compelled to change the lives of others. How old were you when you first started making money? 16? 17? 18? Meet Mei-Lee Ney - an investment advisor, philanthropist, and art collector.  At age 75, Mei-Lee has been work...

We kick off Season 6 " LifeChangers" today (August 26th)  with a limited special series. LifeChangers is about Asian philanthropists sharing stories about life-changing turning points that have shaped their mindset and inspired their philanthropic passion. Now, they feel compelled to change the lives of others.  You don't need to give away a lot of money like Bill Gates to be a philanthropist. You...

What would you do if you've written about becoming a Supreme Court justice, dreamed of a life and career in law, put in a lot of time and work to prepare for that track - then one day you change my mind?    Is it a waste of time, money and education at that point?   These are some of the questions that Daniel Christopher "D.C." Rogers (Harvard Class of '12) had to wrestle with during his college y...

How far will you travel outside of your hometown, your neighborhood, your comfort zone, in order to see the world differently? Why is it important to keep your sense of insecurity as your companion as you embark on your scientific, academic or philosophical enquiry? How does failure keep you hungry for success? Those are some of the questions that have led to surprising discoveries and satisfying...

Should a Harvard education prepare you for failure? Should failure be normalized in the course of higher education? Or at the very least, would you want to learn how to take or talk about failure? Those are the sort of questions rarely asked if you're a Harvard student who is used to acing your exams, winning accolades or top awards until one day – you suddenly lose what you've been taking for gra...

How do I want to engage in the world? Do I want to be an academic teaching philosophy as a professor? Wouldn't that be a very inward-looking, insular kind of life? Is that what I want? Those were some of the questions Janet Hook, (Harvard Class '77) asked herself before deciding not to pursue a Phd in philosophy. For Janet, a Harvard graduate with a degree in philosophy and government, her career...

Many Harvard Asian American undergraduates I know with immigrant parents who are physicians receive a lot of pressure from their families to be a doctor. But not Divya Narendra, (Class of 2004) While at Harvard, Divya was given the space and the autonomy he needed to think critically and explore creatively what he wanted as a consumer that was missing in the market. Soon, he became an entrepreneur...

Remember your college days dreaming big dreams, anxious about your grades, fearful about your future until one day, you find yourself in a different place, at a different stage of life doing very different things than you could ever imagine as a student? " Where Are They Now? " Is a special co-production between One in a Billion an d WHRB (Harvard Radio Broadcasting ). It is a 6-part series featur...

With less than ten days before Thanksgiving, my podcast team and I find ourselves counting the innumerable ways that we have been challenged, and the unpredictable opportunities that have come our way in 2020.  So in today's Season 5 True Colors Episode #10 Reflections on 2020, we each will share our voices expressing our thoughts and feelings about some of these life-changing experiences. But we...

Today, tens of thousands of Americans head to the polls. Our choice of the next president - Donald Trump or Joe Biden - may be hard for some, but it will have immediate and long-term consequences for America in the years to come. Many of our listeners like you may not be able to choose your country's leaders for a variety of reasons. But in your own lives, you often make hard choices about where t...

Three in ten Americans blame China or Chinese people for the Coronavirus pandemic, according to the Ipsos Poll.   Anti-Asian harassment, assault and hate crimes have also been on the rise since the outbreak began. However, the racial bias against Asians in America has long existed in everyday life way before the virus. In Season 5 True Colors: Episode 8: The Bias Before the Virus, Janet Wu, a form...

When was the last time you felt your life was turned upside down? How did you find a way out?  Last Spring when Covid-19 outbreak led to a series of campus closures, forcing tens of thousands of students to move out of their dorms in a matter of days, Kimberly Jung, a graduate student at MIT Engineering School, got the news on her mobile phone.  Stunned, she kicked into crisis-ready mode.  As a U....