Politically Asian! Podcast

This week in Asian American Politics - Chinese international students have poorer views on America and American universities (finally!) - Biden cancels some student debt. Is this moment a "We did it, Joe" or not? - Gang Chen, a natural US Citizen and MIT Professor, discovers groundbreaking battery with fellow MIT researchers after being terrorized for years by the FBI and Department of Justice for...

This week in Asian American politics: - An AAPI Disinformation Report that shows how Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are really good at misleading people online. Think Gossip 2.0 but with bad political ramifications. - Asian Americans are buying guns in record numbers. What are the potential risks that come with this? Will they become NRAsians (National Rifle Asians, a term Aaron m...

This week in Asian American politics: - The FBI raids Trump's house in Mar-a-Lago and Republicans (including Asian Republicans) are NOT happy and letting everyone know - Pew Research releases a large ethnographic, interview, and survey-based Asian American Project that's a good intro to Asian American Studies if you have not been Asian for the last 20 years. - Rally for Asian American History in a...

This week in Asian American politics: - Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan and surprisingly does not do anything cringey with a qipao - A new poll from APIA vote showing how more than half of AAPI voters have never been contacted by a political party  - Atlanta tears down a forest to builds a $90 million "Cop City" - a huge training facility for cops a.k.a Eric Adams' wet dream - The New York Times r...

This week in Asian American news and politics: - the latest luxury development project threatening residents and small businesses of Philadelphia's Chinatown - the White House "stopping Asian hate" by threatening to deport another Southeast Asian  - Democrats giving us the bare minimum by trying to protect same-sex and interracial marriage - leader of the Amazon Union bringing workers togethe...

This week in Asian American news and politics:   - the “self-made” Asian American billionaire made from US Military money,  - Amazon’s purchases One Medical aka Rich People Urgent Care™, - Polio outbreak in New York and flexing our vaccination status, - and discussing @washingtonpost’s Tiktok about fatphobia and the new Thor movie. If you’re reading this, consider giving us 5-stars on Ap...

We’re back and starting off the season with a news roundup on Asian American politics (and some Asian politics)! We chat about the Unity March in DC, Shinzo Abe’s assassination, more on Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis / Protests in Sri Lanka, and Twitter suing Elon Musk. We also have a new opening segment, temporarily called Practice What You Preach, where we talk about what organizing / political activit...

This week we have NYC Council Member Shahana Hanif! Shahana represents District 39, which includes parts of Kensington, Borough Park, Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and the Columbia Waterfront. She's also the Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus and Chair of the Immigration Committee. We ask her questions about working with our NYPD-loving Mayor Eric Adams and ho...

This week we talk with Shenuque Tissera! Shenuque ( @shenuque ) is also a New York City comedian who is from Sri Lanka, and he's here to talk to us about the current economic crisis going on, how Sri Lanka got there, and most importantly, what people can do to support Sri Lankan relief efforts on the ground! Shenuque provided several links, which we are linking right below the blurb. Hope you enjo...

This week we have Niccolo Pizarro on the pod ( @superingat )! Niccolo is a cartoonist based in Queens, NY and a regular contributor to The Nib (@thenib). The Nib does political satire, journalism and non-fiction on what is going down in the world, all in comics / cartoon form. We talk to Niccolo about the cartoon-making process, his political inspiration, why he hates America, and when is he going...

This week we talk with Donna Tran about a topic that crosses many Asian peoples' minds at some point: medical school! Donna is the National President of APAMSA, the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association. APAMSA ( @APAMSA ) is a national organization of medical and pre-medical students committed to addressing the unique health challenges of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacifi...

This week we talk with Felicia Singh (@feliciasinghnyc)! Felicia is former Democratic nominee for City Council in Queens District 32, an advocacy and campaigns manager for the Jahajee Sisters, and trainer for the New American Leaders. Jahejee Sisters is the only NYC survivor-led gender justice organization for Indo-Caribbeans, and New American Leaders focuses on training first and second generatio...

Happy podcast birthday!! Politically Asian is officially one year old. Our first episode was last year, April 9th, 2021, so we recorded this episode as an anniversary episode, to reflect on our podcast in a rose, thorn, bud style. We reflect on what we like about the podcast so far, some of our favorite guests, things we didn't like, and some Politically Asian guest episodes and irl events we're l...

This week we talked with two amazing people Vivi Le (she/her) and Kris Chan (he/they) from Chinatown Community for Equitable Development aka CCED! If you haven't heard of CCED before, check them out on their very active Instagram @ccedla. They do amazing work related to tenant organizing, small business organizing, and general organizing against displacement in LA Chinatown. We talk about Asian ar...

This week, we have Shashank Rao (he/him, @wordsinsankethi) on the pod to discuss Hinduism! Shashank is pursuing a Masters in Divinity at UChicago, where he studies progressive Hinduism frameworks. As East Asians, we aren’t super familiar with more South Asian/Southeast Asian religions and wanted to familiarize ourselves to be inclusive of ALL Asians. Shashank walks us through the basics of Hinduis...

This week our guest is Rohan Zhou-Lee (They/Siya/祂), founder of Blasian March and cofounder of Asians for Abolition! We talk with Rohan about the history of both and what abolition means, break down punishment vs. rehabilitation, and discuss some recurring narratives amongst our communities. This is a great episode, whether you don’t know what abolition is or you’re looking for healing beyond wha...

We're back with Season 4! To start things off, we talk with Cookie Duong (she/her, @parisbynightcore on Tik Tok) who is the cofounder of Asian Americans with Republican Parents Support Group on Facebook (10k members), and the Interpreter, an ethnic newsroom that translates English-language articles from credible news outlets into Vietnamese. We talk about the history of the group, why she thinks s...

This is the last episode for Season 3! In this episode, we talk about Asian American data disaggregation happening in New York, Eric Adams' rocky start as Mayor, and some Ivy League racism! We dive into this more in the episode, but just because a professor teaches at an Ivy League and has a resume that is most Asian parents' wet dream does not mean that professor will be progressive and anti-raci...

This week it's just us, but there's so much to talk about. We start by talking about the China Initiative, and how the first person found guilty of being a "Chinese spy" is a WHITE GUY HARVARD PROFESSOR (lmao). We then go into Joe Biden's new AANHPI advisory group (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander) and how we feel about this roster, which includes Daniel Dae Kim. We wrap it up unp...

Omicron is everywhere! It's the end of the world (again)! In this episode, we share some Hot Takes for Hot Take Hot Pot, then talk about exciting news related to politics and Asian Americans, and end with some New Year's resolutions.  WHAT'S POLITICALLY ASIAN PODCAST? Two Asians talking about politics and the Asian American community to get more Asians talking about politics! Join comedians A...

We're back after taking a break for the holidays! This week we're doing something different, a personal episode! We try to do one each season to let listeners know more about who we are and what we're up to. If you missed the first personal episode, check out Episode 10, the last episode of Season 1. Tune in to hear about Gerrie taking language classes, Aaron going to therapy, and us talking about...

This week we talk with Jenny G. Zhang about her Identity Fraud piece on Gawker! We're not talking Identity Fraud in the traditional sense (e.g. scamming elderly folks for their SSN), but in a different way involving POC who use race as disingenuous defense when they're called out for doing something bad. Think corrupt Asian landlords who, when called out for being shitty towards their tenants, def...

This week we talk with the hilarious Young Kim (@youngqim on Tik Tok/IG, @oldqim on Twitter)! Young (he/him) is an Asian American content creator who regularly goes viral for his Tik Toks on the Asian/East Asian experience, some of which involve political and historical commentary. Aaron accidentally calls out one of Young's sponsors in his hot take for Hot Take Hot Pot, Gerrie stirs the hot pot w...

This week we have an amazing guest on the pod, Shawna Chen (@shawnarchen)! Shawna is a Breaking News reporter for Axios (@axios), and also Editorial Director of the Yappie (@TheYappie)! If you haven’t watched the viral interview Axios did with former President Trump, go watch it right now. It was so funny and meme-worthy Jonathan Swan (the reporter) won an Emmy. In this episode we talk about Shawn...

This week we talk with Thu Nguyen, who is the incoming Executive Director of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates! Thu is the youngest ever Executive Director and the first Vietnamese American to serve in this role . Founded in 1973, OCA is a 501(c)(3) national member-driven nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. with 50+ chapters and affiliates across the U.S. They advance the social, political, and...