Self Evident: Asian America's Stories

Self Evident's third season starts this month. Subscribe where you get podcasts, and help spread the word to your family and friends! 

During the current refugee crisis in Afghanistan, we've seen Asian Americans working to resettle Afghan refugees and help them build new lives. Vietnamese , Cambodian , and Hmong Americans in particular have been reminded of their own refugee stories — not just the stories of leaving their homes, but stories of the challenges they've faced in rebuilding their lives. So we're presenting a story fro...

We're presenting an episode from Shoes Off, a podcast about Asian Australian culture hosted by Jay Ooi. In conversation with performers and scholars, producer Thinesh Thillai explains how power and status, and in particular, caste, enable art forms from marginalized communities to be co-opted. Shoes Off takes a close look at the history of Bharantanatyam, a style of Indian classical dance commonly...

This week, we're playing an episode from Making Contact. Making Contact produces media that analyses critical issues and showcases grassroots solutions in order to inform and inspire audiences to action. The episode, based on a documentary by filmmaker Grace Lee, is called "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs," and it's about the life and legacy of the famed civil rights activ...

We're playing an episode from an exciting new podcast by our friends at APIENC , an organization that builds transgender, non-binary, and queer power for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the Bay Area (you might've heard their director, Sammie, on one of our previous episodes ). The new podcast is called Dragon Fruit, and it's all about the history of trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islan...

We're sharing the story "When Your Country Doesn't Trust You" from the podcast WorldAffairs. In the past year, reports of anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked across the country. A lot of this is attributed to anti-Asian rhetoric about the pandemic. But the hard truth is that whenever tensions escalate between the United States and Asian nations overseas, Asian-Americans bear the brunt of that anger...

Julianne Sato-Parker first heard the phrase, "Shikata ga nai" while watching a video series of interviews with Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals who were incarcerated by the U.S government after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese phrase translates to, "It cannot be helped." It reminded Julianne of her grandmother, who has always said a similar phrase when navigating life's unpredict...

We're sharing this story from one of our favorite podcasts, See Something Say Something, by Ahmed Ali Akbar . Pakistani-American communities in the U.S. rely on dealers on WhatsApp to gain access to their most coveted treasure: Pakistani mangoes. And they pay a premium for it. In part one of this two-part investigation, reporter Ahmed Ali Akbar searches for answers. Why are Pakistani mangoes so ha...

The phrase "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" is buzz-word-ier than ever, but what does it really take to empower workers and reduce racialized harm in the places where we spend so many of our waking hours? And when is it OK to simply stop trying? In this second episode of a three-part series, guest host Alex Sujong Laughlin (Senior Producer at Transmitter Media) invites Gautam Srikishan (Producer...

The impact of storytelling is often portrayed as a story changing the life of the person consuming it — and changing the world by reaching as many people as possible. But what about the person who offers their story to be consumed? How else can we define the value of our life's stories, and the importance of how they're shared? In this second episode of a three-part series, Managing Producer James...

We often take for granted that "seeing people who look like us" — especially in mass media — means progress towards racial justice. But what forms of representation do we see making an impact? And who is that impact for? In this first episode of a three-part series, Senior Producer Julia Shu invites Eliza Romero (co-host of Unverified Accounts and blogger at Aesthetic Distance ), Marvin Yueh (co-h...

Why do Asian Americans have such deep relationships with fruit? Cathy goes on a quest to find the answers — starting with her friendly neighborhood fruit vendor, Cece, then spending time with friends and listeners in our extended podcast fam. Along the way, she hears stories about family heirloom trees, mango sharing techniques, persimmon obsessions, and an unbridled love for durian. Then, she cal...

When producer Erica Mu moved back to her hometown in 2014, she said goodbye to a past life without any idea what exactly her new life should look like. Looking for the most grounded place she could find, she went to the local mall early one morning, turned on her tape recorder, and started talking to everyone she could meet. As Erica made her way through this sprawling landscape of mostly Chinese...

What happens when you come to America to marry the person you thought would take care of you, only to find yourself in an abusive family, losing all sense of self? Guest producer Rosalind Tordesillas brings us this story about Joy, a woman whose dream marriage turned into a nightmare — and the advocates for survivors of domestic violence who helped her through the long journey to becoming whole. I...

During this year's protests for Black lives, the national conversation was filled with calls to have uncomfortable conversations about anti-Blackness. This push, to talk about racism with our loved ones, has been both championed and criticized — but how do these conversations actually go down, and where do they lead? To find out, we spoke with three cousins who created a conversation toolkit for F...

During the 48 hours of uncertainty after November 3, 2020, our producer James called over a dozen people — not to talk about Trump vs. Biden, but about the more systemic problems that would stick with us after all the votes were counted. These conversations with family and friends led him to reexamine a pivotal moment in his civic education: When he founded a chapter of the Junior State of America...

With so much attention focused on the Presidential race and other federal elections right now, we hope you'll find it refreshing to hear from Yuh-Line Niou, the only Asian American woman in New York's state legislature. In this conversation with Rock the Boat podcast host Lucia Liu, Yuh-Line explains how and why she got involved with local and state government, and how her experiences as an immigr...

When New York City became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, Brooklyn-based producer Beenish Ahmed struggled over whether to visit her parents in Ohio or stay put. Her parents — a landlord and hairdresser who immigrated from Pakistan in the '70s — begged her to come home. When Beenish finally decided to go in May, she recorded that journey, and the discoveries she made about her family's r...

How can Asian American communities create safety, when the harms of racism and xenophobia are so deeply rooted in our society? We've spent time unpacking the simplistic solution of hate crime enforcement, then learning how local activists rallying against anti-Asian hate often reveal a much deeper history of neglect and under-resourcing of immigrant communities. In this third of three episodes on...

The rise in xenophobic harassment, discrimination, and violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic has led to a rise in neighborhood watch groups in historic Chinatowns and other Asian immigrant communities across the country. While these groups have made headlines for speaking out against racism, their motivations and actions reveal a deeper story about the pain of underserved communitie...

Two Asian American olds (Cathy and James) watch the original Mulan for the first time, then join a seasoned fan (Julia) — for an animated discussion about the limitations of Hollywood representation, the saving grace of gender-bending innuendo, and what exactly it is about Mulan that resonates with so many Asian Americans who grew up with it. Resources and Recommended Reading: Ariana Amour perform...

Two incidents of anti-Asian racism — the beating of an elderly grandfather in a San Francisco park and the harassment of a mourning son in a New York pharmacy — reveal an ugly side of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first of three episodes reporting on Asian American responses to anti-Asian hate incidents. Share your thoughts on the stories with us by emailing community@selfevidentshow.com . To...

You've said the words, "Black Lives Matter." You've put your money where your mouth is. You've shown up for the marches. What next? What exactly is the change we're showing up for, and how exactly can we commit to making that change in our own communities? In this bonus episode, we're passing the mic to Jaime Sunwoo (a Korean American interdisciplinary artist and former housing advocate) and Brand...

The struggle to save lives from COVID-19 is far from over, and neither is America's struggle against racism. As we report on hate crime and anti-racist action, Cathy and James hop on the phone and check in with a couple of our friends in podcasting: Paola Mardo (who tells stories from the Filipino diaspora on Long Distance ) and Ahmed Ali Akbar (who covers the social, cultural, and political exper...

When we started Self Evident , we were surprised at how many people wanted a new show but hadn't heard about all the Asian American podcasts already out there. In this bonus episode, our team shares clips from a few other independent podcasts, showing a wide range of Asian American stories and conversations. Tell us what you think of our first season! As we head into our off-season, we could use y...