Time To Say Goodbye

Hi from Seoul! The podsquad returns for a wide-ranging chat on all things, sort of, broadly, sometimes diasporically China. Awkwafina made the rounds on social media, with a screenshot semi-apology(?) regarding her use of Black speech. We offer a hermeneutic reading. It’s the 10th anniversary of Linsanity . What did, and what does, Jeremy mean to Asian America? Jay and Andy revisit analyses from t...

Hello from a crypto farm in rural China! This week Andy talks with the director ( Jessica Kingdon ) and producer ( Kira Simon-Kennedy ) of the new film Ascension , a documentary about working life in contemporary China. Ascension has received critical acclaim and garnered major awards and nominations, including being shortlisted for the Academy Awards ! The film features scenes of quotidian workin...

Hi from a Korean hot-stone bed ! It’s Jay and Tammy this week, talking trash about Andy. Plus: * Pandemic alcoholism and human bonds: We read and discuss an essay in Jezebel, “ I Got Sober in the Pandemic. It Saved My Life .” What has this tragic time clarified and obscured? What’s the off-ramp? * Does a day-trader’s lunch budget say anything about inflation? People were mad about this New York Ti...

Greetings from the Philly planetarium! This week, we discuss academic tenure, “disgusting” ideas, and left foreign policy. 0:00 – A troll-y tenured law prof at UPenn is back on her race-science kick—this time, arguing on Glenn Loury’s interview show that, “the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.” What to do about Amy Wax and the Amy Waxes of the world? Should...

Hello from pandemic year 3! There seems to be a panic over school closures—and a backlash against teachers and their unions. But how many US public schools have had to “go remote” because of Covid? Are these physical closures reasonable? Why are people blaming educators for everything from “learning loss” to the downfall of the Democratic party? What “shock doctrine” tactics do we need to look out...

New year, new pod! “Same pod, though…” 0:00 – We discuss various New Year’s Day soups and East Asian black beans . 7:50 – Many influential writers died at the end of 2021. We explore the legacies of Joan Didion , bell hooks , and historian Jonathan Spence .  44:40 – Why is the Netflix climate change film, “Don’t Look Up,” so polarizing? Written by Adam McKay and Bernie pal David Sirota, and starri...

Hello from a pandemic bungalow! This week, we are joined by Gary Shteyngart, creator of the brilliant new novel, Our Country Friends . We talk about immigrant fiction, elite high schools, exile feelings, the Asian pop-cultural future, and Gary’s run-in with a fascist elementary school teacher. Gary is the author of the memoir Little Failure (2014) and four previous novels: Super Sad True Love Stor...

Hello from the Quiz Bowl room! Today we’re talking with Democratic pollster and Andy’s high school friend Brian Stryker of ALG research . Recently, the Democratic Party circulated a memo Brian wrote about the Democrats’ poor showing in some of the November elections and their uneven prospects for the 2022 midterms. You can read his interview with The New York Times here . The main topics we hit on...

Hello from a blockchain! This week, Jay and Tammy talk with Alex Rivera , a filmmaker, media artist, immigrant rights activist, and MacArthur genius , about crypto. What is crypto currency? How does it work? And why is it often cast as a right-wing, libertarian, carbon-depleting project? Can the left reclaim crypto for the people? How might decentralized financial networks power social movements?...

Hello from the 19th century! Today’s episode features Andy in conversation with Prof. Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University . Her new book has just come out this fall, titled, The Chinese Question: the Gold Rushes and Global Politics . She takes a story we are somewhat familiar with but presents it in ambitious, new terms, tracing...

Hello from both sides of the Pacific! This week, a reunited, international podsquad talks K-quarantine, Enes Kanter’s Sinopportunism, and how the left should think about the “supply chain crisis.” * Tammy’s first few days in South Korean quarantine: * What’s going on with the Celtics center’s anti-China rants (and shoes)? * How can leftists think beyond shopping in our relationship to global suppl...

Hello! Guest episode this week with Andy talking to Brian Hioe and Wen Liu , writers and academics based in Taipei, with the online magazine New Bloom . We talk about the scary headlines warning of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, why the global left seems to dismiss Taiwan in favor of romanticizing the PRC, and what is the relationship between Asian and Asian American politics (if there is any)? 0:0...

Hello from our election hangover! This week, we talk about last week’s mid-mid-mid-midterm results. * Did the very rich Republican win Virginia’s gubernatorial race on account of critical race theory— or not? * Are the Democrats continuing to lose the Asian/Latinx/POC vote ? * Should we take hope in local progressive wins ? (Yay, Boston, Missoula, Dearborn, Hamtramck, Cleveland…) * Whatever happen...

Hello from HISTORY! This week, Tammy interviews Professor Kori A. Graves, a historian of adoption and the family at the University at Albany, SUNY. Kori’s 2020 book, A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War , explores how Black Americans came to adopt Black Korean children. Tammy and Kori talk about the history of transnational, transracial adoption — and the spec...

Note: Apologies for resending + reposting; some technical errors earlier. Hi from TMZ studio! Like all of Asian American Twitter, we’ve been talking about The Loneliest Americans quite a bit. But this week, Andy and Tammy get a full-on, personal Jay AMA. Thanks to all our new listeners and everyone who joined our Discord subscriber book club last week. Event announcement: Next week, on November 3r...

Hello from the John Deere picket line! This week is, um, eclectic and slightly technologically challenged. Thanks for bearing with us. 4:15 – Jay’s book is out! Thursday evening, Oct. 21, Jay will be doing a Discord AMA about The Loneliest Americans . It’s for subscribers only, so if you want to ask Jay any burning questions about the book, sign up now via Patreon  or  Substack ! 7:13 – MSG—we all...

Hello from a spicy group chat! This week, we begin by celebrating the release of Jay’s book, The Loneliest Americans , which was just excerpted in NYT Mag . Congrats, Kang! Order it now for yourself and family and friends ! Then, we talk the Kidneygate controversy (from the same issue of NYT Mag ) aka Bad Art Friend , the long story based on a short story that launched a million Discord chats. Who...

Hello from Capitalist Playground of Death! This week, we talk 100% “Squid Game.” Warning: Don’t listen until you’ve watched it all. Does the show constitute anti-capitalist critique? Why does the ending suck? Did Park Chan-wook make the West permanently love K-horror? Will Asian art soon displace Asian American art? What’s with the weird ‘noble savage’ thing going on in the show? Plus: the dialogu...

Hello from Stuart’s Coffee in Bellingham! This week, we welcome a special guest to talk about the immigrant rights movement and immigration policy. Plus, Andy and Tammy channel Jay Energy and answer listener questions. (0:00): Andy and Tammy discuss Japanese food and our favorite chaebols. (6:50): Listener Questions! What’s up with the “PI” in “AAPI?” listener SansMouton asks. We discuss the awkwa...

Hello from Zuccotti Park! Lots of leftist nostalgia and reminiscence about Occupy Wall Street this week — and the podsquad joins in! Then we talk Vietnamese American Republicans in Orange County and rising COVID numbers in Vietnam. (0:00): Marshmallow test (10:50): Does Occupy Wall Street have an anarchist or socialist legacy ? Why, even though it was “annoying” at times, does it still matter ? Lo...

Pod squad assemble ! 0:00 – Tammy catches us up on the latest in Asian Americana aka “Shang-Chi.” Jay and Andy remain skeptical of all things MCU.  12:30 – We talk about the new vaccine mandate and the current discourse around “the unvaccinated.” Are we too un/sympathetic to the material constraints of poor and working-class people who haven’t been vaccinated ? Is vaccine skepticism a reflection o...

(Audio fixed and updated Sept. 7 afternoon. Thanks for your patience!) Hola from the Inland Empire! This week, we bring you Tammy’s IRL interview with Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice , in San Bernardino, California. Andrea talks about the meaning of “environmental justice,” local manifestations of global warming, working-class immigrant life...

Hello from the West Coast! It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, on everything from backyard farming to Barbara Ehrenreich. * Jay advises Tammy on late-season tomato growing. 🍅 * What to make of SCOTUS’s awful (but anticipated) decision to end the COVID eviction moratorium ? Where will it hit worst? * Why are so many more people (nearly triple!) identifying as mixed-race in the US Census? Does it ha...

Hello from a reunited pod squad! This week, we gab about a welcome court ruling on California’s Proposition 22 gig-work law, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Sandra Oh’s new Netflix show. (0:00): Tammy on why Prop 22 was ruled unconstitutional and what it means for workers’ rights across the US (7:10): How to understand what’s happening in Afghanistan in the context of our long wars in the...

Hello from a Chinese ghost city ! It’s just Andy this week, speaking with my friend academic-activist Jake Werner ( @jwdwerner ) on how to make sense of the current ideological shift in US and global politics and especially the hostile rhetoric between US and Chinese elites. (0:00) We talk about the recent spate of “big spending” bills pushed by Biden and the Democrats, supporting infrastructure (...