Best Americanidentity Podcasts (2024)

1
Self Evident Presents: “Live! Making Before Me With Lisa Phu” (by The Vietnamese Boat People podcast) 48:09

11M ago48:09

48:09

Our friend Tracey Nguyen Mang, host of the Vietnamese Boat People Podcast, goes behind the scenes with Lisa Phu in this conversation — about how to document the lives of our parents, when that process can feel overwhelming. This episode, recorded live online, is the Season 6 Premiere of The Vietnamese Boat People, a podcast and nonprofit project th…

1
Self Evident Presents: “How to Wash Your Brain” (by Boen Wang and Feet in 2 Worlds) 38:09

12M ago38:09

38:09

Boen’s mom thinks he’s brainwashed by the New York Times. Boen thinks his mom is brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party. But when Boen starts listening more deeply to his mom’s stories of growing up in China and then immigrating to the U.S., he spots the signs of his own political conditioning — and unravels the threads of Chinese and American …

1
Self Evident Presents: "Exploring Ancestral Grief" (by Grief, Collected) 44:22

1+ y ago44:22

44:22

America! The land of opportunity! And also, for so many, the ambiguous loss of immigration and uprooting a life and a history comes with a complex web of emotions. In this episode of Grief, Collected by The Mash-Up Americans, hosts Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer speak with trauma therapist and educator Linda Thai — about ancestral grief, and how un…

1
Self Evident Presents: "Arrival" (by VPM's Resettled) 32:22

1+ y ago32:22

32:22

The LahPai family’s arrival to Virginia from Myanmar was highly anticipated: the local resettlement agency prepped their home; the local religious community was ready to provide support; the family’s U.S connection lived just minutes down the street. Even with these support systems, resettlement was (and still is) not a straightforward, clean-cut p…

1
Self Evident Presents: "Before They Were Your Parents" (by Immigrantly) 41:02

1+ y ago41:02

41:02

Today, we're sharing some work by our friends at Immigrantly, a weekly podcast that features deeply personal conversations about race, identity, and the immigrant experience. This episode features a conversation between host Saadia Khan and reporter Neda Toloui-Semnani, who wrote a book called THEY SAID THEY WANTED REVOLUTION: A Memoir of My Parent…

1
Help us by taking our listener survey! 1:00

1+ y ago1:00

1:00

Please take our listener survey to tell us what you think of Before Me! The survey is anonymous, takes 5 minutes, and is incredibly important for helping us take our next steps as an independent studio for stories by and about Asian Americans. We use your answers to better understand your needs as a listener — but we also use your feedback to show …

1
Before Me, Part 5: Birthday Card 17:05

1+ y ago17:05

17:05

Just before I gave birth to my daughter Acacia, I turned 36. And on my birthday my mom sent me a birthday card that was full of heartfelt words — more than she’d ever written to me before. On the last night of her visit to help me take care of Acacia, as she read the card aloud, I realized how I was — and still am — a part of the lives that came be…

1
Before Me, Part 4: Head of the House 31:46

1+ y ago31:46

31:46

At the moment my mom steps onto a small fishing boat off the coast of Cambodia, headed for a refugee camp in Thailand under cover of night, she becomes the head of our family. It takes her less than a year to make it safely to her new home in New York, give birth to me, and learn how to be a single parent in the U.S. But it will end up taking her d…

1
Before Me, Part 3: Beautiful Country 28:38

1+ y ago28:38

28:38

Reunited with my cousin Lynn, my mom becomes a gold dealer to support her growing family — and realizes that the charmed childhood she had in Cambodia is nowhere to be found for her own kids. She recounts the joyful memories that helped her hold on for more than five years as a refugee in Vietnam, before making the decision to leave both countries …

1
Before Me, Part 2: Photograph 36:27

1+ y ago36:27

36:27

As the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge takes hold of Cambodia, my mom and dad run for their lives — separated from my cousin, Lynn, who is then faced with keeping her siblings alive in a forced labor camp. Full show notes, photos, credits, and transcript on our web site.By Lisa Phu and Self Evident Media

1
Before Me, Part 1: Firstborn 27:03

1+ y ago27:03

27:03

When I became a parent, my mom flew across the country to help me take care of my firstborn child. And opened up to share a story I’d never fully heard, about her firstborn child — the sister I’ve never met. Full show notes, photos, credits, and transcript on our web site.By Lisa Phu and Self Evident Media

1
Introducing "Before Me": A new series from Self Evident 2:17

1+ y ago2:17

2:17

Lisa Phu grew up telling a story about how her family left Cambodia as refugees, to start a new life in the United States — but for the longest time, she’d never heard this story firsthand, from her mom, Lan. After Lisa gave birth to her first daughter, her mom flew across the country to meet her first grandchild. And during that visit, she finally…

1
Self Evident Presents: "Get Up Stand Up" (by Re:Work) 29:37

2y ago29:37

29:37

When you get into a taxi, you usually know where you’re coming from, where you’re going, and what you’ll do when you get there. But what about your taxi driver – someone whose work is in constant motion, moving from destination to destination, meeting new people by the hour? What was the road that brought them to this moment, what is the journey th…

1
(BONUS) Hunger Strike! How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Took on City Hall 29:58

2y ago29:58

29:58

When Augustine Tang’s father passed away, Augustine decided to inherit his taxi medallion – the license that had allowed his father to drive a yellow taxi cab in New York City for decades. But the medallion came with a $530,000 debt trap and years of struggling to escape it. Augustine’s friend Kenny, a fellow taxi cab driver, committed suicide. So …

1
Say Goodbye to Yesterday 1:02:07

2y ago1:02:07

1:02:07

Amidst the ongoing crush of anti-Asian violence in America, Producer James turns to a personal source of restoration: ska music (yes, that ska music). When he was a teenager, the do-it-yourself ska scene — and an indie record label called Asian Man — taught him to take racism seriously, embrace the road less traveled, and never wait for anyone else…

1
Heartbeats 42:28

2y ago42:28

42:28

The Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of caregiving work — and the ways that this work is overlooked, under-resourced, or placed as a burden on families without a sense of fairness or compassion. In this episode we’re sharing two stories that show people taking on the role of caregiver, and asking: Who gets to be healthy in a world t…

1
Help us out by taking our survey 0:33

2y ago0:33

0:33

Hey everybody, I'm asking for just a few minutes of your time to help what us keep doing what we do. Details at https://selfevidentshow.com/participate Thanks! - Cathy and the teamBy Self Evident Media LLC

1
Specially Processed 39:26

2+ y ago39:26

39:26

For so many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Spam is a beloved classic food, showing up in everything from musubi to fried rice. But behind that nostalgia is a history of war and colonization, and the inheritance of both favorite foods and hidden traumas. Korean American playwright Jaime Sunwoo’s surreal new play, Specially Processed American…

1
Bonus: Diaspora DJ Roundtable 2021 Feat. Les Talusan, Arshia Fatima Haq, and Roger Bong 48:02

2+ y ago48:02

48:02

Community Producer Rochelle Kwan (a.k.a. YiuYiu in her DJ life) gathers the DJs who joined her in curating our first annual mixtape — to chat about how we can use music to reconnect our diaspora communities, across generations and borders. If you haven’t heard the mixtape — which features musical selections by Les Talusan (a.k.a. Les The DJ of OPM …

1
Diaspora Dance Mixtape, Vol. 1 1:03:09

2+ y ago1:03:09

1:03:09

Community Producer Rochelle Kwan (a.k.a. YiuYiu) invites three of her favorite DJs to curate our first annual mixtape — and chat with them about how we can use music to reconnect our diaspora communities, across generations and borders. Our first annual international, transnational mixtape features musical selections from YiuYiu (of NYC Manhattan C…

1
Only Fans 59:42

2+ y ago59:42

59:42

Daphne Chen always held a special place in her heart for the Taiwanese girl group S.H.E. Growing up in Ohio, she’d listen to their greatest hits before falling asleep, clinging to their pop songs as one of her only genuine links to the island and the culture her family had left far behind. So years later, when Daphne realized that those greatest hi…

1
Back to School, But Not Back to Normal 40:08

2+ y ago40:08

40:08

This Fall many public primary schools in the U.S. switched back to in-person learning. But that can mean very different things for students, teachers, and parents — depending on their school system, local political environment, family resources, or language needs. We started getting word from listeners about their back-to-school experiences in July…

1
Scary to Imagine (2/2) 35:09

2+ y ago35:09

35:09

This is the second part of a two-part story. If you haven’t heard part one, “Don’t Eat Nazi Shit Melons,” you can listen to it here. After the arrest of Indiana University Professor Cara Caddoo, the Mayor of Bloomington doubled down on anti-protest rules and police presence in the Bloomington City Farmers Market. But this failed to satisfy local ac…

1
"Don't Eat Nazi Shit Melons" (1/2) 34:12

2+ y ago34:12

34:12

In the summer of 2019, a public fight unfurled in Bloomington, Indiana — over accusations that Sarah Dye and Douglas Mackey, who sold produce at the city-run farmers’ market, were members of an organization classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League as a white nationalist hate group (an association that would soon be c…

1
Season 3 Coming Soon! 1:15

2+ y ago1:15

1:15

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

1
Self Evident Presents: “[No] Child Left Behind” (by Re:Work) 29:04

2+ y ago29:04

29:04

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 rebuild…

1
Self Evident Presents: “Bharatanatyam: Project Caste”(by Shoes Off) 44:58

2+ y ago44:58

44:58

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 Bharanta…

1
Self Evident Presents: “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs ”(by Making Contact) 29:54

2+ y ago29:54

29:54

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 t…

1
Self Evident Presents: “Juicy Fruit: The Ripe Time to Talk About Relationships ”(by the Dragon Fruit Podcast) 1:03:15

2+ y ago1:03:15

1:03:15

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 hi…

1
Self Evident Presents: "When Your Country Doesn't Trust You" (by WorldAffairs) 1:00:09

3y ago1:00:09

1:00:09

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 overs…

1
Self Evident Presents: “Shikata Ga Nai” (by Julianne Sato-Parker) 27:22

3y ago27:22

27:22

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…

1
Self Evident Presents: "Underground Aams Trade, Pt 1" (by See Something Say Something) 35:02

3y ago35:02

35:02

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 sear…

1
Bonus: How Do We Build the Places We Want to Work For? Feat. Gautam Srikishan and Snigdha Sur (AAPIHM 3/3) 38:11

3y ago38:11

38:11

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 Tra…

1
Bonus: How Do Stories Change Lives? Feat. Randy Kim and Tracey Nguyen Mang (AAPIHM 2/3) 33:14

3y ago33:14

33:14

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 episo…

1
Bonus: How Do We Go Beyond Representation? Feat. Eliza Romero, Marvin Yueh, and Thomas Mangloña II (AAPIHM 1/3) 40:45

3y ago40:45

40:45

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 …

1
Saving the Seeds 39:36

3y ago39:36

39:36

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 obsession…

1
A Day at the Mall 29:40

3+ y ago29:40

29:40

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 t…

1
Finding Joy 40:25

3+ y ago40:25

40:25

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…

1
Conversations About Conversations 49:33

3+ y ago49:33

49:33

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 thre…

1
I Voted 45:49

3+ y ago45:49

45:49

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 h…

1
Self Evident Presents: A Conversation With Yuh-Line Niou (by Rock the Boat) 35:13

3+ y ago35:13

35:13

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 stat…

1
Self Evident Presents: "The Home Clock" (by A Better Life? podcast) 27:59

3+ y ago27:59

27:59

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,…

1
We Hear You (3/3) 32:57

3+ y ago32:57

32:57

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 immigran…

1
Here Comes the Neighborhood (2/3) 43:33

3+ y ago43:33

43:33

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 dee…

1
Bonus: Mulan 1998 (A Reflection) 23:35

3+ y ago23:35

23:35

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. Resou…

1
Hate Goes Viral (1/3) 28:53

3+ y ago28:53

28:53

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…

1
Bonus: What Are We Showing Up For? 31:01

4y ago31:01

31:01

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 interdiscipli…

1
Bonus: Unpacking Pandemic Racism 37:40

4y ago37:40

37:40

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…

1
Self Evident Presents: Sharing Asian America's Stories 40:13

4+ y ago40:13

40:13

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 seaso…

1
So Where Are We Really From? 50:43

4+ y ago50:43

50:43

We asked our listener community, “How did you learn where you come from?” What came back was a wide range of personal stories about how tricky it can be to access our heritage. From kids going to culture camp, to adoptees making journeys to their birth countries, to Asian Americans of all ages realizing that they’re inevitably going to lose a piece…

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