Asian American History 101

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 17! This is the next installment in our series on ethnic enclaves that have disappeared. Today we’re here to talk about The History of the Hawaiian Settlement of Iosepa, Utah. It was predominantly Hawaiian, but there were others from the Pacific Islands as well. Estab...

Editors Note: We had an audio glitch in the original upload and have fixed it. 

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 16! This episode is about The History of the Buddhist Churches of America. Buddhism is one of ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 15! Today’s guest is Kelisha Menon, the Public Relations and Partnerships Lead at Send Chinatown Love, the incredible organization that formed during the height of the pandemic when New York’s Chinatown businesses and the people who lived there we...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 14! Today’s special guest is the talented and engaging actor Chen Tang. Born in Japan and raised in Guangxi, China as well as Memphis, Tennessee, Chen is best known for playing Hong in Warrior and Yao in the ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 13! Today’s guest is Dr. Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn, an author, educator, speaker, and professional learning facilitator. Born in Bangkok, Thailand into a mixed-race Malaysian Chinese and ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 12! It’s Another Conversation with Award-Winning Author and Illustrator Grace Lin. It’s not hyperbole to say that Grace Lin is one of our favorite authors of all time… maybe that’s why we love any opportunity to ta...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 11. Today’s guest is Dr. Michael Soon Lee, a fifth-generation Chinese American. He overcame prejudice, systemic discrimination, and depression to become a TV and film producer, an actor, a top-producing real estate broker, and the Dean of a univ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 10! Today we’re talking about Bangladeshi Americans, a separate group of the South Asian diaspora (Desi community) that’s a growing presence in the U.S. We go back to Bangladesh and talk about ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 9. We had a lot of fun talking to Dr. Xenia Deviatkina-Loh about her life, her career, and her work with the Asian Classical Music Initiative. Dr. Deviatkina-Loh performs on violin and viola, and she is also a pedagogue, sharing her knowledge in various settings across the wor...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 8! Today’s conversation is with Amy Chu, a co-founder and former editor of A. Magazine, screenwriter, co-founder of Alpha Girl Comics, and well-known comic book author. Her latest title is Fighting to Belong! Volume 1 (out now, so go ge...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 7! It’s no secret that we love sumo. We even talk about AAPI in Professional Sumo back in S02E40. So it was really exciting to get a chance to have a conversation with Ter, the creator of the YouTube channel SumoStew. She’s one of our favorite content creators… definitely our favori...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 6. Father Jun is one of our favorite characters on Warrior… so we were so unbelievably excited to have a conversation with Perry Yung! With about 30 acting credits to his name for TV and Film, Perry has also worked on stage and in music. We also love how he merges h...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 5! Our conversation this week is with the talented author, Jamie Jo Hoang. Her latest novel, My Father, the Panda Killer is a heartfelt story based on her life. We really enjoyed the book, even t...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 4. If you’re new to our podcast then just know that we occasionally do a series called Most Forgotten Massacres, where we take time to talk about a moment (generally in U.S. history) where racism and ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 3. As many of you know, we love hockey! Recently, in November 2023, George Chin, a legend of Asian Canadian ice hockey, passed away. He was the star winger on the Chin brothers line along with his brothers Bill and Albert. The Chinese Canadian trio help...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 2! There’s a global fascination with the Old West cowboys in America. Did you know that the Hawaiian Paniolo pre-dates the Old West cowboys by several years? The Mexican Vaqueros have even more history. In this episode, we talk about the history ...

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 1. Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and had fun on New Year’s Eve. To launch this new season, we’re going back to the thing that’s at our core… Asian American History. Our special guests for this conversation are Professor Yoon Pak and Dr. Sharon Lee, tw...

Welcome to Season 3, Episode 50. This is it… the final episode of the season… our Season 3 in Review! In this annual tradition, we discuss the episodes where we learned a LOT, ones that upset us to talk about, fun episodes, thought-provoking conversations, conversations th...

Welcome to Season 3, Episode 49. Christmas is a holiday that can be celebrated in a religious or secular way. So how is it celebrated in Asia and the Pacific Islands? In this episode, we discuss some of the unique traditions and foods you might find in countries across Asia, Polynesia, Micro...