Not Your Token Minority

Shaneel Lal (they/them) is a prominent activist and political commentator who sits at the intersection of Aotearoa New Zealand’s BIPOC and queer communities. They are a fierce advocate for ending conversion therapy and in February 2022, their efforts resulted in legislation being passed that bans the practice in New Zealand.

In our conversation, we cover: 

• Growing up queer in Fiji and how that informed Shaneel’s advocacy later on
• ...

Auckland-based artist and photographer Abhi Chinniah joins me in this episode to talk how colourism has fundamentally shaped her life so far and her most recent exhibition “Melanin Rising”. 

She shares:

• Her experiences at the receiving end of colourism
• How her personal experiences of colourism inspire her work
• How she went from Abhi, to Abby, and back to Abhi
• The influence her dad has had in her journey grappling with colourism
• What ...

Vivian Chandra is a tech consultant with a huge difference. Her passion for education and democratising digital technology means she spends much of her time upskilling teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand so that they can teach kids essential tech skills. 

In our conversation, we talk about:

• Why diversity and inclusion in tech is important to her
• How to use play doh to teach electronics
• One of the biggest misunderstandings about childr...

University of Auckland PhD candidate Lovely Dizon speaks with me in this episode about the under-served mental health needs of 1.5 generation Asian young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our conversation includes:

• A discussion of the burden of carrying the weight of family expectations, balanced with trying to figure out what is important to you and who you are
• What is lacking from current systems of healthcare and how they fail A...

Auckland-based playwright and director Talia Pua talks to me in this episode about her latest bodies of work - a play titled Pork and Poll Taxes which premiered in 2021 and an exhibition about Chinese migration to New Zealand which ran earlier in 2022 - and why it’s important to her to tell these stories.

She also shares her experiences both behind and on stage in the performing arts in New Zealand, and why diverse Asian representat...

Vikram Udyawer has loved space ever since he was a kid growing up in four different countries. Like many other kids who grow up in different cultures, Vikram struggled with belonging and identity, but found solace in space and what he believed to be a borderless environment. 

He chats with me about his experiences growing up as a “Fifth Culture Kid”, how this inspired him to enter the space industry, and what the reality was once he...

Emi Chiba spent her most formative years between the UK, Japan and Spain, before eventually settling in Tokyo, Japan where she lives now. And the road between her being born in the UK to a British father and Japanese mother, to her life now is full of twists, hard truths and unexpected lessons. 

Yes, growing up biracial between vastly different countries and cultures is a big part of Emi’s story so far. But there has been so much mo...

이혜지 Hye Ji (Erica) Lee joins me on this episode to talk activism and decoloniality - specifically what constitutes activism for her and how she finds the joy in activism, rather than focusing only on the things that cause pain and trauma. 

Erica is an academic who teaches and researches in Sociology, who was born in South Korea and migrated to New Zealand with her family when she was 11 years old. Like so many migrant kids, she expe...

In the last year of her degree in communication design at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, Sochetha Meng created three zines documenting her family’s past, her own present and her hopes for the future.

Sochetha is a second generation Cambodian New Zealander who is grappling with her identity as an “inbetweener” while also learning more about - and working through the trauma - her family’s history that, like all Cambod...

Florence and Athina are the co-founders of Covry, a company that makes inclusive eyewear for faces of all shapes and sizes. I bought a pair of these glasses last year after seeing an ad on Instagram and I had no idea I needed them until I tried them on. 

In this conversation, I chat with Florence and Athina about their backgrounds, the inspiration behind Covry, building their brand, and why it’s meaningful to them to promote diversi...

Dhayana, who goes by “MissDeusGeek” online, is an avid gamer, influencer and content creator based in Australia. Of Sri Lankan descent and born and raised in Malaysia, Dhayana is passionate about championing diversity in gaming, particularly for future generations. 

During our conversation, we chat about:

• The hierarchy of Malaysian society and its implications, including the pursuit of perfection, unhealthy competition and colour...

Golriz Ghahraman is often described as New Zealand’s first refugee Member of Parliament (MP) and it is a label that follows her in all her work with under-represented communities in New Zealand. She came to New Zealand as a nine-year-old child asylum seeker from Iran and went on to study at Oxford University and practise law at the United Nations. She’s now an elected MP representing The Green Party, where she works on a wide range...

This is a rerun of the first episode of the first season of NYTM that aired in February 2021. 

In the very first episode of Not Your Token Minority, I speak with my good friend Sheila about growing up in small-town New Zealand, building her career as one of the only Asian female leaders in her industry and coming to terms with her mum's death. 

Themes and topics explored in this episode include:
- growing...

The "better life" adoption narrative is one that many of us know well - a child, who is usually from the global south, is adopted by a loving couple from the west and given a “better life”, one that they never would have had, had they never been adopted.

But what if, in reality, many adoptions don't follow this familiar narrative? In this episode, my guest shares with me her own adoption story and how her jo...

"Nikkei" is a term that you'll hear a few times in this episode. It's a Japanese word that means "of Japanese descent" and is used to refer to the huge communities of Japanese diaspora living overseas.

Leo Fuchigami is second generation Japanese-Canadian and is considered "Nikkei". But what does that really mean? In this episode, Leo shares his journey of how he has unpacked his &qu...