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Self Evident: Asian America's Stories

Storytelling Podcasts

We tell Asian America's stories to go beyond being seen. As people of all backgrounds reckon with complex legacies of race, power, culture, and identity and ask themselves, “Where do I stand?” Self Evident presents reported stories and radically open conversations from the everyday Asian Americans who have been confronting this question for generations. Our mission is to empower local communities to share stories and build relationships around the value of self-representation. Self Evident is a Studiotobe production, made with support from our listener community.

We tell Asian America's stories to go beyond being seen. As people of all backgrounds reckon with complex legacies of race, power, culture, and identity and ask themselves, “Where do I stand?” Self Evident presents reported stories and radically open conversations from the everyday Asian Americans who have been confronting this question for generations. Our mission is to empower local communities to share stories and build relationships around the value of self-representation. Self Evident is a Studiotobe production, made with support from our listener community.

Location:

United States

Description:

We tell Asian America's stories to go beyond being seen. As people of all backgrounds reckon with complex legacies of race, power, culture, and identity and ask themselves, “Where do I stand?” Self Evident presents reported stories and radically open conversations from the everyday Asian Americans who have been confronting this question for generations. Our mission is to empower local communities to share stories and build relationships around the value of self-representation. Self Evident is a Studiotobe production, made with support from our listener community.

Language:

English

Episodes

(BONUS) Hunger Strike! How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Took on City Hall

5/18/2022
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 did several other drivers who were crushed under the weight of these impossible debts. In hopes of preventing another death, Tang joined a push by...

Duration:00:29:03

Say Goodbye to Yesterday

2/22/2022
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’s approval to be himself. But as James starts connecting with all of the Asian American ska fans he’s met over the past few years, he also...

Duration:00:52:22

Heartbeats

2/6/2022
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 that leaves so many people with family as their only lifeline? “My Heartbeats”: When Indian American filmmaker Tanmaya Shekhar moved his life from...

Duration:00:42:30

Help us out by taking our survey

2/1/2022
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 team

Duration:00:00:17

Specially Processed

1/18/2022
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 Me, takes a close look at Spam’s legacies, and the lost stories of her own family — who’ve migrated twice over two generations, from North...

Duration:00:38:21

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

1/4/2022
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 Sundays), Arshia Fatima Haq (of Discostan), Roger Bong (of Aloha Got Soul), and YiuYiu (of Manhattan Chinatown) — then you can hear it here, or...

Duration:00:48:03

Diaspora Dance Mixtape, Vol. 1

12/21/2021
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 Chinatown), Les Talusan (a.k.a. Les The DJ of OPM Sundays), Arshia Fatima Haq (of Discostan), and Roger Bong (of Aloha Got Soul). The 22...

Duration:01:03:08

Only Fans

12/7/2021
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 hits were actually covers of American pop songs by Destiny’s Child and the Legally Blonde soundtrack, she suddenly had a lot of questions... not...

Duration:00:56:12

Back to School, But Not Back to Normal

11/23/2021
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, and checked in with them as these first few months of the school year unfolded. Cathy and our team found out how a Chinese American mother of...

Duration:00:40:09

Scary to Imagine (2/2)

11/9/2021
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 activists calling for the removal of “Identitarian” Sarah Dye — and failed to mollify right-wing groups who were now turning Dye into a White...

Duration:00:31:32

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

10/26/2021
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 confirmed). Abby Ang, a graduate student at Indiana University in Bloomington who had also become a community organizer, picked up on a series of...

Duration:00:32:03

Season 3 Coming Soon!

10/5/2021
Self Evident's third season starts this month. Subscribe where you get podcasts, and help spread the word to your family and friends!

Duration:00:01:13

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

9/9/2021
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 from Re:Work, a women-led radio show and podcast from the UCLA Labor Center that spotlights the...

Duration:00:29:03

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

8/26/2021
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 studied and performed in modern-day arangetrams. Who holds the power in propagating...

Duration:00:44:57

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

8/12/2021
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 activist. Making Contact takes a close look at Boggs’s lifetime of vital thinking and action; from...

Duration:00:29:53

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

7/29/2021
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 Islander organizing, some juicy conversations about love and relationships, and reclaiming space for...

Duration:01:03:14

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

7/15/2021
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 at home. In this episode, we hear from US Congressman Andy Kim about how the power...

Duration:01:00:08

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

7/2/2021
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 unpredictable twists and turns: “That’s just the way the ball bounces.” But the phrases may not be as...

Duration:00:27:21

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

6/10/2021
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 hard to find? And why is the Pakistani community resorting to deals on WhatsApp to procure...

Duration:00:35:01

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

5/26/2021
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 at the On Being Project) and Snigdha Sur (Founder and CEO of The Juggernaut) to discuss their...

Duration:00:38:10

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