Self Evident: Asian America's Stories

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 wit…

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'…

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 an…

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 enforce…

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 immig…

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,…

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 pa…

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 ca…

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 ch…

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 c…

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 cul…

Under the Trump administration, the United States has pushed aggressively to deport Southeast Asian Americans with criminal records. Hurt that members of the Vietnamese community would support this a…

Three intimate conversations reveal how we deal with changes to our most deeply rooted identities, and how we tell the people who matter most.

“Unspoken”

Documentary filmmaker Patrick G. Lee tells Ca…

Gabe's always felt distant from his parents: not Filipino enough for his dad, not affectionate enough for his mom. But when he moves back to his white-bread hometown to donate a kidney to his dad and…

Sharmin Hossain, a member of New York’s Bangladeshi Feminist Collective, helps us take a hard look at the roles of class, colorism, and cultural education within the broader conversation about Asian …

Do you have a story about going to language classes, Saturday schools, religious community groups, clubs, music lessons, or other alternative classrooms where you learned about your culture or herita…

Self Evident tells Asian American stories — but that term itself, “Asian American,” can mean many different things to different people. In this episode we present three stories from our listener comm…

What does it mean to be excluded from the American Dream? Two stories, set 100 years apart, explore this question from the perspective of immigrants who think they’ve made it in America, only to find…

Self Evident is where we decide where we're from, where we belong, and where we're going. Here's a peep into the stories we've presented from Asian American communities, and the reason that we make t…