Season 3 Trailer: Our Major Minor Voices
In this season of the Queens Memory podcast, “Our Major Minor Voices,” we feature stories from our neighbors of Asian descent in Queens, New York. One in four Queens residents identifies as Asian American – that’s over 650,000 people with roots in more than 120 Asian countries. They speak over 800 languages and make up the largest urban concentration of Asian Americans in the nation. The stories in the third season of the podcast, “Our Major Minor Voices,” document the experiences of our borough’s rich and diverse Asian communities in their own voices. Each episode features stories about identity and belonging from this broad array of people who have made valuable contributions through their cultural traditions, belief systems, and linguistic diversity. Bookended by the season introduction and finale, the series includes eight bilingual episodes representing the most widely spoken Asian languages in Queens: Bangla, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Nepali, Tagalog, Tibetan, and Urdu. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these communities have been in turmoil. Already grappling with longstanding issues such as income inequality, immigration barriers, and racial stereotyping, Asian Americans now faced concerns for their personal health and public safety. In this unique moment, we aim to document the stories of these vital communities and capture snapshots of our ever-changing neighborhoods as they are now. Season Three’s production team includes Melody Cao, Anna Williams, Natalie Milbrodt, Jiefei Yuan, Cory Choy, Meral Agish,Tenzin Choklay, Indranil Choudhury, Shradha Ghale, Peter Gill, Stella Gu, Syma Mohammed, Trisha Mukherjee, Heidi Shin, Rosalind Tordesillas, with music by Elias Ravin. This podcast has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Queens Memory is an ongoing community archiving program by the Queens Public Library and Queens College, CUNY. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this episode are those of its creators and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of National Endowment for the Humanities, Queens Public Library, the City University of New York, or their employees.