KPFA - APEX Express

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APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asian and Pasifika folx from all corners of the community. We are dedicated to highlighting the artists and changemakers that make up our diverse community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, artists, and activists and airs each week on KPFA 94.1FM.

  1. 4d ago

    APEX Express – 7.16.26 – South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement

    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. This Thursday APEX Express proudly presents “South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement.” This episode highlights Sandhya Jha, a pastor, founder and former Executive Director of the Oakland Peace Center, and racial, housing, and labor justice activist. In the first half of the episode, we discuss Sandhya’s life, their path into organizing, and what they’re up to now. The second half is dedicated to their recent project with the South Asian American Digital Archive’s Archival Creators Fellowship Program. This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by Swati Rayasam   Follow @Sandhya Jha on Facebook and check out Sandhya’s website https://sandhyajha.com/    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Listen to the episode live on KPFA 94.1 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Berkeley, and online at KPFA.org.  References throughout the Show and Links: Without Fear Consulting Interfaith Alliance Oakland Peace Center Book – Blueprint for a Revolution Book – The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad Podcast – Bending Toward Justice: Avatar the Last Airbender for the Global Majority The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action – ASATA Bay Area Solidarity Summer South Asian American Digital Archive Archival Creators Fellowship Program Sandhya Jha’s project, you can listen to all of the oral histories here. Solidarity Forever Online Exhibit Arab Resource and Organizing Center Block the Boat No Tech for Apartheid  University of California Labor Center Equality Labs California Trade Justice Coalition NAFCON – National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Filipino Community Center Madhvi Trivedi Patak Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan: Hello and welcome! You are tuning in to APEX Express—a weekly radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I’m your host, Miata Tan. Tonight we’re revisiting an episode from our archives, first aired January 5th, 2023. We’re bringing it back this week in honor of South Asian American Heritage Month. This one centers Sandhya Jha — a pastor, organizer, and founder of the Oakland Peace Center — in conversation with APEX producer Swati Rayasam. The first half traces Sandhya’s path into organizing, from a labor campaign at Johns Hopkins to two decades of interfaith and racial justice work. The second half digs into Sandhya’s project with the South Asian American Digital Archive, where she spent a year interviewing South Asian workers inside the labor movement — collecting stories that don’t usually make it into the archive. Here’s Swati Rayasam in conversation with Sandhya Jha. [00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I’m really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I’m just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let’s just dive in. [00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely. [00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I’ve been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I’m not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing? [00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it’s hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt’s name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother’s acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga. [00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board. [00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow. [00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation. [00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university? [00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that’s relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It’s to fill the crowd. It’s to cheer us on. It’s to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career. [00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that’s so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it’s this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you’re just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It’s a narcissistic phase in our development. . [00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that’s so important, and I can’t imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn’t have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing. [00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it. [00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn’t serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber, [00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes. [00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People’s campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it’s not about right and l

  2. Jul 9

    APEX Express – 7.9.26 – Connie Wun & Think Twice

    A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee speaks with Dr. Connie Wun and we get to hear her new podcast Think Twice. The post APEX Express – 7.9.26 – Connie Wun & Think Twice appeared first on KPFA.

  3. Jul 2

    APEX Express – 7.2.26 – International Youth Movements

    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as “Gen-Z Uprisings” – movements led by young people and described in western media as generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism, like the flag of the “straw hat pirates,” a black flag depicting a grinning jolly roger wearing a straw hat. The flag is the banner of the protagonists of the long-running hit anime series One Piece whose adventures often find them coming to the defense of marginalized communities around their world. But these movements didn’t come out of nowhere (or the internet for that matter). Understanding their origins – and the elections that have resulted from their successes – can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges we face building an alternative. In this episode we are looking at two countries, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. In this episode, we are joined by two US based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of South Asian diasporas has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who is currently the Organizing Director for 18 Million Rising. To learn more about 18 Million Rising, check out their site at www.18millionrising.org. Follow Sharmin on all platforms at @sharminultra Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He has spent the last 18 years involved in movement work here in the US. To learn more about The Ruckus Society and request a training, visit: www.ruckus.org/training-action-support/training-requests/ To learn more about Convergence Magazine and the Block and Build Podcast, follow them at @_convergencemag and @blockandbuildpod. Check out Covergence’s work at www.convergencemag.com. Transcript Swati Rayasam: [00:00:00] welcome fellow travelers to Apex Express. It’s been a minute, but in case you don’t remember, my name is Swati Rayasam, and I’m gonna be your conductor tonight. I have been very excited about this week’s episode for a few months because tonight Apex is featuring Convergence Magazine’s Block and Build podcast. Block and Build is creating a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the impacts of [00:01:00] rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win. And both the team at Convergence and the guests for tonight’s show are close comrades and friends of Apex. On this episode, Cayden Mak, podcast host and editor-in-chief of Convergence, is joined by Samir Shrestha and Sharmin Hossain, two US-based organizers from the South Asian diaspora, Nepal and Bangladesh respectively. Sharmin and Samir will talk about the history and continued struggles of the international Gen Z uprisings, which have only really made a blip in Western media coverage. They’ll discuss the history of those movements and the political conditions which created them, as well as help us understand how Americans can be in meaningful solidarity with people’s movements abroad. Without further ado, I’ll hand it over to Cayden. Cayden: Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as the Gen Z uprisings, movements led by young people and described in Western media as [00:02:00] generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism. but these movements didn’t come out of nowhere, or out of just the internet, for that matter. Understanding their origins and the elections that have resulted from their successes can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges that we face building an alternative. In this episode, we’re looking at two countries in particular, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. I was recently joined by two US-based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of the South Asian diaspora has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who’s currently the organizing director for 18 Million Rising. Sharmin, thanks so much for joining us today  Sharmin: Thank you for having me. I love Convergence.  Cayden: Thank you. [00:03:00] And, Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He spent the past 18 years involved in movement work here in the US, and Samir, it’s really good to see you this morning.  Samir: So good to see you too, Cayden.  Cayden: Well, to start us off, let’s try and set some context Sharmin. I’m wondering if you can give us kind of a quick gloss of the 2024 uprisings in Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party were ousted from power. What are the sort of themes of the protests, and then the way that the state responded, and where are we kind of now? Sharmin: Wow, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to talk about my country and all the amazing things that happened, because I think the Global South really forges, like, new possibilities as far as, like, what we can do and, and consolidate as far as power goes. So today is actually March 26th, and it’s Bangladeshi Independence Day, coincidentally. Cayden: Happy independence Day.  Sharmin: Happy Independence Day. I find it very serendipitous for us to delve into this layered and complex history, um, of the student movement. So [00:04:00] the Bangladesh student protests of July 2024, were deeply rooted in systemic inequalities that the young working class and the poor faced. Nearly 32 million young people were actually out of the workforce, or education in a population of a country of 170 million. So that’s a pretty significant number. And so that issue was a focal point for widespread discontent in the country. In July of 2024, the High Court of Bangladesh actually reinstated a quota system for government jobs after an appeal was made when the then-ruling Hasina government abolished the quota system, um because in 2018 she faced a lot of pressure from student protesters. But this quota system is really interesting, and it represents a lot. It reserved 30% of government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters. And in Bangladeshi history, that’s a very complex and layered identity. Millions of our [00:05:00] ancestors actually fought in the liberation war against the US-backed Pakistani military, and the Bangladeshi Liberation War, and genocide in Bangladesh actually resulted in the death of over three million people who sacrificed for the birth of our nation. And so for the Hasina government, the quota system was actually what she used to appoint a lot of her loyalists and her supporters to high levels of government, the military, and it basically created the political ecosystem for the Awami League, her party, to maintain dominance. And the Awami League actually was the party that once led the liberation struggle, and over the course of 15 years, we actually saw how much they consolidated power through political repression, the Digital Security Acts that was surveilling and targeting freedom of speech, as well as the corruption and fear that they [00:06:00] stoked against their opposition. And these government jobs, like most of us, it represents many things. It represents the government’s responsibility to take care of poor people, um, economic and political opportunity, and it also represents, like, the corruption and the authoritarian rule of the Awami League, and how they were rigging elections, and how the court systems, and even entrance exams for the Bangladeshi civil service, were actually regularly leaked and compromised. And so -within that background, that’s when you have the Students Against Discrimination movement take the streets in July demanding fair access to government jobs. And things actually got violent really fast. Within seven days, nearly 174 people were murdered, and thousands were injured. There was an indefinite curfew, social media blackouts, and then a military occupation with shoot on sight orders. And of course, the bullets that were raining upon, Bangladeshis were US, [00:07:00] arms. So students were terrorized by these vigilante groups that were collaborating with the Bangladeshi police. And these student groups were actually organized by the Bangladeshi Awami League. These student groups were notorious for repressing student elections, sexually assaulting students, um really threatening people that were running for student elections. And so there’s already this, like, vigilante ecosystem that exists within the campuses that was weaponized during the student protests. And then you have a climax moment on July 14th. Sheikh Hasina went on television accusing the students of being Razakars, and Razakars are collaborators of the Pakistani army, and it’s a very derogatory term in Bangladesh, and it refers to people who support the Pakistani military’s operation to suppress the Bangladeshi Liberation War. They’re also accused of heinous crimes. And s

  4. Jun 25

    APEX Express – 6.25.26 – Spitting Fire: Doktora Robyn Speaks

    A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee checks in with Dr. Robyn Rodriguez and we get to check out her podcast Spitting Fire: Doktora Robyn Speaks.   SHOW TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:34] Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express. I’m your host, Miko Lee, and tonight I’m so excited to talk to my lovely colleague, Dr. Robyn Rodriguez. Robyn is such a powerful leader. She’s often called the people’s professor. She was a professor of Asian studies at UC Davis, and now runs the Reimagination Lab. She has created a farm that is a collective action space, and she is really thinking about new ways to reimagine our world. I’m so excited for you to learn more about Dr. Robyn and you’re gonna get to hear from her new podcast, which is called appropriately, Spitting Fire: Doktora Robyn Speaks. And I just love this, ’cause spitting fire is this term for women that can speak out and share their stories, and Robyn has so much to tell. So I’m gonna interview her, and then you’re gonna get to listen to her new podcast, Spitting Fire. Thanks so much for joining us on Apex Express.   [00:01:36] Welcome back Dr. Robyn Rodriguez to Apex Express.   [00:01:41] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : Oh, thank you so much for having me.    [00:01:44] Miko Lee: I’m so happy to have you with us once again. And I have asked you this before, but sometimes things change in the amount of years we’ve spoken to each other. So I’m gonna ask again, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:02:00] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : Yeah, who are my people? I think about folks of color broadly as my people. Whenever I refer to my people, I really do think about those of us who share intertwined and yet also distinct histories of colonization, empire, War, Violence. I think of all of us who’ve descend from peoples who’ve survived, fought back thrived, in spite of all that as my people and the legacy I hope to leave is lessons on continuing to not just dismantle the systems that caused harm on our ancestors and continue to cause harm for us now, but to offer also lessons on liberation and what it can look like and feel like so that we can continue to not just again, dismantle, but also build out the worlds we want.    [00:03:15] Miko Lee: Speaking of lessons, you have a brand new podcast series called Spitting Fire Doc. Robyn Speaks, and I wonder if you can talk to me about how this podcast came to be.   [00:03:27] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : You’re gonna laugh. Well, there are a couple of things I think that lead to the podcast. I’ve always wanted to do a podcast. I did college radio when I was an undergrad at UC Santa Barbara. I had a co-host for a show called WAR Women in the Act of Resistance, and we used to love to always say, we declare war on.   [00:03:53] Miko Lee: I love that.    [00:03:53] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : Whatever it is that we, yeah,    [00:03:58] Miko Lee: that’s so good.    [00:03:59] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : I, I, yeah. So I, I love doing college radio and have always, you know, people would joke or I don’t know if it was a joke, but compliment me on having a kind of good radio voice. I don’t know how true that is.   [00:04:16] Miko Lee: Very true, true.   [00:04:16] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : But I’ve always had a, an interest in, podcasting as a platform. I think in general I prefer the long form platform. I prefer storytelling and, uh, there’s something really powerful about podcasts is I think for me, really connected to radio programming. I don’t see them, I guess, in very different ways. So I’d always wanted to do podcasts even when I was still teaching at, uc Davis, in Asian American Studies. I always thought podcasts are a really, really powerful way to share the knowledges of ethnic studies beyond the classroom. So I’d actually clipped on a recorder while I was lecturing and had uploaded a bunch of a raw unedited audio to what used to be iTunes University. So in some ways that might have been like the first podcast in a way. And then the funny thing about, uh, Spitting Fire it was kind of launched a little sooner than I was ready to be honest. I basically messed up on what was supposed to be a Zoom video. I don’t know exactly what happened, but we only had audio and I thought, you know what? We’re slapping that together, editing it and putting it out there, because I thought that the conversation that we had over Zoom was so, just really powerful and informative, and I didn’t want to not have it circulate in the world. And so I’ve sort of tried to proceed in that way. I, I guess I see podcasting alongside YouTube videos and other long form and even just more written essays as the sets of long form digital media that I tend to prefer and also recognize as an educator that people learn in so many different ways. Some people are able to learn better, by listening closing their eyes and listening and are able to kind of absorb knowledge differently in that way. Others respond better to a kind of visual medium. Others like to read. And as an educator too, I feel like each of the mediums can be really effective in terms of conveying and transmitting knowledge. But again, I have a preference if I have to use digital media for the long form. I do worry that the sort of clipped, abbreviated, kind of versions of digital media that is social media, whether it’s TikTok or Instagram and other sorts, or just, I don’t know that they serve us in the way that, especially as an educator, that I    [00:07:08] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I’m wondering how you ended up selecting this lovely title. You went from WAR in college to Spitting Fire. Tell me about where this title comes from.   [00:07:19] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : You know, I think it must have been a student, honestly, who had said, oh, look at Dr. Rob Spitting Fire after some talk. And I, I was sort of drawn to that. I think too, honestly, as an Asian American woman I think I was kind of playing a little bit with these stereotypes of Asian American women as kind of dragon ladies. And, but trying to kind of remake that in a way to kind of paint a picture of sort of fierce Asian American woman who is unafraid to speak truth to power. I think I’ve been feeling as and in my interactions with younger generations of women, I do feel as if younger Asian American women, and again, maybe it has to do with social media maybe the permanency of that. The circulation of media and how rapidly it spreads. Cancel culture. I feel that there is a kind of timidness that I’m encountering with younger Asian American women who are a little bit reluctant to speak up and speak out without really taking a moment to first compose themselves. Edit and then maybe post or share. And I guess I, I had hoped that image of spitting fire might conjure up a different way of being, as a kind of Asian American, woman, and activist, and organizer. And that’s even why I think I was really drawn to just not over editing any of the content. You know, if there were was content that I could pull from other conversations I was having, that might have been like originally a Zoom for instance, but might you know, be conveyed better to somebody who Is more of a listener than a a watcher or a viewer that could invite, people or women in particular feeling like it’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to be able to stand by a thought and recognize that are the things that we, we say in a particular moment have history and context and need to be understood in that way. So it plays with that image of, I think the dragon lady, Asian American woman, dragon leader lady. And also, you know, I always talk about my middle name. It’s such an important part of who I am and my identity, but my middle name, which I get from my mother. Was my mother’s maiden name means to be angry in Filipino, and I’ve always loved it because it was actually a made up name. It was a name that my great-great-grandfather claimed for himself. Changing his name from De Los Reyes, which means of the kings to Magalit to be angry because he was a revolutionary against the Spanish. And I’m so fiercely proud of this revolutionary lineage that I hold. And I think in a way, Spitting Fire also reflects that lineage of ancestors who’ve never been afraid to stand up, speak out and again, speak truth to power.   [00:10:54] Miko Lee: Ooh, that was such a lovely answer. I really appreciate reclaiming the dragon Lady is furious and powerful and a revolutionary figure. I think that’s so lovely because usually we just think of the dragon lady as this evil villain, but dragons in Asian culture are creatures that are to be revered and are powerful and lucky too.   [00:11:19] So, I so appreciate that. I really, I wonder,    [00:11:21] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : you know, that too.    [00:11:23] Miko Lee: I’m wondering, you, you said that you feel like young women are timid today and I was like deep sigh of that because I feel like still really now with, I don’t know, I just, that’s that. Um, do you find that in the students that you’re working with now, that they’re still Asian, young women are still being timid?   [00:11:46] Dr Robyn Rodriguez : I mean, honestly, I don’t think that this is a uni. You know, this is certainly not true for all of the young women I encounter. No, that would be unfair, but I also feel as if the boldness that might be out there I feel is often highly curated. A lot of it is expressed through social media. And again, if we understand social media, the re

  5. Jun 18

    APEX Express – 6.18.26 Talk Story with Thao Nguyen

    A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on Apex Express, Host Miko Lee talk story with singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen.  Hear about her new album Fossil,  her short documentary, and about her artistic inspirations. Thao’s tour starts this week in North Carolina, so listen in to hear from the brilliant Thao, and then check out her website to catch a live show.   SHOW TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:35] Miko Lee: Tonight on Apex Express, we talk story with singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen. Join me, your host, Miko Lee, as I talk with this multi-hyphenated artist. We get to hear about her new album, chat about her short documentary, and hear about her artistic inspirations. Thao’s tour starts this week in North Carolina, so listen in to hear from the brilliant Thao, and then check out her website to catch a live show.   [00:01:05] Ayame Keane-Lee: In today’s show, you’ll be listening to some songs from Thao & The Get Down Stay Down’s 2020 album, Temple. First off, let’s listen to “Pure Cinema.”   MUSIC     [00:05:44] That was “Pure Cinema” by today’s guest, Thao Nguyen. Let’s get to the interview.   [00:05:50] Miko Lee: Welcome  Thao Nguyen to Apex Express.    [00:05:54] Thao Nguyen: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.    [00:05:57] Miko Lee: I love talking with creative people and you’re such an amazingly talented singer and songwriter and imagination creator. I’m wanna start with the first question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:06:16] Thao Nguyen: Who are my people? Some of them include the family I was born into. I’m from Virginia. I was born and raised in Virginia. but I’m the daughter of Vietnamese refugees of war. And, I moved out to the Bay in 2006 after my first US tour. And, I’m so fortunate to have such a robust community here in the bay and all of my chosen family here.   [00:06:40] Miko Lee: And what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:06:43] Thao Nguyen: What legacy? I think the legacy I prioritize. I think, you know, [laughs] we inherit a lot and as time goes on and we get older, we realize everything is finite and you have to choose which legacies you choose to continue, and perpetuate and honor and what you have to leave by the wayside. And so the things I choose to continue and celebrate are that of a real ability to be very present and in the moment and available to joy and I think the people I come from are really good at metabolizing joy because they know the flip side of it so well.    [00:07:23] Miko Lee: Ooh, that’s so interesting. Can you speak more about what it means to metabolize joy?    [00:07:30] Thao Nguyen: [Laughs] uh, an ongoing practice? I think it is to be truly present and I believe, of course gratitude goes a long way, but I to fully metabolize it is to allow yourself to feel embodied in it. And, you know, there’s more somatic practice I think that to actually feel it course through your body, you are allowing it, you’re honoring it as completely as possible. And, do you have to acknowledge that it’s happening as it’s happening? You know, I think that’s having true presence with it.   [00:08:08] Miko Lee: Can you roll back with me in time and talk about your earliest childhood memories of being a singer or songwriting? What came first?    [00:08:18] Thao Nguyen: I loved music from a very early age, but I didn’t have a lot of access to it, to making it, it was more as a listener. The soundscape that I grew up with, there was a series called Paris by Night, which probably you’ve heard of within Vietnamese diaspora, uh, community and Culture. And it was this variety show that was, created by, people who had to flee Vietnam. And originally it was in Paris and it showcased A lot of singers and performers, who had fled, either before, during, or right after the fall of Saigon. And, it was this one gathering wherein. entertainers from the different generations, from my grandmother’s generation, from my parents were able to coalesce and exist together. And there was just this sampler platter of a lot of different sonic influences. And then you had the younger generation, which was reinterpreting what American pop music was at the time. So you’d have my grandmother who [sang] cải lương which was this incredibly, it’s like, almost like folk operatic, very dramatic, theatrical singing with a lot of pitch bending and, which I didn’t understand that I was absorbing it in such a way that I would recreate it later on in my playing, but I would go on to credit it to being from Virginia and saying it was more of like an Appalachian influence, which it was as well. But the origins, the true origins were within my soundscape before I understood what that was. You know, so you have that and then you have, an artist named Lynette who’s. basically in reinterpreting, like the latest Madonna song and has a cone bra on, so everyone’s existing act after act in the same, um, sorry for that ramble. Did I answer that question?    [00:10:13] Miko Lee: Yeah. Uh, I, so what was, do you remember the age or you just grew up hearing all these different kinds of sounds?    [00:10:20] Thao Nguyen: I mean, that was from before I knew what age I was, you know, that was just like, and that was such, um. For the community and within my family it was such an event every time one of these, you know, double VHS things were issued that people would be making copies, someone would drop it off at the house. You know, there, there was always one or two in circulation, but it was this. Event that you’d,    [00:10:43] Miko Lee: are these like bootleg copies?    [00:10:45] Thao Nguyen: Yeah, there’s like, wow, there’s bootleg. There’s also, there was one book in music store in Eden Shopping Center, which was like the hub of, of the Vietnamese community in, in, uh, Northern Virginia. And so someone would buy the original and then go and bootleg it. You don’t know how you ended up with what, but just like they would drop off some citrus and and Hennessy or whatever, and then the Paris By Night thing. And um,    [00:11:11] Miko Lee: I love that the combo citrus, Hennessy and some music.   [00:11:16] Thao Nguyen: Everything is a digestif, you know? And, um, so I would have that. But then of course, I, you know, I, I listened to the radio. That was what, that was my main resource and I listened to the oldie station the most, and I loved Motown. And I remember, in this I was like five or six, we had these large speakers that’s sat on the floor either side of, of this cassette deck, radio unit. And I would lay down and, every time Smokey Robinson came on, “You really got a hold of me” that was like my favorite song and I would tape it and then so either I would listen to it live or I would play the cassette and I would just lay down and get as close to the speakers as I could. But at that point, I hadn’t seen who Smokey Robinson was, and I imagined, because I also am a child of eighties and nineties. I imagined it was Crystal who was Roseanne’s best friend from the Roseanne show. You know, I didn’t know anything, but I felt all of it.    [00:12:20] Miko Lee: Wow. Yeah. I love that. So, I love that. And I was really wondering, I heard this story about you, that you actually did a rap for on Charlotte’s Web when you were in elementary school.   [00:12:33] Thao Nguyen: Okay. Okay. This is a deep cut. You’ve done some research.    [00:12:39] Miko Lee: Tell me about how that came to be. So you must have been introduced to rap pretty young to be doing that.    [00:12:44] Thao Nguyen: Oh, absolutely. This, so this was another, and this, I’m so glad you brought that up, because all of this is, every genre, every kind of music I, at this point is so vital to me, and it actually goes on to reflect the kind of music I make. And so I have an older brother who’s almost eight years older, and around this same time, he’s a huge hip hop fan, or that’s one of the things he loves, he loves like Duran Duran and like the Fat Boys, you know? And , when I saved money, the first cassette I ever bought was Salt-n-Pepa. And I, yeah, so I was listento the Fat Boys and Queen Latifah. And I loved, I loved every, I loved to hear the flow, the different cadences and in third grade I was voted best rapper. This, and, you know, not coincidentally. This is the year I, I do the book report, the Charlotte’s Web, you know, and they gave me the option. You can either write it or you can write a song or whatever. And so I wrote a rap about Charlotte’s Web, but I was too shy. I had recorded it and just played it in my presentation. I didn’t perform it live.    [00:13:51] Miko Lee: And how was it received?    [00:13:54] Thao Nguyen: I mean, I can still hear the roar. yeah, everyone, [laughs] I think the teachers    [00:14:01] Miko Lee: The crowd roared. The third graders roared.    [00:14:03] Thao Nguyen: Yeah. I mean, everyone’s standing on their desks. It’s rickety, you know, teachers are worried about child safety, it doesn’t matter. They’re like, Encore. I’m like, I don’t have anything else. Uh, you know, uh,   [00:14:15] Miko Lee: Wait for real?   [00:14:17] Thao Nguyen: No, no. [laughs] the teachers thought it was cute. Probably the kids thought it was funny. I actually don’t know because I was so nervous I even pressing play. I was so nervous. I don’t know if I registered what, how it was received.    [00:14:34] Miko

  6. Jun 11

    APEX Express – 6.11.26 – Pride, Power, and Queer AAPI Voices

    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community.   This Pride Month—queer and trans AAPI community strength. On this episode, host Miata Tan is joined by guests from three organizations building queer AAPI community on their own terms. They explore what it’s like to find joy, organize together, and show up for each other in this moment.   QTViệt Cafe Collective Learn more about QTViệt Cafe Collective and their new documentary Đồng Quê: Of the Same Womb Website | Instagram | Join the Collective Catch the film at an upcoming screening:  June 14 — World Premiere | 22nd Annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival | Presidio Theater, San Francisco  June 20 — Screening + Q&A with filmmaker Sage Tran | Hosted by the Q Corner | San Jose    Queer Hmong Intersectional Pride (QHIP) Learn more about QHIP and their upcoming workshops, events, and campaigns Instagram | Website | 5th Annual Elk Grove Pride   Lavender Phoenix (LavNix) Learn more about Lavender Phoenix and their Leadership Exchange program Website | Instagram | Leadership Exchange Program   Previous Episodes A Conversation with Lavender Phoenix: The Next Chapter — March 26, 2026 Trans & Queer Hmong Rise: Organizing in Central California — October 24, 2024 8 Years of QTViệt Cafe! — August 22, 2024   Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan : Hello and welcome. You’re tuning in to APEX Express, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I’m your host, Miata Tan. We’re nearly halfway through June, and Pride Month is in full swing. Pride is a time to celebrate, honor, and dig into the deep political history of queer and trans communities. And tonight, [00:01:00] we’re zooming into a few distinct queer Asian American communities right here in Northern California. First, we’ll hear from a collective of queer and trans Vietnamese artists, activists, and organizers based in the Bay Area, who have a brand-new documentary out this weekend. Then we’ll dive into the political organizing of queer and trans Hmong communities in Fresno and Sacramento. And we’ll close out the show with a queer Asian American community leader and some different ways that you can get involved this summer. Okay, let’s get into it. First up, my conversation with QTViet Cafe Collective. And before you ask, no, QTViet Cafe is not a brick-and-mortar cafe that serves coffee. They are a Bay Area-based creative cultural hub for queer and trans Vietnamese liberation through gatherings, art showcases, cultural programming, and more. QTViet Cafe is a part of Asian Refugees United, [00:02:00] and tonight we’ll be discussing their new documentary, Dong Hoi: Of the Same Womb. It is premiering this Sunday, June 14, as part of the 22nd Annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival in San Francisco. Dong Hoi asks viewers what it means to return to a homeland, to a community, to yourself. Here’s my conversation with the QTViet Cafe Collective. Miata Tan: Thank you all so much for joining me today on APEX Express. Sage, perhaps you can start us off. would you be able to introduce yourself and share a little bit about what the QTViet Cafe Collective is?  Sage Tran: My name is Sage. I use they/them pronouns. One of filmmakers/digital archivists for QTViet Cafe Collective. we are a cultural hub where we focus on, diasporic themes around intergenerational Vietnamese and identity and queerness. We do a lot our [00:03:00] events and workshops and gatherings around food, remembrance, and, our gay and they selves.  Miata Tan: Lovely. Jessie, who are you and what brought you to QTViet?  Jessie Nguyen: Sure, my name is Jessie, and my pronouns are they or Jessie, and I’ve been part of the collective since, 2018. I think I found the collective in a place in my life when I was really searching for ways to, bring an intersection to all parts of my identities, QTViet Cafe Just like Sage said, it’s a creative hub, it’s a cultural hub that is really dedicated to uplifting queer and trans Viet liberation through ancestral practices , different, forms of art and intergenerational connection. yeah, I just really appreciate the ways that QTViet Cafe has just been so dedicated to our, art and then also uplifting our art to really, bring forth community, organizing work, solidarity [00:04:00] work and our own, like, queer and trans Viet excellence  Miata Tan: Love that. Jean, could you share a little bit about yourself as well?  Jean Pham: Thanks for having us here. my name is Jean Pham. I use they/them pronouns. i’ve also been a part of QTViet Cafe since 2018 when I had first moved here to the Bay Area. Like Sage and Jessie had shared, QTViet Cafe is, it’s a really special space. I think as d- diasporic Vietnamese, speaking broadly, like culturally we experience being displaced on many different levels. Um, when people say that it’s a cultural hub, really tangible in a, in a lot of the activities and things that we do. we’ve hosted like art residencies. We cultural dinners. We have language groups. QTViet Cafe, it really exists to fill a need. and I think part of that need brought us, to the culmination of this specific project, to bring us back into Vietnam  Miata Tan: Yeah, lovely. And we can pick up from there your trip to Vietnam. this, was captured by Sage recently in a documentary. Sage, could you speak more about what, this new doco is about? where did this project come [00:05:00] from? Sage Tran: this project emerged from a collective hunger for wanting to return back to the motherland. for years of doing a lot of gathering here, specifically in the Bay Area, we’ve been able to stay rooted in the territories here. And, we all came to a consensus like , what would it be like to gather a bunch of us and connect with our siblings, brother, sisters, family, chosen fam out in the motherland? that became a seed that we cultivated, planted, tend to, and we fundraised with a lot of community support to get about 13 of us out uh, Vietnam. maybe Jessie can talk a little bit more about this, but Hai and Ma are the, folks who founded QTViet Cafe Collective [00:06:00] Jessie, Ma, and Hai. They all three went to Vietnam in 2022 and built a lot of beautiful connections of like local drag artists, queer trans collectives out there. That’s kind of what birthed Đồng Quê.  Miata Tan: so  I’ve been lucky enough to, watch the film already. Đồng Quê is the name of the documentary, but it’s also the name of the performance that came together Jesse, perhaps you can speak to this this journey more and I know QTViet C- Cafe’s been around since 2016,  this project goes back, a few years as well Jessie Nguyen: Yeah, sure. I can speak a little bit about that and just chiming into, like, what Sage already shared. there was a small group of collective members that that came up with the idea of, like, what would it be like for us as, queer and trans Viet diasporic folks to go to the homeland. the original intent was for that trip to happen in 2020. And it [00:07:00] actually, because of the pandemic, I think obviously things were, logistically it just didn’t work, but that, dream, like, surfaced again, so the question came up about, like, what would it be like for us to travel together to the homeland as a collective and also share our art, to , connect with other Viets in Saigon. You know, when we’re in the Bay, so much of our work is really centered around gathering communities around our food, our art, and our stories. And so it really made sense for us to think about what would that look like in Vietnam. And so in 2022, as Sage was mentioning, me, Hai, and Ma,, went to Saigon and just kind of explored, like, what is the creative scene like and were able to connect queer and trans Viet artists who are doing insanely inspiring creative work. we connected with folks from the Baxiu Collective, and they’re a group of, queer and trans Viet artists who are doing drag in different, performance spaces in queer bars in Saigon. And then I think in that moment we’re like, “Wait, we would love to [00:08:00] collaborate with you.” from that unfolded, a, a year-long , like, planning of, what would it look like for us to do a shared showcase together. And so we identified built relationships with a queer bar in Saigon. and then so leading up to the homeland trip, we planned this showcase where it would be a mix artists from our collective and artists from their collective, and then a whole, a whole performance that unfolded. And I think in the year of 2023, that year I think we ended up fundraising, about 50K in order to really subsidize and support the whole journey of getting us to Vietnam. Like, stipending artists and creatives that we were collaborating with. it was, one of the biggest projects I think that QTViet has ever been a part of and really undertaken, and I think it definitely is, like, a huge highlight for, like, my time with QTViet. Miata Tan: Lovely, and it’s so beautiful to see it all come together in the documentary. Jean, could you speak to your experience? I understand this was [00:09:00] your first time ever visiting Vietnam  Jean Pham: Yes, it was my first time visiting Vietnam. so I had a well of emotions in terms of the lead-up to it. Like Jesse was sharing, you know, originally the plan was we were gonna go in 2020. That had to shift, you know, shelter in place and everything. A lot of the work that we do is reconnection, right? as diasporic Vietnamese being displaced from our ancestral land, as queer and trans people, um, a big rallying point for many of us is feeling displaced from our own families. And so part of, like, returning back together is fighting against it. It’s like, what if we reconnect ? You know, what if we re- reunite? You know, w- if we’re traveling to

  7. Jun 4

    APEX Express – 6.4.26 – Food Justice

    A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight’s APEX Express show is focused on food justice and Asian America. First, Host Miko Lee talks with artist Macy Tran about their work on food as a form of resistance, and then she speaks with researcher Dr. Milkie Vu around her work on food insecurity and Asian American communities.   Show TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:30] Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express. I’m your host, Miko Lee, and tonight we’re talking about food justice and Asian America. First, we talk with artist Macy Tran about their work on food as a form of resistance, and then we speak with researcher Dr. Milkie Vu around her work on food insecurity and Asian American communities. Join us tonight as we delve into food justice. Welcome to Apex Express, Macy Tran, I’m so happy to meet you.    [00:01:03] Macy Tran: I’m happy to meet you as well, Miko. Thanks for having me.   [00:01:06] Miko Lee: I just wanna start with the question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:01:13] Macy Tran: I come from a legacy of powerful Vietnamese people who were born and raised in Vietnam and now are part of the diaspora in Minnesota. I come from food peoples and healers and chefs and creatives of all sorts who have learned how to make ends meet and to adapt and to work with what they have. I come from a long line of people who have loved through food and who have used food as a means of cultural preservation and education and survival, which has now been passed on to me. There’s so much to say about who I come from. My grandparents have stories of survival and resilience throughout the American War in Vietnam. And it’s only because of just their love and the decisions they’ve made on behalf of their love that I am here today. My parents own a restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Vietnamese restaurant called Pho 79/Caravelle That has a 40 plus year legacy of serving Chinese and Vietnamese food to the Minneapolis community. It started with my grandma’s brother, and then it passed down to my grandma. And now my grandma has since passed and has passed it down to my father and my mother. And so I like to say that it’s restaurant people who raised me. I grew up sleeping in the booths and all of the aunties, even though they weren’t blood aunties were my aunties. Because our survival was just so foundationally just predicated on food and what we served and shared with others, and also what we ate at home and the celebrations that we would have both at the restaurant and at home. This is really what makes me.    [00:03:20] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. Do you wanna talk more about the legacy part?   [00:03:24] Macy Tran: I carry a legacy of peoples who really know the importance of food and the way we use food to care and support each other. Even in the most hard of times when my family was. On a boat with 200 other people and didn’t know if they were going to survive when they kind of landed abroad. The shores of Indonesia, food has been with them throughout it all, and it is how I was raised to love and care for people. I see the ways that food is not just a means for sustenance, but also as joy, as creativity, as love, and I carry all of those, decisions and skills with me.    [00:04:19] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I learned first about your book when I read a piece that you wrote for 18 million Rising, and I’m wondering if you could just talk about how that piece around food as a form of resistance, how did that come about?   [00:04:33] Macy Tran: I have a friend who works with 18 million Rising, and since the federal occupation in Minneapolis, I’ve been doing a lot of food justice organizing here. And it has been a way in which I have seen and expressed just the skills and love that I give to my community. I was just feeling compelled to give food. That was what I knew. In the past two months as my friends have been going out on the streets following ICE agents around legally observing, I have felt that my role in this movement is to feed frontline folks who are out doing the work and also feeding our community during a time in which it’s very scary and difficult to leave your home without fear of being abducted. In Minneapolis we have created systems of, food resource sharing that have been really powerful to witness and experience and to get engaged with. And so one way that I’ve been doing it is I’ve been cooking community meals most Sundays, sometimes Saturdays that feed 200 plus people.   [00:05:47] I am providing delicious food for my friends who are out on the streets and coming home and hungry and cold. And I also helped facilitate and organize a food distribution at my parents’ restaurant after the murder of Alex Preti I really wanted to not just be involved in like acting and responding to what was happening but as an artist, as a creative, I felt the need for also remembering and preserving and reflecting about what’s been going on in Minneapolis. I kept being pulled in all these different directions and was organizing over here and supporting this community and doing this. And then when my friend reached out to me at 18 million Rising,. It was such a great opportunity for me to really reflect on my practice of food as resistance and food as justice. I’ve been a food writer in the Twin Cities for about the past three years. Food, events, I mostly cover restaurant stories and festivals and theater and all that sort of stuff in the BIPOC community here in the Twin Cities. And I realized writing this piece that this was the first time in a while, that I had written something actually for myself from my heart that was in my voice. Without an editor saying, no, you have to say it this way. No, we have to cut that part out. No, you use too many words here, and so I really took this piece as an opportunity to share what my life was like here in my own words and my own experiences. And just use it as a moment to really reflect and share the things that I’m learning and the way that I am practicing and using food as a bridge to healing and transformation during this time in which we are ripe for needing that.   [00:07:47] Miko Lee: Can you roll back a little bit and talk to me about how you got started as an organizer? What, when you first learned about social justice work and what pulled you in?   [00:07:56] Macy Tran: It definitely wasn’t the way that I was raised. I was born in the us my parents were born in Vietnam and then came over to the US and they really raised me with the mentality of you just put your head down and you work hard and you don’t really get involved. And like, yeah, you care for others, but mostly you care for your family. I was actually someone who was always butting heads with my family because I was like, do you not see all of these issues that are happening in the world? Like the issue, the systems that were implicated in. We have to care beyond just ourselves, and we would always butt heads about that.   [00:08:33] Miko Lee: At what age did that start?    [00:08:35] Macy Tran: Oh, probably when I was a teenager. around that time I was finding my voice. and it wasn’t until college that I really started putting words and frameworks and theory into what I have already witnessed in my family and my community, which is just community care and the ways that facilitates justice and transformation I would say since college that I really started actively organizing primarily on campus. I went to a smaller liberal arts school. So organizing and just getting involved in our community in that way was pretty easy. And like after I graduated college, I spent five years in Southeast Asia, one year in Vietnam, and then four years in Thailand where I was primarily working at the intersections of education and refugee justice and environmental justice. I got to meet all sorts of organizers and activists from across the region who have taught me. Really everything, a lot of what I know about organizing and what it means to show up specifically within a Southeast Asian context and how to use kind of my feet in both worlds, both my American political identity and my Southeast Asian political identity.   [00:09:59] And to merge those for the better and for my community. So I would say that. I’ve always had a big heart ever since I was little. And actually my parents were always like, you are too trusting. You people are gonna take advantage of you in the world. And I was like, I just wanna live in this world with so much love. And the way that they taught me to do that was. Through food and through reliability and just what it means to show up consistently for my people. And so in some ways it was all baked into me, even though they might not see that and they might not have raised me in that way. I see the ways in which they have sacrificed for love and nourished their families through food and made incredibly scary risks for the freedom of their family and for their people, and for a new life. And I just feel like I’m walking in their footsteps, doing the same even if they might not feel that way.    [00:11:09] Miko Lee: So did you have to talk your family and the restaurant into getting involved in the food support work for activists in Minnesota?   [00:11:18] Macy Tran: it wasn’t a challenging conversation to have and I was surprised by that.    [00:11:22] Miko Lee: Oh, great.    [00:11:23] Macy Tran: Um, yeah, my parents have been, actually, this is the most politi

  8. May 28

    APEX Express – 5.28.26 – Building South Asian Power

    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. On this episode, host Miata Tan is joined by guests from the South Asian Coalition, an emergent national network committed to collective liberation and solidarity. Together they explore what it means to build South Asian political power in this moment—and how cross-movement solidarity can shape a more just, multiracial future. Learn more about the South Asian Coalition Website | Instagram | Policy Priorities   The South Asian Coalition was convened in October 2024 by: Manavi, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, Muslims for Just Futures, and Raksha.   Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan : Hello and welcome. You are tuning in to APEX Express, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I’m your host, Miata Tan. Tonight, we’re focusing on South Asian communities and the organizers working to build political power. South Asians are one of the fastest-growing racial groups in the United States, Over six million people [00:01:00] and roughly a quarter of the Asian American population. South Asian is used as a broad umbrella term for people with roots in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and sometimes Afghanistan. Though exact definitions can vary across communities and organizations. And as we’ll talk about tonight, within the South Asian diaspora who call the United States home, you have a mix of nationalities, religion, immigration status, and more. Tonight, I’m joined by four people working to address the issues impacting South Asian communities in the US and beyond. At a time when questions of belonging, safety, and political power continue to shape immigrant communities across the country, South Asian organizers are building new forms of solidarity while also grappling with the diversity and complexity within their own communities. The first voice you’ll hear is Sabiha Basrai Sabiha is the daughter of Muslim Gujarati immigrants and has been [00:02:00] organizing with the Bay Area-based Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA, since 2009. Here’s Sabiha helping us to understand how South Asian political organizing has evolved in the United States, especially in the post 9/11 era Sabiha Basrai: Thanks for the opportunity to do some reflection this year marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which was a real a political flashpoint that absolutely changed my life because I was a 19-year-old college student trying to figure out a lot of things about how the world works and my place in it, and my own identity and the multiple identities I hold. Uh, and also where my responsibilities lied in solidarity, not just with other Muslims who were being targeted, but our broad immigrant diasporas and allies, uh, who have experienced discrimination in different forms from the state. So thinking about the ways in which- organizing happened in the, months and years after 9/11 to support immigrant [00:03:00] rights that was really a time in which new projects formed, um, or existing projects kind of found a new focus. ASATA as an organizing project, as a group of volunteers, has both done things like shown up to support folks being called up for the NCR’s Special Registration Program and also participate in direct action protests in solidarity against the war, and has continued to be part of coalitional work regionally in the Bay Area. And, you know, more recently, uh, when we think about the ways in which our communities under, are under increased pressure with the Trump administration’s immigrant policies, there have been also opportunities to build more relationships and make sure that as we advocate for our community’s rights, we’re doing so in formation with others, not just focusing on one particular bad piece of legislation, but connecting that to a larger story, to really build towards liberation for all of us. I’ll [00:04:00] just add, too that those relationships that were kind of seeded and invested in in that moment of crisis and anxiety and fear have endured in many ways to now. The fact that that very ecosystem is actually growing in this moment is a testament to the relationships that were built in those days. Miata Tan : That was Sabiha Basrai grounding us in the history of South Asian political organizing in the US. As she mentioned, for many South Asians, 9/11 marked a particularly mobilizing moment, one that helped our communities organized and built solidarity. To help us better understand how that moment influenced the evolution of progressive South Asian activism, we now turn to Deepa Iyer, South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at Building Movement Project and brings more than 25 years of experience in Asian American organizing and advocacy Deepa Iyer: I think that I would say that there [00:05:00] were, looking back, a couple of trends and themes that we can pull out from that time. one is that there was definitely a shift in the general consciousness of South Asian communities about our place in American society, our understanding of racism, Islamophobia, and also the role of the state. And so we had a situation where both hate violence and state violence were actually being endured by South Asian, Muslim, Arab communities. And so I think that there was a shift in the ways in which our communities began to think about ourselves in the United States. A second piece is the growth of a field, an ecosystem of South Asian organizations in the wake of the attacks and the global war on terror. So we began to see a lot of groups that were actually formed or becoming more staffed up in the weeks and months after 9/11. For example, the Sikh [00:06:00] Coalition was actually birthed the evening of the attacks, and an organization that I was close to, SALT, was also emerging and forming in the months after 9/11 as well. So we began to see that a, a field was growing. And the third, sort of theme I would point out that Sabihah alluded to is this sense of solidarity, that instead of sort of being siloed as, you know, South Asians working within just our communities and just talking about certain specific issues, there was real sense that we needed to collaborate and build bridges with Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and, Black communities in the United States to understand the trajectory of racism and xenophobia, and how they were all kind of coming together in the weeks after 9/11. Those three themes and trends are what, when I look back, I see coming up over and over again in our messaging and in our advocacy. Miata Tan : [00:07:00] That was Deepa Iyer, as you heard from Deepa, collaboration across movements was essential in helping South Asian communities to understand and respond to the waves of xenophobia in the wake of 9/11. Now we turn to Rajiv Narayan and Farah Mahesri, who lead national policy work at the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, or ASATA together they launched and now co-lead ASATA’s new political base building group, ASATA Power. Rajiv begins by reflecting on what South Asian communities are facing today and what has and hasn’t changed since 9/11. Rajiv Narayan: I think unfortunately many of the challenges present in the early 2000s remain today. They take new form. Some have evolved and transformed, but they were ex- existed in, in much the same form following 9/11. One of the, the instances in which I, I learned about that is at the recent South Asian Coalition convening where we did this exercise in mapping a number of [00:08:00] historical and present day events, as well as a future vision of things that are important to our organizations and to our movements. And something that we reflected on together in the convening is that a number of these attacks on our communities have waxed and waned, uh, at different periods in time, dating back to the, the 1960s and truly at, even at the beginning of, you know, the 19th century and the late 18th century. And so, to answer your question specifically, in the early 2000s, like Deepa and Sabihah mentioned, we’ve dealt with, uh, an incredible expression of Islamophobia of, uh, anti-Brown and anti-Black racism and hate speech. There was a, in, in general a skepticism and unwelcoming of South Asian communities. And unfortunately with the current federal administration and political discourse in our country, uh, a number of those same themes are relevant today and take on similar forms, whether they’re in [00:09:00] response to what the federal administration is doing in countries like Iran or previous administrations have done in Afghanistan or Pakistan. I think all of those events underscore all the more so that it’s important for our organizations to, organize together, much as we did in the early 2000s, to address these harms, to remember what they look like at previous stages of history, and to fight to prevent them again from happening in the future. Miata Tan : Farah, perhaps you could speak a bit to the organizing. What did that look like, a few years ago, and what does that look like today? How has that changed? Farah Mahersi: Rajiv and I started ASATA Power a couple of years ago specifically to be able to look forward to practice radical imagination, and fight for not just protection of our communities, which we will always do. That is built into our DNAs. It’s what we know. It’s how we move. And also to fight for things that we want, to build the world that we want to live in so that we’re not constantly caught in these cycles. And as we’re doing [00:10:00] that, we are learning a lot about how organizing is happening today, the BLM movement, Black Lives Matter, and incredible street power, but also that movement’s abil

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About

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asian and Pasifika folx from all corners of the community. We are dedicated to highlighting the artists and changemakers that make up our diverse community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, artists, and activists and airs each week on KPFA 94.1FM.

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  • Creator
    KPFA
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026KPFA 312700
  • Show Website
    KPFA - APEX Express

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