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Okay, yeah, I was just trying to get you into my headphones. So if you're, whenever you're ready, I can just start. Yeah, go ahead. Today is August 6, and we are here today with Miss Dolly Li, an investigative cultural journalist and

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filmmaker. My name is Ashley Tsang. And I want to start off by asking, where and when were you born? Yes. So I was actually born in Manhattan, in New York, in the Lower East Side. I was born on March 25

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1990. How would you describe the household you grew up in? Any siblings? The environment? Yeah, so my parents are both immigrants fr- from China, and they immigrated to the United States to New

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York in the 80s. And I have one younger brother, his name is Ivan Li. How would you describe the neighborhood that you grew up in? And has New York impacted you at all in terms of your art and career?

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Yes, great question. So, you know, the– we grew up in a few different places. I like to tell people that we grew up right by Coney Island just ‘cause the neighborhood we grew up in, which is called

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Gravesend it's just a lot of people don't know about it. And also it sounds terrible— “Gravesend.” So it's actually the neighborhood right above Coney Island.

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Our neighborhood was, you know, a very mixed race neighborhood, mostly Black and Latino and some Italian immigrants. There weren't a lot of Chinese people back then in that neighborhood.

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But we lived in um— Oh no, the sound cut off. Oh, must be some technical difficulties. Can you hear me now?

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Okay, I'm just gonna use my laptop audio, if that's okay. No, no, that was my fault. So I guess, let me start from the top. Your question was where did I

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grow up, in what neighborhood. So I grew up in a neighborhood right by Coney Island, which is called Gravesend. And this neighborhood was very mixed race. It was mostly Black and Latino and Italian immigrants.

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Not too many Chinese families back then, in that part of Brooklyn. So we grew up in a multi-family home that my parents rented. And for a little while, you know, we all lived in one bedroom, my parents, my brother, myself.

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My parents worked really, really hard to, you know, try and make it in America, but a lot of people from their generation didn't have much of an education. So you know, that's how we ended up having to live all in one room. And I would say New York is, I mean, without New York, I wouldn't be who I am

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today, so I would say that New York has been extremely formative in my upbringing and my understanding of the world. So much of growing up in New York for me was, you know, witnessing the world that my parents existed in.

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So my parents both worked in garment, the garment industry. And back in the 90s, the garment industry was still quite big in New York. So I've seen a lot of the sweatshops of New York.

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And you know, it's kind of crazy to see some of them now being turned into hot yoga studios; but all over Greenpoint, and all over Dumbo, those used to all be garment factories.

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So you know, New York really gave me an understanding of a world that was diverse and multicultural and multilingual. And I always assumed that to be the norm. And it really wasn't until I stepped

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out of– outside of that bubble, that I realized that not everyone speaks another language at home. But New York really, it forces you to grow up quickly and move very efficiently. You know, as soon as you can, you're taking

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the train, you're taking the bus, you're doing everything that you can to get by and be a hustler. And I would say that's true of a lot of people in New York, everyone is out there to grind and to, you know, get what...

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To try and chase their dreams and in whatever way that means. And I think it really taught me to be flexible and nimble in that if something doesn't work, there's always another way to accomplish what you want to do. And I understand that you can speak three languages, Spanish, English, and

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Chinese, has that opened up any opportunities for you? Yeah, definitely. So actually, I grew up speaking Cantonese. I can also speak Mandarin, and I also speak

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Spanish. And it's definitely opened up a lot of different doors. You know, to start with, my own languages, right, Cantonese and Mandarin. Being a journalist, one of the ways, one of the most important things is of course,

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communicating and talking to people and being someone who's multilingual you understand that when you speak another language, it's as if your brain shifts in its understanding of what you're talking about, right? Like your

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personality shifts, the part of your brain that you're using shifts. And I think that opens up so many doors when you can allow the people you interview to speak in their native language, in whatever language makes them most

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comfortable. And I, that's something that I really try and achieve and accomplish in my work, to make the people I'm interviewing feel as comfortable as possible in their environment, because people really respond differently

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when you speak to them in their native language versus their learned language. Knowing Spanish also opened so many doors because working at Al Jazeera, when we first started, I was working in the English department but very soon, very quickly after they wanted to launch a Spanish

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language channel. And I was also able to help them launch A J+ Espanol, their, the Spanish channel of A J+ , which is still running today. It's moved to Mexico City ever since we launched it in San Francisco. And in the very beginning, you know, there weren't too many bilingual journalists who

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could translate between English and Spanish, so it allowed me to then navigate this other world and also learn so much more about Latin American politics. Just being someone who could, you know, whatever I was creating in the English language channel, I

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would then translate for the Spanish language channel; and then find ways to bridge the content between the two. And of course, speaking Chinese, it's allowed me to, you know, travel all over and also interview those, so many of the

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communities that my work has been based off of. Also allowing me to start a digital journalism company out in Hong Kong. Working in Hong Kong, you know, I was able to speak Cantonese to get around and Hong Kong feels so familiar

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to me 'cause it's, it's like a very large Chinatown from New York, right? It's, everyone speaks Cantonese, I have some family there as well, so it was– it makes it much easier to navigate. And then I did a lot of reporting in

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mainland China. And being able to speak Mandarin also really helps because then you get so much more access to interviews. And I would say my Mandarin is not even as good as my Cantonese but the, what matters to people is

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that you are trying, right? They, people who are native Mandarin speakers are a little more forgiving of you if you're a native Cantonese speaker, they're like, "Oh, okay, that is why your Mandarin is a little shoddy," but

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they're totally okay with it. And it really has opened so many doors in terms of who you can connect with, whether or not the people you're talking to feel safe, and tr– and feel like that they can trust you.

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And I think language really brings trust. And that is, that's why, you know, a lot of young students and young journalists, whenever they reach out to me and they ask, you know, "What is something that I should be doing, if I want to do,

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if I want to work as an international journalist?" I always tell them, whatever your second language is, whatever language it is that you have interest in, it doesn't even matter if it's niche, right? Like it's it– if it's Arabic, if it's

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Russian, if it's French, just pick one of them and make sure you are very good at it because that by itself opens so many doors. And you don't even have to pick a top three, just picking one that really speaks to you and just

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focusing on honing that skill is going to take you very far. Um so then also back to your parents and your childhood. What were some of the values that your parents emphasized on during your upbringing?

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Yeah, so my parents really are– they're very generous despite not coming from a lot. And I think that's something that has always stayed with me, you know, they are always, they– they've always believed in giving

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more than you receive and not being calculating. And I think that is something that matters so much when your work is about relationship building and communicating. Right like, it means a lot to take that extra step to make

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someone feel comfortable. It means so much to not have to calculate every single thing with, say your team. You know, working as a video journalist and making films in general, it’s so dependent on teamwork and cohesive

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communication. And also what makes journalism good is when you have multiple people providing feedback. And I think that's something that carries through from what something that my parents taught me that carries

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through is like, when you're working in a team, it's very hard to just be like, "Alright, well, if you did this, then I have to do this." Or, "if I did this, then you should do this for me in return." And I think generosity is something

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that helps facilitate better team dynamics. You know, my parents always were, they've always been so supportive of me being in a creative and artistic world. It's been true since I was young.

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And you know, that's a value that I really, I really admire and respect them for allowing me to, like grow in that, in that field, just ‘cause I know they've experience a lot of pressure from the fellow immigrants in our community who want their children to have specific

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roles or paths, right? Something more reliable such as like a medical job or, you know, being an engineer or working in finance. And my parents

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have always valued pursuing something that matters a lot to you. And so they've never applied that pressure of "you must be a certain- you must be in a certain type of career path." And I think that is tied back into their

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generosity, you know, like giving as much understanding as possible to people and, you know, allowing them to pursue their dreams. And, you know, I transferred into Rice University from NYU, and that was something

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that I think is part of their, you know, general values of like being generous and being understanding because at that time, you know, my parents had never gone to Texas, we didn't know anyone that was in Texas. And you know,

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whenever I talked to my mom about that transfer, she was like, "You have no idea how many parents here in Brooklyn would tell me like, why would you let your daughter go so far?" First generation immigrants are very

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protective of their children, especially here in New York, they really don't want them to leave the tri-state area. And it wasn't until I graduated from Rice that me and my mom really got to talking about this, and how hard it

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really was for her to feel that pressure, yet not apply that pressure to me. You know, so she wanted me to feel empowered to make the decision for myself about where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. So, yes.

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So what about Rice kind of drew you to it? Yeah, uh, you know, I, as I mentioned, I transferred. I went to NYU for the first year of college, and you know, initially, I was like, "Okay, if I'm in at NYU, then I'll be close

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to home, and I'll understand, I’ll already understand the city that I'm working in, and I'll be able to continue thriving." But what ended up really happening was NYU was such an expensive school, and I was working so so so much

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to pay for school. I was barely in school anymore. I wasn't really able to keep up. And I wasn't, I also wasn't pursuing art the way I had wanted to,

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'cause it just wasn't– I wasn't capable of doing that between the expenses of art, the expenses of school, the expenses of just, you know, living in New York. And so when I knew I needed to leave, it was a decision of like,

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do I drop out of school? Or do I transfer? And the transfer process is not, it's not kind, you know, you're, you're applying to college all over again, which is already, it's already a pain in the butt of an experience, you know.

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And when you're a transfer student, you also have to go through what feels like a really humiliating process of going back to your high school and asking your high school guidance counselor, a place that you feel like you've left already, asking them to like write you a new recommendation, and

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then explaining you know what happened in your first year that you would need to transfer. So when I knew I needed to transfer, I had a very, I had a very set number of requirements: I really wanted to go

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to a school that was smaller than my high school. I went to the largest public high school in the country, Brooklyn Tech. It ranges from 8 to 10 thousand students at any time. So I wanted something that was smaller than Brooklyn

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Tech. I decided that if I was going to go through this whole ordeal of transferring, then I might as well go somewhere outside of New York. By then, I was like, "Okay, I'm just doing the same thing over and over again. And all my friends who have left New York, even if they're, you know, in Boston or

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Upstate, they're doing something different. You know, they're having a different experience." And I still remember one friend telling me about like, sitting by a fireplace at their school in Boston. I was like, "Wow, I've never experienced sitting by a

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fireplace, what a– what a home, a homely experience!" And so I was like, "I want that. I want to go to a school that has that vibe, something that I could never have in New York or you know, something that wouldn't be

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recreated in my, like childhood immigrant experience." So I narrowed it down to a few schools, cut out the Northeast from my decision. And then I had some then- the most important thing was looking into a school that was going to be financially

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understanding and as generous as possible. And Rice University ended up giving me a full scholarship to go to the school. They covered everything, everything from tuition to room and board.

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And on top of that, they gave me a stipend to pay for expenses for classes, which really, really mattered. And, you know, I couldn't even believe it at first when they gave me the financial aid package.

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I called them. I was like, “what happens with this like extra money,” right? And they're like, “That's for textbooks or for,” you know, “... lab fees for classes. Just because you enroll in school, as you

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know, there are still so many additional fees on top of just being a student.” And also being from New York, it allowed me to do so much more, and Rice, giving me a full tuition, a full scholarship, that really allowed me to

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actually pursue art the way I wanted to. It allowed me to pay for art, it allowed me to make a decision about my career and what I wanted to do without the constraints of “how am I going to pay back this loan?” So in the end, it

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was the generosity of the school, it being you know, in a place that I was not familiar with. Also being in a much warmer place I was like, "Okay, I'm going I really would love to experience something outside of snow." That

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made me decide to go to Rice. And I know you studied visual arts and economics, so what made you choose these kind of two, kind of different fields? Yeah, so you know, the economics part, I had started some economics classes at NYU.

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So it made sense for me to continue pursuing that at Rice to finish that degree. But all my life I had wanted to pursue art. I had gone to a junior high school for art, I had studied art for high school as well.

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And for a really long time, I thought I would go to an art school, which I couldn't afford. So these fields, I think that a lot of people think that they're different. But in so many ways, what people need more than

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ever is a visual way to understand the world. And I think studying both of these topics allowed me to leverage both of those skills. You know, I believe that one of the biggest barriers to understanding for people is, when people in power

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hold numbers over the public's head. When they take advantage of, say, manipulating numbers and, you know, creating their own agenda around numbers, that then creates a lot of confusion or, you know, leads to chaos or misunderstanding.

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And that's how I actually ended up with my first job in journalism, combining these two skills of understanding data and visuals. My first job in journalism was with A J+, actually as a creative and graphics producer.

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So I was doing illustrations, and I was making infographics to help people understand data. And that is actually so, so important. You know, like, I love creating, and I love visuals, and I love art.

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But something about only making art for myself felt so indulgent; and being able to help people understand their world while using the skills that you know, art gives you is what meant so much more to me, you know, like, how do I give people

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information in a way that they can understand and is... you know, stripped down into layman's terms, so that you're not above anyone else in disseminating information.

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Kind of like breaking down data into like– Yeah, breaking down data into like, digestible information. And there's so much out there that people don't understand, and it's really not their fault, right?

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There's just, there's just not a great way to explain this type of information. So these two, definitely, these two areas of study are quite different, but I see a lot of ways in which they can be brought together.

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And you know, I wouldn't underestimate the power of being able to understand the world around you, but also being to, being able to visually communicate. Do you feel like these visuals also like, break down language barriers too, or like between cultures? Yeah, definitely.

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I definitely feel that it can break down a lot of barriers in terms of language and culture. I think that if I didn't work in a visual medium, like video, I honestly wouldn't be a journalist, you know. And I

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really respect text-based journalists who mostly write, and to me, that's a very different skill. And if I was a text-based journalist, I probably wouldn't be as passionate about it, but it's the fact that you get to have visuals.

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You know, like the first videos I made actually were animated. They were stories where people didn't want to be on camera, right? And for whatever reason, you know, they're– they're traumatized; or they're fearful of some type

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of repercussion. So one of the first video stories I did was about this woman who had spent time in solitary confinement. And she was sharing her own personal journey and really didn't want to be on camera, because she

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was afraid, right? And so we took her audio interview, and I did illustrations and worked with an animator to, you know, move those parts so that we can convey this message to her and– this message about her story.

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And this was about a four or five minute video; and the end result, I showed my dad this video, when we were done with it. My dad actually doesn't speak English.

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And through just watching the visuals, my dad was able to understand what was happening, right? And you just have to give them a little context like this is a story about a woman's experience in solitary confinement.

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But without understanding English, without understanding the audio interview, he was able to understand the pain that she went through, right, and the trauma that she had faced in solitary confinement.

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So, you know, with my own family and being able to show them my work, it means so much that it's visual, because, you know, language is something that, of course is so important to me, but my own family doesn't speak that much English so there's a limitation sometimes on my work,

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and, you know, I show a lot of my family abroad from Hong Kong to China my work, and it matters to me that they understand it too. So, yes, 100% I think the visuals can cross so many barriers, culturally, and, you know, including internationally.

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That's really cool. What kind of art media and like kind of themes are you most interested in for your art? Mm hmm. Yeah. So back at Rice, a lot of my work was actually installation art.

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I was one of the curators of Matchbox Gallery, which is the student run gallery; and I loved installation art because it immerses you in a space and it's transformative.

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It forces you to interact, not just with the art but with other people in that space. And so much of my art has always been about creating some type of way to build community and, you know, finding

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ways to get people to engage with a bigger topic. So, you know, for example, one of my thesis projects was about, it was about East Asian beauty standards, that women are— that are imposed on women, right? I became obsessed

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with these plastic surgery statistics about East Asian women, about the differences between what Western plastic surgeons saw and what Eastern plastic surgeons saw. And there was this one specific surgery for calf reduction,

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which in Asian culture they call like the “daikon leg”; so describing these like, strong muscular legs as something that is to be removed, right. It was so horrifying to me that there's a standard and desire to

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weaken yourself, literally weaken yourself. The surgery involves like, cutting away muscle, for the sake of beauty, right? And that was something that I really started honing in on, like, what are the standards of beauty that we apply to women

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around the world. So I really– I built this installation space that focused on this concept, a s- a satirical concept of the cosmetic vegetologists, who was a plastic surgeon that focused on fixing people's flaws that related back to like fruits and

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vegetables. So like the “daikon leg”, or “almond shaped eyes”, or like, you know, a “pear shaped body”. So there were all these things in the installation where people could, like, measure the size of their calf, see if it was like a

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“daikon” problem or not. So my, you know, a lot of my art has always focused on, you know, our Asian community, on issues that women face, especially. And on ways to get people to just think a little more critically

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about the issues that women and Asian folks face in this world, right? And that's always something that's mattered so much to me in my art, in my work, you know, it's not necessarily to like, change hearts and win minds, right?

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Like, I don't really see that as my job. But I see it as my job to ask people to think more critically and give them the tools to think a little bit longer about a topic, right? Like how to think a little bit deeper, and maybe it doesn't

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change your mind today; but perhaps this experience— either it's art, either it's consuming this video story— allows you to have a conversation and be like, "I didn't think about this that way, and now I'm interested in

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learning more." It's kind of like a seed or like a new perspective? Mm hmm. Definitely. Um, so were you– was there any mentor or important person who impacted your life and work in college?

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In college? I would say there... I mean, a lot of my time was spent in the art world. And one of the, one of my thesis advisors was actually, he's retired now, Paul Hester, he was one of the

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photography professors. And he has always, I mean, one, photography was very, very new to me, especially what was taught in Photo I, which is developing photos in a dark room, using a really antiquated camera that was like the

00:24:26.890 - 00:24:39.410

size of a fish tank. And Paul Hester was, he was some, like an– I've always had our teachers, but, Paul Hester was just so different since he came from a photography lens.

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And so encouraging of an exploration of the world around you, right? And he would help you try and find patterns in your work, and think, and help you find angles of things to look at, based on the photos that you brought back.

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And I remember there was one year where I had applied for this art grant, and I was so incredibly disappointed and just like shaken that I didn't get the grant. And Paul had been, you know, he had backed me up on this, 'cause

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you needed like an advisor for it. And I remember Paul was just so comforting at that time when he saw that, you know, how heartbroken I was, I didn't get this grant. And it wasn't even a matter of like, "Oh, you know, you'll get

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it next time" or whatever. He was just, he was just there to listen and to comfort you. And like, you know, “There's gonna be more than this, and this may seem like a setback now; but there is so, such a long road ahead.”

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So I always appreciated his supportiveness, his perspective, and also his openness to just like, you know, “I don't necessarily need to be coaching you through this. But I'm here to listen.” And honestly, that's what most college

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kids needed. You know, they need someone to listen to them. So how did you decide to pursue your current career as like, an independent video journalist and filmmaker? Yeah, so I've worked at big international news networks for the

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last six years, from A l Jazeera, to the S outh China Morning Post. And they've both been such incredible informative experiences. I feel– I feel incredibly

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blessed and lucky to have always worked for an international news org, because it just— there's a bigger perspective, you know. They hire differently. They hire very internationally.

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So, everyone you're meeting, you know, speaks another language. Everyone you're meeting has lived somewhere else, right, which is actually quite different from, say, like the W ashington Post or T he New York Times; which is not

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to say that they don't have international journalists, but the perspective is quite different. And working in those news organizations, you know, it really gave me the skills and the network I needed to be able to do my own thing.

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You know, after I came back from Hong Kong, I felt so ready to just create something that was my own. And these international news networks, they all gave me the opportunity to build something, you know, A J+ was a

00:27:07.270 - 00:27:20.160

start up at A l Jazeera; and I joined right when it launched. G oldthread, which I built at S CMP was similar, a startup within a bigger news network. And they allowed me to build that from scratch; you know, it didn't even

00:27:20.160 - 00:27:36.080

have a name and they came in and be like, "Okay, we know we want to create something, we don't know what that something is. And we're going to give you some tools to build it." And having that combined with, you know, learning my first bit of journalism through A J+ and

00:27:36.650 - 00:27:51.680

learning the skills of production and video, and then taking that to Hong Kong to then you know, really reach a more international way of storytelling. That was, honestly without that, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing things independently.

00:27:52.240 - 00:28:08.160

And, you know, independent to me doesn't mean like working as one filmmaker. Independent to me means now finally, creating the art and creative studio I've always wanted to make all of the stories— from fiction to nonfiction, you know,

00:28:08.320 - 00:28:21.930

some more artistic, some more documentary style— that I've always wanted to create, without necessarily having to satisfy the demands of some type of company, right? And of course, every company has their own agenda.

00:28:23.300 - 00:28:34.270

And that's not to say that that's wrong, that's just something that, that's going to be true. And if that company is not your own, then it's always fulfilling someone else's agenda. And as someone who has worked on so many Asian

00:28:35.000 - 00:28:49.030

and Asian American stories, I've always felt that there is a gap in this space of who is telling our stories in English, right? Like so many of us grew, are now in this English speaking world, not just in the US, right. All

00:28:49.030 - 00:29:04.160

over North America, Canada, Australia, and even beyond, right? You have English speakers everywhere, who happens to be of Asian descent and our interests are not that– they're not exactly the same as your average

00:29:04.510 - 00:29:19.660

American, right? Like, we're perhaps more interested in our, where our parents’ hometowns are than the average American, right? Like, I'm interested in the weather of the Philippines and South China and Southeast Asia, right?

00:29:20.130 - 00:29:34.520

That's not necessarily something that a typical news network would cover, even if they're international, right? And I, the more I worked in international newsrooms, the more I realized that there is a space to fill, and your– a

00:29:34.520 - 00:29:48.080

major news network is not necessarily going to fill that space for you. You know, they're not going to prioritize like Asian centric stories. They're not necessarily going to prioritize stories that matter to an Asian diaspora.

00:29:48.500 - 00:30:01.850

And the only way really to do that is to create something that's independent, so that the agenda is aligned with your beliefs and your values, so that everything you create goes back to supporting this agenda, goes back to creating

00:30:01.850 - 00:30:17.180

more space for Asian stories. Honestly, if we don't make that space, no one else is going to do it, you know. You really cannot rely on just another media network to create something, you know. Like, and I really respect, you

00:30:17.210 - 00:30:31.190

know, all of the other networks that have Asian interests department, like N BC– N BC Asian America, which is a great resource for Asian American news; but it's still, you know, part of N BC, and NBC still has different goals.

00:30:32.230 - 00:30:44.000

So yeah, that's why, you know, why I wanted to create something independently; and why that, to me is building up to creating my own company, creating my own media network; so that this space can expand.

00:30:44.000 - 00:30:56.580

‘Cause, again, you know, for me making this art, making this content. It's not just about me. I really want this platform to be as open and accessible as possible, because the more of our voices that exist in the

00:30:56.580 - 00:31:07.710

space and that can play in this space, the more normalized that will be. And that way we won't continue to have this issue in the future of like, "I never see my stories. I never hear my stories.

00:31:08.140 - 00:31:21.660

Where do I go for Asian stories?" I want that question to slowly go away. Do you feel like there's not enough like, independent Asian American, like, media presences in the media?

00:31:23.560 - 00:31:37.400

I think there actually are a lot of independent journalists; but there's nothing bringing them together. And I think that’s what’s missing, you know. It’s more like, “Okay, I am– I'm an independent journalist, right?

00:31:37.500 - 00:31:53.910

Where do I go to pitch my stories?” Knowing that, you know, from the editorial, from an editorial eye, if you pitch a story to say a non-Asian aware newsroom, you're often asked to explain your story to a much more mainstream

00:31:54.990 - 00:32:08.820

audience, right, to the lowest common denominator. And that often ends up in either whitewashing the story, simplifying our narrative; or going back to explaining our narrative again and again, through like, the, you know,

00:32:08.890 - 00:32:20.760

railroad workers, and I... That's such an important part of our history, but we also need to grow as a community. As Asian Americans are the largest, Asian Americans are the largest minority, minority group coming into the US

00:32:20.760 - 00:32:34.140

right now. And I think that we have done so much work to grow our community, and grow our understanding of our own histories that, now we can demand that we can have, we can have better stories and better narratives.

00:32:34.140 - 00:32:43.230

We can assume that people know about the railroads. Let's, let's assume that that's there. And let's, let's demand radical education and acceptance.

00:32:43.280 - 00:32:58.880

Let's demand that we don't have to explain everything, anymore. You know, and that's where I hope to push our media and our stories; and to get, to create a space where, you know, if you come to me with an Asian centric story, I'm not necessarily going to ever ask

00:32:58.880 - 00:33:14.050

you to be like, you know, “explain to me how Chinese people got to America,” right? Very often minorities, all minorities in the US, when you pitch a story to a newsroom, you're often asked to then tie the story back

00:33:14.050 - 00:33:24.800

to like how “American” this immigrant or refugee group is, right? And to me, that really simplifies the minority experience into this box of

00:33:25.430 - 00:33:39.080

having to prove your Americanness. And I think that as people living in the US, we should be allowed to, you know, we should be allowed to question American– Americanness.

00:33:39.140 - 00:33:53.370

We should be allowed to think critically about it, right? And our stories and our existence shouldn't just be there to reaffirm what the definition of America should be, right? Like not everything is there to glorify the US.

00:33:53.710 - 00:34:05.250

And I think that's what's going to make, not just journalism better, but make the US better. When we have immigrant stories that don't just blindly fall into like the “good immigrant” narrative.

00:34:06.570 - 00:34:18.640

And that's what I hope; I really want to have stories that stir the pot more, you know, make people think more critically; and second guess a little bit, because we need that. I think we, Asian

00:34:18.640 - 00:34:30.750

Americans are at the point where they can– they can handle that narrative. And I'm seeing it more and more in the last few years. Since 2017, since some of my documentary videos came out.

00:34:31.430 - 00:34:46.950

People are much more open about questioning, you know, “idealism”, right, “American idealism”, “American immigration”. And again, not to say that we don't love being here, but this is how we can do better when we're more aware of

00:34:46.950 - 00:34:57.140

where we come from and where we're headed. How do you kind of choose which specific topic to pursue? Yeah, good question.

00:34:57.140 - 00:35:09.460

You know, I get this question a lot. And it's some mix of many different things, right? It's, of course, starts with my own interests. And then of course, it then also goes to who's commissioning the

00:35:09.460 - 00:35:24.120

story. And the third factor is whether or not it'll have traction online. The third one, I'll get to that last. The first one, you know, I really think that having lived in Texas and

00:35:24.400 - 00:35:35.640

having traveled a lot through the South, I know for a fact that so many of the stories in the South and in Texas, are– are not covered, they're not reported. And this was

00:35:35.640 - 00:35:47.640

something that I knew I was guilty of being a New Yorker and going to Texas for the first time, I assumed that I knew everything about the world. Because you assume that when you're from the East Coast or West Coast, that

00:35:47.730 - 00:35:59.380

you– your community is the definition of an Asian community, right, or an immigrant community. But that's honestly so far from the truth and that's not something that people will find out until they leave the coasts.

00:36:00.420 - 00:36:09.130

So I've prioritized stories that are largely unheard or overlooked. That's why so many of my stories have focused on people in the South, right?

00:36:09.290 - 00:36:26.040

And even when you look at my reporting in Asia, a lot of my stories focus on, like, minority communities within Asia. So to me choosing those stories where there's a juxtaposition of unexpectedness are the ones that I think myself

00:36:26.730 - 00:36:38.110

and other people gravitate to the most, right? So as an example of juxtaposition, like the untold story of the Mississippi Delta Chinese. There's the juxtaposition of what they look like, and of course, what they sound like.

00:36:39.420 - 00:36:53.050

With, you know, some of the stories that I've done in Asia, there's the juxtaposition of, there's– I covered a lot of musicians and music in Asia. So there's the juxtaposition of being someone who's say from China and has never

00:36:53.050 - 00:37:06.600

really lived outside of China, and their– the appeal of say, like reggae music, which is music from like a whole different other corner of the world, right? And finding these unexpected juxtapositions and explaining their

00:37:06.640 - 00:37:21.660

intersection and the history that weaves them together. ‘Cause I think having these contrasting, having these contrasting existences or contrasting identities is what gets people interested, right? But that's also how we can

00:37:21.920 - 00:37:36.350

bring people into the history of that community, when you give some people something unexpected. So an unexpected element is definitely a good hook for finding these stories. The second part that I mentioned about

00:37:36.400 - 00:37:53.470

who commissions it. Of course the network that commissions it, whoever the patron is, whoever's buying the story, their, their input, of course, also matters. And again, making video is so collaborative, that you necessarily have to get whoever is buying it involved, right?

00:37:53.720 - 00:38:03.230

And that's push and pull. You know, I've been lucky that a lot of the networks I've worked with have generally been, been very supportive of the story angle that I'd like to, I'd like

00:38:03.230 - 00:38:13.680

to take. But for the networks, of course, they want the eyeballs, right? They want the views, they want traction, they would love virality. They want as many people to see the work as possible.

00:38:14.770 - 00:38:24.260

So that takes me into the third part, which is whether or not this reaches a wider audience, right? So that is, that's definitely like a push-pull.

00:38:24.680 - 00:38:36.850

And like, it's a hard dynamic I think for all journalists in the modern age, where you have to think about, “Will the internet like this?” Right, “Is this headline gonna make people click?” And, “What

00:38:36.890 - 00:38:50.270

types of headlines make people click?” Obviously, they're a little more clickbait-y, right? So that's something that it doesn't always– isn't always like my favorite part of it; but you do have to factor in, you know, little things like,

00:38:50.480 - 00:39:03.470

“How many people are searching for this topic?” Right? As journalists, we actually do a lot of Google Search Trends to see like, "Okay, I want to talk about cars. What keywords about cars are most searchable?" Right?

00:39:03.810 - 00:39:16.040

And that helps actually to inform, not just like the topic; but also like, how do you title this video, right? So much of the stuff I make is about, like, finding a space on YouTube for it. Is there a strong YouTube community,

00:39:16.060 - 00:39:29.800

community that is like super into this niche car, for example? Is there a YouTube community that whenever they talk about this niche car, they really talk about, like, they only talk about Corvettes, or they only talk about trucks,

00:39:29.800 - 00:39:46.220

right? So it's, a lot of it is strategy and a lot of it is, you know, finding the stories that interests you, and hopefully those two things merge and someone wants to commission it. Really cool. S o it kind of, well, how did you come up with the

00:39:47.530 - 00:40:02.420

name G oldthread? Yeah, so Goldthread, that's the S outh China Morning Post digital platform that I helped them launch, which is a really cool opportunity, because they're such an old school newspaper, they are over 100 years old.

00:40:02.890 - 00:40:16.190

And they, when they were first trying to launch this publication, they're like, "We just want something that's youthful, that's on like social media platforms, that's also very visual. And of course, find a way to like reach an Asian audience."

00:40:17.310 - 00:40:29.950

And naming something is really hard, right? Like you want it to encapsulate all of these ideas of, you know, linking East to West, right? And being a publication that's based in Asia, but appealing to a North

00:40:29.950 - 00:40:42.140

American audience. And you have to convey that these stories are visual and cultural, right, and tie people together in some type of way. So we went through a lot, a lot, a lot of brainstorming.

00:40:42.140 - 00:40:52.510

You know, there were a lot of bad names, but you know what, that that's part of the process, right? You throw out a ton of bad names. One of them was so bad, oh my god, someone had suggested something like, “Duck Sauce,”

00:40:52.510 - 00:41:04.740

and we're just like, "I hope not." But out of respect, we just put it on the board, just... “Just for fun, we'll put it there.” Right? “Duck Sauce” never made it to any final round.

00:41:06.880 - 00:41:19.770

But what actually happened as I was, you know, staying up late at night trying to find the right name, I had actually gotten sick during my first week in Hong Kong, and I needed to get antibiotics. And in Hong Kong,

00:41:19.770 - 00:41:31.480

traditional Chinese medicine is- it's very normal to get traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, your health insurance covers any TCM treatment. So I was getting these antibiotics and I was like, "Okay, let me try something that is

00:41:31.570 - 00:41:43.790

herbal because, you know, antibiotics can often mess up your stomach." I just, and since it was available to me as an option, I was like, "Alright, let's, let's give this a shot." So I went and I picked up some herbal medicine that

00:41:43.790 - 00:41:56.600

was meant to be antibiotics, and I was looking at the ingredients, again, all herbs. And one of the ingredients on this antibiotic was this thing called “gold thread,” right? And I was like, "What is that?" So I looked up “gold

00:41:56.640 - 00:42:11.650

thread” and it turns out that gold thread is a very powerful Chinese medicine root that is native to both Asia and North America. So that, I was like, "Oh my god. Wait!” I was like mind blown!

00:42:12.160 - 00:42:24.560

Started looking into it and it's a very common herb. It's a very bitter root, often used for things like you know, if you have an upset stomach, which makes sense for antibiotics because it's to offset some of the

00:42:24.810 - 00:42:38.900

effects of antibiotics, which is like causing you an upset stomach. And “gold thread”, just the name just makes so much sense, like combining these two words of “gold”; you know, which is like, to me, such an empowering way of

00:42:38.930 - 00:42:54.460

describing the color of our skin— of Asian American skin. And combining this word with “thread”, you know, like the thread that keeps us all connected in some type of way. And this– then “gold thread,” the full word being a

00:42:54.640 - 00:43:05.890

real thing, a real r oot— a traditional Chinese medical root. That to me, it just encapsulated what I wanted G oldthread to be like the root of our culture,

00:43:06.270 - 00:43:20.270

you know— the bitterness that comes with dia- being diaspora, right, like the pain, the suffering. You know, it's not just like a sweet thing, right? It's healing, but it's not going to taste that good, right?

00:43:21.320 - 00:43:33.100

And so that's how Goldthread came to be. And yeah, it's to this day I'm use– I think I still love the name so so much, and I still cannot believe that I found it off a box of antibiotics.

00:43:34.550 - 00:43:50.410

Wow. That's like an incredible story. So can you tell me a little bit about what you did for the Goldthread? Yeah. So, so, when I first got recruited,

00:43:50.990 - 00:44:06.790

it was the CEO of the S outh China Morning Post, Gary Lou, who was recruiting me. He's also American and you know, he's– he's running like a company out in Asia, right. And he really understood the need to have an Asian American publication, right; or at

00:44:06.790 - 00:44:21.170

least one that was started by Asian Americans. So the process of going through, it was really like, it was truly launching a startup more than anything else. So the— you know, it was myself and the executive producer, Victoria

00:44:21.170 - 00:44:33.770

Ho, who had moved from Singapore to Hong Kong, and I moved from the US to Hong Kong. And we started the– we started from scratch. Right, first with that name, then with coming up with a content and editorial

00:44:33.770 - 00:44:48.310

plan, and pitching it again and again to the strategists who essentially function like VCs— that like, venture capitalists of this publication, right. So we pitched it, you know, pitched all of our ideas, came up with a content strategy

00:44:48.360 - 00:44:58.980

plan for, you know, what the next 6 months, 12 months, would look like. “How often would we publish?” “What would we publish?” “What don't we publish?”... That's something that people don't talk about, like what you don't publish

00:44:59.410 - 00:45:11.120

is even more defining than what you do publish, right? Like things that we talked about G oldthread not becoming like, we didn't want it to become like a B uzzFeed— “The Try Guys” type thing.

00:45:11.120 - 00:45:21.100

We didn't want a series of videos of people just trying exotic food. We didn't want recipes, right? Like we didn't want to become something that was like, “Tasty…”

00:45:21.160 - 00:45:36.210

where you just have lots of overhead shots. You know, we wanted every story to tell you something about culture or history or current events. So that process was actually quite long just to get that thing out the door, and come up

00:45:36.210 - 00:45:47.680

with a plan, and then pitching it over and over again, to you know, the strategist group, to Gary. And then from there, once that was formalized, then we were able to start building a team.

00:45:48.290 - 00:46:00.050

And I really wanted to create a team that was essentially half artists and half journalists. So I believe that this publication should be visual and beautiful, and really just take, take advantage of the beauty of Asia.

00:46:00.050 - 00:46:15.820

Which a lot of, I think people, seeing Asia in Western media, they don't see, right? They often see big buildings, they see very urban visuals; or they see like, it's either that or extreme poverty and decay, right?

00:46:16.220 - 00:46:29.520

There's nothing in between. But Asia— one, is so big, right. And there is a lot of beauty in the landscape of it that is not captured. So we want– we hired a team that was largely like

00:46:29.700 - 00:46:42.310

cinematographers, and then the other half being journalists; and finding ways to pair up teams of two, journalists with a videographer, sometimes teams of three. So then start filming these stories in Asia.

00:46:43.410 - 00:46:55.430

And that's, that's how we got started. You know, we focused mostly on the visual platforms on Instagram and YouTube, because those were the places where we could build the most community; but also just, you know, reach an

00:46:55.570 - 00:47:04.290

audience that cares a lot about the visuals, right? So that's basically how it got started. And, you know, it grew to be a 10-person team,

00:47:05.240 - 00:47:19.210

with people from all over, you know, like Canada, Australia, Singapore, the US, Taiwan. It was, it was incredible honestly, as, as like an experience, you know. We– we cared so much also about the

00:47:19.210 - 00:47:33.260

translations, and that's something that I really value as well. Like, how are Asian languages translated? Because very often when you see things in, like, subtitles on TV, for example— for very mainstream news, it's very literal,

00:47:33.260 - 00:47:43.510

direct translation, right? They don't switch the sentence structure; they don't think about what does this, what is this person actually trying to say? And that was something I always honed in on with our teams.

00:47:43.510 - 00:47:56.620

Like, not only should we provide information that is high utility, and that's something that I always emphasize with the team: high utility information is what people need, things that are useful. But also trying to convey what this person is

00:47:56.700 - 00:48:11.400

actually trying to say, right. And across Asia and China, even in Chinese you have so many different dialects, and I have this memory of, you know us a team of 10, all speaking multiple languages and dialects; all being

00:48:11.400 - 00:48:26.410

completely baffled by this one grandpa from Chongqing from Sichuan. Which is I think, I describe it as the “Midwest of Asia” because it’s geographically the Midwest; but that also means that, it is in the middle of all of

00:48:26.560 - 00:48:41.690

these convergences of dialects and language. So Sichuan and Chongqing, it's right in the middle where you have Tibet on one side, you have the western China on the other; and then you have eastern China on the other. Nobody's a native Mandarin speaker, so everyone speaks Mandarin with an

00:48:41.830 - 00:48:52.650

accent. And then everyone's native dialect is some village or mountain version of the dialect. So all 10 of us are like, standing around, trying to understand this grandpa.

00:48:52.920 - 00:49:09.280

And we're like, this is really important to us to make sure that we understand exactly what he's saying. Everyone starts phoning friends, and it takes this like tribal effort, to figure out what this guy is actually saying. We ended up phoning a friend's friend in China and playing them the

00:49:09.280 - 00:49:20.650

audio. And so finally they were able to understand what was going on for us. And, you know, that is definitely part of the experience of creating this startup just like, what are our values, right?

00:49:20.730 - 00:49:37.160

And going back to language, making sure people are translated properly is s o, so important. And I think that's something that I still love about G oldthread. You know, it brings in so many different regions and dialects and people and voices that like you

00:49:37.210 - 00:49:44.860

wouldn't see any of these stories otherwise. What about like translating things? Like I know China has a lot of idioms and maybe even ideas like 上火1

00:49:44.980 - 00:49:55.840

is like, kind of hard to translate? Like, how would you kind of navigate those differences? So your question was the idea such as... 上火 like, hot coal.

00:49:55.940 - 00:50:09.570

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did a lot of trying to explain idioms. So when you, when you actually watch some of the Goldthread videos, there's a lot of cultural explanations as well. Explanations of– oh, sorry, is it?

00:50:09.670 - 00:50:22.500

Can you hear the tapping of the keyboard? But is it okay? Okay. Yeah, we… So, we did a lot of explanation of idioms and some of it was very much solicited from the

00:50:22.560 - 00:50:34.280

audience. And that's part of creating a publication, right, you, especially creating a digital publication, which is something that I love. Like you get very direct and quick responses and requests from people, right.

00:50:34.360 - 00:50:48.200

So people would ask like, “Can you please explain why Chinese people love drinking hot water?” “Can you please explain why in Cantonese, everything is about ghosts?” So yes, that was definitely a part of it, you know, like trying, not just like

00:50:48.200 - 00:50:58.710

helping people understand the interview subjects, but helping people understand these idioms. And every now then, you come across someone saying something that you're like, “This truly makes no sense in English.” So you

00:50:58.710 - 00:51:08.460

know, we'd rack our brains trying to figure this out. And sometimes we have to reword it from the direct translation to, then convey it as what they're trying to say, right?

00:51:08.530 - 00:51:21.520

Like, it's kind of like saying, oh, the grass is greener on the other side. What that really means is sometimes you think that a different idea or different world is better than what you already have. But maybe you're just being greedy, right?

00:51:22.140 - 00:51:37.670

So it's about translating all those little things and sometimes you have to forgo the literal translation and choose the most, most digestible translation in English. So how did you experiences living in Hong Kong kind of differ than that of in the US,

00:51:37.790 - 00:51:53.100

in terms of like people, culture, politics, or the arts? Yeah, so Hong Kong is a– it's a very special place. You know, it's always been a very special place for me as well. You know, I've gone to Hong Kong most my life to visit family, and

00:51:53.220 - 00:52:01.710

it's the only other part– Hong Kong and Macau are the only two civilizations that still speak Cantonese other than like, you know, New- New York and like parts of California.

00:52:01.710 - 00:52:12.730

But officially that's it, right. Like this is the last standing Cantonese civilization on Earth. So to me, that's always been so so so special. And I grew up just loving going to Hong Kong.

00:52:12.980 - 00:52:23.930

And as a New Yorker who loves trains and loves public transit, I loved Hong Kong's public transit, right. And I had always just dreamed of going to Hong Kong and living there for some time.

00:52:24.250 - 00:52:36.810

Also growing up with a lot of Hong Kong music, Cantonese pop music, Cantonese TV, that was something that I just wanted to, I wanted to witness it and see it before it changed, right?

00:52:37.500 - 00:52:45.240

And the changes of Hong Kong are inevitable, right. And they were, you can see them over the years as well. It's like I just want a taste of it.

00:52:46.440 - 00:53:05.110

But Hong Kong, you know, it's a tiny island. Population wise, it's less than 1% of China's greater population. And in a lot of ways, it satisfied a lot of my dreams. And in a lot, in a lot of other ways I was, I

00:53:06.340 - 00:53:19.860

was disturbed by some of the things that I saw. Hong Kong is a place of extreme wealth disparity and unfettered capitalism, you know. It is a tax haven, an international tax haven.

00:53:21.000 - 00:53:35.580

And a lot of people are there for that purpose. And when you look at the struggles of Hong Kong today, you can't help but get... Like you have, you're asking these questions like, “Why are young people so upset and so angry?” Right,

00:53:35.690 - 00:53:49.970

and when you live there, what you start seeing is that the cycles of poverty, the cycles of not being able to attain an education, are... They, they're perpetuated constantly by the system in which Hong Kong exists in, right?

00:53:49.970 - 00:54:06.960

Where education, opportunities, jobs, all go to people of the upper echelon— that is: your expats, the Europeans, the Austrailians, the Americans, the British, and the wealthy Chinese who come in from the mainland. It's the

00:54:06.960 - 00:54:16.800

wealth, is one of the biggest issues that I saw that limited people's ability to do anything and create anything. 1 Literal translation is “on fire”. In traditional Chinese medicine, symptoms of a body “on fire”, or “has too much heat” includes pimples, dry skin,

00:54:16.800 - 00:54:24.940

chapped lips, etc., and are attributed to an imbalanced diet with too much acidic food, such as spicy food, lychee, lamb and those that have too much “yang”. And of course, space is a problem too. But when, like the cost of so many things in Hong Kong, including rent

00:54:24.940 - 00:54:39.920

were so high. And since I was there as an expat, I was, I felt that I was part of this problem of unfettered capitalism, right? Like, it made me think very deeply about like— Would this company have recruited me, had I

00:54:39.920 - 00:54:52.050

not spoken perfect English? Would they have recruited me if I wasn't an American, right? They needed a specific kind of expat to launch a publication that would be appealing to people who speak

00:54:52.110 - 00:55:06.920

English. And if you have an accent, especially an Asian accent, Asian language accent, the punishment that people would apply to that, you know. It's the discrimination is so unfair and it makes me think like,

00:55:07.600 - 00:55:15.090

you know, there are a lot of people who would be qualified to launch a publication in Hong Kong, in Asia, right? Some, especially someone who's been reporting there versus myself.

00:55:15.930 - 00:55:29.730

But it made me– it made me very conflicted about, like, my role there; or what the purpose of my work was, right. And, you know, I mentioned I had family in Hong Kong, also very working class. My family in Hong Kong, they're construction workers.

00:55:30.770 - 00:55:42.630

And my uncle is a construction worker; his son is a construction worker. And because of the system in Hong Kong, I'm sure— I'm not sure, but the chances of my cousin’s son being a construction worker are also very high.

00:55:43.260 - 00:56:00.690

The cycle of unending, you know, just working-classness, where you cannot go past the ceiling is there— because of the u nfettered capitalism. All of the opportunities go to people with money, all of the expats, and that was something that really disturbed me.

00:56:01.480 - 00:56:13.510

And Hong Kong still has also the system of domestic workers and domestic laborers who largely come from the Philippines and Indonesia. And they live at home with these Hong Kong families, and they get paid very, very

00:56:13.560 - 00:56:25.460

little. And it's a standard that is set by the government; but it's the equivalent of like 400 or 500 dollars, USD. So many of these domestic workers are women. They have families and their own children that they have to leave behind in

00:56:25.460 - 00:56:36.690

their homeland, to go take care of someone else's kids. And this– the acceptance of this system that was normalized in Hong Kong's, in Hong

00:56:36.690 - 00:56:50.530

Kong society was something that also really disturbed me. You know, it's a remnant of colonialism. It's a remnant of British colony, right, which brought over a lot of indentured servitude. But the fact that Hong Kongers are no

00:56:50.530 - 00:57:04.980

longer questioning this, right, they accept it as part of how society is supposed to be— that was something that also I found very disturbing. And so, for myself, I found it a little bit hard to stay there long term,

00:57:05.160 - 00:57:18.830

as an expat, as someone who I saw as having so much more opportunity than my own family, right? And I come from a very low income background from, you know, a very working class family, both in the US and in Hong Kong.

00:57:19.540 - 00:57:35.040

And to see myself in such a different place from my family, that was something that I just found very hard to swallow. And I knew that because of the system that they lived in, there was little I could do to get them out of it, right?

00:57:35.040 - 00:57:46.870

Like, it's not the same in the US where it's like, “Oh, if you want to go to public school and get a high school degree, you can go do that.” Right. It's not that easy. There aren't that many schools that people can just go to; and the best schools

00:57:46.870 - 00:57:59.330

that will promise you the best jobs all go to rich people. So it's like this cycle, like, “All right, you just go to another school.” That's— and I remember talking to a friend, actually another high school friend who was working at

00:57:59.330 - 00:58:10.460

Google in Hong Kong. And she was lamenting how all of the interns that she was getting came from the same two schools. There are two international schools in Hong Kong that teach in English, they, you know, all this, their

00:58:10.460 - 00:58:19.830

students tend to be from wealthy, well-off backgrounds. Those are the only two schools where they can actually get internships in some of the better companies of Hong Kong.

00:58:20.190 - 00:58:35.960

And everyone else is kind of just left to their own devices or figuring out how to find, you know, how to do the same job that their parents did. So the ability to move in that social ladder is so limited, and it really to me contextualized

00:58:37.450 - 00:58:48.770

why young Hong Kongers are so upset. How could you not be upset when your dad and your dad's dad and probably your future kids are all going to do the same type of menial

00:58:48.810 - 00:59:09.450

labor? Sorry, continue. I don't, I can't remember if there were more to the Hong Kong question but feel free to go backwards and ask me. I also know you were a lecturer for the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

00:59:09.450 - 00:59:24.200

Yes. Yes. So what do you feel like the Asian American presence is like, in like, academia and kind of like...? Yeah, well, Asian American presence in academia, I think is quite limited. And I, you know, I myself, I'm

00:59:24.330 - 00:59:41.270

not in necessarily, I wouldn't consider myself an academia. I feel like a lurker most of the time. I think that it's– it's two things right? Like in academia, one, there aren't that many women; in academia, there also aren't

00:59:41.340 - 00:59:52.600

that many minorities. And if you can, in any way, offer that perspective, academia really needs it. The other thing that was very valuable to the journalism school was that you're a practicing journalist, right?

00:59:52.600 - 01:00:05.380

In academia, you have a lot of people lecturing you and talking to you about topics and things; but they're theorizing. They're not actually applying this in real life. And for journalists, for– especially for students, you want to hear from real

01:00:05.380 - 01:00:17.560

working journalists about what it is that they're doing in their newsrooms, right. So that I think was very valuable to have that experience. And you know, a lot of my lecturing at the UC Berkeley grad school, I also brought in a

01:00:17.560 - 01:00:31.910

lot of art to help the students understand that there's more ways to communicate, more ways to storytelling than just what you see online. I spent a lot of time actually talking to students about installation art spaces, and

01:00:31.910 - 01:00:42.870

how to apply that concepts to their thesis projects. The class I was teaching was a second year thesis class. So all of these are grad students who are completing their thesis in this class.

01:00:44.170 - 01:00:57.710

So I was advising them through their projects, you know, from when they started pitching them, to them when they started executing on them. And so, you know, a lot of people may come up with, "okay, I want to build an app" or "I want to build a local news website," right?

01:00:58.000 - 01:01:07.930

And you know, it's like, "Alright, let's, guys, try and think outside of the box. What are other ways that we can reach communities?” You know, “What about communities that speak other languages?” “How do you engage people with

01:01:08.100 - 01:01:22.790

feedback?” “Is there a way that you can set up a space where you can solicit surveys and responses, and then turn that into your journalism project?” So I think there's a lot of room in academia for more women, more people of color, and also just more

01:01:22.790 - 01:01:33.380

working professionals. Because that's, that's kind of the limitation of academia, right? Like, it's kind of walled off within the institution and– Asian Americans in academia, especially like ethnic

01:01:33.380 - 01:01:48.210

studies and Asian American Studies, I rely on them a lot for my documentaries and my stories. I've interviewed quite a few academics and will do that for the rest of my life. But the problem is, you know how to package that information because nobody wants to read

01:01:48.210 - 01:02:02.520

like a 100 page thesis in real life; but they have so much valuable information. And so that's why well, I'm always working closely with academics. In the coming fall, I'm actually going to be co-teaching a class at USC

01:02:03.000 - 01:02:15.560

with one of their ethnic studies professors, to get the students to think more about how to get your work and your voice into a more digestible format. So there'll be reading all of the academic texts and you know, the really deep

01:02:15.580 - 01:02:23.630

philosophical work. And then they'll be tasked with like, alright, “now find a way to let's say, produce a 10 minute podcast based on this lecture,” right?

01:02:24.230 - 01:02:40.490

Produce it with your friends, you know, “maybe you can start it off as like a Tik Tok video.” Whatever it is that helps you digest this information, think about explaining this to your younger cousins. And I would love to continue pushing academia, especially minorities and Asian

01:02:40.490 - 01:02:52.100

Americans in academia, to think about how to share their knowledge because they really– the knowledge is there. It's just a matter of making it accessible. Which you know, kind of goes back to like designing things like infographics,

01:02:52.100 - 01:03:04.040

right? Like, how do I make knowledge accessible, right? To say that this work has not been done is not true. A lot of researchers have done the work of you know, dismantling racism, dismantling, you know,

01:03:04.040 - 01:03:13.880

incarceration, dismantling the impact of things like internment and racialized trauma, and inherited trauma from parents being refugees and immigrants and fleeing wars.

01:03:14.300 - 01:03:29.630

Now, how do we get this information out there so that more young people can read it, understand it, digest it, and we can start building that greater political consciousness because academics talk about it a lot. But then what can, what are they doing outside of the walls of academia?

01:03:30.320 - 01:03:43.260

And so that's why you know, not being an academic myself, but wanting to push them further to get their information out. It's why I continue, you know, working with universities and you know, partnering with universities and co-lecturing at schools, like you

01:03:43.260 - 01:03:55.870

know, Berkeley or at USC. Do you feel like that kind of also breaks down educational barriers by like putting all this information... Right, and, you know, with, you know, with this pandemic, USC, for example, this course

01:03:55.870 - 01:04:07.900

that we're teaching, it's going to be all online. And suddenly, you can rethink what it means to learn, right? Like, of course, it's going to be tough not being in a classroom. But you can get more experimental.

01:04:08.040 - 01:04:15.370

And that's also why I love digital and multimedia work, right? Like you can get so experimental. The platforms always change, right?

01:04:15.550 - 01:04:29.120

Today's Tik Tok, tomorrow, yesterday was Instagram, tomorrow's gonna be something else. But the skills of storytelling, the skills of trying to break down information for people, stay the same. You know, people always

01:04:29.120 - 01:04:41.500

want to understand better; people want stories. So how do you arm people with those skills in a classroom environment that they can then take into the future, right, into whatever that future platform technology is, right?

01:04:41.690 - 01:04:57.620

Perhaps in the future, we're all doing augmented reality shows. Perhaps in the future, we're all doing VR shows. It doesn't matter though 'cause storytelling is still going to be so important. Could you tell me about some of your favorite projects from A

01:04:57.650 - 01:05:11.910

J+? Yeah. So one of the... my favorite honestly is that woman in solitary confinement video. ‘Cause that, that was the first video I ever really got to make. And it was such a collaborative effort between the animator, who's

01:05:11.910 - 01:05:23.560

actually one of my best friends now, Marisa Cruz, a video editor Darielle, who's also a really good friend, with an outside reporter who now works she actually works on on the D aily at The New York Times, and another friend

01:05:23.560 - 01:05:35.150

who now works in Europe. So having all these forces come together and make this experimental thing that A J+ had never made before, they had been just cutting, you know, traditional footage, and putting it up as like short

01:05:35.150 - 01:05:43.690

social media videos. To have the opportunity to experiment during the heyday of experimentation. That was one of the videos I loved the most.

01:05:45.010 - 01:05:58.100

There's this other video that I did that was one of my early days of learning to host videos. This was back in I want to say, like 2016 or 2017. I did a video that explained the difference between the last names Li, L-I and

01:05:58.170 - 01:06:13.430

L-E-E, so going to– into how these things are romanized; you know how it shifted from L-E-E to L-I, how that's related to when Beijing shifted from “Peking” to “Beijing”. And what that tells us about dialects.

01:06:14.110 - 01:06:26.250

And that video, it continues to be something that people constantly refer to. I see it pop up you know, recently even, in “Subtle Asian Traits”. My friend had sent it to me like, "Oh my god, it's great to– to see your video there." And I was like, "Wow, I haven't seen this one in a while." But so

01:06:26.250 - 01:06:34.090

good to see it's still relevant, right? And that's also why I love that video. It's like this will always be relevant. That's why I want to make stuff that helps us explain our

01:06:34.090 - 01:06:51.780

identities, because it'll be useful no matter when. And of course, I love love the Mississippi Delta story. And I know so many people really endeared themselves to the people I interviewed— Gilroy and Sally and Frida,

01:06:53.240 - 01:07:02.370

who I connected with recently. You know what I love- I check in on my— the people I've interviewed. You know, they are also the Mississippi Delta community, they're

01:07:02.370 - 01:07:14.010

older you know, I really treat them like my elders. So every now and then, you know, I check in, ask them how they're doing. But what really culminated that experience for me was, towards the end of my interviewing with

01:07:14.180 - 01:07:25.900

them, they were, they had– Gilroy and Sally, in Gilroy's house— they had both gone to schools in Mississippi, one of them went to Ole Miss and the other one went to Mississippi State. And I can't remember who– which of

01:07:25.930 - 01:07:40.580

their Mississippi schools it was; but on their fridge, they had this magnet that said, "Beat Rice." And I was like, "What is this?" And Gilroy was telling me that his university always plays Rice University, and so they gave all

01:07:40.580 - 01:07:55.680

the alumni this little, you know, fridge magnet. So like, "Yeah, it's our game versus Rice University." And I was like, "I went to Rice." And I was like, "This is the perfect way to connect all the dots in my life." And

01:07:55.680 - 01:08:13.260

yeah, I, so I love the Mississippi Delta story. I also, recently I put out the story that's similar, called "Being a Cow..." —"Being a Chinese Cowboy in Texas" about this international student from China, who learned a southern accent really to

01:08:13.330 - 01:08:24.940

assimilate into the environment that he was in. He goes to school in Lubbock, which is, you know, one of the most conservative counties in Texas; and faced a lot of pressure of fitting in, you know,

01:08:24.940 - 01:08:40.180

going back to how much Asian accents are punished, right. That was something that he was trying to overcome and leaned in hard to having this accent. He started watching a lot of “Duck Dynasty” to basically rehearse and practice his

01:08:40.180 - 01:08:54.850

accent. He's very, very good at it now. But he– and during this time, not only did he practice the accent, he also adopted a cowboy identity in a very real way. He started working on a cattle ranch; he's a real cowboy.

01:08:54.870 - 01:09:06.930

He's a real ranch hand in a way that most people aren't. And so we were interviewing him at this feedlot, where he works where he herds cows, rides a horse, has a cowboy mentor.

01:09:07.760 - 01:09:24.160

And this story, it's– it's also one of my favorites because it was one of the hardest stories that I had to do in terms of trying to get permission to do it. So what happened on this cattle ranch, you know, for when we make documentaries, we do things for location release, right?

01:09:24.390 - 01:09:36.460

Similar to what we're doing here with the release warrant to say like, "Okay, I can film you," blah blah blah. So you need a film release form for your subject and you need a location release for any space that you're shooting in, especially if it's private

01:09:36.500 - 01:09:49.410

property. And the owner of this cattle ranch only showed up once every like two weeks to sign people's paychecks. And so we caught him just in time. And we were like, "Okay, can you please sign our location release form, you

01:09:49.410 - 01:10:04.470

know, our stories about Bruce, it's not really about the cattle. It's just kind of like a backdrop." And he was like, "Are you guys animals rights activists?" And we're like, "Oh, no, no, no, no." We're like, "that's, that's not what

01:10:04.470 - 01:10:14.560

we're doing here. You know, we're actually here just to interview Bruce. And it just so happens that your cattle ranch has such great footage and he looks so good." Like, "We have the cows in the background, the skies are

01:10:14.560 - 01:10:25.810

blue, you know, like it looks your ranch actually looks amazing." And he's like, "Last time this happened, it was a bunch of PETA people and I don't trust that you guys are journalists. And you guys claim to be journalists, and

01:10:25.810 - 01:10:39.290

then you guys turn around and you do animal animal rights campaigns. Are you guys vegetarians?" I was like, "No no no. Like, whatever, whatever you think we are. We'll eat a steak right now, if you want us to." And so he,

01:10:39.510 - 01:10:49.980

there was so many hoops that we had to jump through. So then after that one, I started showing him my videos. I was like, you know, “This is the type of story that I do. A lot of it is focused on Asian American stories, human

01:10:49.980 - 01:11:02.970

interest stories. I really, you know, we don't have to even show the name of your ranch. I'm not actually interested in the name of your ranch at all. It's just a backdrop to give context to Bruce.” And you know,

01:11:03.190 - 01:11:17.200

I showed him the Mississippi Delta story. And he's like, "Okay, I like this." And then there's a line in that video that, you know, talks about the income disparity between white folks and non-white folks. He says, he's like, "I guess white people

01:11:17.200 - 01:11:27.940

are always the problem, huh?" And I was just like, I'm never going to get this location signed, and this story is never going to go through, right? I was just like, "Sir, I'm just stating the facts." And

01:11:30.260 - 01:11:42.930

after that, he was like, "Okay, I'll sign the release forms,” like, “I like this story, and I can see what you're trying to create." And I thought, finally that that was the last hurdle. But once he got the release form, this is an A J+ story.

01:11:42.930 - 01:11:56.610

And on the release form, it says really nice and big A l Jazeera media network and then on the bottom, it says it in Arabic. And he's like, "A l Jazeera! Isn't this Al Qaeda?" And I was like, "Oh, no.

01:11:58.500 - 01:12:15.260

No no no no no..." I've gotten that question a lot about A l Jazeera, and it's not Al Qaeda for the record, but I thought it was the last hurdle like "Oh my god." I was like, "This is not this is not Al Qaeda. Actually A l Jazeera just means 'island' you know, we're A J+ , we're youth

01:12:15.310 - 01:12:27.470

focused." I really tried to, this was the hardest thing I ever had to do just convincing this, you know, this conservative Texas man to sign off on this release. And I think what really helped to bring it home I was like,

01:12:28.250 - 01:12:41.750

"Also I went to Rice University, you know, I love Texas." And he's like, "Okay." And he finally signed off. So that still remains one of my favorite stories because the hoops that we have to go through to even get it out the

01:12:41.890 - 01:12:57.670

door, like all of that. Have your projects started any conversations or like really big debates? You know, I think the Mississippi Delta story still remains the one that brings up

01:12:57.890 - 01:13:09.020

the most dialogue. And what really, I mean, I didn't expect it honestly to resonate with so many people. And where the dialogue actually

01:13:09.020 - 01:13:22.810

very much unfolded was on Reddit, which to me is like, generally can be quite a toxic space. So someone had posted this video to Reddit, like the week it published, and it made it to the top of Reddit's front page.

01:13:22.920 - 01:13:36.690

And there's so much dialogue, like tens of thousands of comments, and, you know, uploading and things like that, where people were very openly confronting their own racism. And I think that is the power of that story, right?

01:13:36.940 - 01:13:48.500

Like, you watch it and you're like, this is shocking! Then you must ask yourself, “Why is this shocking? What about the story makes it so shocking?” Like, “Is it because I never thought

01:13:49.040 - 01:14:03.380

people who looked Asian can have accents?” But then, “Why do I think that right? Is an accent not a learned thing?” These people are also fourth, fifth generation Americans, right? Like, why wouldn't they be very Americanized and very

01:14:03.380 - 01:14:17.840

Southern? You know, “Why wouldn't they sound like Southern Belles?” And so seeing that debate about, like, you know, “This is how my grandma sounds.” Or like, “This is what I expected Asian people to be like; but

01:14:17.900 - 01:14:28.860

this is something totally different, and I never thought about that.” Or even Asian people were commenting thinking like, "Wow, I never expected to see this." And the dialogue that went on.

01:14:29.720 - 01:14:49.390

That was to me just one of the greatest online discourses I've seen where people very openly just admitting that "I must be a little bit racist for thinking this way." Another recent story I did was actually around gun control. Also in Texas with this man named Donald, who came

01:14:49.390 - 01:15:02.470

from China and basically became very very into hunting and a gun collector. And, you know, in the story, I thought it was really important for us to have the conversation about whether or not people in China should have

01:15:02.470 - 01:15:17.320

guns. Because Donald and his friends who were all immigrants from China, they really just leaned in so hard to like having rifles of all kinds, right, like 10... like, that he probably had 50, 60 different guns and rifles.

01:15:18.120 - 01:15:29.260

And he trained other people to shoot, to hunt, especially in, he would give instruction in Mandarin. So a lot of new- newcomers from China were interested in learning from him.

01:15:30.860 - 01:15:44.530

And naturally, we had the discussion about whether or not they think that Chinese people in China should have guns; and they all immediately answered, "no." And then in the debates, in the comments, you know, with gun control anything, the

01:15:44.530 - 01:15:55.360

debate around it is, it's, it's hellfire, right? So I was like, "Alright, I'm ready. I'm ready to see what kind of hellfire can come." So a lot of

01:15:55.360 - 01:16:09.270

people debated that where, you know, some of the topics they brought up were like, "They're probably saying that because Communist China does not allow you to speak freely. So this is why they believe that." Right? And there's a lot of debate around that.

01:16:09.400 - 01:16:22.940

Because one of the issues with the way people see China is that, people have no individualism, right? And to me, that is just the way it's a- it's a very belittling and actually racist concept to

01:16:22.970 - 01:16:35.180

assume that 1.5 billion people are not capable of thinking for themselves, right. Like, there is government, of course, and how controlling government can be; but to assume that people

01:16:35.180 - 01:16:49.710

cannot form their own opinions, I think is, it's a way of infantilizing people, right? So seeing that debate I thought was really interesting that their assumption was, "Oh, they're just saying that about China because the government wants them

01:16:49.820 - 01:17:05.720

to." Right? Like that's a very lazy response. Another debate around that was like how, you know, the number of people deaths that result from guns, right? People are like, “Oh, but this counts suicides.” I was like, “Why not count

01:17:05.720 - 01:17:17.200

suicides if they are death, if it's a death by gun.” Right? That wouldn't exist somewhere else, like that type of suicide wouldn't exist elsewhere if there wasn't access to guns.

01:17:17.290 - 01:17:31.270

And then of course there was, there were also conflicting debates about whether or not people like Donald should have guns, right? Which I think really gets to the heart of the matter, right. Some people are like, “He's from a communist regime.

01:17:32.160 - 01:17:40.390

Doesn't matter that he's an immigrant, he shouldn't have a gun.” Right? And then other people are like, “This is a real Texan. I don't care where he comes from. Let him have all the guns.” Right.

01:17:41.190 - 01:17:54.040

So it's interesting to see that unfold, especially with like, the rising US-China tensions, and how people— you know, if this guy was an immigrant from say, I don't know— Italy, right... Greek, Greece. If he, if

01:17:54.040 - 01:18:08.830

an Italian or Greek immigrant had their own ranch with a gun on, with guns, would that debate be the same? Where they're like, “Oh, he comes from this,” you know, “he's an immigrant from such and such place; he shouldn't, he shouldn't be allowed to have a gun!” Right.

01:18:09.690 - 01:18:20.530

And I thought that debate was very intriguing because it starts to, it starts to reveal the changing opinions around Chinese immigrants, right? And also is telling for people

01:18:20.530 - 01:18:35.270

who are East Asian, whether or not you're an immigrant; and how society is feeling towards minorities, you know, as Asian minorities as a group. And so the debates there were definitely very, they were contentious as gun

01:18:35.270 - 01:18:49.330

debates are, but I found it very revealing and telling in terms of how perspectives are shifting. So what is your opinion on a way like China's portrayed in the media, and how do you feel like that affects Chinese American and Asian Americans in general?

01:18:51.330 - 01:19:09.400

Yeah, I, you know, I think that we're at a point right now in the US-China conflict, where this– I'm generally, generally quite optimistic; but this is my realistic view— I think that's something... I think that things have yet to

01:19:09.400 - 01:19:27.120

get as bad as they can be. And I think there are a lot of moments in history that you can point to that show that when the US is villainizing East Asia, between Japan to Korea to China, that the people who will pay the

01:19:27.330 - 01:19:36.310

price for this villainization are Asian Americans, right? You see that with Japanese internment. You see this, of course with the Chinese Exclusion Act.

01:19:36.730 - 01:19:51.130

And you see this during, you know, Detroit when the American auto industry was essentially collapsing; and foreign cars, Japanese cars were being introduced into the US and became very popular. You know, that was the death of Vincent Chin, who was killed because

01:19:51.540 - 01:20:03.830

these two white auto workers who had lost their jobs with and... there was an extremely high unemployment in Detroit at that time too. He became the– he became what represented— he

01:20:05.430 - 01:20:15.170

represented the problem to them, right. Like he, even though he wasn't Japanese, he was killed because his race was assumed to be the reason why these people lost their jobs.

01:20:15.800 - 01:20:30.150

And I think this is going to happen in a similar way with the results of COVID-19. It's thematic of this year that people want to blame China for a virus, right? Can a country control a virus?

01:20:30.480 - 01:20:42.310

I wish that that was true in any type of way; but it's not. Right, like a virus is probably mother nature's way of saying that, "Y'all are bad and you are

01:20:42.440 - 01:20:50.640

overpopulating this earth. And there needs to be something to control for this." Right? We can't control the virus, no matter where it comes from.

01:20:51.800 - 01:21:07.390

But the rhetoric around it from, you know, the current president to the upcoming elections and the debates around the elections, is that American needs an enemy and a scapegoat. And I think that the US has, has yet to experience how

01:21:08.030 - 01:21:24.950

bad unemployment and the loss of small businesses and jobs is really going to be. I think that we're still in this phase of waiting for the pandemic to end of, you know, taking care of sick people. That, you know, we're only about six months into the

01:21:24.950 - 01:21:42.290

situation. We haven't yet felt the economic consequence of this pandemic. And I think once that is felt, you can look again at the Detroit unemployment rates. If unemployment rates continue to stay high and more small businesses close and

01:21:42.290 - 01:21:52.990

you know, you also have a lot of commercial real estate collapsing, because people are no longer going to be going into offices. It's going to be a ripple wave of just loss.

01:21:53.600 - 01:22:05.470

And the country is going to need somebody to blame for it. And my fear is that something– my fear is that something really unfortunate is going to happen to a member of the Asian American

01:22:05.470 - 01:22:22.940

community or the Asian community. And, you know, I, unfortunately, unless we have better media that can unpack some of these issues without necessarily attacking a whole race of people, then I think that's just going- it's,

01:22:22.940 - 01:22:34.600

we're just going to repeat history, right? And these are kind of the sentiments, the contextual sentiments that led to things like Japanese internment, right? This fear of spying, this fear of people

01:22:35.820 - 01:22:48.420

being not trustworthy; these fear, the fear of like, there being an enemy of the United States, right. And when your enemy is very identifiable, then, and you have someone in, in–

01:22:48.870 - 01:23:04.030

you have someone in a leadership position in this country, who paves the way for an outpouring of racism, and okays language just like “kung flu” right, and “Chinese virus”; then you make it okay for the rest of the country to

01:23:04.030 - 01:23:17.020

follow in the same path. And you set the example of normalizing hate, right? And I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon, because the economy is yet to get- is yet to

01:23:17.020 - 01:23:23.690

hit its lowest point. And when it does, that's when people start to pay the price. And it won't; it's not going to be China.

01:23:23.980 - 01:23:38.380

It's going to be Americans, and it's going to be Asian Americans. And I know we're coming to like the end of 90 minutes, but I was wondering if you could answer some more questions. Um, what is your opinion on the racism

01:23:39.270 - 01:23:57.050

against minorities, and sometimes even between minorities? Yeah, so I think that's really– it's tough, right? In the perfect, in a perfect world, of course, all minorities would get along and be united and confront white supremacy together, hand in

01:23:57.050 - 01:24:10.680

hand, right? But of course, it doesn't work that way; because, you know, capitalism, and unfettered capitalism is still such a big issue where certain groups have more ability to succeed or to live a certain life or

01:24:10.680 - 01:24:21.920

get certain opportunities. So I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, again, media and not having media that represents our voices or our interests.

01:24:22.970 - 01:24:37.350

And I hope that, I really hope that with more diverse media, especially what I'm trying to create with Plum Media, you know, with my own media company and being able to put out more stories that show intersectional communities,

01:24:37.350 - 01:24:51.580

show how intersectional- intersectionality can look like in real life and in application; that perhaps there's a chance for more minority communities can- to talk to each other and to build that solidarity.

01:24:52.020 - 01:25:04.520

I'm hopeful about that. I think that there are a lot of ways in which you know, all the different minority groups in the US, can come together and hammer out some of the big issues, right?

01:25:04.520 - 01:25:14.290

Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of racism, for example, between the Black and Asian community, right? And that's something that largely results from the two communities not speaking to each other.

01:25:14.780 - 01:25:26.020

And it's a lot of misunderstanding, right? Cultural misunderstanding, a lack of historical understanding. So many new immigrants are not that aware of, you know, Black American history, right.

01:25:26.080 - 01:25:39.030

They're not, they're aware that the Civil Rights Movement also guaranteed the right for immigrants to have a good life, right? And a lot of, I think there are plenty of Americans who do not understand the war and poverty and famine that Asian

01:25:39.460 - 01:25:49.900

families have to go through to be able to come to the US, right? So on both sides, there's truly a lack of understanding of what the other people come from, right? And we only see extremes, right.

01:25:50.810 - 01:26:02.380

You know, speaking specifically to like the Chinese community, the extremes that most people see are that Chinese people are so wealthy, right. That's such a small small percentage of people. But that's what media wants to see, right?

01:26:02.520 - 01:26:17.290

They really want to see that type of people. So then, the– what the, what society sees is that, “Oh, all Chinese people are wealthy; therefore, they only come from a place of privilege. Therefore, they must be the enemy.” So again, going

01:26:17.290 - 01:26:31.570

back to media and going back to having more stories, I think that will help normalize some of the situations and also just facilitate greater understanding between groups. So how do you feel like we should take into account like, Asian American?

01:26:31.600 - 01:26:46.120

Like “Asian American” is very broad and there are so many differences within it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, there was a real purpose for Asian Americans being this umbrella term back during the Civil Rights Era.

01:26:46.920 - 01:27:02.290

Back when you know, the story of the killing of Vincent Chin, back when schools in California were fighting for Asian American Studies, and uniting as this umbrella term under “Asian America” made sense because so many of the immigrants that are coming there were, coming

01:27:02.290 - 01:27:11.840

at that time, were still such a small group, right? And there wasn't even enough nuance in the education of Asian Americans to, for

01:27:11.870 - 01:27:26.450

them to be even be able to like separate between like, who's Japanese, who's Korean, who's Chinese, right? But I think now, there is such a need to be able to deaggregate that data, right. And to show you know, the differences

01:27:27.160 - 01:27:40.610

in wealth and where people are coming from. South Asians, you know, culturally, there may be a lot of things that East Asians share with them, right, like, even right now, with friends watching “Indian Matchmaking”, right? We

01:27:40.610 - 01:27:57.120

can all watch that as immigrants and be like, "Oh my god,” like, “this is my mom!” Right? “It doesn't matter if she's Indian, like she is also my Chinese mom.” And these are the things that we definitely share and resonate with, right? Like even if you look at both India and China, when you are children of

01:27:57.190 - 01:28:09.950

immigrants from those two countries, you really understand what it means to come from, like an overpopulated place, right? And so there are similarities, but I think if we can segregate and— not segregate, but like, separate out the data

01:28:09.950 - 01:28:23.280

some more; then we can build greater understanding of how we can support one another, right? Like, there is definitely opportunity and advantages to this umbrella term of Asian American. But I think that it's, it should be

01:28:23.450 - 01:28:37.160

used more sparingly, and we should focus more on what are the issues that, like, Pacific Islanders face, right? Like Pacific– the Pacific Islands are still faux US colonies, and they face very different issues from, you know, Korean

01:28:37.210 - 01:28:48.160

or Chinese or Japanese immigrants. They don't get to be immigrants, they don't really get a choice, right. And so many Pacific Islanders, so much of the Pacific Islands are, have high unemployment, high poverty rates.

01:28:49.230 - 01:28:58.270

Then you also have a lot of Asian Americans, Vietnamese, Hmong people who are refugees, right? And how do you then reckon with that, right?

01:28:59.160 - 01:29:17.030

How do you come up— How do you reconcile that with the people who are coming based on wealth? Because they've invested a lot in a business in the US, right? And is it fair to have these two groups all lumped into one? I think that, you know, when we separate the data, it allows us to better

01:29:17.030 - 01:29:29.590

understand other Asian Americans. And I respect that there are plenty of Pacific Islanders and South Asians who don't want to be lumped into that category. So that's why I think, you know, the more we can understand each

01:29:29.620 - 01:29:42.860

other separately, the better we can unite as a force more as minorities. How do you think Asian Americans can support Black Lives Matter, especially during this pandemic? I know you like– started like ?

01:29:43.620 - 01:29:56.770

Mm hmm. Yeah. And part of that, you know, is educating ourselves on history right. And I know that so many people, especially with Asian Americans, one of the bigger issues was like— how do I

01:29:56.820 - 01:30:09.750

educate like my family, right? Because what your family teaches you, of course, is something that becomes so ingrained in you and so ingrained in, you know, the world, the other people that you grew up with, right?

01:30:09.830 - 01:30:20.140

From your cousins to, you know, your siblings, right, to your friends. So part of it is trying to educate our families, but I like to be a little more forward thinking with it as well.

01:30:20.140 - 01:30:32.510

I, like, understand that older people such as our parents, they're so set in their ways that's almost like a lost cause, right? It's the same as, like, when white people try to argue with their racist uncle at Thanksgiving, like, is it actually going to work?

01:30:33.070 - 01:30:44.110

It's good that the conversation is being had, right? Like they should be, they should know that their, you know, a bigoted point of view is going to be challenged. Is it possible to change their minds?

01:30:44.180 - 01:30:58.360

I think that part is where like, the conversation needs to be had; but don't expect the results to be like, "Oh, you know, he's a new man now." But educating our peers and people younger than us, I think is where the solution is going to be.

01:30:58.900 - 01:31:11.410

And you know, going back to creating media and creating stories that not just speak to our own issues, right? Like, you know, one of the people I interviewed on my show P lum Radio, a good friend of mine, Kim Tran.

01:31:11.950 - 01:31:22.000

She, she, her family, they're also Vietnamese refugees, and she brought up bringing in, you know, your family's trauma and their tragedies to help them understand what Black Americans go through.

01:31:22.810 - 01:31:37.080

And it's, it's different, how us Asian Americans will talk to our families and our friends about racism versus say, like, a white family, right? Because we actually do understand racism; Asian people understand racism,

01:31:37.840 - 01:31:52.230

right? And that is the basis that I hope more Asian Americans can understand and connect with, in terms of supporting Black Lives Matter and Black American struggle, right? Like the basis of, you know, white supremacist, white supremacy

01:31:52.270 - 01:32:04.410

oppressing all, is something that everyone will face; right from the Muslim American community, Black American, Asian American. And the sooner that we can realize that all of these struggles are

01:32:04.410 - 01:32:20.510

interconnected, our history, through our own upbringing experiences, I think the better off we'll be. And just having more empathy towards like, the cycles of poverty that people face when opportunities are not given to

01:32:20.710 - 01:32:40.230

them, right. And I think that it's, it's, it's okay for Asian Americans to acknowledge that they have privilege, right. And what is universal is that, like, anti-Blackness is universal. Wherever you go, every country that you go to, the

01:32:40.270 - 01:32:55.620

discrimination towards people of darker skin is something that everyone understands, no matter what culture it is, right? And that is what, that's the price of you wanting to stay in the US. You have to understand the impact of

01:32:56.040 - 01:33:08.980

how Black Americans have been treated and understand that this prejudice that's so built-in and ingrained to so many societies and cultures, is something you have to actively work towards dismantling. You have to actively

01:33:09.050 - 01:33:22.140

remind yourself that, you know, this way of thinking and believing is not okay, right. And I think, I hope that this will encourage more Asian Americans, you know, to stand up when they see something happening that's wrong, right?

01:33:22.140 - 01:33:37.620

Be it discrimination, or violence towards fellow Asian American, or towards a Black American or Latino American, right. I hope that having more information and knowledge will encourage Asian Americans to speak up more; and not just stand up for themselves, but stand up for

01:33:37.680 - 01:33:47.210

other people. And you know, it's not to protect you know, I've heard a lot of Asian Americans talk about like, "Oh, well, the Black American community never speaks for me." Right?

01:33:48.760 - 01:34:02.240

Yes, you can see it that way. Or we go back to the principle of generosity. One that I highly believe in and value, and you stepping up is going to set– You're sending, you're sending your intentions

01:34:02.310 - 01:34:14.800

out there; you're putting that out there. And I do think that as an individual, the more you do that, the more other people notice it too. And the more the recipient of your generosity or, you know, your desire to protect them,

01:34:15.010 - 01:34:28.480

they're going to keep that in mind, and it's going to come back to protect somebody else, right? And you may not see that result. But if you stand up for someone, I believe that they will remember that and in the future, stand up for someone else who's also in need.

01:34:30.480 - 01:34:41.870

I know you kind of touched upon this before, but how do you think the experiences and perspectives of Asian Americans kind of differ by location, gender, age, like these different factors? Mm hmm.

01:34:41.930 - 01:34:53.810

Yes. So I, you know, I'm from New York, right. I'm East Coast. And I'm, you know, I realized after leaving New York, that the Asian American communities in the other coasts and other places are so so

01:34:53.840 - 01:35:03.710

different, right. Like every time, I'm in, you know, I lived in Oakland for five years. I was in the Bay. And West Coast Asians are so different, to me they're so different.

01:35:04.200 - 01:35:18.800

And I think that's because they have a legacy of being in the US. Like, I remember I was so shocked the first time I met someone who's Asian who spoke English to their families. I was like, "Woah, does that mean your parents went to college?

01:35:19.100 - 01:35:30.950

Like, that's crazy. That's crazy that your parents went to college. I don't know anyone whose parents went to college in New York." Right. And that was so shocking to me. And I've always— I think that, you know, West Coast Asians, of

01:35:30.990 - 01:35:41.120

course, there's such a range and diversity, but they've been in the US for longer; and you know, they've generally attained greater wealth than Asian Americans in say like New York.

01:35:41.290 - 01:35:52.100

New York Asian Americans, for example, have some of the highest poverty rates of any Asian Americans in the US. And I think that's one of the big differences, right? Like New York immigrants tend to be newer immigrants.

01:35:53.070 - 01:36:04.450

They tend to speak their native language in their families. West Coast Asians, and these are all generalizations, of course. I feel, I find that a lot of West Coast Asians tend to speak more English at home.

01:36:04.450 - 01:36:19.940

One thing I was really impressed by was in the Bay Area on all the Muni buses, they make announcements in multiple languages, in English and Spanish, and then in Cantonese. Just like, "Oh, that is actually really, really cool." Because most people use Mandarin, but San Francisco is a very Cantonese place.

01:36:20.970 - 01:36:34.880

And then I realized that in Texas, a lot of Asians, especially Chinese people, spoke mostly Mandarin. And that really shocked me and I was like, "How did all these Mandarin speakers end up in Texas?" But then when you think about it, you know, if you

01:36:34.880 - 01:36:47.650

want to exist in Texas, you necessarily also, you need to be able to speak English. Whereas in New York, you can get by without speaking any English, right? And that's why New York is a hub for people like my family, who

01:36:47.650 - 01:37:02.450

don't have a lot of wealth, who don't have a lot of education; but they can still thrive because the streets are numbered and like my dad doesn't know the alphabet, for example. And so he would never be able to pick me up on the street that had a name on it, because he can't spell.

01:37:03.560 - 01:37:12.420

And that had, like that was something that happened to me in high school, where my high school is located on two street names that were actual names and not numbers. He had to pick me up one time when I was sick.

01:37:12.860 - 01:37:28.170

And he just– he could not spell where he was. It was the most heartbreaking thing for both him and myself. So I, you know, that's kind of the general things I've noticed between the different Asians. And of course, Hong Kong is like a whole other world too.

01:37:28.170 - 01:37:39.050

You know, they– Hong Kong is actually a really crazy, global Asian diaspora where you get Asians from like, the UK, Australia, the US, you know, of course and native Hong Kongers.

01:37:39.950 - 01:37:53.170

Then I think that's, Hong Kong is a really cool place to witness all these global Asians come together. How do you think— I know you already touched upon this, but how do you think we can bridge these ideas

01:37:53.260 - 01:38:10.470

of race between Asian American community? Yeah, I- you know, I think that first coming from a place of “We have more common ground than we think” is a helpful way to approach it. You know, like, I am very critical of things like, you

01:38:10.470 - 01:38:22.720

know, the bubble tea memes that we often see in like “Subtle Asian Traits”, you know, and I really hope that we can graduate beyond like, food stereotypes and food tropes.

01:38:23.260 - 01:38:38.150

I know that's a way in which people start connecting with one another. And I know connecting through like our immigration identity stories is such an important way of bridging those gaps, right? And so finding, I think, finding those common grounds, whether it's like a food

01:38:38.200 - 01:38:52.410

thing, or whether it's like a history thing, right. Like your family, having a shared history, is a great way to start bridging those gaps. But I think just also being more open to not knowing what it means to

01:38:52.410 - 01:39:05.900

be Asian, right. I think coming at it from a place of like, “I'm curious, and I want to better understand,” you know, “I'm Chinese, I want to better understand the Cambodian experience.” “I want to better understand what it means to be from the

01:39:05.970 - 01:39:19.600

Pacific Islands.” Right? Like, I know that our common ground is that we look kind of similar, right. But acknowledging the diversity of our community, and being open about that, allows everyone else like our non-Asian

01:39:19.710 - 01:39:31.830

people, to also acknowledge that diversity. And I think it has to come from us, right? It has to come from us, that we want to, we want to tell diverse stories, that we want to acknowledge the diversity of our friends, and of other

01:39:31.830 - 01:39:45.480

Asian people. So that, you know, White, Black, Latino people who view the Asian community can also, can also see that, you know, we're the ones who are acknowledging these differences, and also embrace

01:39:46.470 - 01:40:00.890

it. So I really hope that you know, in the future of media and the future of whatever I'm able to create through media, that there’s going to be a diverse range of these stories, and they're all treated with their own uniqueness and beauty that they- that they each

01:40:00.980 - 01:40:18.860

individually have, you know— and the common thread may be the way we look or in, you know, certain cultural norms. But I think embracing those differences is what will allow us to thrive. So how would you–

01:40:19.330 - 01:40:31.690

how do you think the Asian Americans can stand with other minorities during this pandemic? Mm hmm. Yeah, good question. You know, ‘cause, I mean, during this pandemic, I think a lot of Asians

01:40:31.690 - 01:40:44.290

have been blamed for the pandemic. But, you know, a virus doesn't see race. It's obviously affected more people, in terms of who gets sick, more than just Asians, right?

01:40:44.830 - 01:40:58.960

And I think some ways, we've seen like Asian people supporting other communities; it's like making sure we support small businesses that are also like immigrant-run, right? Like, that is, you know, going back to like, how do we embrace all of the

01:40:58.960 - 01:41:09.650

different communities that are within Asian America, like, acknowledging that there are so many immigrants here; like this is a country of immigrants, right? Support, finding ways to support those businesses, finding ways to

01:41:09.650 - 01:41:23.590

support Black businesses, right? Like trying to erase some of those barriers between Black and Asian communities. And I, you know, acknowledging that, like, there's a lot of shared information to be had, right? Like whatever the Asian community

01:41:24.260 - 01:41:40.070

knows about, say like COVID-19, especially coming from their own home– own home countries, right, like Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan have all had their own ways of dealing with this virus, right. And I think sharing this information with other communities, about best practices,

01:41:40.070 - 01:41:50.560

for example, is a great way to empower others and share information. I think sharing information to help people stay safe is a great way to, you know, erase some of those barriers.

01:41:51.560 - 01:42:03.900

You know, mutual aid is, of course, so important in finding ways to support one another through like, volunteer work; or like, you know, making sure that the people who need to be fed during the summer. It's not just about healthcare workers; it's also about the

01:42:03.900 - 01:42:15.830

people who are facing homelessness, you know, the elderly in different communities; or people who aren't capable of leaving their home, right. And realizing that this pandemic is going to affect all of us, right.

01:42:15.880 - 01:42:26.540

And the people who need the most help and support likely are going to be those who are sick, you know, those who have been discriminated against, and also the small businesses that are run by people like ourselves, right?

01:42:26.730 - 01:42:44.810

Immigrant families that put all of their life savings, and everything that they believe in, into one shop that may not be able to weather the pandemic. How has the pandemic impacted you personally? Uh, you know, actually my dad is still in China.

01:42:47.030 - 01:43:00.190

My dad has been in China for almost a year now. He went back initially to take care of some stuff because my grandmother had just passed away. And so on Chinese New Year is actually his dad's 90th birthday.

01:43:00.330 - 01:43:12.090

That was on– in January, right? He was turning 90, my grandpa's turning 90. And on Chinese New Year is the day that China essentially shut down. And I think people don't understand

01:43:12.090 - 01:43:25.490

the magnitude of that, right. I think a lot of people have this perception that Chinese New Year is like dragon dancing and like fireworks. But it's actually a very spiritual thing, right, like it's the start of a new year.

01:43:26.550 - 01:43:41.230

And just like how Thanksgiving is in the US is the day in which people travel the most, right? So imagine if like, the United States came through and said, "Alright, it's Christmas. Nobody moves. Everyone stands still." And that

01:43:41.380 - 01:43:52.340

was the first time I really felt that impact because not only was my grandpa's birthday essentially canceled, right? No one was allowed to move; then my dad was stuck in China. And then this holiday that means so much to my

01:43:52.550 - 01:44:04.470

family in Asia and also to my family in the US, is essentially canceled, right? And Chinese New Year for people in China, that's one of the– there's only two holidays in which people have off in China: their national day, their

01:44:04.470 - 01:44:17.070

equivalent of like a July 4; and Chinese New Year. So this one thing that people have been waiting their entire year for, is cancelled, right? And that was the first time where I really felt that impact.

01:44:17.070 - 01:44:30.640

And then with my dad being stuck in China, because he couldn't, there were all these like quarantine issues. Then here in the US, my mom, who, she lives in New York, and she– she works.

01:44:30.640 - 01:44:42.160

She works as a receptionist at a lawyer's office, an immigration law office. She takes the train every day to work. And at the very start of the pandemic, when the anti-Asian racism was at its peak,

01:44:42.370 - 01:44:52.510

you know, and people were really blaming Chinese people for this pandemic. She had developed like a small cold and she, you know, was afraid to go into the train because

01:44:52.510 - 01:45:05.310

she was afraid that she would scare people. And so she accidentally drank the wrong cough medicine. She drank an albuterol sulfate, which is essentially what you put in an inhaler. She was, she had thought that it was actually a

01:45:05.310 - 01:45:14.190

stronger cough medication; but it wasn't. And so I got this call. This was in January as well, and I was in California at that time. I got this call from her.

01:45:15.480 - 01:45:25.500

And she was like, “My heart is racing right now. It's beating so quickly. I don't know what's going on. And I drank this cough medicine but now my heart is racing.” Right.

01:45:25.500 - 01:45:49.550

And I'm afraid that she has a heart attack or something, or like something... Oh give me one second. Sorry. Sorry. But

01:45:50.150 - 01:46:05.920

yeah, she had drunk this albuterol sulphate and we, we wouldn't know what was going on. Her heart was racing, and she was saying that, “I drank it only because I was afraid that I would have to go into work the next day and people would attack me if I was coughing." And we were just, I

01:46:05.920 - 01:46:19.080

was so panicked for her, and it just broke my heart that she thought her own face was the reason why she would be attacked to the degree where she nearly poisoned herself. And so luckily we called the toxicology

01:46:19.080 - 01:46:32.070

center, and they said, you know, whatever she drank, it's not a toxic amount, but she just needs to, you know, monitor her heart rate to make sure that it doesn't go overboard, in case she has any like heart issues.

01:46:33.420 - 01:46:48.370

But what was so scary was just seeing like, even for my own mother, the fear around being discriminated against for your race was something that led her to take such an action that she felt– she put herself in danger was how it hit really, really close to

01:46:48.430 - 01:47:02.280

home for me. Like I said, my dad is actually still in China. It's really difficult right now for- yeah, it's very difficult right now for him to get back to the US. Part of it is also the cost.

01:47:03.110 - 01:47:17.650

To get back from Asia to the US right now you essentially have to pay for three seats, which makes a ticket now like $5,000. You might be muted because I don't hear you anymore. Yeah, yeah,

01:47:18.740 - 01:47:33.610

yeah. So if he wants to come through Hong Kong, he has a quarantine for two weeks in Hong Kong. And so it's been this whole ordeal, and now he's still stuck there. So yeah, it's really, it's impacted everything you know, it's

01:47:34.460 - 01:47:43.970

just like everyone else, right? It's completely thrown anything you may have scheduled into chaos. And it just also makes you really fearful for your friends and family

01:47:43.970 - 01:47:58.310

because we know that there, we know what we look like, and we know how other people perceive us. And we also know how the politicians who are in power right now are exacerbating that hate and that xenophobia.

01:47:59.420 - 01:48:13.650

So I think that, you know, it's probably something that's very personal for a lot of people who are Asian, and are fearful for, you know, what may come next as this China-US tension really comes to head as the elections come

01:48:13.650 - 01:48:29.000

closer, and the US needs to ramp up its scapegoating. And, you know, I just, I hope that our community can stay safe and vigilant and also make sure that we have outlets and ways of, you know, calling out moments where

01:48:29.000 - 01:48:45.830

people are being attacked or violently discriminated against. And the last question was would you have any final thoughts or advice for people interested in bridging cultures? You know, I– going to Rice and moving to Texas

01:48:46.480 - 01:49:01.120

was honestly the best thing I could have done for myself to understand what it means to bridge cultures. And people have asked me about culture shock of going to Hong Kong, and there's never been a greater culture shock for me than moving to

01:49:01.120 - 01:49:15.370

Texas. And so Texas taught me so much about living and thinking outside of my bubble, and of embracing people who are not like me and just, you know, proving my assumptions to be wrong.

01:49:15.660 - 01:49:27.070

My assumption, my assumptions about Southerners, about Texans, were wrong. And for people who do want to bridge that cultural gap, I know it seems really glamorous to be like an international journalist.

01:49:27.390 - 01:49:39.670

But really the work that needs to be done is here at home and try– try living somewhere that is not where you're from. Leave your home state, go somewhere you wouldn't expect.

01:49:40.350 - 01:49:51.840

You know, go to a non-major city, spend some time there, and just get to know the community, right. Understand what their issues are. Understand why they may have the political leanings that they do without going

01:49:51.840 - 01:50:06.270

in there with like, "Oh, you are this way because,” you know, “my perception of Southerners or Midwesterners is like this." So if people really want to go down this route of bridging that cultural divide, start right here in the

01:50:06.270 - 01:50:19.350

US. It's– it's a huge country. And there is a lot of people in between, you know, New York and California and outside of our major cities. And if we can just start getting a little closer to our very own neighbors, I

01:50:19.380 - 01:50:22.220

think we could do so much more for our own country.