Self Evident Presents: "Carol & The Los Angeles Uprising, Pt 1" (by Inheriting)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Carol Kwang Park was 12 years old, working as a cashier at her family’s gas station in Compton, California, when the 1992 LA Uprising forever changed her life. Her mom was at the gas station that day and Carol was unsure if she’d even make it home. At the time, she didn’t understand why tensions came to a head in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King. She also never understood why her mother insisted on keeping the business going, especially after the Uprising. As an adult, a personal crisis prompts Carol to finally start processing that event...
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Self Evident Presents: “Live! Making Before Me With Lisa Phu” (by The Vietnamese Boat People podcast)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Our friend Tracey Nguyen Mang, host of the Vietnamese Boat People Podcast, goes behind the scenes with Lisa Phu in this conversation — about how to document the lives of our parents, when that process can feel overwhelming. This episode, recorded live online, is the Season 6 Premiere of The Vietnamese Boat People, a podcast and nonprofit project that preserves the story of the Vietnamese diaspora community — and provides spaces where people can share their experiences. This latest season of their podcast follows the theme, “Ba, Mẹ ơi” (which roughly translates to "Dear Dad and...
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Self Evident Presents: “How to Wash Your Brain” (by Boen Wang and Feet in 2 Worlds)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Boen’s mom thinks he’s brainwashed by the New York Times. Boen thinks his mom is brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party. But when Boen starts listening more deeply to his mom’s stories of growing up in China and then immigrating to the U.S., he spots the signs of his own political conditioning — and unravels the threads of Chinese and American history that led to the very fabrication of “brainwashing” as a concept. This story comes from our friends at originally airing on their podcast, ? — and was written and produced by Boen Wang. Full transcript, credits,...
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Self Evident Presents: "Exploring Ancestral Grief" (by Grief, Collected)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
America! The land of opportunity! And also, for so many, the ambiguous loss of immigration and uprooting a life and a history comes with a complex web of emotions. In this episode of Grief, Collected by The Mash-Up Americans, hosts Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer speak with trauma therapist and educator Linda Thai — about ancestral grief, and how unmetabolized grief, particularly in "Mash-Up" families, is passed down through generations. We dive into how important understanding historical context is for grief and healing, and ask: What happens to a family structure if we don’t grieve? on...
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Self Evident Presents: "Arrival" (by VPM's Resettled)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
The LahPai family’s arrival to Virginia from Myanmar was highly anticipated: the local resettlement agency prepped their home; the local religious community was ready to provide support; the family’s U.S connection lived just minutes down the street. Even with these support systems, resettlement was (and still is) not a straightforward, clean-cut process. Why is that? In this debut episode from Resettled — a series by Virginia Public Media about the real experiences of refugees after they arrive to the U.S. — you'll meet the people helping the LahPais during their early days of...
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Self Evident Presents: "Before They Were Your Parents" (by Immigrantly)
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Today, we're sharing some work by our friends at Immigrantly, a weekly podcast that features deeply personal conversations about race, identity, and the immigrant experience. This episode features a conversation between host Saadia Khan and reporter Neda Toloui-Semnani, who wrote a book called THEY SAID THEY WANTED REVOLUTION: A Memoir of My Parents. To finish that book, Neda went through a whole journey to learn about the life her parents lived before she was born, understand why they moved from the U.S. to Iran to join the revolution taking place there in 1979, and unpack what kind of legacy...
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Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
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Before Me, Part 5: Birthday Card
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Just before I gave birth to my daughter Acacia, I turned 36. And on my birthday my mom sent me a birthday card that was full of heartfelt words — more than she’d ever written to me before. On the last night of her visit to help me take care of Acacia, as she read the card aloud, I realized how I was — and still am — a part of the lives that came before me. .
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Before Me, Part 4: Head of the House
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
At the moment my mom steps onto a small fishing boat off the coast of Cambodia, headed for a refugee camp in Thailand under cover of night, she becomes the head of our family. It takes her less than a year to make it safely to her new home in New York, give birth to me, and learn how to be a single parent in the U.S. But it will end up taking her decades to process what she’s overcome, what she’s become, and what she’s left behind on the beaches of Cambodia.
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Before Me, Part 3: Beautiful Country
Self Evident: Asian America's Stories
Reunited with my cousin Lynn, my mom becomes a gold dealer to support her growing family — and realizes that the charmed childhood she had in Cambodia is nowhere to be found for her own kids. She recounts the joyful memories that helped her hold on for more than five years as a refugee in Vietnam, before making the decision to leave both countries for good. .
info_outlineFor so many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Spam is a beloved classic food, showing up in everything from musubi to fried rice. But behind that nostalgia is a history of war and colonization, and the inheritance of both favorite foods and hidden traumas.
Korean American playwright Jaime Sunwoo’s surreal new play, Specially Processed American Me, takes a close look at Spam’s legacies, and the lost stories of her own family — who’ve migrated twice over two generations, from North Korean to South Korea, then from South Korea to the United States.
While sharing behind-the-scenes previews of the play, Jaime and Cathy talk about the challenges and rewards of interviewing older generations, and how those conversations have helped her process her own identity as an Asian American.
Specially Processed American Me is co-produced by Dixon Place, Ping Chong and Company, and Free Rein Projects. You can learn more about Specially Processed American Me and find tickets to the show (debuting Jan 27 - Feb 19 in New York City) at speciallyprocessed.com.
Resources and Reading
- READ: “SON OF SPAMMEAT-PACKING HEIR GEORDIE HORMEL HAMS IT UP IN PHOENIX SOCIETY,” a funny and interesting profile of George A. Hormel II
- LISTEN: “Tater Pie,” sung by the Hormel Girls
- WATCH: Time for Talk - Hormel Girls of the 1950's
- WATCH: South Korea's love affair with Spam
- WATCH: Why SPAM Is So Popular In Guam
- WATCH: ACP Live Presents: Jaime Sunwoo
Credits
- Produced by James Boo
- Edited by Julia Shu, with help from Harsha Nahata
- Fact checked by Tiffany Bui and Harsha Nahata
- Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly
- Self Evident theme music by Dorian Love
- Our Executive Producer is Ken Ikeda
Specially Processed American Me co-produced by Ping Chong and Company and Free Rein Projects (production photos by Toby Tenenbaum