Asia Pacific Forum

01/22/2025

New episode of Asia Pacific Forum is out, with interviews with Prof Janelle Wong and Savera coalition about politics, the intersections of the Hindu far right and domestic politics, and organizing under Trump.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5k12v52Hqgf1XofCvqEZ5p?si=WKWln7RRTOSD2a67br_U1Q

06/28/2023

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/L5i9gC4y0Ab

This Pride Month episode is a special tribute to a former APF collective member and dear friend Hyun Lee, who passed away last year in 2022. Hyun was an APF member for several years from 2010, mainly covering stories on the people’s struggles in South and North Korea and against US imperialism and militarism especially in East Asia.

Hyun (also known as Lee Hyun Jung) was a long-time, beloved member of many organizations and communities locally in NYC, Philly and also nationally and internationally. She was widely known and admired as a brilliant, visionary, and powerful organizer in the movement for peace, justice and liberation on the Korean peninsula. In remembrance of Hyun’s inspiring and tireless work as a movement leader, a highly trusted friend, comrade, and mentor, we’ll be sharing three of her past APF shows. In addition to shows focused on North Korea and also on anti-Asian violence, two areas where she dedicated most of her organizing work, we will be highlighting her contribution and legacy as a q***r woman to the LGBTQ Korean diasporic community.

-- Mijounga Chang

Image credit: Korea Policy Institute

03/10/2023

New episode on Corky Lee's legacy and AAPI photographers.

'For decades, Corky Lee depicted the struggles, joys, conflicts and connections that make up the warp and weft of everyday life in Chinatown, and gave us a ground-level view of Chinatown’s social, labor and political activism. Unlike conventional photojournalists who covered Chinatown at the time, the self-taught photojournalist was actually rooted in this community, He cut his teeth as a young activist with the radical organizations that defined the East Coast wing of the Asian American movement. And over the years, he documented the evolution of movements for racial justice, economic equity and civil rights in Chinatown and Asian America.

Last year, a tribute exhibit was held at Pearl River, my family’s store and a place that Corky had frequented since the 1970s. On display was not a retrospective of Corky’s work, but an array of photographs taken by colleagues and friends, who had, in one way or another, been influenced by Corky’s style and approach to the medium. I interviewed several artists about their work and Corky's legacy.'

For decades, Corky Lee depicted the struggles, joys, conflicts and connections that make up the warp and weft of everyday life in Chinatown, and gave us a ground-level view of Chinatown’s social, labor and political activism. Unlike conventional photojournalists who covered Chinatown at the time, ...

08/10/2022

Finally, a new episode of Asia Pacific Forum. An interview on casteism in the U.S.

'Over the past few years, the Asian American community has been navigating the country’s tumultuous racial and ethnic politics in unprecedented ways--as the targets of racial violence, as an increasingly important force in electoral politics, as the subject of countless pop cultural tropes, and as an ambivalently positioned minority group in the American social hierarchy. But the issue of caste discrimination is often overlooked as a source of tension and conflict within South Asian diaspora communities. Within communities, caste issues are often downplayed, and accusations of caste discrimination in South Asian communities are often met with backlash and allegations of anti Hindu discrimination. But in recent months we have seen several high profile cases of caste discrimination and oppression, from allleged labor trafficking of low-caste workers to do manual labor for Hindu temples in several states, to Google employees calling out discriminatory treatment by dominant caste workers against their caste-oppressed coworkers.

To explore the ramifications of caste in the South Asian diaspora, Asia Pacific Forum’s Michelle Chen speaks with Paula Chakravartty, associate professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture and Communication, and Ajantha Subramanian Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at Harvard University.'

Over the past few years, the Asian American community has been navigating the country’s tumultuous racial and ethnic politics in unprecedented ways--as the targets of racial violence, as an increasingly important force in electoral politics, as the subject of countless pop cultural tropes, and as ...

04/24/2021

The new episode of Asian Pacific Forum is out!

'In this episode, we look at the significance of the cotton ban from Xiang, untangle the data around the increase of anti-Asian violence across the country and in New York City, unpack how race, gender, and class issues impact Asian American communities, and we will end with audio archives of Corky Lee's voice; the unofficial Asian American photographer laureate died of COVID-19 in January of this year. '

In this episode, we look at the significance of the cotton ban from Xiang, untangle the data around the increase of anti-Asian violence across the country and in New York City, unpack how race, gender, and class issues impact Asian American communities, and we will end with audio archives of Corky L...

03/02/2021

Off-screen scandal steals the show at this year's Golden Globes.

01/28/2021

RIP, Corky Lee.

01/06/2021

12/23/2020

'“I think that people also forget that San Francisco and New York's Chinatowns are historic immigrant communities and they tell the story of America," Young continued. "And if we allow these businesses to go without a fight, and therefore the small landlords can't pay their mortgages or they can't pay their property taxes, this is what opens the door for gentrification.'

Mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic's impact and many are on the verge of closing if they haven't already.

12/17/2020

In this post-election special (thank god it's over), we look at how the election has affected Asian American communities, and also how immigration issues in particular have played out for the incoming Biden administration.

We check in with Alvina Wong, Campaign & Organizing Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), and Shaw San Liu, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, about how the election played out for AAPI voters in California, including the fight around Proposition 15, a ballot measure that would have raised taxes on high-priced commercial properties.

We also talk to Jerry Vattamala, Democracy Program Director with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), about the group’s extensive exit polling data on Asian Americans in New York, Florida, Georgia and ten other states plus Washington, DC. Not surprisingly, Biden won a significant majority of the overall Asian American vote, but there were pockets of Trump support, as well as some ethnic variations in voters’ choices.

Finally, we examine one of the critical issues Biden will have to deal with once he enters office: addressing the longstanding inequities in the detention system and undoing the disastrous policies that Trump has put in place over the last four years at the southern border. Yet many of the human rights violations that are occurring now with immigrant detention and deportation were prevalent under the Obama administration as well--that is, they happened when Biden was vice president. We talk to Silky Shah, executive director of the Detention Watch Network, about how much activists can expect from a Biden administration when it comes to addressing the mass incarceration and deportation of immigrants.

In this post-election special (thank god it's over), we look at how the election has affected Asian American communities, and also how immigration issues in particular have played out for the incoming Biden administration. We check in with Alvina Wong, Campaign & Organizing Director of the Asian Pac...

09/01/2020

New Episode: Asian America on the Black-led Uprising for Racial Justice with Thenmozhi Soundarajan of Equality Labs, The Future of Dissent in Hong Kong with Gina Anne Tam, professor at Trinity University, and Part 2 of Cultural Protest of Chile and Palestine with Natisú of Trabajadoras de la Musica and Tarin Gonzalez of Existence Is Resistance

https://anchor.fm/asiapacificforum/episodes/Asia-Pacific-Forum-August-2020-eih4sv/a-a287vg6

Asian America on the Black-led Uprising for Racial Justice The Black Lives Matters protests that have spread around the country for the last several months have been punctuated by solidarity protests led by Asian American groups. We spoke to Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs about the connect...

08/10/2020

We are hiring! CAAAV has an opening for the Chinatown Tenants Union (CTU) Membership Organizer position! The Chinatown Tenants Union Membership Organizer is responsible for building a base of working-class Asian immigrants in rent-stabilized apartments in Chinatown to fight against gentrification.

The ideal candidate will have a proven ability to build relationships with working class Asian immigrants and be confident in basebuilding, leadership development, and campaign planning and development to fight displacement and gentrification in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and connect tenant organizing to a larger more radical housing agenda.

Interested? Please send in your resume and cover letter by August 15th! Click here for more information: https://caaav.org/take-action/job-opportunities-2020

06/08/2020

06/07/2020

New episode of Asia Pacific Forum, hosted by Olivia T. Canlas, Saurav Sarkar and Michelle Chen

'Organizing API communities in the face of the pandemic and systemic racism
We spoke Kim Geron, Monica Thammarath and Alvina Yeh of the Asia Pacific Labor Alliance about how Asian American workers and their communities are faring as they face the COVID-19 pandemic, economic devastation, and an explosion of racial unrest.

Pushing back against "tough on China"
Tobita Chow, head of Justice is Global, talks about the politics of the presidential election are heating up under the specter of China. While Trump's ant-China rhetoric is on full blast, Biden’s upping his anti-China game too. A group of Asian American activists recently penned an open letter to Biden condemning one of his campaign ads, which accuses Trump of "being soft on China," and called for a more enlightened foreign and domestic policy when dealing with both Beijing and the Asian American diaspora.

in Chinatown
Melanie Wang with Caaav: Organizing Asian Communities talks about a rent strike in Chinatown, part of a citywide campaign to demanding rent and mortgage relief for all New Yorkers.

Myanmar's workers are on a strike wave
Labor organizer Andrew TIllett-Saks discusses workers' struggles in Myanmar’s garment factories and the broader impact of the pandemic on conditions in South and Southeast Asia’s factories.

Cultural protest in Chile and Palestine
Natisú, a Chilean-based musician and cultural worker with Trabajadoras de la Música, and Tarin Gonzalez, a Bronx-based activist with Existence Is Resistance, speak about the recent surge in protests in Chile, along with what it means to draw global connections and build solidarity from the Bronx, Palestine, to Chile.'

Since our last episode, the world seems to have been turned upside down. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic continued to ravage communities here and around the world, but a nationwide groundswell of protest against police brutality has erupted in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Meanwhile, hostil...