Asia Pacific Forum

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...