LAist's new Asian American and Pacific Islander history-centered podcast wants to hear your family stories.

About the show:

Many Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) families have complicated histories tied to national or international events. These stories are often left out of U.S. history books and our own relatives can be reluctant to discuss them.

But when we don’t talk about the past, the stories get lost. Families can lose the plot of how their very existence – geographically, culturally, economically, psychologically – came to be.

LAist is producing a podcast that aims to bring those histories out into the open and explore their impact across generations. Our hope is to deepen self-awareness, connection, and healing by getting personal with the past.

Produced by an entirely AAPI team, the show will debut in spring 2024.

We are looking to interview:

AAPI individuals who want to explore how major moments in history influenced themselves and their family members.

We are interested in those who:

- Live in California, or have family connections to California
- Have a working knowledge of their family history
- Have already begun asking questions about their history

Each episode will center on an AAPI family in California that was affected by a major historical event, including but not limited to the following:

- The wave of immigration from China, the Philippines, India, Korea, and other Asian countries following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
- The wave of immigration from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos after 1975
- The Los Angeles Uprising in 1992, or Sa-i-gu
- September 11th’s impact on South Asians in California
- The Third World Liberation Front and student strikes in California
- The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott
- The El Monte Thai Garment Case
- Pacific Islander participation in the U.S. military
- Japanese incarceration at Manzanar, Tule Lake, Poston and other camps
- The Chinese Exclusion Act and Angel Island

Have any of these events shaped your family dynamics? If so, please tell us more about that in this form. We might follow up for this podcast. There are likely other historical events not on this list and we welcome submissions related to those as well.

About us: This show is hosted by Emily Kwong (NPR’s Short Wave). Our production team is entirely AAPI: Anjuli Sastry Krbechek (senior producer), Sara Keiko Sarasohn (editor), James Chow (producer), Minju Park (producer), and Catherine Mailhouse (executive producer).