Time To Say Goodbye

Hello from Andy’s couch! We take a break from the NBA finals to record Andy’s last ep as co-host : (Per his request, the podsquad talks Amy Chua’s now decade-old book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother—and argues about everything in it. Is the Chinese Tiger Mother actually a thing? Does it matter that Chua is an upper-class second-generation parent? What kind of Asian America does the book describe? Can the satirical bent of the book erase its meanness and cultural essentialism? (Note: we focus pretty narrowly on the memoir and don’t get into her husband’s suspension from Yale for sexual harassment or her own professorial misconduct… but yeah, a lot there.)Then, we send Andy off with thanks and And thank you for listening. Spread the word, and reach out to us via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! Jay and Tammy will see you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a 24-hour layover!Tammy returns from her travels and tells us about hanging out with cool Asians at the International Federation of Journalists conference in Oman. Then, we discuss the latest on the Uvalde shootings and the increasingly outrageous reports that local police officers and government officials are bullying parents and evading even the tiniest bit of accountability. How does the Uvalde massacre bolster arguments for police defunding and abolition? Where does abolition intersect with calls for gun control? How pessimistic should we be about the right-wing deadlock of the national government? Finally, an announcement from Andy and some reflections on the two years since the podcast began, roughly 133 episodes(!) ago. Thanks for listening! Please subscribe and reach out to us via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Tammy’s off for the week! Jay and Andy are joined by The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner to talk about his viral interrogations of subjects from John Mearsheimer to Amy Wax to that unhinged Covid conspiracy theorist from spring 2020; checking in on the bleak pessimism surrounding last week’s horror in Uvalde, TX; and a wide discussion of this year’s NBA playoffs featuring the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors, tipping off this week!Thanks for listening! Please subscribe and reach out to us via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the Betaverse!This week, we briefly touch on headline news from Asia: that a jet-lagged Biden pledged military support for Taiwan against China—a comment the State Department is now trying to walk back, lol. Then, onto the main event: a deep-dive on the new film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, starring Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu, directed by the Daniels. And yes, we spoil it! Why did one of the hosts hate it? Were the martial arts any good? Was the ending satisfying? And is EEAAO an “Asian American” movie? All this and more in a very long, very in-depth episode. Thanks for listening! Please subscribe and reach out to us via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Prague!Tammy tells us about her travels through Czech Republic, and Jay describes his favorite cioppino recipes. Then, a few items from the news:The US is experiencing a critical baby-formula shortage. We get into the political and economic factors behind this crisis; discuss the role of formula and the US’s regressive family leave policies; and dabble in a bit of libertarian pro-free trade contrarianism. Also, Andy recs a book, Lactivism by Courtney Jung, for the history and debate over formula vs. feeding + a segment comparing children strollers.Then we talk about the horrific shooting that took place in east Buffalo over the weekend. What is the history of “replacement theory,” can we do anything about these shootings, and how does this intersect with the Democrats’ recommitment to policing?Finally, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has won the Philippines presidential election, 36 years after his authoritarian father was exiled by a popular coup. We get into disinformation, historical whitewashing, US influence, dynastic families, and the false trade of authoritarianism for growth and stability. Scary times in the Philippines going forward.Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Thanks for listening, and stay in touch via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a million-person protest! We wish…This week, we speak with a brilliant friend of the pod, Kate Redburn, a lawyer and legal historian. Kate takes us through the leaked Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and explains how decades of organizing and legal scheming by Christian conservatives got us to this point. They also predict how the expected ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could affect the rights of people who use contraception, queer and trans people, and people of color—and exacerbate a chaotic interstate patchwork of abortion laws.Plus: the state of abortion rights today, judicial activism, weaknesses in the feminist movement, and the need for a mass mobilization to advance our collective well being. Thanks for listening, and stay in touch via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Happy belated May Day!We celebrate international workers’ day by discussing a newly remastered version of the 1979 documentary The Wobblies (directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer), now showing in theaters and online. We discuss the continuing relevance of the Industrial Workers of the World for today’s labor movements, its universalist vision (in contrast to that of the AFL), the role of the Pacific Northwest in labor history, and continuities in the organization of labor and business ever since. Plus: a controversy over the screening at Metrograph in New York.Then, we get back to the pod’s roots to talk about what’s next in the pandemic, in a United States that seems increasingly ready to get rid of all of its mandates. What do we make of data suggesting that even the vaccinated are at risk of dying? Are our pandemic responses doomed to be privatized and individualized?Thanks for listening, and get in touch via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a reunited podsquad, each back in their natural habitat!This week, taking off from an essay by Jamelle Bouie, we discuss the right wing’s composite attack on queer educators and racial-justice curriculum as an attack on public goods. How should the Democrats—and the left—respond? Plus: notes on and from the lockdown in Shanghai and Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Thanks for listening, and ping us via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the Staten Island Ferry!This week, the podsquad reunites for all kinds of $$ talk. We begin with a chat —occasioned by a book prize Andy received — about how to balance leftist politics and theory in journalism and academia. Then, our main topic: the historic victory by Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at the JFK8 warehouse!We discuss Tammy’s reporting in The New Yorker, traditional/large versus small/independent unions, and the links between Amazon, the Democrats, and labor. How did the ALU do it? Is it okay for the left to make celebrities out of Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer? How do multiracial, immigrant politics intersect with class politics? What’s the next step, both for Amazon and US labor in general?Also, we unpack Ohio politician Tim Ryan’s pathetic new “workers first” ad, which scapegoats China. (If you want to take action, check out the responses of Asian American Midwest Progressives and OPAWL.)Thanks to TTSG Discord member, Lance, and the NBA Dark Web channel for the new theme music :)Thanks for listening! Please get in touch via [email protected] or https://twitter.com/ttsgpod.And subscribe via Substack or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hi everyone:Today it’s just me, Andy, talking with guest Adolph Reed, Prof. Emeritus at University of Pennsylvania, about his new book The South: Jim Crow and its Afterlives. Drawing from personal experience, he argues that racial segregation cannot be fully explained through abstract ideas about white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It was a coherent social order animated by ruling class power. We talk about what he calls “neoliberal race politics,” the charge against him of “class reductionism” (NYT), and the broader usefulness of this analysis to contexts across the US and the world. Also, a bit of NBA banter. * See: our conversation with Merlin Chowkwanyun (2020) on his work with Reed on racial disparity discourse (their piece on Covid reporting here)* Also: Adolph’s new podcast Class Matters* and Adolph’s essays on nonsite.org0:00: The premise of the book and its reception (The New Yorker, Common Dreams, Harper’s podcast). Adolph periodizes Jim Crow from the 1890s-1960s, and he speaks about his formative years in Louisiana, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Atlanta. He first drafted the book in the 2000s after realizing his would be the last generation with clear memories of the Jim Crow order. Jim Crow, he argues, has been conspicuously overlooked in contemporary discussions about race and slavery, which flatten history (“the bad old timey-times”).20:20: An aside on Adolph’s polemic (2013) on Hollywood “race movies” such as Django Unchained and The Help.28:30: Adolph describes the Jim Crow racial order as a practical and pragmatic strategy of class power over all workers, rather than an abstract hatred of one group. And why it is counterproductive to frame it as a binary story of all white versus all Black people. It’s not like white people had a meeting around the campfire and said, “let’s go put some Jim Crow on some Black people”36:30: Framing Jim Crow as unrelenting oppression in fact mirrors, ironically, the very vision laid out by segregationists themselves. This view, found today in liberal anti-racism discourses, attributes everything to an abstract “white supremacy” and “anti-Blackness.” Class is disavowed. The effect is to help sustain an elite stratum of racial spokespeople. But also, why does this race-first worldview have such broad appeal? 53:15: Adolph responds to charges that his argument is class reductionist. We reference an older exchange with the late political theorist Ellen Meiskins Wood (2002) to clarify the distinctions in Adolph’s arguments (see the original text here, esp. the “Rejoinder”). Race, he argues, is one of many ideologies to sustain accumulation and class power that rest on “ascriptive differences,” or, putative ideas about the natural differences between people: if not race, then sex, gender, religion, caste, tribe, mental and physical abilities, etc. * Also see Adolph’s concise summary in New Labor Forum (2013).1:03:50: Wrestling with common objections, such as, “ethnocentrism predates capitalism, so race is autonomous from class”; or, “upper-class Black people are subject to police violence too, so class doesn’t explain racism.”1:14:20: Adolph on the broader generalizability of his analysis for other groups, in the US and globally (see Clare Kim on comparative analyses of Asian American/Black racial ideology). And where Adolph got his Marxism.I wouldn’t say I’m the most cosmopolitan world traveler. But the thing I will say is that, in every place that I’ve been, what I’ve noticed is that most people are scuffling trying to work for a living. It doesn’t matter what kind of food they eat or the music they listen to. I mean that’s all interesting, more or less. But the basic human condition is that, right?1:30:30: NBA banter.Thanks for listening! Please get in touch via [email protected] or https://twitter.com/ttsgpodYou can subscribe via substack or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hi from multi-culti Toronto! (We wish.)This week, Jay and Tammy discuss the urban housing crisis, the weird and embarrassing SCOTUS confirmation hearings of (Future Justice) Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the lovely new animated film, “Turning Red” (which Tammy womansplains to Jay). (Andy will be back soon.)Thanks for listening, and K.I.T. via Substack, [email protected], https://twitter.com/ttsgpod, and/or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!This week just Jay and Andy and with guest Max Read. We talk about all things “disinformation.” First up is Andy’s n+1 essay last week on the lab-leak Covid conspiracy, what it says about the world’s ideas about China, and the plausibility of conspiracies today. Then a wider discussion about whether the Ukraine invasion and competing claims of “disinformation” have presented a new crisis for media and the framework of fake news installed the last few years. Jay’s got a few recent pieces on disinformation and media coverage of Ukraine.And here is some of Max’s recent commentary on media:* “Mapping the celebrity NFT complex”* “Is web3 b******t?”* “How to have a career as a journalist in 2022”Consider subscribing to the newsletter!Back next week with the full gang! Please get in touch via [email protected] or https://twitter.com/ttsgpodYou can subscribe via substack or https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from New York! This week, Tammy interviews the playwright and TV writer Hansol Jung. They talk about Hansol’s childhood in South Africa and South Korea, the feeling of being 70% fluent in both Korean and English, religion and structural sexism in the recent Korean presidential election, race in theater and TV, building queer characters, and how Rent changed everything. Hansol’s latest production is Wolf Play — at the Soho Rep, with Ma-Yi Theater Company. She was also a writer on the forthcoming Apple TV+ series, Pachinko, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee. (Sound note: Snippets of live theater from Wolf Play and Cardboard Piano woven into the episode; also, Tammy has a sore throat!)Thanks for listening. Please donate to the Red Cross to help people in Ukraine, and stay in touch with us via Substack or:[email protected]://twitter.com/ttsgpodhttps://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a South Korean ballot box! (Tammy wishes.)This week, Andy and Tammy talk to the political scientist Neta C. Crawford* of Boston University (soon, Oxford University) about the human and ecological costs of the war in Ukraine, the China dimension, and what a global movement for peace should strive for.Plus: Andy discusses his review essay on Chinese economic history and neoliberalism in The Nation; Tammy freaks out over the imminent South Korean presidential election and reflects on outgoing leader Moon Jae-in; and Andy reveals his secret recipe for Whole Foods salmon poke (YouTube).Some links:* Brown’s invaluable Costs of War project, co-directed by Neta* Neta commenting on war crimes against civilians * Neta’s forthcoming book, The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War* Rohini Hensman on the long history of Russia–Ukraine* Isaac Chotiner’s interview with John Mearsheimer * Tammy’s profile of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists* Apols for mispronouncing “Neta” at the top of the show. It’s NEE-TA. Also: stripe twins!Thank you for listening. Please donate to the Red Cross to help people in Ukraine, and send us feedback via Substack or:[email protected]://twitter.com/ttsgpodhttps://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from our doomscroll…Today we talk about—what else?—the events in Ukraine this past week :-(We chat with Sophie Pinkham, an essayist, reporter, and expert on the region. In 2016, she published Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (read an excerpt in Dissent). She has written about politics after the Maidan protests (The New Yorker), the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky (The New York Review of Books), and, just yesterday, Zelensky and the war (New York).We discuss our initial reactions to the news of invasion, why so many people didn’t expect it to happen, U.S. jingoism, the impact of social media and propaganda, criticisms of “the left,” speculations about the future, and the comparability of China–Taiwan. Some stuff we’ve been reading:* “Ukraine: What Russia wants, what the West can do,” Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft* “A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv,” Taras Bilous, Open Democracy* “News from Natoland,” Tariq Ali, New Left Review* Background on history and political economy in Adam Tooze’s newsletter* Friends of the show Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu on reactions to Ukraine from Taiwan.Thank you for listening. Please donate to the Red Cross to help people in Ukraine, and send any questions or comments via Substack or: [email protected]://twitter.com/ttsgpodhttps://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hi from the United States of empire! The podsquad reunites in Amurica. This week, we talk about the murders of two women in New York City and the recall of school board members in San Francisco. Christina Yuna Lee and Michelle Go died in nightmarish attacks. We process our feelings and explore how Asian Americans, policymakers, and members of the general public are interpreting/using the women’s deaths. Why do we always fall back on law-enforcement responses? How do stigmas against people who aren’t housed, or those who have mental illness, affect our analysis of “hate crimes”? How are Asian communities in New York and New Jersey responding? What does women’s safety mean? What’s the abolitionist horizon? San Franciscans recently voted to remove three people from the school board—and Asian Americans were a big part of the action. Jay wrote about how this all boils down to anxiety over admissions to a selective high school. But the recall might also be seen as a tech-funded campaign against all things “woke.” What’s going on? How do immigrant politics graft onto the US’s left-right spectrum? Are Asian voters basically social Darwinians? What does this mean for criminal-legal policy, specifically the upcoming Chesa Boudin recall? For Asian-American organizing? Thanks to the PNW listeners who came to our IRL lunch over the weekend. And thanks to all of you for supporting the pod. Stay in touch via Substack or:[email protected]://twitter.com/ttsgpodhttps://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode is a conversation with Eugene Lim, the author of the novel Search History. Eugene’s one of our favorite writers. We talk about experimental fiction, Asian writers, Eugene’s life as a school librarian, what constitutes good and bad writing, identity questions in fiction, and we even take questions from the audience who watched this talk on Discord. If you’d like to be part of our next BOOK TIME, please sign up for our newsletter subscription at goodbye.substack.com for $5 a month and you can join our discord community. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hi from Seoul! The podsquad returns for a wide-ranging chat on all things, sort of, broadly, sometimes diasporically China. Awkwafina made the rounds on social media, with a screenshot semi-apology(?) regarding her use of Black speech. We offer a hermeneutic reading.It’s the 10th anniversary of Linsanity. What did, and what does, Jeremy mean to Asian America? Jay and Andy revisit analyses from the time. Chinese government bros have upped their game, offense and defense, on English-language Twitter. What’s the use of an official reply guy? And finally, we’re watching the Olympics in Beijing! Yes, all Olympics are terrible (insert leftist critique), but so are the short track judges, says Tammy. Plus: Andy on the opening ceremonies and Jay on Eileen Gu.We have an IRL picnic coming up in Seattle and an ongoing book club. Subscribe and join our Discord community to find out more. Thanks for hanging with us! Please share, subscribe, and ping us via Patreon and Substack; email ([email protected]), Twitter, and Discord! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a crypto farm in rural China!This week Andy talks with the director (Jessica Kingdon) and producer (Kira Simon-Kennedy) of the new film Ascension, a documentary about working life in contemporary China. Ascension has received critical acclaim and garnered major awards and nominations, including being shortlisted for the Academy Awards!The film features scenes of quotidian working life in a period when the government has begun to promote the “Chinese Dream,” spanning textile and sex doll factories to etiquette school and social media influencers all the way to luxurious water parks and tropical vacation resorts. Together, these scenes raise provocative questions about China’s blindingly rapid development, the uneven pace of upward mobility, and whether China is an exotic outlier or a recognizably modern society, comparable with life in the US and other societies worldwide (all to music by Dan Deacon).Jessica and Kira took the time to chat with us and many from our Discord community about the film’s initial conception, the origins of the title and Jessica’s own exploration of family history, the strangeness of the major award circuit, and the ethics of making a commercial documentary. They also break down many of the more memorable scenes, including a dinner party among the ultra-rich and a crypto farm in the middle of the countryside.You can look for ways to watch it on the film’s website, the linktree, and its IG account.But for most of us, the easiest way to watch it at home is to subscribe to and stream from Paramount+ (look for trial offers!).The second half of this episode consists of questions from our Discord members. If you’re interested in joining the conversation with us and tons of other cool people, please think about subscribing! Check us out via Patreon and Substack, contact us via email ([email protected]), Twitter, and the Discord! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hi from a Korean hot-stone bed!It’s Jay and Tammy this week, talking trash about Andy. Plus:* Pandemic alcoholism and human bonds: We read and discuss an essay in Jezebel, “I Got Sober in the Pandemic. It Saved My Life.” What has this tragic time clarified and obscured? What’s the off-ramp? * Does a day-trader’s lunch budget say anything about inflation? People were mad about this New York Times story, but the Big Mac Index remains durable (Tammy gets the description about half-right). The tech stock market (read: Peloton, Netflix, Amazon) seems less durable. * The Supreme Court will hear the Harvard / University of North Carolina case on affirmative action, with Asian American plaintiffs front and center. We assess the history of race and class in admissions and consider the wedge that is Asian America.Thanks for hanging out! Please share, subscribe, and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack; email ([email protected]), Twitter, and Discord! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings from the Philly planetarium! This week, we discuss academic tenure, “disgusting” ideas, and left foreign policy.0:00 – A troll-y tenured law prof at UPenn is back on her race-science kick—this time, arguing on Glenn Loury’s interview show that, “the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.” What to do about Amy Wax and the Amy Waxes of the world? Should her tenure be repealed, as local politicians are demanding? Who and what is tenure for? Is it about free speech? Workers’ rights? 58:30 – Does this issue intersect with tech companies’ censorship via terms of service? 1:08:00 – If you’re on China/international relations/war/basketball/tech Twitter, you’ll have seen that Chamath went full-on tankie… which relates to the debate over a recent article in The Nation: “What Should the Left Do About China?” by David Klion. The piece explores the lefty political spectrum, and features input from Andy and several friends of the pod. We dig in on the question of how complicit we are as “Americans.” In a time of (cold-)warring hegemons, what kind of dissenters should we be? Thanks for being in dialogue with us! Please share, subscribe, and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack; email ([email protected]), Twitter, and Discord! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from pandemic year 3!There seems to be a panic over school closures—and a backlash against teachers and their unions. But how many US public schools have had to “go remote” because of Covid? Are these physical closures reasonable? Why are people blaming educators for everything from “learning loss” to the downfall of the Democratic party? What “shock doctrine” tactics do we need to look out for?Check out:* Jay in The New York Times, on the value of public schools and a post-Hurricane Katrina cautionary tale* A common, cynical take in The Atlantic* Arguments for parent-teacher solidarity in The New Yorker and Jacobin* An explainer on the teacher shortage and our stingy approach to public K–12 education, at VoxWe really appreciate your listening and spreading the word. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! See you in the Discord. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

New year, new pod! “Same pod, though…”0:00 – We discuss various New Year’s Day soups and East Asian black beans.7:50 – Many influential writers died at the end of 2021. We explore the legacies of Joan Didion, bell hooks, and historian Jonathan Spence. 44:40 – Why is the Netflix climate change film, “Don’t Look Up,” so polarizing? Written by Adam McKay and Bernie pal David Sirota, and starring basically all of Hollywood, it has inspired a lot of commentary. Is it a good leftist film? Is it funny? Effective? What about its portrayal of the media and academia? (Check out these think-pieces from “Money on the Left” and Current Affairs.)Thanks for listening and spreading the word. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a pandemic bungalow! This week, we are joined by Gary Shteyngart, creator of the brilliant new novel, Our Country Friends. We talk about immigrant fiction, elite high schools, exile feelings, the Asian pop-cultural future, and Gary’s run-in with a fascist elementary school teacher.Gary is the author of the memoir Little Failure (2014) and four previous novels: Super Sad True Love Story (2010), Lake Success (2018), Absurdistan (2007), and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2002). Also check out his recent essay in The New Yorker, “A Botched Circumcision and Its Aftermath.”Photo credit: Tim DavisThanks for listening and spreading the word. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the Quiz Bowl room!Today we’re talking with Democratic pollster and Andy’s high school friend Brian Stryker of ALG research. Recently, the Democratic Party circulated a memo Brian wrote about the Democrats’ poor showing in some of the November elections and their uneven prospects for the 2022 midterms. You can read his interview with The New York Times here. The main topics we hit on are: how much do cultural wedge issues like critical race theory matter over bread-and-butter questions like jobs, wages, and inflation; the balance between a focus on economic versus social issues; whether emphasizing “social justice” concerns could (ironically) deter Asian and Latino/a voters; and Brian’s crystal ball for the 2024 election. 0:00 – Tammy in Korea update6:40 – Brian explains his polling research on the Virginia elections and what it tells us about the state of the Democrats: CRT, school closures, the economy and Covid stimulus plans, and supply chains.17:40 – The prospect of Asian and Latino voters going Republican (see Jay’s pieces on this topic) and why the Democrats struggle to convey economic messages.34:30 – The gap between the Democrats’ “white woke consultants” and the reality and diversity of “voters of color.” Is there common ground between patriotic Democrats and the left?45:30 – How can the Democrats speak to different racial groups in a more nuanced way? What’s the role of organized labor in the Party? Is the future of the Dems just a lot of moderate POC candidates? Is the average POC more conservative than the average wealthy white liberal? And some scary thoughts about Trump 2024.Thanks for your support! Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a blockchain!This week, Jay and Tammy talk with Alex Rivera, a filmmaker, media artist, immigrant rights activist, and MacArthur genius, about crypto. What is crypto currency? How does it work? And why is it often cast as a right-wing, libertarian, carbon-depleting project? Can the left reclaim crypto for the people? How might decentralized financial networks power social movements? Post-national transactions? Worker cooperatives? Global decision-making?For more, check out:* The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (Donate and get yourself some merch!)* Alex and Cristina Ibarra’s film, The Infiltrators* Alex’s film, Sleep Dealer (pictured above)* Jay and Aaron Lammer’s podcast, “CoinTalk”* Jay on his toad NFT* Alex on border technologies, via “Tech Won’t Save Us”* Crypto Communism by Mark Alizart, translated by Robin Mackay* Murtaza Hussain on crypto remittances* Crypto POC economiesThanks for your support. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the 19th century!Today’s episode features Andy in conversation with Prof. Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University. Her new book has just come out this fall, titled, The Chinese Question: the Gold Rushes and Global Politics. She takes a story we are somewhat familiar with but presents it in ambitious, new terms, tracing three major gold rushes from the 1850s to 1900s, across California, Australia, and South Africa, and along the way, the origins of Chinese communities in the Anglo-American world:The gold rushes occasioned the first mass contact between Chinese and Euro-Americans. Unlike other encounters in Asian port cities and on Caribbean plantations, they met on the goldfields both in large numbers and on relatively equal terms, that is, as voluntary emigrants and independent prospectors. Race relations were not always conflictual, but the perception of competition gave rise to a racial politics expressed as the ‘Chinese Question.’ This is a history of labor and migration, but it is also a book about race and racial ideology. Ngai traces the origins of politics organized around Chinese, and eventually Asian, exclusion at the turn of the twentieth century in the world’s white settler colonies. It’s a story most popularly known by the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act in the US, but it also had many parallels worldwide — a “global anti-Chinese ideology” that “gave rise to a global race theory,” as Ngai puts it. We discuss the fine details of her research and then try to tease out some bigger implications of the “Chinese Question” for today.(0:00): Mae’s own trajectory in migration and Asian American history and how she came to undertake this project.(15:30): We dig into the Chinese Question: how did Mae wind up writing about Australia and South Africa? what was the “coolie myth” that dogged Chinese migrants in the 19th century? how did “free soil” and “anti-slavery” politics dovetail with racist exclusion laws? if Chinese migrants were not “coolies,” then what was life really like on the gold mines? (44:15): The theoretical stakes of the Chinese Question: how to think about ‘race’ historically and the political value of doing so; Mae’s intervention into the headlines about anti-Asian violence during Covid; thoughts on the “racial pessimism” trend in academia and popular media and the relationship between “anti-Black” and “anti-Asian” racism; the “Chinese Question” today, e.g., the China initiative at universities, ongoing US-China tensions, and the flexible class politics of its racial ideology. Thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email ([email protected]) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from both sides of the Pacific! This week, a reunited, international podsquad talks K-quarantine, Enes Kanter’s Sinopportunism, and how the left should think about the “supply chain crisis.”* Tammy’s first few days in South Korean quarantine:* What’s going on with the Celtics center’s anti-China rants (and shoes)? * How can leftists think beyond shopping in our relationship to global supply chains? Tammy wrote about this recently for The New York Times, with a focus on port truckers. (Photos below by Sean Rayford.)* More on the transport workforce here—by longshore activist Peter Olney, friend of the pod Charmaine Chua, and logistics scholars Jake Alimohamed-Wilson and Ellen Reese.While recording this episode, the Korean media reported the death of the murderous dictator Chun Doo-hwan. Here’s cartoonist Kim Wan’s take: “karma” on the left; “Gwangju massacre” on the right. Thanks for your support. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!Guest episode this week with Andy talking to Brian Hioe and Wen Liu, writers and academics based in Taipei, with the online magazine New Bloom. We talk about the scary headlines warning of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, why the global left seems to dismiss Taiwan in favor of romanticizing the PRC, and what is the relationship between Asian and Asian American politics (if there is any)?0:00 - Banter7:00 - Recent headlines over the US’s commitment to defend China + Chinese fighter planes in Taiwanese air space + what is life like for regular Taiwanese people as a chip between two global superpowers + why New Bloom is skeptical about the probability of Chinese invasion.22:00 - Why the western left reflexively dismisses Taiwanese concerns. We explore a few: PRC romanticism, anti-Republican Party liberalism, anti-US imperialism (esp. among Asian Americans), all kinds of weird racial assumptions, horseshoe anti-war politics, etc. And what Brian and Wen say in response to these. 58:30 - Some takeaways: what distinguishes a “leftist” position on Taiwan? what is the ideal relation between Taiwan and China? what can people in the rest of the world “do”? what is the role of Asian American and Asian diasporic politics for Asia, and vice versa?Stuff mentioned/reference materials:* Brian’s recent piece on Taiwan for Spectre journal* John Oliver’s recent 20-minute history + summary of Taiwanese politics * The Intercept’s recent weird piece on Taiwan* Brian interviews Wen about activism and the 2014 Sunflower Movement* Last June, we first talked with Brian about the “tankie” phenomenonThanks for your support! Be sure to sign up via substack or Patreon. Find us on twitter (@ttsgpod) or email [email protected]! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from our election hangover!This week, we talk about last week’s mid-mid-mid-midterm results. * Did the very rich Republican win Virginia’s gubernatorial race on account of critical race theory—or not?* Are the Democrats continuing to lose the Asian/Latinx/POC vote? * Should we take hope in local progressive wins? (Yay, Boston, Missoula, Dearborn, Hamtramck, Cleveland…)* Whatever happened to bread and butter economic concerns like housing and healthcare? Plus: podsquad digressions and a Taiwan preview.See you at the subscriber-only Ishiguro book club tomorrow! Thanks for your support. Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from HISTORY!This week, Tammy interviews Professor Kori A. Graves, a historian of adoption and the family at the University at Albany, SUNY. Kori’s 2020 book, A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War, explores how Black Americans came to adopt Black Korean children. Tammy and Kori talk about the history of transnational, transracial adoption — and the special place of Korea and the Korean diaspora in adoptee activism and the contemporary architecture of family. For more on this subject, Kori recommends:* Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America by Catherine Ceniza Choy* Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging by Eleana J. Kim* Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States by Kimberly D. McKee* “Side x Side” (documentary film project) by Glenn Morey and Julie Morey* To Save the Children of Korea by Arissa H. Oh* Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire by Susie WooTammy adds:* All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung* Interrogation Room (poetry) by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs* Dust of the Streets: The Journey of a Biracial Orphan of the Korean War by Thomas Park Clement* “Made in Korea: A One Way Ticket Seoul-Amsterdam?” (film) by In-Soo Radstake* Palimpsest: Documents from a Korean Adoption (graphic novel) by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom* The Language of Blood: A Memoir by Jane Jeong Trenka* Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.: A Memoir by Jenny Heijun WillsOn November 16, Also-Known-As will host an event with deported adoptees. Register for free:Tomorrow, November 3, catch Andy at NYU’s Skirball Center (via Zoom; register for free), in conversation with Prof. Charmaine Chua of UC-Santa Barbara. He’ll revisit some themes in his “‘Chinese Virus,’ World Market” essay from March 2020 in n+1 — twenty months later, twenty months into the pandemic!We appreciate your support! Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Note: Apologies for resending + reposting; some technical errors earlier.Hi from TMZ studio!Like all of Asian American Twitter, we’ve been talking about The Loneliest Americans quite a bit. But this week, Andy and Tammy get a full-on, personal Jay AMA.Thanks to all our new listeners and everyone who joined our Discord subscriber book club last week.Event announcement:Next week, on November 3rd, Andy will be giving a talk at NYU’s Skirball Center (via Zoom), in conversation with Prof. Charmaine Chua of UC-Santa Barbara, Global Studies. He’ll revisit some themes in his “‘Chinese Virus,’ World Market” essay from March 2020 in n+1 — twenty months later, twenty months into the pandemic!We appreciate your support! Please subscribe and stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the John Deere picket line!This week is, um, eclectic and slightly technologically challenged. Thanks for bearing with us. 4:15 – Jay’s book is out! Thursday evening, Oct. 21, Jay will be doing a Discord AMA about The Loneliest Americans. It’s for subscribers only, so if you want to ask Jay any burning questions about the book, sign up now via Patreon or Substack!7:13 – MSG—we all love it, even though it’s bad for us. Or is it? We discuss a recent piece (short and fun) about the history of the seasoning, the veracity of “Chinese restaurant syndrome,” and MSG’s rebranding as umami. 27:49 – TTSG labor reporter Tammy Kim updates us on “Striketober.” From John Deere to Hollywood to healthcare, we are seeing record unemployment (quitting! switching sectors!) and labor militancy. Tammy is here to break it all down for us. 56:40 – Joe Manchin is holding up the Biden infrastructure bill and gutting our hopes for a livable climate. WTF?!?!Thanks for listening and supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a spicy group chat!This week, we begin by celebrating the release of Jay’s book, The Loneliest Americans, which was just excerpted in NYT Mag. Congrats, Kang! Order it now for yourself and family and friends! Then, we talk the Kidneygate controversy (from the same issue of NYT Mag) aka Bad Art Friend, the long story based on a short story that launched a million Discord chats. Who’s really “kind”? Is the art any good? Finally, a dip into the cancellation(?) of Bright Sheng, the composer and music professor at the University of Michigan who got in trouble for showing a film featuring blackface in class.Reminder to catch Tammy in conversation with Noam Chomsky tomorrow, Wednesday, October 13:Thanks for supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter!Kindly,The TTSG Podsquad This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Capitalist Playground of Death!This week, we talk 100% “Squid Game.” Warning: Don’t listen until you’ve watched it all.Does the show constitute anti-capitalist critique? Why does the ending suck? Did Park Chan-wook make the West permanently love K-horror? Will Asian art soon displace Asian American art? What’s with the weird ‘noble savage’ thing going on in the show?Plus: the dialogue genius in “The Wire”’s writers’ room, fantasy basketball, Gary Shteyngart (i.e., three Asian Americans trashing neoliberalism), and solidarity with subtitle translators. Thanks for supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Stuart’s Coffee in Bellingham!This week, we welcome a special guest to talk about the immigrant rights movement and immigration policy. Plus, Andy and Tammy channel Jay Energy and answer listener questions.(0:00): Andy and Tammy discuss Japanese food and our favorite chaebols. (6:50): Listener Questions! What’s up with the “PI” in “AAPI?” listener SansMouton asks. We discuss the awkward origins of AAPI and why Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians shouldn’t be lumped into Asian America (cf. this random feature on Asian feelings in the NYT this weekend). But is there anything redeeming about a “Pacific” frame? And what would be the Pacific version of Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic? * Thanks to friend of the pod Amita Manghnani for talking through the local politics of “A/P/A” and recommending “Asian American Studies and the ‘Pacific Question,’” by Wesleyan anthropologist Kehaulani Kauanui.(25:00): How should academics balance institutional responsibilities (and annoying prestige stuff) with teaching? listener Robi asks. Andy tries to punt the question to Tammy before laying out his own materialist approach. (31:44): Silky Shah, friend of the pod and executive director of Detention Watch Network, explains all things immigration:* Her Truthout article on the dramatic increase in immigrant detention under Biden* How her corner of the immigrant rights movement become abolitionist* Why borders are b******t* The We Are Home coalition* Links between immigration and foreign policy* The Dems’ obsession with “deterrence”* Myths about immigration* Why “Abolish ICE” isn’t nearly enough* Recommended reads by Harsha Walia and Todd Miller.For more on immigration policy, tune into this book event on Tuesday, Sept. 28, at noon EST, moderated by Tammy: Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Please keep in touch via Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Zuccotti Park!Lots of leftist nostalgia and reminiscence about Occupy Wall Street this week — and the podsquad joins in! Then we talk Vietnamese American Republicans in Orange County and rising COVID numbers in Vietnam.(0:00): Marshmallow test(10:50): Does Occupy Wall Street have an anarchist or socialist legacy? Why, even though it was “annoying” at times, does it still matter? Lots of personal anecdotes and reflection, plus a tangent about the suburbs.(1:02:20): Why did Vietnamese American Californians, who vote heavily Republican (even for Trump), vote against Gavin Newsom’s recall? (1:16:00): Vietnam recently went from having almost no coronavirus cases to an out-of-control epidemic. What happened, and what does it say about China and vaccine supply chains? Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Please keep in touch through Patreon and Substack, email ([email protected]) and Twitter! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Pod squad assemble!0:00 – Tammy catches us up on the latest in Asian Americana aka “Shang-Chi.” Jay and Andy remain skeptical of all things MCU. 12:30 – We talk about the new vaccine mandate and the current discourse around “the unvaccinated.” Are we too un/sympathetic to the material constraints of poor and working-class people who haven’t been vaccinated? Is vaccine skepticism a reflection of the US’s unique political polarization? And what to make of demographic trends by race, education, political party, and class? 43:50 – We mull Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s recent piece, “Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?” Should the left stake out a position on behavioral genetics, which the right has already done? Is all “genetics” talk doomed to slip into “race science”? Is race an inescapable way to think about the world?Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

(Audio fixed and updated Sept. 7 afternoon. Thanks for your patience!)Hola from the Inland Empire!This week, we bring you Tammy’s IRL interview with Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, in San Bernardino, California. Andrea talks about the meaning of “environmental justice,” local manifestations of global warming, working-class immigrant life in the desert, labor violations at Amazon, organizing outside the nonprofit industrial complex, and green futures in logistics. Some recs from Andrea: * Support PC4EJ’s work! * Read The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese.* Jam to Milpa, a musical collective in the Inland Empire, and oldies by The Chosen Few and Los Mirlos.* Read Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co., a novel by María Amparo Escandon.The pod squad will reunite ASAP. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email ([email protected]) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the West Coast!It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, on everything from backyard farming to Barbara Ehrenreich. * Jay advises Tammy on late-season tomato growing. 🍅* What to make of SCOTUS’s awful (but anticipated) decision to end the COVID eviction moratorium? Where will it hit worst? * Why are so many more people (nearly triple!) identifying as mixed-race in the US Census? Does it have anything to do with 23andMe? * Tammy asks Jay about the latest installment of his NYT newsletter: on what we might learn from the media misfires of 1968. * Who is teen TikToker Charli D’Amelio, and why does her whole family now have a Hulu reality show? Is it too late to get in on this hustle?Andy will be back soon. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email ([email protected]) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a reunited pod squad!This week, we gab about a welcome court ruling on California’s Proposition 22 gig-work law, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Sandra Oh’s new Netflix show. (0:00): Tammy on why Prop 22 was ruled unconstitutional and what it means for workers’ rights across the US(7:10): How to understand what’s happening in Afghanistan in the context of our long wars in the region(44:45): What “The Chair” says about Asian American TV, austerity politics in higher ed, race and generational divides, and the (cancel) culture wars. Thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email ([email protected]) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a Chinese ghost city!It’s just Andy this week, speaking with my friend academic-activist Jake Werner (@jwdwerner) on how to make sense of the current ideological shift in US and global politics and especially the hostile rhetoric between US and Chinese elites. (0:00) We talk about the recent spate of “big spending” bills pushed by Biden and the Democrats, supporting infrastructure (“hard” and “soft”) and industrial policy. Is this a break from “neoliberal” ideology? And also, what was “neoliberalism” about anyway? (17:40) Some of the biggest proponents for new, big-government programs are also the loudest critics of China and Chinese competition. What’s going on with purported leftists who supported Bernie but are hawkish on China? And is that really so bad?(45:40) We discuss a different way of thinking about China today on its own terms, reviewing its tumultuous 40-year encounter with a US-centered global system and what changed in 2008. How can we eschew approaches centered “national” and “cultural essence” and instead look at shared global dynamics between China, the US, and the rest of the world? (Jake outlined these ideas recently in this talk). (1:13:20) Finally, Jake’s pitch for “progressive globalization,” something he is fighting for through his organization Justice is Global (along with friend of the show Tobita Chow!). Why is the US-China relationship so crucial for the next phase in world history, from climate change to Covid to equitable growth? What’s the response in DC? How can listeners become more active? (also: tankies catching strays)Some pieces by Jake:“Only the Left can Save Globalization Now,” with Eric Levitz, New York Magazine (2021)“U.S.-China: Progressive Internationalist Strategy Under Biden” Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung with Tobita Chow (2021)“Why Confrontation With China Threatens the Progressive Agenda,” The Nation (2019)“China is cheating at a rigged game,” Foreign Affairs (2018)And recommended reading from Jake: “The US-China Rivalry Is About Capitalist Competition” by Ho-Fung Hung, Jacobin (2020)note: I tried to edit out the sounds of sickness throughout, but some had to be left in, sorry! It’s not Covid, I swear!Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from back in July, when Tammy recorded this special live episode in Portland, Oregon! The occasion was the new album, “1975,” by No-No Boy. No-No Boy is Julian Saporiti, a folk and rock musician from Nashville whose PhD dissertation has taken the form of an extended song cycle about Asian America. Julian and his partner, Emilia Halvorsen, an aspiring lawyer who co-produced and sings on “1975,” talked with Tammy about the folk tradition, US empire, travels in the Mountain West, ethnomusicology, the struggle for immigrants’ rights, Asian-American and mixed-race identities, John Okada, and Jens Lekman. They also performed two brand-new tunes.The songs you’ll hear in this episode:* “Imperial Twist,” No-No Boy, 1975 (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)* “St. Denis or Bangkok, From a Hotel Balcony,” 1975* “Yuiyo Bon Odori,” Nobuko Miyamoto, 120,000 Stories (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)* “The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming,” 1975* “No No Boy,” The Spiders (Philips, 1966)* “Disposable Youth,” No-No Boy, 1942 (2018)* “Pilgrims,” 1975* “St. Michael,” Little Monk Panda Scout aka Julian and Emilia* “Panda Scout,” Little Monk Panda ScoutThanks for listening and supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Get in touch by email ([email protected]) or Twitter, and props to all the Angelenos who came to our recent Discord-goes-IRL picnic! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Tammy’s DIY SUV camper! This week, we bring you talk of Korean archery, feminism, and misogyny. Plus, the terrifying end of the US eviction moratorium and what politicians and activists are doing about it. * An San, South Korea’s triple gold medalist in archery, has been attacked by men’s rights activists for… having short hair. Why are so many young men so misogynistic? So mixed up in right-wing politics? What is the character of new Korean feminism and its homegrown #MeToo movement? * US politics, a case study: Cori Bush and The Squad (who actually seem to care about tenants’ rights) vs. Nancy Pelosi (who just found out that the eviction moratorium was about to end). Thanks for supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Please be in touch via email ([email protected]) and Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Philly, Berkeley, and Pasadena!This week, we talk about the Tokyo Olympics, food appropriation in Oregon, and Raoul Peck’s film The Young Karl Marx (2017). * What are people protesting in Tokyo? In this pandemic moment, who are the Olympics for? Plus: props to young women weightlifters and skateboarders.* Why are Asian Americans so mad about congee? (And why are white restaurateurs in Oregon so prone to getting in race trouble?)* What did “The Communist Manifesto” mean in the time and place it was written? Does its analysis apply today? Why did Peck make this movie? (good film review here). Bonus: brief comparison to another origin-story biopic Amadeus (1984). (For more on the women’s work around these famous men, Tammy recommends biographies of Eleanor Marx, Karl’s daughter, and the French film Mozart’s Sister.)(And Andy laoshi suggests reading the original Marx from the film: Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1846) on the “young Hegelians”; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Proudhon; and ofc what we simply call “The Manifesto” (1848)). We were stoked to meet so many of you at our recent IRL in Berkeley. If you want to take part in such events and our raging Discord, join our membership club at Substack or Patreon. And please get in touch via Twitter or email ([email protected]).Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!This week: two pressing topics from the news and listener questions.First, we talk about the political crises in Haiti and Cuba and questions of U.S. empire and intervention. Though military invasions have become less savory, on Monday, U.S. officials still informally dictated Haiti’s choice for interim president. We place the news in geographic and historical context and draw connections to East Asia. Also: the hallowed place of the Haitian and Cuban revolutions for leftists (and academics), the logic of anti-imperialist and “decolonial” politics (think Latin American tankie-ism), and how best to understand the Caribbean today.Second, we discuss the spiraling numbers of Covid infections and hospitalizations among unvaccinated people in the U.S., especially in Black and Latino communities. How do these numbers square with mainstream media coverage of the unvaccinated? Is race the best framing? How bad will things get in the next few months? Not to mention how horribly things are going in the Global South, thanks to vaccine apartheid. Finally, some listener questions:* Brinda asks for reading recommendations. (Andy’s is a follow-up on the CRT episode: a feature on Chris Rufo in The New Yorker). * Daffodilly asks about “the academy” and “academia.”* And So Long, Lillian asks about intra-Asian (inter-Asian?) matrimony. (There are some studies!)Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!A guest episode today: Andy talks with U Chicago historian Gabriel Winant (@gabrielwinant) about his new book, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. We discuss capitalism and neoliberalism, what’s going on with the U.S. socialist movement, and class fissures within the professional ranks. Check out Gabe’s other writing in many places, including Dissent, n+1, The Nation, and Jacobin! 0:00 – Pittsburgh, discussions of class, Gabe’s journey, Marxism, and the rumored “history of capitalism” trend in the academy.20:00 – We dig into The Next Shift: steel in non-nostalgic terms, the difference between steel and healthcare (or manufacturing versus service), how nursing homes became so marginalized, and the strategic sectors for struggle today (healthcare? education?). 1:04:50 – Gabe’s 2019 essay on the “professional-managerial class”: revisiting Barbara and John Ehrenreich’s invention of the term in 1977, how it applies today, and why the only people who talk about the PMC are themselves the PMCest of PMCs? Watch out for bonus content later this week! The podsquad will be back again soon.Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, and welcome to Asian American Sports Talk radio—from the site of the 2032 Olympics!Three topics today:First, the Chinese Communist Party held a massive centennial celebration last week (here’s Andy talking about it), and China-watchers pounced on one phrase from Xi Jinping’s speech: that haters would suffer “broken heads and spilled blood” (頭破血流). Hey, imperialist pigs, nothing to see here!(8:20) Second, we discuss the racist origins, wasteful history, and cruel policies of the Olympic Games, ahead of the Tokyo games this month (and LA 2024, baby!). Also: some nostalgia for the 1988 Seoul Games, less so for Beijing 2008, and some proposals for how to continue watching some people run really fast in the future—but sustainably!(53:10) Finally, we weigh in on revelations that ESPN journalist Rachel Nichols criticized the promotion of colleague Maria Taylor on “diversity” grounds, as detailed by Kevin Draper in the Times. We talk about the meaning of “hard work,” private conversations, media no-nos, and how to talk about diversity (or not) in 2021.Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello! Today’s episode is about housing, the fight to end single-family zoning, YIMBYs, NIMBYs and PHIMBYs. Our guest today was Darrell Owens, a housing activist and policy analyst. We went through a lot — Berkeley’s recent unanimous initiative to end single-family zoning, asked the inevitable questions about whether this would actually help make Berkeley more affordable, talked a bit about the PHIMBY movement (Public Housing in My Backyard), the pragmatic limitations of all housing work, and much more. Give it a listen!- JayRelated Reading: Darrell’s Twitter: @idothethinkingHow Berkeley Beat Back NIMBYs in NYTimes OpinionWho are the PHIMBYs? in LA MagAn interview with Ananya Roy This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Tammy’s 104-degree podcast studio!This week, we talk about the nightmare of piled-up container ships on the West coast, why Covid has triggered these crises along the global supply chain, a bit of logistics history, and the dire ecological future that awaits us. Also, for the first time in a while, some listener questions:* Are there racial aspects to Yang’s mayoral downfall? Or do Yang’s two campaigns tell us something about the difference between appealing to Asians versus a wider public? * More on the “Asian pessimism” discussion from last week?* Any social-justice wins to be happy about? Thanks to Stephanie, Sam, and Cliff for their questions! And thanks to all of you for listening and subscribing. Stay cool! Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: [email protected]* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe