Speaker 1: Push it. Alright. So, so I'm gonna lead us off
Speaker 1: with the first question. Is that is that great? God?
Speaker 1: You're good? Yeah, you're ready? All right? All right? So
Speaker 1: what happens when a white guy, a black guy, and
Speaker 1: an Asian guy get together and talk about identity? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe the white guy is very quiet usually
Speaker 1: all right, that's good, that's good. I'm Khalil Jibrad Muhammad
Speaker 1: and I'm Ben Austin. We're two best friends, one black,
Speaker 1: one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist, and
Speaker 1: this is some of my best friends are in this show.
Speaker 1: We wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a
Speaker 1: deeply divided and unequal country, and in this episode we
Speaker 1: deepen our understanding of that divide by talking with Jay
Speaker 1: Caspian King about his new book The Loneliest Americans? Don't
Speaker 1: you baby, Dad? Khalil, We've been we've been thinking for
Speaker 1: a while, how do we do an episode of this
Speaker 1: show if some of my best friends are that that
Speaker 1: is about the Asian American experience? Yeah? Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, and I'm like, why don't
Speaker 1: we talk about all our Asian American best friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was worried that that was gonna be like, man,
Speaker 1: we sound like that the joke of the show's title,
Speaker 1: and you were like, yeah, yeah, but that's okay. So
Speaker 1: then Jay Caspian Kang's book came out, The Loneliest Americans, yep,
Speaker 1: and I remember you were like, dude, we should talk
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah. Yeah, because I've been following his work
Speaker 1: for for more than a decade, right, Like I remember
Speaker 1: he used to write for this website called grant Land,
Speaker 1: which I also wrote for. He worked for Vice News
Speaker 1: as a civil rights reporter. He wrote for The New
Speaker 1: York Times magazine, which we've both which we've both written for.
Speaker 1: But ump ump, yes, okay, all right, that's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he writes this newsletter now for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: which is so smart and funny and kind of offbeat
Speaker 1: at the same time. Part of the race related series,
Speaker 1: right yeah. Yeah. So this was like it seems so
Speaker 1: connected to what we're doing and and and also controversial
Speaker 1: in a way like this book, I think The Loneliest
Speaker 1: Americans takes a stance that has actually like he's got
Speaker 1: some backlash on Yeah. So we got him on the show.
Speaker 1: He joined us from his home in northern California. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it just generally for listeners. The
Speaker 1: book is about the identity of Asian people in America,
Speaker 1: and I'm careful to not saying Asian American because you
Speaker 1: talk about how that identity doesn't exist and sort of
Speaker 1: you challenge that that that sense and I we want
Speaker 1: to invite you on the show because we read this
Speaker 1: book and it felt so much in dialogue with this show,
Speaker 1: which is called Some of My Best Friends Are and
Speaker 1: as you know, about race and all these ways and
Speaker 1: also with our lives, because the show is really about
Speaker 1: you know, we're wrestling with these stories too, and the
Speaker 1: white black binary, yeah, and like embodied and the sense
Speaker 1: like you you write about this white black binary and
Speaker 1: that you know, the white part sort of embodying assimilation
Speaker 1: and upward mobility, and the black part a sense of
Speaker 1: either like victimization and racial struggle and that there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a place for you personally and also not a
Speaker 1: place for most Asians in America. Certainly, My parents were
Speaker 1: never like how's it going navigating space or like, you know,
Speaker 1: how does it feel to be you know, in these
Speaker 1: classrooms or like you know what's going on in there
Speaker 1: um and and and man, I mean like thinking about
Speaker 1: your book and thinking about like we went back to
Speaker 1: our high school yearbook after reading your book because Jay
Speaker 1: I brought it. I brought it out just for you,
Speaker 1: and you know, like it looks like a chessboard, right,
Speaker 1: it's like black white black white white. That's wow. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like one white kid on each page. Every every
Speaker 1: girl has the exacting way more way more in the
Speaker 1: middle of exactly and more particularly, I mean to Ben's
Speaker 1: larger point. I mean, because your book inspired so much
Speaker 1: of our own thinking about like seeing ourselves like across
Speaker 1: this vast spectrum of how we understand whiteness and blackness.
Speaker 1: I literally went back and counted, like how many students
Speaker 1: could I identify as part of an Asian diaspora? And
Speaker 1: I couldn't get to two hands. Oh wow, how big
Speaker 1: was a school? Almost two pretty sure our class? Yeah,
Speaker 1: five hundred yeah. And I thought maybe we could first
Speaker 1: start about the three of us all growing up mostly
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, and thinking about how we all
Speaker 1: learned that that binary existed, Like this is sort of
Speaker 1: the main racial divide and you have to fit somewhere
Speaker 1: in it, right, right. I split my childhood between Cambridge,
Speaker 1: Master Jesus Chapehol North Carolina, two university towns. And in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: you know, after a few years, for a year we
Speaker 1: moved out to the suburbs, I think as in first
Speaker 1: or second grade. And this one of my first clear
Speaker 1: memories is that, you know, watching the kids get off
Speaker 1: the Metco bus. You know, like when we had beard
Speaker 1: to the suburbs. It's all black, you know, just black
Speaker 1: kids probably from Roxbury, South Boston. You gotta tell us
Speaker 1: a little something about Mecco because you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of this dream experiment that people brag about, is like,
Speaker 1: like about it. Wow. Macco was the Boston area busting program, right,
Speaker 1: and it was seen as this great speaking of progressive
Speaker 1: thought and it was a huge infrastructure thing where they
Speaker 1: would bus kids thirty forty minutes out into the suburbs
Speaker 1: and that it was basically the peak of like school integration, goodwill. Right,
Speaker 1: And yeah, one of the first memories I have from
Speaker 1: from my childhood period is just sort of standing at
Speaker 1: the bus circle and you know, watching the Mico bus
Speaker 1: roll and and every kid who got off the bus
Speaker 1: was black. And there are no black kids at the
Speaker 1: rest of the school, and like maybe there's one or two,
Speaker 1: but almost none. But I don't think that I was
Speaker 1: really aware that I was like much different than the
Speaker 1: white kids, you know, because I lived in that town, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I didn't take that bus, and so the differentiate or
Speaker 1: of race in that in that instance was whether or
Speaker 1: not you took the bus. Right. That was the first
Speaker 1: time I thought I actually realized that there was any difference,
Speaker 1: you know, and standing in the bus circle there and
Speaker 1: just sort of you know, because it was so it
Speaker 1: was so stark, right like it was just like those
Speaker 1: kids ride that bus. I don't ride that bus, right,
Speaker 1: and so I must be part of this group. So
Speaker 1: then you move from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the south to
Speaker 1: Chapel Hill, I believe, right in North Carolina. What was
Speaker 1: that school? Like My schooling was very similar to yours.
Speaker 1: You know, there weren't that many Asian kids around, and
Speaker 1: the school had a lot of black students and a
Speaker 1: lot of white students. You know. Um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: this really interesting class element to it too, where I
Speaker 1: was in this very odd program back then and it
Speaker 1: was like eighteen of us. I don't I hate people
Speaker 1: say this, but it's like some sort of like accelerated program.
Speaker 1: But we had three black kids in that class, and
Speaker 1: one of their fathers was like the most famous doctor
Speaker 1: in the area, like you know, like on local news
Speaker 1: when the doctor comes on, right, right, So he was
Speaker 1: our in the Piedmont area. He was sort of the
Speaker 1: Sanjay Gupta. And then the other girl in our class,
Speaker 1: her father was an educator. The mother was like I
Speaker 1: think worked in stem And then we had one kid
Speaker 1: who is from the sort of you know, the poor
Speaker 1: black neighborhood and Chapel Hill. And it was interesting how
Speaker 1: like that was even differentiated even for us in fifth grade. Right,
Speaker 1: you mean you understood these black kids were different from
Speaker 1: each other, right, right. It was more ingrained in us
Speaker 1: to think of it that way than it would be
Speaker 1: to think of it as being like totally separated, right,
Speaker 1: And it was very It made for a very confusing
Speaker 1: experience that I tried to write about in the book,
Speaker 1: where it's just like, you know, like how do you
Speaker 1: sort of sort all this, especially when you know you're
Speaker 1: in the situation where you have to differentiate. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting point about how you're also navigating the
Speaker 1: absurdities of racial stereotypes that you can see black people
Speaker 1: who are also trying to traverse, challenge, avoid And you
Speaker 1: tell this great story about Dwayne, a friend of yours
Speaker 1: who you befriended. I can't that was that also in Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the same kid who was in that class, who
Speaker 1: came who lived in that Okay, so we're talking about Dwayne. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the poor kid. Yeah yeah, yeah. You make the
Speaker 1: point about Duwayne as the poor kid in the community
Speaker 1: being kind of representative of the absurdity of this notion
Speaker 1: of people of color all being the same. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: someone had told me that we were both people of color.
Speaker 1: Just look at them like they're crazy, you know, because
Speaker 1: there was such separation between me and Dwayne, right, and
Speaker 1: you know, in the book, I sort of illustrated through
Speaker 1: this anecdote where like our literal league games or some
Speaker 1: of our little games were played in Dwayne's neighborhood. And
Speaker 1: if you can imagine how yeah, this is still the
Speaker 1: South Chepho's progressive town is still the South, right, and
Speaker 1: the way in which people would talk about going to
Speaker 1: those games right, lock your car, you know, like make
Speaker 1: sure that like get in and out as quickly as possible,
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff, this kind of anti black
Speaker 1: everyone's a criminal rhetoric. Yeah, and you know as a kid,
Speaker 1: you absorbed that, right. And so then you were playing
Speaker 1: and Dwayne walks over the field, he sees me, says hello,
Speaker 1: you know, I there's another moment where I just like
Speaker 1: sort of understand that seeing him in that environment, you
Speaker 1: see like, oh, what they're talking about when they say
Speaker 1: lock your cars and get out of there as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible as Dwayne? Right, And so the idea at
Speaker 1: that moment that like, you and Dwayne are people of
Speaker 1: color and like, what what are you talking about? You know?
Speaker 1: And um, I don't know. I've thought about that moment
Speaker 1: so much throughout my life where it's just like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because in some ways I felt like I
Speaker 1: was betraying him, right, um, because I was acting so
Speaker 1: awkward and that it was shocking to me. I was
Speaker 1: like probably twelve years old something like that, and um,
Speaker 1: and I'm having these thoughts right about my friend. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's tough to talk about even now,
Speaker 1: you know. And the reality of it is that I
Speaker 1: think if you said that Deirdre and I, you know,
Speaker 1: who was a woman whose father was like our famous doctor.
Speaker 1: If you had said Deirdre and your people of color,
Speaker 1: I had been sure, you know, but Due and I
Speaker 1: could not be people of color together. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's like a very complicated thing that I think
Speaker 1: that those types of distinctions are very uncomfortable. But you know,
Speaker 1: in my life, at least, they're much more felt, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like they seem much more real to me
Speaker 1: than terms like people of color. You struggle with the
Speaker 1: term people of color throughout most of the book, and
Speaker 1: I've been thinking, is there is there a moment when
Speaker 1: you really come to terms with who you are? Because
Speaker 1: that seems to me to be a question at the
Speaker 1: heart of this book. Who am I? Right? Right? That's true? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it was a series of moments. And I
Speaker 1: think what's interesting about the series of moments, and maybe
Speaker 1: this is not typical for Asian people, but certainly it
Speaker 1: was true for me, was that none of the moments
Speaker 1: had anything to do with white people. Right. Of course,
Speaker 1: in some ways it had to do with white people,
Speaker 1: but it was not about differentiating myself from white people
Speaker 1: or having white people differentiate themselves from me, right, It
Speaker 1: was about every single one of these moments involved black people,
Speaker 1: right involved It involved either differentiating myself from black people
Speaker 1: or having black people differentiate themselves from me. Wow, And
Speaker 1: I think that that actually is you know, it has
Speaker 1: informed basically all of my thinking, right, and that this
Speaker 1: went through a lot of phases like when I was sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen, like I wore Timberland's and listen to listen
Speaker 1: to Wu Tang and nas and oh, snap, you're getting
Speaker 1: close to band. You're pushing up on the white guy
Speaker 1: in this conversation. I wonder he has some stories to tell, right, right.
Speaker 1: But it was like, you know, like I feel like
Speaker 1: people are about our age and a little bit older.
Speaker 1: I'm much more familiar with this than young people today
Speaker 1: because I think it's sort of been drummed out of
Speaker 1: the culture. But there's a period where like a lot
Speaker 1: of Asian kids, a lot of Jews kids, I think,
Speaker 1: would sort of put on this affect when they're teenagers,
Speaker 1: right or maybe, And sometimes like it's like I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's even an affect, right, It's just like
Speaker 1: you're developing, and this is this is a path that
Speaker 1: you chose, You chose this type of identification and I
Speaker 1: definitely went through all of that, right, and so you
Speaker 1: you swing back and forth, right, but um, well it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me at the time or you know now
Speaker 1: that I think about it is like I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, Ben, why did you like what
Speaker 1: was your because he's literally just literally the white guy
Speaker 1: in this conversation being silent, like you said at the right.
Speaker 1: And then what's the what was that like for you?
Speaker 1: Like what like what what was your experience with that?
Speaker 1: The what is like in terms of identity right now?
Speaker 1: Like in high school? Like where you did you listen
Speaker 1: rap and like sort of talk about yeah, listen to rap?
Speaker 1: I mean like Khalil and I joke because he was
Speaker 1: more like Phil Collins, and I was more like, are
Speaker 1: you talking about me? You got to talk about I'm
Speaker 1: embracing it. Uh. You know. So the dominant culture was,
Speaker 1: you know, which I've felt a part of. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, saturated by by this world
Speaker 1: and like you know, uh, connected to it in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Um. You know, Khalil had been asking
Speaker 1: me after reading this book about being Jewish in that
Speaker 1: in that world, and I was sort of thinking about
Speaker 1: that in my head, and like there wasn't like an
Speaker 1: alternative white dominant culture that I felt that I you know,
Speaker 1: was vacillating between you know, like like between say white
Speaker 1: and black and then a third thing Jewish. You know
Speaker 1: that they're just it didn't exist in any numbers in
Speaker 1: our in our community. Um so I could be the
Speaker 1: think of a whole lot of corny white dudes who
Speaker 1: you know. But but that doesn't mean exactly, That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it's did you have like a like did
Speaker 1: you feel like not totally white at the time? Either,
Speaker 1: because like that was it? You know in North Carolina
Speaker 1: that my friends are mostly Jewish, there weren't that many
Speaker 1: of them, you know, And I think about it, it's
Speaker 1: like this is like the eighties and nineties. It's like
Speaker 1: they weren't exactly white back then either, you know, Like
Speaker 1: that's a great question. You know, what's what's funny about that.
Speaker 1: I would say that I didn't think that at all
Speaker 1: in high school. And then when I went to college
Speaker 1: and I was like amidst this all white culture, I
Speaker 1: was like, man, I'm not really like all these white people,
Speaker 1: And I didn't think in those terms beforehand. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought I was just this thing that existed in
Speaker 1: this space. Um, and and then being in a in
Speaker 1: an all white space, essentially a college and people who
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in communities and neighborhoods like I did,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm not like these white people.
Speaker 1: And that had less to do with being Jewish than
Speaker 1: than with sort of just coming from from a certain
Speaker 1: certain neighborhood. Right. Well, well, what I can tell you,
Speaker 1: Jay uh In, in clearer terms is that this dude
Speaker 1: was was black cool in high school. Uh He carried
Speaker 1: himself in the way that you know, had swagger. He
Speaker 1: wore a gold chain. To this day, I've never owned
Speaker 1: a gold chain. I'm gonna I'm gonna get you one
Speaker 1: for your He had, he had his garb o jeans.
Speaker 1: I was still weare who didn't? Yeah, well I had,
Speaker 1: I had, And so if I showed you pictures of
Speaker 1: him back then, you would totally get it. Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And any of my friends were exactly you know, we're
Speaker 1: like that. It's an interesting thing because I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sort of shame. Right. It's not
Speaker 1: like people like are gonna cancel you get mad at
Speaker 1: you if you did that, but certainly and unless you
Speaker 1: actually put on black face, right, done, right, But it's
Speaker 1: very stot of his very ghost now, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: like do you do you get that? Do you think
Speaker 1: it's ghost now or do you like how do you
Speaker 1: reflect back on it and think about like, hey, you know, like, no,
Speaker 1: I was right, you know, No, No, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't feel it because I don't feel like I was
Speaker 1: pretending to be something I wasn't either, right, I think
Speaker 1: I was aware of the cultures around me and also
Speaker 1: you know, engaged in it um and so yeah, the
Speaker 1: menu of options were there, and I like picked from
Speaker 1: those menu items, you know, like the six items. I
Speaker 1: picked five of them and one of them, as Khalil said,
Speaker 1: it might have been like, you know, white kid on
Speaker 1: the math team, and I didn't pick that one. When
Speaker 1: we come back after the break, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Jay about choices he made to focus his reporting
Speaker 1: on Black Lives Matter protests and the choices Asians in
Speaker 1: America can make about their future. You write a lot
Speaker 1: about your reporting on the Black Lives Matter protests, which
Speaker 1: is something that I also did a lot of reporting
Speaker 1: on here in Chicago. After the killing of Lakwan McDonald
Speaker 1: and sort of like I got deep into this here,
Speaker 1: and you know what drew you to that reporting and
Speaker 1: sort of like what did you learn about yourself by
Speaker 1: covering this racial justice moment? Well, you know, since I
Speaker 1: was in high school or college, I thought that I
Speaker 1: still feel this way, you know, like I'm very drawn
Speaker 1: to protest movements, especially you know, street protests. It's like
Speaker 1: the thing that I feel most passionately about. Right, And
Speaker 1: so during Ferguson and for the four years after, like
Speaker 1: that was basically my job. Yeah, you were, you were
Speaker 1: their quote civil rights reporter for it. For right, I
Speaker 1: did some stuff for The Times, and then my job
Speaker 1: for vices, you know, just go and you know, see
Speaker 1: what's happening. And uh, as a result, I went to
Speaker 1: tons of these protests, right, like uh, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, Baltimore,
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, Alton, Stirling, right, right, and you write a
Speaker 1: lot about Philando Castile, right. You know, it felt like
Speaker 1: at first I was just like, well, and a lot
Speaker 1: they might be like, well, I'm the only Asian person here,
Speaker 1: you know, and like what it's like you like you
Speaker 1: count the faces right, right, right? I would just count
Speaker 1: well one more thing before you say that. So I
Speaker 1: learned for the first time that Asian people at least
Speaker 1: at least you give the nod. I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: Like there's an Asian nod, right, isn't then what you say?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I think I have protested
Speaker 1: like twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, Yeah, definitely. But now last
Speaker 1: summer there was much more Asian people out for George Floyd.
Speaker 1: But you know, prior to that, I would see very few,
Speaker 1: you know, and um, people can argue with me or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I was at all of these, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was looking and I didn't see many, and it
Speaker 1: really did sort of form a lot of my thinking
Speaker 1: in the last five years. Right. It was just like, well,
Speaker 1: what is all this? What is like sort of the
Speaker 1: public face of what people say Asian American identity is
Speaker 1: within like the press, right, they say, oh, well, it's
Speaker 1: like a radical political identity. It's like, you know, like
Speaker 1: we're allies, were we're fellow people of color, right, And
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well where are you? You know, like,
Speaker 1: um like why are you not showing up? Where are
Speaker 1: all of you? And um, you know, it made me
Speaker 1: realize that like the people who say those things are
Speaker 1: saying them in earnest and I bet a lot of
Speaker 1: them did go to a lot of those protests, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's a very small population, and the fast majority
Speaker 1: of Asian America people who are either recent immigrants or
Speaker 1: people who are a political right and and yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think it's difficult to make the argument
Speaker 1: that the people who who sort of think of Asian
Speaker 1: American identity as like this progressive people of color thing
Speaker 1: or in any way, the majority they're just you know,
Speaker 1: they're just happen to be the people who get to
Speaker 1: talk and define that thing. And that realization I think
Speaker 1: it has been like the most formative for my political
Speaker 1: police at least, right, which is just like maybe we
Speaker 1: don't have to think about this stuff. Maybe it's more
Speaker 1: important to show up and you know, like within the
Speaker 1: space of the protest, like all these things will be resolved.
Speaker 1: You can make connections, you can talk to people, you
Speaker 1: can organize with people, and that if you show up,
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the people, they are not going
Speaker 1: to worry about you know, your relative privilege or or
Speaker 1: you know where you fit on a racial hierarchy scale
Speaker 1: at all, Right, Like they're happy you showed up. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's a message I tried to put
Speaker 1: in the book because I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of Asian Americans like myself, who you know,
Speaker 1: went to good schools and are upwardly mobile. I think
Speaker 1: I just need to hear it, you know, like, don't
Speaker 1: worry about show up. Yeah, Jay, this is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I teach at Harvard and I
Speaker 1: see I see these kids. I mean, and many of
Speaker 1: them were born here. Some of them aren't into the country.
Speaker 1: But to your point about feeling uncomfortable with this notion
Speaker 1: of a shared people of color identity is a very
Speaker 1: real thing, and I think your book does a good
Speaker 1: job of that. I think it would be helpful for me, though,
Speaker 1: to understand, like, how before nineteen sixty five, for those immigrants,
Speaker 1: as compared to the kids we're talking about that I teach,
Speaker 1: or yourself, or the people you want to show up
Speaker 1: at these protests, how should we understand this difference between
Speaker 1: the four nineteen sixty five and after nineteen sixty five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So in nineteen sixty census, there's like something like eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people who are called Asians in this country, right,
Speaker 1: and many of them have been here for generations, right.
Speaker 1: And the reason why there's not more is because it's
Speaker 1: you know, there's exclusion laws. It's basically impossible to immigrate
Speaker 1: from Asia to the United States. And so you have
Speaker 1: this community, like a lot of them have been interned,
Speaker 1: right by the time the sixties roll around, and it's
Speaker 1: a small community. They've direct links back to a lot
Speaker 1: of the campaigns of like racial terror that were inflicted
Speaker 1: upon Chinese people. All this stuff happened, and then what
Speaker 1: you have in ninety sixty five, you have you at
Speaker 1: the heartseller Immigration Act, and now you have more than
Speaker 1: twenty million Asian people in America and the fastest growing yeah, right, population,
Speaker 1: fast growing population, people from all sorts of countries right
Speaker 1: coming in. You know the boundaries what Asian America is
Speaker 1: expand every single day, right. And you have populations that
Speaker 1: people don't even know about, right, like um like mong population,
Speaker 1: or you have like Laosian populations. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you ask people on the street what's Asian, what is
Speaker 1: Asian America mean, They're mostly gonna just say Chinese, Japanese
Speaker 1: or whatever, maybe sometimes Korean Korea or Korean and so
Speaker 1: the boundaries are have expanded just drastically since then. And
Speaker 1: so one of the questions that I asked is, just like,
Speaker 1: it's a history that those people prior to nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: five define themselves through internment exclusion, right, does it really
Speaker 1: have that much relevance to the people who came post
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five? Do the stories from the past
Speaker 1: have any irrelevance to the masses of people who come afterwards?
Speaker 1: And how do they think about themselves in America? Right?
Speaker 1: And I think they think about themselves in America very differently.
Speaker 1: I think they're much more like my parents, who are
Speaker 1: just sort of like, put your head down, work, you know,
Speaker 1: don't think of about it. You're in America now, you know,
Speaker 1: try and fit in and try and be successful, right,
Speaker 1: And these are the ways that you can be successful.
Speaker 1: We can't help you all that much, you know, because
Speaker 1: we don't know, we have no social capital here, right.
Speaker 1: And so what's strange is that there's now this disconnect
Speaker 1: where the way that Asian American history is told, or
Speaker 1: Asian American identity is formed, it's very much based in
Speaker 1: things like the Chinese Exclusion Act, right, like you saw
Speaker 1: when the women get killed in the spa in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Like everybody's doing threads about Asian American history, right, and
Speaker 1: it's it's about internment stuff like that. And my thought
Speaker 1: is always just like I'm not that stuff is bad,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was. It was it was like
Speaker 1: a regime of white terror against Asian people, Right, What
Speaker 1: does that really have like a full on connection with
Speaker 1: people who who have no no lineage to that out
Speaker 1: at all. Right, And so I think that's sort of
Speaker 1: the point that I try and make in the book,
Speaker 1: which is just like this is a pretty formless group
Speaker 1: people at this point, right, and that, um, they can
Speaker 1: really be anything. But what the thing that they're not
Speaker 1: really is like a fully formed people in any sort
Speaker 1: of way. Yeah, right, They're not cohesive yet, because I
Speaker 1: think to your point, the assimilationists imperatives of post sixty
Speaker 1: five immigrants, the ones who are coming today, I agree
Speaker 1: with you, creates this huge knowledge vacuum. And I think
Speaker 1: part of what you're writing about in this book is
Speaker 1: is kind of what that means for justice? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'll say, like you know, the book is fascinating
Speaker 1: and the storytelling is amazing. Your mom on trips taking
Speaker 1: out the phone book and looking for Korean names, right,
Speaker 1: and then and then actually calling those people and then
Speaker 1: like getting together with right. Yeah, they're just like sort
Speaker 1: of asking like, hey, you are right here? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm just meaning, like, you know that's a Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was definitely a cringe moment for me and my
Speaker 1: sis and what are you doing? Yeah, But now that
Speaker 1: I'm older, I understand it much better. You know, she
Speaker 1: must have felt very unsettled when my dad dragged us
Speaker 1: all out to like the you know, the barons of
Speaker 1: the West every summer, being like right, this is like Wyoming, right, Wyoming, Montana,
Speaker 1: North Dakota South, Like is there are only vacations like
Speaker 1: we didn't go to I don't know, normal vacations. Man,
Speaker 1: I love your parents, but can we talk about you
Speaker 1: as a parent. You also open and close the book
Speaker 1: writing about your daughter, and your daughter is biracial, your
Speaker 1: your your wife is white. And I'll also make a
Speaker 1: plug half Jewish and also my children are by racial
Speaker 1: And it is such an interesting sort of you know,
Speaker 1: opening up to identity because you don't share a certain
Speaker 1: kind of identity with the person who is closest to
Speaker 1: you in the world, and and so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of reflection that that causes. And maybe early on because
Speaker 1: later you're just like I'm just trying to deal with
Speaker 1: being a parent, but early on like where you are,
Speaker 1: like you're really you're deep in at thinking these thoughts
Speaker 1: like will my child have an experience that it's different
Speaker 1: than mine? Yeah, I mean that's sort of the emotional
Speaker 1: core of the book, right, It's sort of a rumination
Speaker 1: on why why did this happen to me, you know
Speaker 1: and other Asian people? And then what's the future going
Speaker 1: to look like right now that people are in this
Speaker 1: path of assimilation or if they are on this path
Speaker 1: of assimilation, and and who are the people who are
Speaker 1: not on the path of assimilation? What are their lives
Speaker 1: going to look like? And so for my daughter, I
Speaker 1: think about him, like, you know, she's we live here
Speaker 1: in the East Bay, and you know, there's a ton
Speaker 1: of half Asian kids running around, right, And she goes
Speaker 1: to a school where there are way more half Asian
Speaker 1: kids than there were Asian kids period in any school
Speaker 1: I ever went too, And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: Asian kids too, right, And I remember the teacher at
Speaker 1: some point. You know, this is I think during Pride
Speaker 1: Week or something like that, like said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: she's like, I just want to raise like a bunch
Speaker 1: of allies, right, like I want these kids to be allies.
Speaker 1: And it's very you know, like in my head, it
Speaker 1: kind of fucked me up because I was like, ally, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I am not white, you know, like like
Speaker 1: if somebody had told me, like, you know, like you
Speaker 1: need to be an ally, I would be like listen,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm I'm not white, you know, like
Speaker 1: let me tell you, like you need you need to
Speaker 1: a lie with me. Right. My child who was like
Speaker 1: not great, you know, like because I am not white,
Speaker 1: you know. But then I think about it just like
Speaker 1: maybe she's right, you know, like maybe you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure Ben you had these thoughts too. Or it's just
Speaker 1: like like, is the stuff that I write, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the stuff that I think about, I talked about
Speaker 1: in myself, is going to be relatable to her, right,
Speaker 1: Like is she gonna think about things in the same way? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting you have such a contrarian persona online right
Speaker 1: and and and you know, I mean maybe that is
Speaker 1: inherently part of you. But it also feels, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so forward on and everything you post and that,
Speaker 1: as you said, is like this emotional core and rawness
Speaker 1: and openness you know, it has it has none of that.
Speaker 1: Well I was I was thinking though that, I mean,
Speaker 1: your dilemma, which you so you're so expressive about, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're like, you know, I don't want my daughter
Speaker 1: to be entitled, you know, I don't want to raise
Speaker 1: a spoiled kid. I mean, these are your words, right,
Speaker 1: And it seems to me, like Ben and I have
Speaker 1: talked about this on this show a lot, but we
Speaker 1: as parents do make a choice. We make a choice
Speaker 1: about what we teach our kids about the world we
Speaker 1: live in. And you know, I'm wondering, just as a
Speaker 1: final reflection, like, are you teaching your daughter the things
Speaker 1: that you're writing about, because that seems to me to
Speaker 1: be a very different reality for her than what happened
Speaker 1: to you when your parents didn't talk to you about
Speaker 1: these things. Well, she's she's she's about to turn five,
Speaker 1: and so it's right about the time when these conversations start,
Speaker 1: you know, And um, yeah, I think so, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that that I would like her to
Speaker 1: be aware of it in a way. Now she turns
Speaker 1: into like your sort of stereotypical, like you know, bleeding
Speaker 1: heart liberal Berkeley kid. I'd be overjoyed. I'd be so happy,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, yeah, you know here in Berkeley
Speaker 1: we have a huge homeless population, right, and you know, like,
Speaker 1: uh does not understand why people live in tense right,
Speaker 1: And those conversations are starting. I had a friend come
Speaker 1: over at some point, and I probably shouldn't tell this story,
Speaker 1: but it's almost it's kind of a little funny, you know.
Speaker 1: But she had a friend coming in the middle of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and no one had been in our house
Speaker 1: in a long time. And first when first people come
Speaker 1: to our house is one of my friends who's black,
Speaker 1: and she goes like he walks in and she says
Speaker 1: he's black. I was like, ohoh, you know, like it
Speaker 1: wasn't because she had not been around black people before,
Speaker 1: you know, but I think that she had been learning
Speaker 1: at school that there was this you know, like because
Speaker 1: they learned about civil rights movement everything like that, and
Speaker 1: I think that it had been this moment where she
Speaker 1: like was starting to differentiate people. And you know, when
Speaker 1: we lived in New York. I lived in Crown Heights.
Speaker 1: You know, she goes to U preschool everything like that,
Speaker 1: where like you know, like thirty the kids in her
Speaker 1: class are black, and so it's not like she had
Speaker 1: not been around black people before, but it was this
Speaker 1: moment where you know, something had clicked in her head
Speaker 1: and so yeah, we had to talk then too, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's Jay Jay that is that's such a beautiful
Speaker 1: story because you know, for me as a parent, my
Speaker 1: kids are older, my wife and I committed very early
Speaker 1: onto teaching them, but even we made mistakes. And by that,
Speaker 1: I mean we didn't talk about Asians like we talked
Speaker 1: about black white and the consequences of that was that
Speaker 1: we were living My youngest daughter was born Indiana, were
Speaker 1: having in a community with a large population of Asian students,
Speaker 1: many of whom were immigrant students. And one day babysitter
Speaker 1: has are like four year old kid on the bus,
Speaker 1: the campus bus, which was not a common experience for her.
Speaker 1: But she's on a campus bus and she turns to
Speaker 1: her babysitter and says, why are there so many Asian
Speaker 1: people on this bus? Right? Right? Right? So you know,
Speaker 1: like that's an invitation right to parenting and to having
Speaker 1: a conversation. We are just so grateful for you spending
Speaker 1: time with us today, and we're going to count you
Speaker 1: among our best friends. Jay, So thanks for thanks for
Speaker 1: spending time with us. Jay. Oh good, now, this is great.
Speaker 1: I think I think talking to him, I appreciated so
Speaker 1: much his openness with us and how experiences from his
Speaker 1: childhood are still he's still processing them, and you know,
Speaker 1: I feel the same way. I feel the same way
Speaker 1: about my past, Like it's still I'm still wrestling with
Speaker 1: different ideas and thinking about wrestling with no doubt you
Speaker 1: to talk about that some more. But but but I
Speaker 1: also think like if the book was only his personal
Speaker 1: individual experiences, it wouldn't work right, Like, like he is
Speaker 1: just one person, but he tells this story about himself,
Speaker 1: and it is a kind of coming of age story
Speaker 1: and a coming of age story racially, but also an
Speaker 1: intellectual coming of age story because he tells a story
Speaker 1: of thinking. You know, he cakes all this personal stuff
Speaker 1: and history and research and other flashpoint moments that are
Speaker 1: really important for an Asian community in the United States.
Speaker 1: I think I think that works. But I think the
Speaker 1: word I would use would not be intellectual. I think
Speaker 1: it would be political. One of the things that stuck
Speaker 1: out to me is when he talked about, both in
Speaker 1: the book and a little bit in our conversation that
Speaker 1: you know, who is really speaking for the people working
Speaker 1: in low wage retail nail salon laundering restaurants today, who's
Speaker 1: really speaking for them? And what he's basically saying is
Speaker 1: in my community, not a whole lot of us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's saying their politics don't align necessarily, but we
Speaker 1: have to find this common ground. And that, to me,
Speaker 1: that was a really powerful part of the book. That
Speaker 1: is an especially powerful part of the book because that's
Speaker 1: so much about what you and I are really committed to.
Speaker 1: We're committed to the work that we do individually and
Speaker 1: this show collectively, because these issues that we face should
Speaker 1: be all of ours to tackle. Yeah. Yeah. Jay opens
Speaker 1: the book by saying he's not going to provide all
Speaker 1: the answers, but he really is going to engage with
Speaker 1: a lot of these questions, and he totally succeeds in that. Like,
Speaker 1: I am deeply immersed in this topic now from reading
Speaker 1: the book and thinking about it a lot, and wrestling
Speaker 1: with these questions and I definitely recommend people to dive
Speaker 1: into this book as well. Yeah, and the truth is that,
Speaker 1: probably for the first time in many ways, I am
Speaker 1: much more sensitive to and aware of many more communities
Speaker 1: that I need to care as much about as I
Speaker 1: care about my own. I think that's really that's a
Speaker 1: value to the book. So yeah, that's a powerful point.
Speaker 1: All right, man, love you, Love you too. Some of
Speaker 1: My Best Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: The show is written and hosted by me Khalilibron Mohammed
Speaker 1: and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff
Speaker 1: Vincent and edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Our associate editor is Keishell Williams, Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Lucy Sullivan, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Leeta Molad and Mia La Belle. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jay Caspian Kang. He's our newest best friend and
Speaker 1: you should check out his book, The Loneliest Americans and
Speaker 1: also subscribe to his New York Times newsletter at Pushkin.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Heather Faine, Carley Migliori, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 1: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan AVERYR.
Speaker 1: Young from his amazing album Tubman. You will definitely want
Speaker 1: to check out more of his music at his website
Speaker 1: averyryng dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social
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Speaker 1: our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Speaker 1: subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four
Speaker 1: dollars and ninety nine cents a month. Look for Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. And I just want to say, Khalil,
Speaker 1: you just proved that argument about somebody who's connected to
Speaker 1: Harvard will bring it up in the first fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: of the conversation, because I didn't actually say no, that's
Speaker 1: I brought it on first. I see it's what little
Speaker 1: you know about Cambridge has more than just Harvard. How
Speaker 1: about that