Asia Pacific Forum

Asia Pacific Forum•podcasters.spotify.com

Asia Pacific Forum (APF), is a unique public affairs podcast on Asian and Asian American culture, politics, history and current events. Since its early days as a community radio program on New York’s famed WBAI, APF has produced interviews with a wide range of eminent figures in Asian and Asian American communities: emerging artists; writers and musicians; and grassroots activists campaigning for racial, economic and environmental justice.

Contact us at asiapacificforum[at]gmail.com

Last refreshed: April 22nd, 2026 at 1:00 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

Zohran Mamdani's win, AAPI voters, New York Sari (Nov 2025)

Zohran Mamdani’s stunning upset in the New York City mayoral race appears to be a remarkable story of the rise of a political underdog, but for many New Yorkers, his victory was a longtime coming. His win, powered by about 100,000 volunteers and a groundswell of support from working-class immigrant and ethnic communities, is the culmination of years of grassroots organizing and nurturing a socialist base across the five boroughs, and long-simmering frustration with the city’s democrat party esta...

Nov 21, 2025•1 hr 6 min

Asian American politics in the Trump Era

As we head into the Second Trump Administration, we’re taking stock of what’s been happening in politics within and around Asian American communities. In light of new data showing significant shifts to the right among Asian American voters, as well as new, sometimes troubling developments in diaspora politics, we are doing a deep dive into some issues relevant to AAPI communities that surfaced this past election season, and seeing how the political and ideological landscape of Asian America has ...

Jan 20, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 3Ep. 1

Remembering Hyun Lee: A Warrior for Justice in NYC’s AAPI and LGBTQ Communities and the Korea Peace Movement

This Pride Month episode is a special tribute to a former APF collective member and dear friend Hyun Lee, who passed away last year in 2022. Hyun was an APF member for several years from 2010, mainly covering stories on the people’s struggles in South and North Korea and against US imperialism and militarism especially in East Asia. Hyun (also known as Lee Hyun Jung) was a long-time, beloved member of many organizations and communities locally in NYC, Philly and also nationally and international...

Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 30 min

Corky Lee's Legacy

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

Mar 10, 2023•25 min

Confronting Caste in the South Asian Diaspora (with Paula Chakravartty and Ajantha Subramanian)

Over the past few years, the Asian American community has been navigating the country’s tumultuous racial and ethnic politics in unprecedented ways--as the targets of racial violence, as an increasingly important force in electoral politics, as the subject of countless pop cultural tropes, and as an ambivalently positioned minority group in the American social hierarchy. But the issue of caste discrimination is often overlooked as a source of tension and conflict within South Asian diaspora comm...

Aug 10, 2022•32 min

Cotton Ban in Xinjiang, Pandemic historical specificity of anti-Asian violence, and Remembering Corky Lee

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

Apr 23, 2021•1 hr 31 min

December 2020-Post-election Episode: the campaigns, the voters, and the future of immigration detention under Biden

In this post-election special (thank god it's over), we look at how the election has affected Asian American communities, and also how immigration issues in particular have played out for the incoming Biden administration. We check in with Alvina Wong, Campaign & Organizing Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network , and Shaw San Liu, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association , about how the election played out for AAPI voters in California, including the fight arou...

Dec 17, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 4

Asia Pacific Forum August 2020

Asian America on the Black-led Uprising for Racial Justice The Black Lives Matters protests that have spread around the country for the last several months have been punctuated by solidarity protests led by Asian American groups . We spoke to Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs about the connections between anti-caste discrimination and anti-Black racism and the role of the South Asian American community in fighting both. The Future of Dissent in Hong Kong When Beijing passed a new security...

Aug 30, 2020•1 hr 2 min

Asia Pacific Forum June 2020: COVID-19, Electoral Politics and Labor; Asian Americans & Black Lives Matter; Chinatown Rent Strike, Natisu

Since our last episode, the world seems to have been turned upside down. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic continued to ravage communities around the world, but a nationwide groundswell of protest against police brutality has erupted in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Meanwhile, hostilities between the US and China are escalating over the pandemic response. In this episode, we’ll talk to labor activists in Myanmar and the US about how workers are coping with the pandemic, examine anti-Asian...

Jun 07, 2020•1 hr 27 min

Pandemics, Racism, War Crimes and Climate Change

Anti-Asian Violence and Discrimination in the Coronavirus Era With the establishment of the United States as the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans are feeling the impact of the crisis. But many in Asian American communities are also facing hatred directed towards those perceived to be responsible because the president and other public figures have played up the fact that the virus emerged in China. We speak with Professor Russell Jeung, professor of Asian American stud...

Apr 15, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 1

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