This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit goodbye.substack.com Hello from Jay’s final week in paradise! In this bonus episode, we answer questions from subscribers.
Hello from the diasporic battleground! This week, we’re joined by investigative journalist and filmmaker Anjali Kamat to discuss Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s red-carpet state dinner and the spread of his Islamophobic, anti-democratic Hindutva ideology. (1:45) We start with a short history since Modi was elected in 2014, (12:20) dig into the conspiratorial lynchings that mirror right-wing campaigns in other countries, and (26:15) consider how Indian diasporic communities help maintain (and chal...
Hello from Honolulu! It’s just us this week, trading places: Tammy is home in humid Brooklyn, and Jay is on the road, visiting family in Hawaii! (6:00) First, we discuss the planned release of 500 swimming pools’ worth of radioactive(?) wastewater from Fukushima, which has spurred lousy takes from Beltway types and a run on salt in South Korea . (19:10) Next, we look at Vivek Ramaswamy’s long-shot candidacy for President and try to discern what the entrepreneur brings to a flailing Republican Pa...
Hello from the South Korean Ministry of Culture’s Brooklyn satellite office! This week, Tammy welcomes back Jenny Wang Medina, our resident scholar of Korean cultural exports and semiotics, for a record-tying fourth appearance on TTSG / third-anniversary spectacular! We talk about a few recent Korean/Korean American/Asian American productions: (8:30) the Netflix hit “ Beef ,” with Ali Wong and Steven Yeun; (31:40) the new transnational A24 flick “ Past Lives ,” starring Greta Lee; and (1:03:00) ...
Hello from the East Bay! It’s just Jay this week, chatting with friend of the pod Darrell Owens , a Berkeley-based housing expert. We discuss a new study from the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UCSF on the causes and consequences of homelessness in California. In this episode, we ask: Can the revelations in this study—or any new evidence, for that matter—finally move the needle on reducing homelessness? How do “Housing First” advocates address the desire for immediate solutions t...
Hello from the Hill! This week, we’re joined by Ligia Guallpa, executive director of Workers Justice Project (WJP) , a group that organizes low-wage, immigrant workers in New York City, including the app-based delivery workers who call themselves Los Deliveristas Unidos . WJP and the Deliveristas just won the passage of a mandatory minimum wage , a huge improvement for e-bike and car delivery workers on GrubHub, Uber Eats, and other platforms. (13:30) Ligia details the unique dangers that spurre...
Hello from clear-skied Brooklyn! Thank you to everyone who attended our (first) third-anniversary TTSG summer picnic! And thanks to all who subscribe, listen, spread the word, and otherwise support the show. It’s just Tammy and Jay this week, unpacking some complex cultural shifts in Asian American food and education. (5:15) First, Tammy guesses which Asian cuisines dominate Asian restaurants in the U.S. (according to a recent Pew Research Center study). We also discuss what it means for food to...
Hello from Montréal! 🥳 Reminder: Join us THIS SATURDAY, June 10th, in Brooklyn, for our subscriber picnic ! Subscribe on Patreon or Substack for more details. This week, we welcome back our friend Max Read—dad, Twitter lurker, hat seller, and creator of the incredible Read Max newsletter—for an anniversary chat. (12:30) We speculate about the next phase of A.I. ascendancy and (28:25) large language model pioneers, and (44:00) unpack the labor dimensions of these technological shifts. Speaking o...
Hello from Jay’s dried-out basement (finally)! This week, writer Hua Hsu joins us for a record fourth appearance on the pod as part of our neverending anniversary celebration. In a wide-ranging chat, we touch on (7:08) how podcasting has influenced our interview styles, (16:55) the "Succession" series finale [SPOILER ALERT], and (27:30) Tammy’s accidental encounter with edibles. (38:22) We also look back at a previous conversation with Hua, from January 19, 2021 , and reflect on major changes in...
Hello from Mai’s COVID den! It’s just Jay and Tammy this week. (3:25) First, we chat about a mini-generation of Asian women named after Connie Chung and the news anchor’s professional legacy. (22:18) Then, we discuss the public killings of Banko Brown in SF and Jordan Neely in NYC—and the disturbing turn against poor (particularly Black) people in our cities. We ask: Has America so devalued the lives of homeless people that any offense now seems to warrant vigilante murder? How do these conversa...
Hello from the vault! In the first of a series of episodes commemorating TTSG’s third anniversary, OG Andy Liu returns. 🎉 We look back at the first episode we ever released, on April 13, 2020 , and ask: (9:30) Was Andy right to attribute both the spread of the coronavirus and the backlash against Asian Americans to China’s growing power? (34:30) Has COVID diminished the concept of U.S. exceptionalism—if not within the U.S., at least in the rest of the world? (56:30) Is it possible for leftists ...
Hello from the start of AANHPIXYZ Heritage Month! It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, going long on two of our favorite topics: U.S.-Korea relations and progressive media. [3:15] First, we address the carefully crafted viral moment from Korean President Yoon’s debut at the White House, and the sanitizing of human rights realities in Asia. [17:30] Next, we discuss the controversy over an article about Tucker Carlson published by the American Prospect —and mea culpa’d by the top editor following on...
Hello from a cruise ship! This week, we welcome book critic and Philly basketball devotee Jennifer Wilson back to the show. We discuss [1:00] the epidemic of belligerent airline passengers; [6:25] the surprising (and not so surprising) firings of Tucker Carlson from Fox News and Don Lemon from CNN; [15:10] Jen’s favorite 76er, James Harden, and his ejection for nut-punching; and [27:40] journalist Lauren Oyler’s recent piece on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop cruise and the sexist genre of wellness writi...
Hello from a 90-degree day in New York! This week, we’re joined by Alex Han, executive director of In These Times and a longtime organizer based in Chicago. Alex previously worked for Bernie’s 2020 campaign and SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana. We get into the context behind the surprise mayoral win by former teacher and organizer Brandon Johnson, over “corporate reformer” Paul Vallas. We discuss [15:45] the values (neoliberal versus progressive) at stake in this race, [25:08] which strategi...
Hello from Jay’s COVID den! Mai would like you to know that she begged Jay to skip recording and rest after he tested positive for COVID , and did the same with Tammy a few weeks ago. They did not listen. Please don’t follow their bad example! This week, Tammy and Jay chat with repeat guest Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network and longtime organizer for immigrant rights. [1:45] We start, though, with a discussion of “Veep,” which Jay has been rewatching—a show that continues...
Hello from the Bay Area! This week, it’s just Jay speaking with Malcolm Harris, the author of the recently published Palo Alto : A History of California, Capitalism, and the World . We talk about [5:40] why Malcolm wrote a 600-plus-page epic instead of a shorter, more personal book; [27:25] Palo Alto’s origin story, including Leland Stanford and immigrant labor on the railroads; and [43:20] what mainstream histories get wrong about the New Left and Silicon Valley’s development. (Heads-up: There ...
Hello from Jay’s flooded basement! (Apologies for our less-than-ideal audio.) This week, our guest is Bryce Covert, a writer who covers the culture and work of child care (and its increasingly dire state) in the U.S. Bryce tells Jay and Tammy [14:50] what she’s been hearing from providers as pandemic-stimulus funding dwindles; [27:55] why care workers haven’t been able to win better pay, even in a strong labor market; and [52:25] how private-sector incentives might help—but don’t go nearly far e...
Hello from Tammy’s COVID bunker! This week, after a short tribute to Montana’s “dean of journalism,” Chuck Johnson, R.I.P. , Tammy speaks with Kshama Sawant, the three-term socialist Seattle City Councilmember who recently announced that she will not seek reelection after this year. Instead, she has launched Workers Strike Back , “an independent, rank-and-file campaign” to support organizing nationwide. We discuss [9:42] the Amazonification of Seattle, [31:05] a historic municipal bill banning c...
Hello from Jay’s tradlife mancave! It’s just us this week, dissecting all the ways our culture has gone too far. We begin with [0:20] a debrief of the most Asian (American?) Oscars ever. Then, updates [20:40] on feminism in South Korea and [40:38] the Stepford wives of TikTok . In this episode, we ask: Are Asians now over represented in Hollywood?! What happens when electoral politics revolves around gender relations? Why doesn’t anyone want to give birth in South Korea, despite myriad family su...
Hello from a D.C. hotel! This week, our guest is Ken Chen, writer, professor, and former director of the Asian American Writers' Workshop (AAWW). We discuss [6:45] Ken’s recent piece for n+1, about photojournalist and activist Corky Lee and the deep histories of class, race, and violence woven into his work, centered in Manhattan’s Chinatown. [1:03:20] We also chat about writing, publishing, and Asian American literature as a social-realist project. In this episode, we ask: When does a photo ach...
Hello from our normal, boring lives! Tammy returns from her reporting trip out West, and Jay is back at work after taking half his parental leave. It’s just us this week, talking through [3:20] the political disaster that has unfolded around the derailment and chemical release in East Palestine, Ohio. Plus, [28:25] a new Intercept interview with D.E.I. consultant Tema Okun, about her viral paper “White Supremacy Culture.” In this episode, we ask: Have we learned anything since the 2016 election ...
Hello from a sci-fi future! Tammy’s on a reporting trip this week, so it’s just Jay talking to our guest Ben Recht, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at UC Berkeley. We talk about the history of artificial intelligence, the new bots from Open AI (ChatGPT) and Microsoft (Bing A.I.), and share some of the reasons why they are both skeptical but also kinda impressed. In this episode, we ask: Well, what really is A.I., and how does it differ from machine learning? Is this Si...
Hello from an ongoing ecological disaster! Our guest this week is Nick Wurst, a freight-rail conductor and a member of the SMART-TD union, who joined Tammy and Jay after an overnight shift. Nick is also a socialist and a member-organizer with Railroad Workers United , a cross-union solidarity organization. He was featured in Tammy’s recent New Yorker piece about the state of union power in the U.S. On Friday, February 3, a train carrying volatile chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, relea...
Hello from Juilliard! This week, our friend Vinson Cunningham, award-winning critic at The New Yorker , joins Tammy and Jay to discuss 2022’s wokest(?) film, “Tár.” (Spoiler alert!) [1:00] Before we get into it, we address Kyrie Irving’s request for a trade from the Brooklyn Nets… and what makes him so annoying. (We recorded before Irving’s move to the Dallas Mavericks was announced.) Plus: What does his situation say about workers’ rights, in the context of highly-compensated NBA players? [12:5...
Hello from our culture of violence! This week, Tammy and Jay talk through some painful questions following the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police officers. For more on the cases and reports mentioned in this episode, see: * San Francisco’s attempt to expand police surveillance: Breed and New DA Jenkins Pushing Hard to Expand Police Access to Private Security Cameras All Over Town * Accusations of racism in the prosecution of NYPD officer Peter Liang * More people killed by police in...
Hello from Tammy’s dark apartment! This week, Jay and Tammy are joined by Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-host of the podcast Death Panel , with Artie Vierkant, and co-author, also with Artie, of the new book Health Communism , a manifesto that reimagines our systems of care. [2:00] But first, we try to process the horrific mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park , California, in which eleven people were killed on Lunar New Year. We discuss Asian America’s reactive hyperfocus on racial identi...
Hello from rental hell! This week, Tammy is joined by two friends of the pod who work in housing: Ritti Singh, a tenant organizer in Rochester for Housing Justice for All (and a TTSG Discord leader), and Navneet Grewal, a longtime attorney currently working for Disability Rights California . [5:30] Ritti breaks down the role of a housing organizer, particularly in a majority-tenant city, and Navneet explains her role as a lawyer supporting on-the-ground groups. We discuss the momentum against th...
Hello from a Berkeley basement! This week, Jay takes a break from being his daughter’s personal helper to catch up with Tammy. [5:25] We start by discussing right-wing obsession with gender and sexuality. What do recent attacks on librarians tell us about older moral panics and Republican strategy? (Check out this Vice News video of a librarian in Michigan , a ProPublica piece from June about the targeting of an educator in Georgia , and a New York Times piece on a Hamline University adjunct’s f...
Hello from what feels like the distant past! This week, erstwhile co-host Andy Liu joins Jay and Tammy to look back on 2022. (A note from Mai, our producer: Paid subscribers can get the full version of this ep , with some bonus banter about gambling, parental virtue signaling, etc.! Also, we recorded a week ago, so please forgive dated references to Morocco in the World Cup, Elon, and Jay’s not-yet-born second child.) Twenty twenty-two was big for TTSG’s resident parents. Andy and his wife Reiko...
Hello from somewhere other than Jay’s basement! This week, we’re excited to release the episode we recorded in New York with Hua Hsu, as part of Tammy’s residency at the A/P/A Institute at NYU. Hua is a TTSG regular and the author of a new memoir, Stay True . The book focuses on Hua’s friendship with Ken, a classmate at Berkeley who was killed the summer before their senior year. We probe the book’s depiction of Asian male friendship, or, as Hua experienced it, “two Asian American people working...
