AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature - Speaking Truth to Power (ft. Raissa Robles, Raad Rahman, Tenzin Dickie & Jeremy Tiang)

Speaking Truth to Power (ft. Raissa Robles, Raad Rahman, Tenzin Dickie & Jeremy Tiang)

12/12/18 • 86 min

AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature

How is resistance possible when reality itself is obscured? In an era of "fake news" and more facts than anyone could hope to grasp, authoritarians rely on this uncertainty to consolidate their hold on power.

This episode we're featuring audio from our 2017 event Speaking Truth to Power. Legendary journalist Raissa Robles joins us from the Philippines to share her work, Marcos Martial Law: Never Again, which reappraises the era of Marcos and applies it lessons to what is unfolding today. Former AAWW Open City Fellow and journalist Raad Rahman will share her research on state repression in Bangladesh, from the Rohingya refugees fleeing attacks in Myanmar to the persecution of LGBTQ Bangladeshis, and writer and translator Tenzin Dickie will discuss writing and translating work about Tibetans navigating the ongoing Chinese occupation.

Following the readings will be a Q&A moderated by Jeremy Tiang, acclaimed translator and author of State of Emergency, the award winning novel that traces leftist movements throughout Singapore’s history. Together they discuss the rise in authoritarianism as a symmetrical reaction to colonialism, and the importance of remembering the past -- with help from a few key books and resources.

Previous Episode

Jackson Heights to Bay Ridge : Open City Fellows Read

We hear from Open City Neighborhood Fellows Roshan Abraham, Pearl Bhatnagar, and Huiying Bernice Chan, who have been documenting the pulse of metropolitan Asian America as it's being lived on the streets of New York right now, and our Muslim Communities fellows, Aber Kawas, Humera Afridi, and Sarah Moawad, who have been writing on the city's Muslim American communities over the past six months.

They read from their recently published pieces about a donation-based sufi in Brooklyn, immigration activist Ravi Ragbir, and Nepali Working Class Women fighting for TPS Status. You’ll also learn about the BDS-supporting, pro-Palestinian City Council candidate el-Yateem in Bay Ridge how to search for your family roots as a Chinese American, and the annual pilgrimage people take to Malcolm X’s resting place.

Moderated by Roja Heydarpour.

Next Episode

You Don't Say No To Yuri Kochiyama (ft. Fred Ho, Diane C. Fujino, Baba Herman Ferguson, Esperanza Martell, Laura Whitehorn)

We’re reaching back over a decade into our archives to 2005, when Diane C. Fujino released Yuri Kochiyama's biography Heartbeat of Struggle. To celebrate the book's release, activist and saxophonist Fred Ho invited Yuri's friends & contemporaries Baba Herman Ferguson, Esperanza Martell, & Laura Whitehorn to our space to speak on Yuri Kochiyama's legacy as a radical Asian American political activist. Afterwards Diane C. Fujino talks about Yuri Kochiyama's political awakening from her early years in a concentration camp in Arkansas during World War II, to her friendship with Malcolm X in New York City, and her years after as a tireless advocate for political prisoners and countless struggles around the world.

Cosponsored by the NYU A/P/A/ Institute