West Coast Fil-Am poet Tony Robles on diaspora, displacement and belonging at the Asian American Writers Workshop's "Writing Against Displacement" poetry event.

Across the country refugees, asylum seekers and migrants of all backgrounds are under siege as the White House terrorizes communities with a combination of bigoted rhetoric and aggressive raids and mass detention. But while deportations are roiling communities in the US, Trump is also waging a global war on refugees by dramatically cutting back on the number of refugee admissions down to historically low levels, and making it harder to qualify for humanitarian protection. In the wake of the Muslim Ban and escalating global crises, we speak to Melanie Nezer of HIAS on what the landscape for humanitarian aid looks like under Trump, and how refugees communities are coping as legal channels to the US are shutting down.

GUESTS:

Melanie Nezer, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, HIAS

We speak to Elizabeth Tang, JD, an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the National Women's Law Center, where she focuses on combating sexual harassment of girls of color in K-12 schools. We discuss sexual harassment in schools, Title IX, fake feminist men, and the long legacy of colonial gendered violence that Asian American women face.

GUESTS:

Elizabeth Tang, JD, Equal Justice Works Fellow at the National Women's Law Center

As a collective, Asia Pacific Forum condemns WBAI's recent hiring of Leonard Lopate, a former WNYC and NPR host who was terminated because of several allegations from women regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. We offer a message of solidarity to the unnamed women of WNYC, the women of WBAI who must now share space with an accused and named perpetrator of sexual harassment, and the producers that made the very difficult decision to walk away. We call on WBAI and Pacifica to listen to the women and to transparently hold themselves accountable to their mission. It is not too late to stand on the right side of history, to publicly renounce harassment in all of its forms, and to refuse to give a public platform to known abusers.

Long after school segregation was formally abolished, school segregation in more subtle forms persists, even here in New York City, and the racial and economic polarization in K12 education is getting worse. Now a legal attack from the far right threatens to swing the country rightward on all forms of affirmative action, or race-conscious educational policies, in a lawsuit against Harvard University. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's justice department is enabling it, by rolling back major policy guidance for the nation's K12 schools and universities about encouraging diversity and voluntary integration. In the lawsuit, however, the twist is that Asian American students are at the forefront of this suit, claiming they've been unfairly disadvantaged by affirmative action policies. Similar controversies are feeding into the backlash against school diversity policies in New York, as Asian American conservatives protest efforts to open up admissions to the city's elite magnet schools. So what are the politics surrounding school admissions, civil rights policy and the future of diversity in education? We talk to Nicole Gon Ochi of Advancing Justice, one of the civil rights groups involved in the litigation on the other side of the right-wing Harvard lawsuit.

GUESTS:

Nicole Gon Ochi, Supervising Attorney, Advancing Justice- LA

Interstate is an Asian-American pop-rock poetry musical that follows Dash, a transgender spoken word performer, and his best friend Adrian, a lesbian singer-songwriter. Together, they are Queer Malady, a spunky band whose music daringly speaks out about the oppression faced by trans and queer Asian Americans. The duo embarks on a road trip across the United States for their first national tour, and heir fiercely political and deeply personal music touches Henry, a transgender teenage boy living in small-town Kentucky. Henry finds solace in their art as he struggles with his own identity and family. After blogging about the band and documenting his own gender journey, he decides to set out on a quest to meet his heroes in person, hoping to find answers to his own struggles. We speak with Interstate co-writers Kit Yan and Melissa Li about their experiences working on the musical, how the story parallels their own journey, and the exploration of social issues alongside the celebration of queer revolutionary joy on the show.

GUESTS:

Kit Yan, Co-Writer, Interstate

Melissa Li, Co-Writer, Interstate