Fresh Off The Vote

How exactly did we make a podcast from scratch during quarantine? The FOTV team shares candidly about our grassroots project as we look forward to the holiday season and a continuation of Asian American perspectives.   Listen to Kaitlyn, Ava, Jessica, Julia, and Kenna reflect on the motivations, both personal and political, that turned into Fresh Off the Vote. 

What did we learn about ourselves in making Fresh Off the Vote? What are our coffee preferences, if any? Who are the people behind our audio quality and how do we make sure it's consistently top-notch? And what the heck is going on with Georgia's politics right now? 

Join us as we process our learnings and discoveries out loud. We are determined to keep at our individual journeys of civic engagement through this labor of love! 

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Yup, we’re pissed about Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. We ended up with an aggressively conservative Supreme Court with a 6-3 supermajority that doesn't reflect the political makeup of this country and was appointed by a president who lost the popular vote. This is minority rule. But, Supreme Court headlines aside, many of us don’t really understand the court systems leading up to the highest court in the land. According to Ballotpedia, there are a total of 278 state appellate court seats up for election in 2020. What does that even mean? It’s too bad Law and Order didn't prepare us well enough.

In this episode, Jessica and Julia invite John Wang, a housing judge running for a civil court judge seat in New York City’s lower Manhattan, and Jerry Vattamala, an Asian American voting rights advocate from the non-profit Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), to give us a crash course on the judiciary. What are the differences between a district court and an appellate court? What makes a good judge? How do we understand the complicated dynamics between politics and judicial decisions, evaluate judges on our ballots, and beyond? 

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In this episode of #FOTV,  Grace hosts a roundtable with a Race and Ethnic Studies graduate student and two undocumented immigrants. They examine lived experiences to see how race and law work together to erase Asian Americans from the undocumented narrative. Complicating and untangling the notion of "legal immigration", they ask the audience members to find local ways to listen to immigrant stories in their own zip codes and act as co-conspirators - more than allies. 

Rose Ann E. Gutierrez, a PhD student in the Social Sciences and Comparative Education division specializing in Race and Ethnic Studies at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Denise Panaligan is an undocumented immigrant born in the Philippines and raised in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Tony Zhu was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras as the son of Chinese immigrants who came to the United States when he was six years old. 

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In the latest VP debate, Pence admitted the climate is changing without addressing the urgency of the climate crisis we are living in. This episode is a Green New Deal 101 featuring candidates working at the state, city, and ground level to bring attention to our politicians on the climate crisis. 

Michelle Wu (running for Boston mayor), Alex Lee (running for California Assembly District 25), Megan Nguyen (Sunrise Movement Bay Area Hub Leader), and a friend of the podcast, Leslie Chang (consultant at Planet Earth Observatory) join #FOTV for what the Green New Deal could look like at different levels of our government, but also how to approach the solution in an equitable way that considers all communities.

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In this episode, #FOTV hosts Emmy and Kenna interview two Asian American athletes on how race and culture come to play in sports. Camryn Hamaguchi is a Japanese-American two-sport athlete in basketball and track & field at Chapman University in California. She is also Head Coach at Ironmen Basketball Club Program and Assistant Girls Varsity Coach at Kennedy High School. Jojo McIntosh is a mixed-race Black and Cambodian-American football player and a University of Washington Huskies alum. 

Jojo and Camryn reflect on their Asian and mixed Asian-American upbringing. Navigating roles as activists and role models, they dive into how the worlds of football and basketball view race, plus its impact. The hosts believe Asian Americans enjoy representation in sports, but without due acknowledgment. They talk about the importance of helping others by using their voices and platforms as Asian American athletes, activists, and beyond.

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Have you and your parents ever had an argument about something they read on WeChat? What about WhatsApp? In this episode, Shawna (The Yappie) and #FOTV's Helen dive into these two ethnic media platforms to discuss misinformation and why it’s important to understand it in the context of election integrity. 

What exactly is “misinformation” and what is being done about it? With our guests from The WeChat Project, we look at a case study of second-generation Asian Americans combating misinformation about Black Lives Matter, racism, and affirmative action. They remind us of the traumas many immigrant parents face and offer tips on how to engage in productive dialogue—that avoid misinformation—on social media.

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We're living through a global pandemic, civil unrest, and threats to our democracy. It's necessary for young people to step up in advocating for a better future. But in doing so, we often don’t realize the stress and anxiety that can take a toll on our bodies. How can you take better care of yourself? Especially when it feels like people may not be understanding? Or that self-care is expensive and inaccessible? 

In this episode, #FOTV hosts Amy and Kaitlyn speak with two professors about the history and relevance of radical self-care. Dr. Donna Nicol is an associate professor and chair of the Africana Studies Department at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Dr. Jennifer A. Yee is a Professor of Asian American Studies at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). What is radical about radical self-care and how is it different from good old consumerism? 
#FOTV also brings in Jess Ayden Li, an activist & nonprofit consultant for how she helps organizations implement self-care cultures. 

Meditation music credit to BGM President.

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In this episode, #FOTV hosts Jessica and Grace invite an Asian American illustrator Ji Sub Jeong (@geesubay) to chat about the virality of slacktivism. Jessica dives into the design of social justice slideshows on Instagram while Grace dissects the need to perform an identity or virtue signal for capital gain.

As both consumers and creators, they discuss the rise of boba liberalism in tandem with Subtle Asian Traits. Ji Sub reveals his feelings about being called a boba liberal more than once. Finally, the #FOTV hosts invite the audience to take their activism off social media including conscious spending and exploring longer forms of media and new topics. 

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We’re back for Part 2 on Kamala Harris! Last time, we sat down with Ohio State Senator Tina Maharath and two college-graduated South Asian women involved in politics to better understand Kamala Harris's Indian-American identity with complexities around caste, power, and anti-blackness.

Today, we turn to Morgan Harper, a Black woman in politics and a former grassroots candidate for Congress, to help unpack Kamala’s Black identity. After attending Tufts (BA), Princeton (MA), and Stanford (JD), she spent three years at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) protecting consumers against predatory lenders and most recently at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) which invests in communities that have been systematically under-resourced. Morgan evaluates the viewpoints of those who might feel conflicted voting for Kamala given her past as a prosecutor, and instills passion in our audience to become less complacent in civic engagement! 

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Kamala Harris is the new Democratic VP nominee - she’s multiracial as a half Black and half Indian woman! Can we be excited that someone who “looks like us” is up there in the political hierarchy, and perhaps we’re finally seeing the representation we need? 

Our Indian American friends and families are celebrating. But young people are also left wondering if we can automatically “claim” Kamala just because she has Indian heritage. We hope to better contextualize and understand the nuances behind Kamala Harris’s half Black and half Indian identity. 

In this episode, #FOTV’s Swathi Vudatala sits down with the first Asian American woman elected to the Ohio State Senate, Tina Maharath, and two recently college-graduated South Asian women involved in politics. Swathi enlists their help in processing Kamala's significance by dissecting caste, power, and anti-blackness in the South Asian community. 

Lalitha Pamidigantam is a fresh graduate of the Ohio State University in public policy currently working for the Columbus Women’s Commission. Tanvi Kohli of the Washington University in St. Louis introduces her recent senior thesis on her Indian heritage and ancestry. They discuss Kamala's nuanced identity while answering the questions “Does representation even matter?” and “Is representation real activism?”

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