Project Voice

By Jessica Nguyen

Society & Culture

What's Project Voice about?

Project Voice is a podcast series is spearheaded by the voices of womxn and nonbinary folx of the Asian diaspora. As the host of Project Voice, I hope that this series will act as a digital space where members of our community can go to for guidance and resources.

- Jessica Nguyen
Founder and Host of Project Voice

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LAST EPISODE

Episode 68: Civic Advocacy ...

09.11.2020

Jessica Nguyen sits down with Lacy Lew Nguyen Wright of Ballot Breakers, Representative Padma Kuppa of Michigan, and Representative Patty Kim of Pennsylvania to discuss civic advocacy and American politics. We start off the episode learning about the women’s relationship ...

Project Voice episodes:

09.11.2020 Episode 68: Civic Advocacy and Politics with Lacy Lew Nguyen Wright of Ballot Breakers, State Rep. Padma Kuppa of MI, State Rep. Patty Kim of PA Jessica Nguyen sits down with Lacy Lew Nguyen Wright of Ballot Breakers, Representative Padma Kuppa of Michigan, and Representative Patty Kim of Pennsylvania to discuss civic advocacy and American politics. We start off the episode learning about the women’s relationship ...
09.04.2020 Episode 67: Overcoming Barriers while Pursuing a Career in Academia as an Asian American with the SEAAster Scholars Jessica Nguyen sits down with a few members of the Southeast Asian American (SEAA) SEAAster Scholars Collective–Jacqueline Mac, Linda Pheng, Vanessa S. Na, Varaxy Yi–to hear more about their experiences as POC/SEAA in academia, the meaning of homemaking, and the ...
08.28.2020 Episode 66: Learning about Life Coaching, Holistic Healing, Spirituality, and Self-Improvement with Seo Kelleher Jessica Nguyen sits down with Seo Kelleher, the author of the newly released book “Don’t be a Bitch, be an Alpha,” to talk about her journey as an intuitive life and business coach and shamanic healer. With 20 years of ...
08.21.2020 Episode 65: Starting Passion Projects and Dealing with Burnout with Tiffany Huang of Spill Stories Jessica Nguyen sits down with Tiffany Huang, the founder of Spill Stories, to talk about how she is able to foster personal growth passion projects. Stifled by the fast-paced Hong Kong lifestyle, Tiffany wanted to build a platform that allows ...
08.14.2020 Episode 64: Documenting Southeast Asian Narratives and Trending Community Issues with Project Yellow Dress Julie McConnell sits down with Julia Ha and Tammy Tran from Project Yellow Dress (PYD) to talk about how underrepresented communities are gaining visibility through self-expressed artistic mediums. We start the podcast getting to know the two PYD founders who ...
08.07.2020 Episode 63: Healing your Relationship with Your Parents with Ivy Kwong Jessica Nguyen sits down with Ivy Kwong to talk about navigating the healing process individuals may have to go through with their family, particularly their parents. After talking about her own personal experience, Ivy shares tactics to help people heal ...
07.31.2020 Episode 62: Discussing the Importance of Political Participation within Asian-American Households with Helena Berbano Jessica Nguyen sits down with Helena Berbano to delve into how and why Asian-Americans are so politically disengaged. Given Helena’s active involvement in campaigning for Asian-American women candidates, she speaks about the power of political engagement and how the lack ...
07.29.2020 Episode 61.5: Loveboat, Taipei with Abigail Hing Wen (+Giveaway!) Jessica Nguyen sits down with Abigail Hing Wen, the author of Asian-American young adult novel “Loveboat, Taipei,” to learn about her journey in becoming a published author. Working in artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley, Abigail had no idea she would ...
07.24.2020 Episode 61: An Introduction to the Intersection of Identity and Product Design for the Asian-American Consumers with COVRY Jessica Nguyen sits down with Florence Shin and Athina Wang from COVRY Eyewear to talk about how they celebrate and set a new standard for diversity in the eyewear industry. These long-time friends who ended up going to schools on ...
07.17.2020 Episode 60: A Casual Chat on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Living with CeCe Horbat Julie McConnell sits down with Cece Horbat to discuss all things environmentalism. As someone who has been interested in the environment after watching NBC commercials about recycling, Cece is now majoring in environmental justice at the University of Michigan’s School ...
07.10.2020 Episode 59: On Intergenerational Trauma with SEARAC Julie Connell sits down with Nkauj Iab Yang from Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) to deliver an engaging and educational episode centered around trauma–from how it's defined to the long-term consequences that unfold when trauma goes unaddressed. This episode ...
07.03.2020 Episode 58: Quitting Your 9-to-5 job to Pursue a Creative/Entrepreneurial Path with Wonton in a Million and Simply Gilded Jessica Nguyen sits down with Cynthia Koo and Irene Kwong to talk about their experiences as Asian-American women business owners in the stationery industry. In this interview, we explore how they turned their passion into a career while dealing with ...
03.01.2019 Episode 57: Last Words - Season 4 Finale This is it. We made it. Season 4 finale. As many of you know, Project Voice has been running for a little over 2 years since November 2016. When I first started the podcast, I only expected myself to produce ...
02.15.2019 Episode 56: Collaborations through Love Intersections About a year ago, Minnie Ng and I invited Jen Sungshine to share with us not only her history and experience in activism and video production under Love Intersections but her insights about collaborating with other multitalented QTPOC artists as ...
02.01.2019 Episode 55: Healing as a Survivor Content warning: sexual assault Years before the online #MeToo movement that took place in October 2017, Yee Xiong filed a civil suit case against her attacker. Determined to bring justice to her case, she bravely held her ground despite the ...
01.28.2019 Episode 54: An Earnest Fight Against Anti-Blackness Brought to you by our co-host, Afsana Oreen: Anti-Blackness within the South Asian diasporic community is often not discussed. That’s why I was excited to learn how Nina Bhattacharya – a writer, educator, and cultural organizer – combats anti-blackness. I ...
12.18.2018 Episode 53: SEARAC: Affirmative Action and Data Disaggregation Recently, a man by the name Edward Blum and the Students for Fair Admissions have teamed up to sue Harvard for discriminating against its Asian American applicants with its affirmative action policy. Affirmative action has been one of the hottest ...
12.06.2018 Episode 52: NAPAWF: Reclaiming Our Bodies and Minds through Political Advocacy and #BodyLove It is no surprise to us how often Asian women are bombarded by harmful messages from society and media. Tired of being told how we should navigate the world, Sung Yeon Choimorrow and I will be opening up the conversation ...
11.15.2018 Episode 51: Bharat Babies: The Power of Storytelling So, I was ecstatic to know that Bharat Babies was going to be a sponsor for Project Voice and I really wanted to give the platform to its founder, Sailaja, because what she’s doing for our community is really inspiring. ...
11.03.2018 Episode 50: AAPI Women Lead: #ImReady After coming back from a retreat for Asian American women, I have fostered a deeper appreciation for physical spaces dedicated solely for Asian women. That’s why Dr. Connie Wun is here today to share about her upcoming launch of #ImReady, ...
10.25.2018 Episode 49: SEARAC: Southeast Asian American Solidarity Toolkit: A Guide to Resisting Deportations and Detentions from the #ReleaseMN8 Campaign We are honored to be releasing a 3-episode special feature with SEARAC, also known as the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center. “SEARAC is a national civil rights organization that empowers Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American communities to create a socially ...
10.20.2018 Episode 48: Sharbari Ahmed: Breaking South Asian Stereotypes Across Genres Suffering from writer's block? Seek inspiration by listening to author Sharbari Ahmed's journey writing across different genres. She shares why it is important for her to challenge tropes about South-Asians, particularly Bangladeshis and Muslims, in her pieces. I hope you ...
10.03.2018 Episode 47: Jumakae: On Healing and Transformative Justice Ever since Project Voice has relaunched its brand, I’ve been waiting to share with you my latest interview with June Kaewsith (Jumakae) on healing and transformative justice. What’s so unique about this conversation is that it speaks to me where ...
09.03.2018 Episode 46: Reappropriation through Asian American Feminism I’ve had the awesome opportunity to interview Jenn Fang of Reappropriate, known as “one of the oldest AAPI feminist and racial activist blogs” on the Net, on Project Voice right before our official rebranding launch! Active for almost 20 years ...
08.17.2018 Episode 45: Southeast Asian Podcasters Unite on Class and Education Vi and J of the Journey to the West podcast and I have come together to discuss how important it is to reach out and collaborate with each other as Asian American content creators. We thought it would be a ...
08.09.2018 Episode 44: More on the Asian Diaspora: What's Happening in Australia? As a part of Project Voice’s rebranding movement, I’ve been reaching out to speakers outside the U.S. and putting more focus on identifying the podcast as a platform for the Asian diaspora all over the world. This time, we’ll be ...
07.22.2018 Episode 43: I'm Adulting!: On Personal Finance & Self Care Personal finance and self-care have been on my list of topics to cover for a long time. For those who may need some guidance on adulting, this is for you. When I graduated from college, I remember how overwhelmed I ...
07.17.2018 Episode 42: Level Up!: A Walkthrough on Our History with Gaming For Angela and me, video games means more than your typical button mashing experience. In fact, video (and computer) games brought many of our nerdy selves together during dark times of the white heteropatriarchy and its systems of oppression. “Do ...
06.14.2018 Episode 41: Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma with Calm Clarity Content warning: trauma On the list of topics that I wanted to cover on my podcast, dealing with trauma was one of the most challenging to do as it would require someone who would be open and ready enough to ...
06.14.2018 Episode 40: Listen to Your Body: The Appendix Collective Last month, I had an amazing opportunity to speak with Lisa Pradhan, a fellow Smithie alum who is an active member of The Appendix Collective, “a Bay Area collective of Asian American womxn + queer artists reclaiming personal, intimate and ...
04.29.2018 Episode 39: Empowering Voices: AAPI Power Through Media "Empowering Voices: AAPI Power Through Media, co-hosted by Smith College Asian Students Association, Vietnamese Students Association, and Pan Asians in Action, provides a platform on campus for Asian American and Pacific Islander voices, bringing light to issues about identity. Content ...
04.13.2018 Episode 38: Love Your Work as Much as Kat Loves L.A. Jumpstarting a career in the entertainment industry is a terrifying decision you could make in life, especially if you are a woman of color. But who says that you have to make a big, scary move in order to reach ...
04.05.2018 Episode 37: I'd Rather be a Yellow Ranger than a Model Minority Let's do a little throwback and talk about how we all had a time in our lives when we wanted to be the Yellow Ranger. Now, many of our awesome selves have become one. In today's episode, YLWRNGR's Lauren Espejo ...
03.19.2018 Episode 36: We're Back and Hmong Women are Taking on the World We're back after a brief hiatus with season 4! After giving time to how I wanted to steer forward with Project Voice, I realized how there are still so many changemakers out there who are giving back to our community ...
02.03.2018 Episode 35: Open Hiatus I have decided to take a break from Podcasting. Project Voice will be on an open hiatus until further notice. I think it’s time for me to leave some time out to re-prioritize what I want to do next in ...
01.21.2018 Episode 34: The Power of Digital Media (and How to Use it to Disrupt White Spaces) For my final interview of season 3, I had the honor of interviewing Cherisse Datu, the co-designer behind the upcoming video game, The Girl Who Sees in this episode. Both Cherisse and I quickly connected over our passion in designing ...
01.09.2018 Episode 33: Mental Health: Being There for Loved Ones with Depression Full disclosure: my friend Fatema and I decided to redo our first take because we wanted to make sure that you'll be able to take away everything that we've had planned to share for today's episode topic: how we as ...
12.26.2017 Episode 32: How to Blend into the White World as an Asian Woman Project Voice is going to be a bit unconventional here with our topic of the day: how to blend into the White world as an Asian woman. This interview wouldn't be a success if it wasn't for the creative thinking ...
11.03.2017 Episode 31: From Chinese Restaurant to Corporate America: What it Means to Have Grit There is always something to share about when it comes to growing up as children of immigrants, especially when it comes to stories of adversities that have helped shape us to who we've become today. So, I thought what better ...
10.20.2017 Episode 30: Japanese Womanhood and Feminism Today, I have the pleasure and honor to interview Emiko of Her Confidence Her Way, a Podcast series with a mission to guide Japanese women towards having self-confidence and living a meaningful life. So, for every episode, I aim to ...
10.06.2017 Episode 29: The Importance of Intersectionality: Class, Citizenship, Education, and More Intersectionality is probably one of my favorite words of all time. In this episode, we will be covering some aspects of our identity that we may forget and overlook now and then when we're initiating dialogues about our struggles. Originally, ...
09.22.2017 Episode 28: More Blasian Narratives Please!: A Response to the Lack of Non-White Mixed Asian Representation In season 1, I have released an episode about what it means to be a part of the mixed Asian experience; this season, I wanted to add on to our discussion by exploring the intersection of Black and Asian identities ...
09.08.2017 Episode 27: Not Without, Not Despite: Accept Us for Who We Are WITH our Disabilities Welcome to another episode of Project Voice! Today, we will be discussing about a topic that surprisingly, is not brought up as often as it should be and that is disability! In this episode, Maya Ghorpade, Doris Jung, and I ...
08.25.2017 Episode 26: Diving Deeper into Mental Health Issues ***Content warning We can dedicate an entire mini series on mental health issues, but today, we'll be hearing Terra Hoy's personal hardships of mental health. This interview is the second episode of a 2 episode special on Project Voice. If ...
08.11.2017 Episode 25: A Womxn is Not Defined by Her Body: Transgender and Asian A womxn is not defined by her body. On this episode, I had the honor of inviting Terra Hoy to share with us her narratives of growing up as an Asian American and coming out as transgender. Key topics that ...
07.28.2017 Episode 24: How to Be an Asian/Asian American Activist What does it mean to be an activist in this day and age? In today’s episode, my awesome friend, Jennifer Li, and I will be covering topics ranging from how you can be involved as an activist for your Asian/Asian ...
07.14.2017 Episode 23: Living the Life that YOU Want Last year, I had a life crisis that threw me into a whirlwind of questions for me - and I have to say, subconsciously trying to live up to the model minority myth made the experience worse: What do I ...
06.30.2017 Episode 22: Normalizing Queerness I didn’t think releasing one episode on the queer Asian American experience could be justified as having enough content that’s representative of the LGBTQIA Asian/Asian American community, so I’m making a return to share more of such narratives - this ...
06.16.2017 Episode 21: RAD ASIAN GIRLS: A Panel on Art, Race, and Gender On May 7th, 2017, I was invited to speak as a spring speaker for the Asian Pacific American Coalition (APAC) at Northwestern University. I'd like to thank everyone who had helped organize this event. Speakers included Olivia Park of Sad ...
05.31.2017 Episode 20: I’m Proud to be a Child of Refugee Immigrant Parents: Part 2 I’m starting off the season with a topic very close to my heart: growing up as a child of refugee immigrant parents. My friend, Saroeun, and I will be sharing our personal struggles growing up as first-born children of immigrant ...

Older episodes

Project Voice

What's Project Voice about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Project Voice episodes:

Episode 68: Civic Advocacy and Politics with Lacy Lew Nguyen Wright of Ballot Breakers, State Rep. Padma Kuppa of MI, State Rep. Patty Kim of PA

Episode 67: Overcoming Barriers while Pursuing a Career in Academia as an Asian American with the SEAAster Scholars

Episode 66: Learning about Life Coaching, Holistic Healing, Spirituality, and Self-Improvement with Seo Kelleher

Episode 65: Starting Passion Projects and Dealing with Burnout with Tiffany Huang of Spill Stories

Episode 64: Documenting Southeast Asian Narratives and Trending Community Issues with Project Yellow Dress

Episode 63: Healing your Relationship with Your Parents with Ivy Kwong

Episode 62: Discussing the Importance of Political Participation within Asian-American Households with Helena Berbano

Episode 61.5: Loveboat, Taipei with Abigail Hing Wen (+Giveaway!)

Episode 61: An Introduction to the Intersection of Identity and Product Design for the Asian-American Consumers with COVRY

Episode 60: A Casual Chat on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Living with CeCe Horbat

Episode 59: On Intergenerational Trauma with SEARAC

Episode 58: Quitting Your 9-to-5 job to Pursue a Creative/Entrepreneurial Path with Wonton in a Million and Simply Gilded

Episode 57: Last Words - Season 4 Finale

Episode 56: Collaborations through Love Intersections

Episode 55: Healing as a Survivor

Episode 54: An Earnest Fight Against Anti-Blackness

Episode 53: SEARAC: Affirmative Action and Data Disaggregation

Episode 52: NAPAWF: Reclaiming Our Bodies and Minds through Political Advocacy and #BodyLove

Episode 51: Bharat Babies: The Power of Storytelling

Episode 50: AAPI Women Lead: #ImReady

Episode 49: SEARAC: Southeast Asian American Solidarity Toolkit: A Guide to Resisting Deportations and Detentions from the #ReleaseMN8 Campaign

Episode 48: Sharbari Ahmed: Breaking South Asian Stereotypes Across Genres

Episode 47: Jumakae: On Healing and Transformative Justice

Episode 46: Reappropriation through Asian American Feminism

Episode 45: Southeast Asian Podcasters Unite on Class and Education

Episode 44: More on the Asian Diaspora: What's Happening in Australia?

Episode 43: I'm Adulting!: On Personal Finance & Self Care

Episode 42: Level Up!: A Walkthrough on Our History with Gaming

Episode 41: Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma with Calm Clarity

Episode 40: Listen to Your Body: The Appendix Collective

Episode 39: Empowering Voices: AAPI Power Through Media

Episode 38: Love Your Work as Much as Kat Loves L.A.

Episode 37: I'd Rather be a Yellow Ranger than a Model Minority

Episode 36: We're Back and Hmong Women are Taking on the World

Episode 35: Open Hiatus

Episode 34: The Power of Digital Media (and How to Use it to Disrupt White Spaces)

Episode 33: Mental Health: Being There for Loved Ones with Depression

Episode 32: How to Blend into the White World as an Asian Woman

Episode 31: From Chinese Restaurant to Corporate America: What it Means to Have Grit

Episode 30: Japanese Womanhood and Feminism

Episode 29: The Importance of Intersectionality: Class, Citizenship, Education, and More

Episode 28: More Blasian Narratives Please!: A Response to the Lack of Non-White Mixed Asian Representation

Episode 27: Not Without, Not Despite: Accept Us for Who We Are WITH our Disabilities

Episode 26: Diving Deeper into Mental Health Issues

Episode 25: A Womxn is Not Defined by Her Body: Transgender and Asian

Episode 24: How to Be an Asian/Asian American Activist

Episode 23: Living the Life that YOU Want

Episode 22: Normalizing Queerness

Episode 21: RAD ASIAN GIRLS: A Panel on Art, Race, and Gender

Episode 20: I’m Proud to be a Child of Refugee Immigrant Parents: Part 2