“For little kids like us growing up in the South to see someone that looked like you on the screen is super important, but I now need the white person to see the Asian story. I need the Asian person to see the Black story — representation matters on a lot of fronts.”  

Keith Chow is the founder of the Nerds of Color, where Raman was recently a guest on one of Keith’s podcasts — “Southern Fried Asian.” Typically, stories about Asian Americans are centered on the experiences of those who grew up on the coasts -- New York, Southern California, the Bay Area -- where large and diverse Asian Americans communities have lived and thrived for decades. On Southern Fried Asian, Keith takes a look at a part of  the country that isn't typically associated with these stories and unpack what it means to be Asian American in the American South. Keith grew up in rural Virginia, and as you know, Raman grew up in (the suburbs of) the great state of Alabama, so was really interested to have a chat with Keith to compare notes on solving racism with podcasts, what politics ought to look like in the South, the secret identities of superheroes, and of course, mom’s channa bhatura. Beyond being a podcast impresario, Keith is also one of the original creators of Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, alongside Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, and Jerry Ma. Keith’s writing has appeared in The New York Times and NBC News. Vanity Fair has called him an “incisive interviewer and chummy conversationalist” - so it’s no wonder that Raman and Keith got along famously...

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