This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

Four years ago, a movie called Crazy Rich Asians made waves in Hollywood. The award-winning film was a modern love story featuring an entirely Asian and Asian American cast — the first major Hollywood production with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. The movie signaled a major step forward in the film industry. What originally seemed to be a small pop cultural phenomenon has since produced a movement in entertainment media, from blockbuster hits starring Asian superheroes to record-breaking TV series that embrace Asian customs and languages.

The representation is certainly not perfect, but the enthusiastic response from fans has inspired both Asian American and Hollywood communities to demand more diversity in the industry.

We’re spending the full hour talking about Asian representation in film and television, plus, what we’re looking forward to watching in 2022.

Guests:

Elena Creef, professor of women’s and gender studies at Wellesley College. She specializes in Asian American visual history in photography, film and popular culture.

Jenny Korn, fellow and the founding coordinator of the Race and Media Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Today on Under The Radar:

A special exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston showcases the work of three local artists. They are the 2021 winners of the James and Audrey Foster Prize. The biennial exhibition is key to the ICA’s efforts to support local artists. The Foster Prize, which has been around for more than two decades, helps highlight the winner's artistry with specially commissioned works. The art produced by the three latest winners illustrates different mediums and perspectives, though each of their pieces share similar themes.

The 2021 Foster Prize exhibition has been on display since Sept. 1, 2021 and runs through Jan. 30, 2022.

Guests:

Marlon Forrester, artist and educator, born in Guyana, and raised in Boston. He is a resident artist at the African American Master Artist Residence Program at Northeastern University.

Eben Haines, Boston-based artists and co-founder of the Shelter in Place Gallery. Haines uses drawings, paintings and sculptures, and installations to create his art.

Dell Marie Hamilton, an artist, writer and curator who works across a variety of mediums including performance, video, painting, photography and installation. She currently works at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

Voters will elect at least three new district attorneys in Massachusetts this year. Whoever wins will determine how nonviolent crimes are handled, and influence long-term criminal justice reform. Plus, the doomed voting rights bills have sunk on President Biden’s watch. Does this set the tone for his second year in office? And Massachusetts’ seven-termed secretary of state will face off against a formidable challenger: Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan.

It’s our Mass Politics Profs roundtable!

Guests:

Erin O’Brien, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Luis Jiménez, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Jerold Duquette, associate professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University.

This week on Under the Radar:

As we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there's new evidence that the civil rights icon’s life and the civil rights movement have been willfully misinterpreted. This is part of what’s become a public battle over teaching the documented history of race in America. What is the impact of this campaign of disinformation on civil rights and race history in America?

Guests:

Jeanne Theoharris, distinguished professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She has authored or co-authored eleven books, including the award-winning, “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.” Her latest book is, “A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History.”

Diane McWhorter, 2002 Pulitzer Prizewinner for General Nonfiction for her book, “Carry Me Home, Birmingham Alabama, the Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.” A long-time contributor to the New York Times, she is also the author of the 2004 children’s book, “A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement From 1954-1965,” a young adult history of the civil rights movement.

This week on Under the Radar:

On this 39th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a look at the legacy and the future of the ongoing struggle for Black civil rights by the young people who’ve put it all on the line to lead it.

Guests:

Curtis Bunn, co-author of “Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America." Bunn is an award-winning journalist at NBC NEWS BLK and the bestselling author of 10 novels centering on Black life in America.

Patrice Gaines, co-author of “Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America." Gaines is a former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the author of a memoir.

V.P. Franklin, author of “The Young Crusaders: The Untold Story of the Children and Teenagers Who Galvanized the Civil Rights Movement.” He is distinguished professor emeritus of history and education at the University of California, Riverside.

A booming variety of plant-based options are now available at grocery stores, restaurants and even fast-food chains. Bloggers, celebrities and chefs are reinventing their menus and recipes to make veggies the delicious stars of the meal.

And the plant-based movement is no longer just for the privileged as affordable products have helped attract people with modest incomes. What's more, ordinary Americans are also touting other reasons to go plant-based: health, animal welfare and sustainability.

Guests:

Bryan Timko, CEO of Life Alive Cafe, which have served organic and plant-based meals in the Boston area since the early 2000s.

Ready to sip and savor? We hope you’ve brought your appetite! It’s a new year, and there’s an abundance of new food and wine trends that will be served up in 2022.

It’s our food and wine roundtable!

Guests:

Jonathon Alsop, founder and executive director of the Boston Wine School and author of “The Wine Lover’s Devotional.”

Products discussed during the show:

This week on Under the Radar:

It’s our annual spinning of holiday tunes with our own Mike Wilkins, radio engineer for PRX and GBH’s The World.

All this hour, GBH’s intrepid holiday music collector shares his new finds of old songs that are quirky, weird and sometimes way out there.

These are not the traditional carols you'll hear from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or even new favorites like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Nope, for his annual collection of songs you never heard, Mike has once again rescued vinyl one-hit wonders from the forgotten bins of overlooked B-sides, and highlighted a few new tunes that might become classics.

This season, for his 32nd year of jinglebell melodies, Mike’s collection goes back to basics — sort of. This is Mike’s musical holiday gift bag, “Sack O' Songs,” a Yuletopia recording.

Stream the full "Sack O' Songs" playlist here: https://soundcloud.com/seenthat/sackosongs2021

This week on Under The Radar:

Seven years ago, the Massachusetts Port Authority shook up the local real estate world. Plans for a new hotel on public land, overseen by the agency, would be the biggest to open in Boston since the mid-80s.

But the agency's thumbs up for developers hinged on the inclusion of companies owned by women and people of color working as leaders on the project. Dubbed the “Massport Model," the inclusion clause helped forge new relationships beyond the project.

The Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport opened in September to rave reviews. The $550 million complex has 1,054 rooms, seven dining options and glorious views of the Boston city skyline. The gleaming luxury hotel marks something bigger than just a building: a lucrative business model that centers diversity.

GUESTS:

Richard Taylor, chairman of the Taylor-Smith Companies, where he manages multiple real estate business entities, and director of the Center for Real Estate at Suffolk University.

Mikyoung Kim, landscape architect and owner of the firm Mikyoung Kim Design in Boston.

This week on Under The Radar:

The MacArthur Foundation released the names of its Class of 2021 “Genius” Fellows this October. They join an exclusive group of previous Fellows who have demonstrated outstanding talent in their fields.

American historian, professor and author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is one of three local awardees, part of our series, “The Genius Next Door.”

Dr. Kendi is America’s leading anti-racist scholar. A best-selling author and founder of Boston University’s Center for Anti-Racist Research, Dr. Kendi has helped push forward discussion about anti-Black racism.