[Transcript] Self Evident explores America through Asian America
An excerpt of this interview was originally published in the March 22, 2019 issue of The Slant, a weekly Asian American newsletter. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe today.
This is the full transcript of The Slant’s interview with James Boo, managing producer at Asian American podcast Self Evident. Read our story here.
Let’s start with the basics. Pretend I know nothing about Self Evident or even the current slate of Asian American podcasts. What is the podcast about?
Self Evident is a podcast that takes on what it means to be American by telling Asian American stories. So that’s the tagline, right? But what I might add is, this is a show that tackles who America is, who we should be, who we’re going to be.
And the way we do that is by presenting reported stories, community conversations, and personal stories, by and about Asian Americans.
So the pitch is figuring out what it means to be American by telling Asian American stories. Who are the Asian Americans you’re talking about specifically?
That is wide open. We have a focus on — our central question is, “who is America?” And we feel that Asian Americans’ perspectives — let me see if I can say this the right way here.
We’re really centered on this question of American identity, because I think that’s what the whole country is grappling with right now. And in a lot of ways, that’s what we’ve seen and what’s inspired us. It’s seeing things like The Slant and all different kinds of Asian American groups — not that there were not Asian American voices speaking out prior to 2016, but it’s undeniable that more Asian American community leaders and community voices are getting up and not waiting to speak up.
And so we’re excited about — we don’t think these are new voices, but I think that there is a new way of voices joining the stream. We think it’s a chance to see what they have to say, and we feel like our job is to be a — I’m never gonna say “platform,” just so you know, not gonna say it — but we’re trying to build a storytelling hub that’s very concerned with this question of, “what’s our stake in America?”
Of course, not just Asian Americans care about that question. But we think it’s a great place to start. And we think that just listening — if you care about cultural change, if you care about trying to figure out who we are and where you belong in this country, and if there’s a place for you, just as an American. One thing that we’re pointing out is that there’s a lot of Asian American communities who can really talk about that from their own experiences.
This is not about you learning what Asian people are like. I think it goes beyond that. I think it’s time to make that connection, particularly because it’s 2019 and next year there are a lot of things happening, at a monumental scale.
So we’re trying to build a show that is open enough.
It’s interesting you mention that it’s 2019. How explicit do you tackle things like the political atmosphere, and the fact that you’re launching the year before a presidential election? Does that factor into the stories you’re telling?
It factors in broadly speaking. I think it’s a big reference point. It’s something we’re all aware of, and in terms of stories, we have stories that touch on and report on homelessness and inequality. I think in this first season, we’re not doing a lot of direct election coverage or political campaign coverage. We’re asking questions like, do the political parties make sense for Asian American communities? Why would it matter if, say, a Vietnamese American chooses to vote Republican or not?
Those are different conversations, quite frankly, from asking whether a white person votes Republican or not. There’s a lot more depth. And a lot more that’s very close to stories that have been told, but we’re trying to see how it fits in right now. And especially what that means to people who make decisions about where they’ll fit in, who they’re going to vote for.
So I think that — going back to the original question — are we handling political issues directly? I would say no, but it’s a reference point. One common thread that’s running through the stories we’re working on for this first season is just asking in different ways, where do different Asian American communities belong? How do they answer that question? What matters to them today by answering that question?
Whether they come at it from where they live, and the local politics — in one of our stories, wanting to have a homeless shelter in your town or not? Or to take another one of our stories, more of a personal journey that someone is making because they realize that they have a lot of shame about heritage, and believe it’s time to change that.
When I say we’re thinking about 2020, this first season is really a test run. And one thing I myself have been a bit surprised by, is how often we tell someone our vision for the show, and they’ll say, “wow, I’ve never heard anything like that before.” And I don’t know how to respond.
And it’s very overwhelming and humbling, but I just — that shouldn’t be the case. I think there is a moment in this year, next year, where everyone’s going be asking where you fit in (laughs) and where you land on these questions. And for us it’s not about “are you on the right side or not?”, it’s “are you asking the right questions?” And what goes into that?
We don’t want this to be a horse race conversation. I think we want to reflect where different communities have been and how they’re approaching it. And by having an Asian American show, and having that open door, I think it’ll help us present stories that let people access that question in ways that isn’t a direct mirror of yourself, but it’s a reflection of that, that you can relate to, that you can share, and that is something that might be a little more complicated.
For us, from a storytelling perspective, that’s what we gravitate to. We don’t want it to be a chore to listen to, but rather something that you really have to dig into. And we find that the more we talk about these stories with our supporters and our audience that we’ve been developing these relationships with, people are down for that.
When I read articles about the rise of Asian Americans in American culture, it’s often about media representation, or even narrower, East Asian representation. But that’s an issue that’s sometimes considered table stakes, or even exclusionary, even if representation is often an entry point into thinking about Asian American identity. How does Self Evident think about tackling cultural issues like these that might be new to some listeners, but might feel overdone to others?
Our general approach is that we trust that people can Google stuff. For example, “self evident,” the name — that is a name we’re very intentional about. Because we didn’t want a name that would signal to everyone that we only think Asian Americans are East Asians, and that’s it. And we wanted something that would acknowledge two things: one, this is something about American identity writ large, that Asian Americans have been a part of that for a long time, and that we’re very intent on looking forward with the confidence that we have a stake in this, and we’re trying to explore what that stake is, and what our stories tell about being part of this country going forward, which we don’t feel is — well, we can talk about policy for that. It’s a done deal — we’re part of the American story as broadly speaking, we’re the fastest-growing minority group.
Really broadly speaking.
Yeah, we could go into specifics, but just to frame things. But in terms of getting the right level of—I think that as long as you have a good story. We tend to dive right into it, and not back up every five minutes to explain every little thing. Ultimately, our stories are about people, and we’re leading with their experiences and identities and what they go through and what they take away from those journeys that they’re going on. And if we’re doing stories that are a little more of a journalistic piece, we trust the audience to catch up if they need to catch up.
This is something I’m confident I’m saying: we don’t believe we have to catch everyone up to one spot and then you can have the next conversation. One advantage of podcasting is you can have the conversation you want to have, you can tell the story as fully as you can. And people will respond to the story, and if they feel like they need to learn more, that’s great. That’s an amazing outcome.
Speaking more practically, we test this stuff. I mean, we share stories in progress, and see if anything’s not landing. And sometimes, we specifically ask — this is part of our show — one thing that’s very important is that it’s community driven.
And that’s a formal thing: we have a group of 200 people and growing called the community panel, whose purpose is to check in with us and tell us what they think. So we’re taking inputs throughout the process. We’ll ask questions like, “listen to this tape, did you hear anything you’ve heard a million times or not?”
What’s a concern about niche podcasts, such as Asian American focused ones, that you think is valid, or that’s been a challenge for your team?
I think right off the bat, saying that it’s an Asian American podcast, for very good reasons, raises a lot of questions. I know The Slant has covered this, you know — what does it mean when you have an Asian American newsletter? Because we are actually devoting an entire episode — it was just going to be a segment, but the response that we got from this one question, “do you identify as Asian American? Why or why not?” was so rooted. It’s not just a fly-by topic. It’s experienced, lived and thought about. [People] had really strong feelings about it. Which really defies, going back to the media representation thing, the national conversation.
Because we’re finding, at least initially, that many, many people don’t identify with that term. And we just want to know why. And we think it helps to be able to create that space and hear personal stories about what’s influenced their relationship with that term. And that will be one of the early episodes we put out. And it includes two audience members.
We’re excited to bring different communities into the process to hear their stories, sometimes literally. And that’s one of the main purposes of our show. That is one tool we’re trying to bring to bear. To be true to an idea of diversity and inclusion that everyone would agree is nice to have, but the real question is how you do that.
I noticed that on your website, Self Evident does bill itself explicitly as an Asian American podcast, versus AAPI. How have you considered your audience and how do you plan on reaching more marginalized Asian Americans?
This is an ongoing conversation, actually, and I think an early conversation was “what’s the right way to frame this?”. We learned from Pacific Islander storytellers and leaders that you can’t flippantly use that term [AAPI] and just merge it into whatever you’re saying. And so we do very much want to have stories from Pacific Islander communities and experiences on the show, but the headline of it, I think we’re — to be very specific, we didn’t want to tokenize or appropriate Pacific Islanders as part of [the show].
And by saying “Asian American,” it lets people ask the question. And we’re being proactive in saying, “hey, by the way, here’s what we mean.” We have Iranian voices on the show from the very first episode, as well as South Asian experiences, referencing the history that’s often ignored when there’s so much focus on East Asian history.
That is one of our goals for this first season: let’s really show that this is an open door. I don’t think it’s a good goal to set to be exhaustive. We’re measuring success by how open people feel that door really is. In terms of what they’re hearing and how the conversation goes from there.
As we bring social media into it, I think that’s another opportunity to really show what we do. Because it’s ultimately about what you do, and not how you describe yourself. People shouldn’t take that label and trust us. Hopefully our stories and the way we try to build conversations online will reflect our mission that we’re trying to pursue, which is the most inclusive use of the term “Asian American,” possible, and a very open acknowledgement of our limitations and to talk about a chance to understand why
You also worked on One Minute Meal, a documentary series set in New York. What lessons from making One Minute Meal did you draw on in producing Self Evident?
Oh, my god. Don’t do it alone, basically. Lesson number one. Wow. I worked on that project for, I think, four years on and off. But the biggest thing is don’t do it alone. The very first thing I did when discussing ideas for this podcast over a year ago, I decided there’s no way I’m going to put effort into this project unless I have a cofounder whose primary job is to understand what the audience needs, and make sure that they’re a part of everything.
Because otherwise, I think anyone who’s ever created a poem or story or media product, for lack of a better word, knows that feeling when you put all this work into making it, and nobody is engaging with it. So I called my friend Talisa and said, “hey, I know we’ve been talking about this thing, do you want to be here from day one, so I can focus all my energy on the stories and you can be completely in charge of how we think about community and how we think about our audience?” And she’s a cofounder of the show, and she’s amazing, and we’re so lucky, god. We’re all — all of us are so lucky that she’s in charge of this critical piece. Especially for a show about community that wants to open the door to more marginalized voices. So we talk about being community-oriented, a lot of that comes from Talisa.
Going back to One Minute Meal, though, there’s a very interesting thing that I’m not sure how it’s panning out for Self Evident, but it was 60 seconds an episode. One thing I didn’t understand at first was that when you have something that’s very short, you can include a much bigger range of people in that format. Because a lot of people in the world, they’re not meant to be seen in a five-minute story. They’re not TV personalities. They may have important insights and experience that nobody else can hear or see, and you have to find the right format for them to be able to say it in their own voice.
And with the help of editing and framing, it’s a way of letting everyone’s story come through without any distractions or disadvantages. In this case, it was the short format that led a lot of people who had not-so-great English skills or people who were not-so-comfortable on camera to share this one critical moment of their lives, or something they learned or felt strongly about, that would connect with anyone watching.
In that case, the short format let me do that. And I am taking away the process of designing a format that can help you achieve your goals. In the case of Self Evident, it’s that case of community conversation. It comes from presenting a question to the audience, bringing them into the conversation, and eventually bringing them into the show, which I think is a natural evolution of that thought process.
Which again, was something that Talisa, our head of audience development — I don’t want to take credit for that. I think we’re coming into a similar place in reflecting on, what are the tools for inclusive storytelling?
