This audio story was produced and audio engineered by myself, Megan Rummler. All music in this episode is sourced from a royalty-free subscription license through soundtripe.com

Episode 1: Call Me Asian America—Meet The Fastest Growing Ethnic Group in America

In this episode, we ask our guests, “How do you identify?” And, “What does it mean to be Asian American to you?”

With the help of race and identity academic expert, Professor Angie Chuang, we deep dive into what it means to be Asian American today.

Guests in order of audio appearance:

 

Jacob Nguyen, a 21-year old resident of Annadale, Virginia, is currently a college student at George Mason University pursuing a degree in computer science.

 

 

Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism whose research and teaching focus on race, identity and representations of Otherness. She came to academia after 13 years as a national and regional award-winning newspaper reporter at The Oregonian, The Hartford Courant and the Los Angeles Times. At The Oregonian, she launched one of the first regional-newspaper beats on race and ethnicity issues, and traveled to Afghanistan, Vietnam and the post-Katrina Gulf Coast to cover stories.

Her scholarly work on race, media and American Otherness has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism; and Communication, Culture and Critique. Her reporting in Afghanistan became the backbone of her literary journalism-memoir book, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press-Willow Books, 2014), which won an Independent Publishers Book Award Bronze Medal, and was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize and the International Rubery Award. Her media commentary has appeared in Hyphen, Huffington Post, The Root, Poynter Online, New American Media, The Seattle Times and The Oregonian.

In her first academic appointment at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C., Chuang developed courses on race and community reporting and the impact of technological disruptions on longform storytelling, and taught a range of undergraduate and graduate reporting and media studies courses. She was awarded the Ann S. Ferren Curriculum Design Award for creating the pilot of a mandatory first-year course on race and social identity, the American University Experience II. She has also served as a consultant on diversity issues to National Public Radio and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 

Angie Wu is a part-time copy editor and a stay-at-home mom. In her career she has worked at The Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News. She grew up in Indiana and now lives in Takoma Park, Md., with her husband and two young boys.

 

Sohini Gupta currently serves as the Vice President of Federal Government Affairs and Advocacy for WellCare where she manages a team of lobbyists, policy experts, and foundation and strategic alliance efforts on behalf of WellCare and the members they serve. Most recently as a principal at Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, she offered almost 20 years of experience in policymaking, having served Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) as his Health and Social Policy Counsel and as a lobbyist and strategist for payers and providers and for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health, technology and financial services companies. She has been deeply involved in legislative work, including the Affordable Care Act, the creation of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and post-September 11 initiatives, such as the creation of federal anti-bioterrorism policies and practices.

Gupta transitioned to the private sector when she joined the American Hospital Association (AHA) as a Senior Associate Director for Government Affairs. At AHA, she spearheaded payment and regulatory advancements for hospitals and tackled complex legal issues, such as physician self-referral. Her previous corporate experience includes serving as Director of Government Affairs for Baxter International, where she was the lead strategist for the Bioscience business; and as a Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for UnitedHealth Group (UHG). At UHG, she led health care reform efforts on behalf of the Medicare business and Optum, the health services section of the corporation that includes a bank, pharmacy benefit manager, behavioral health company, clinical solutions company and health information technology company. Throughout her career, Gupta has worked to reform and modernize the health care system to meet the evolving needs of patients, payors and providers.