American Archive of Public Broadcasting unveils special collection for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

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Kojo Nnamdi interviewed Dennis Hayasi, national director of the Japanese American Citizens League, about the internment of Japanese Americans during a February 1992 episode of "Evening Exchange," produced by WHUT in Washington, D.C.

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting curated a special collection of more than 200 radio and television programs to coincide with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Content featured in the collection was produced by public media stations between 1965 and 2019. The collection features news segments discussing affirmative action and reparations as well as documentary films like Joyce Chen’s China, China, Land of My Father and Vietnam: A Chicagoan Goes Home.

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH in Boston. It has previously preserved and curated special collections of archival content on LGBTQ communities, 9/11 special coverage and uncut interviews from documentary series such as American Masters, Eyes on the Prize and Ken Burns’ The Civil War.

Elizabeth Farnsworth interviews author Jhumpa Lahiri on an episode of “NewsHour” that aired in April 2000 after Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her debut short story collection “Interpreter of Maladies.”

The Asian American and Pacific Islander Collection includes interviews with artists and writers like Maya Lin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan and Frank Chin. It also features archival pieces on how Asian Americans have been depicted in movies, television and media overall.

Local and international productions from public media archives are part of the collection. Items from PBS Guam and PBS Hawaii cover topics like homelessness in Guam and Okinawa culture in Hawaii. International news coverage includes segments on student protests in Beijing in the late 1980s, North Korea’s nuclear activity in the 2000s and violence against women in South Asia.

One thought on “American Archive of Public Broadcasting unveils special collection for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

  1. For public radio outlets, a new release by the PEACE TALKS RADIO series will make a good insert for API Heritage Month as well.

    Seeking Harmony for Global Asian Immigrants
    From: Good Radio Shows, Inc.
    Series: Peace Talks Radio
    Length: 59:00 or 29:00

    On this special episode from the PEACE TALKS RADIO series (http://peacetalksradio.com), correspondent Sen Zhan explores three perspectives on the nature of intercultural conflict in transcultural Asian immigrants in western countries. When East meets West in the modern-day, it’s not only cultures that can clash, it’s also the past crashing into the present. Asians who have been formed by both cultures know this very well, and are one group among many who navigate the conflicts of transcultural existence. We’ll hear from Chinese-Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. Julian Xue, Chinese-American author Iris Chen, and Chinese-Canadian trauma recovery coach Sherry Yuan Hunter.

    59:00 version – https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/418525

    29:00 version – https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/418521

    The Peace Talks Radio series is carried by over 80 public and community radio outlets in 25 states. It’s a weekly non-political/non-partisan forum about the art, science, and history of peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution strategies for daily life.

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