With less than ten days before Thanksgiving, my podcast team and I find ourselves counting the innumerable ways that we have been challenged, and the unpredictable opportunities that have come our way in 2020.
So in today’s Season 5 True Colors Episode #10 Reflections on 2020, we each will share our voices expressing our thoughts and feelings about some of these life-changing experiences. But we will kick off with Kira Oman’s story.
Before the pandemic, Kira moved to Hollywood to build her acting and modeling career. But as the coronavirus spread and some of her family members were infected, how did she think differently about her move away from home? How did 2020 impact her career and life priorities? What surprises her about herself that the pandemic has uncovered for her, for the better?
Here’s our conversation.
Music Used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
The Dance of the Sky by MMFFF
Flux by The Ghost in Your Piano
Bumbling by Pictures of the Floating World
Convergence by Pictures of the Floating World
Bells in the Wind by Daniel Birch
Estampe Galactus_Barbere_Epaul_Giraffe_Ennui by Monplaisir
True Colors – a Season 5 Special Series – is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1, Episode #3 and Episode #5.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud | RadioPublic
Today, tens of thousands of Americans head to the polls.
Our choice of the next president - Donald Trump or Joe Biden - may be hard for some, but it will have immediate and long-term consequences for America in the years to come.
Many of our listeners like you may not be able to choose your country’s leaders for a variety of reasons. But in your own lives, you often make hard choices about where to live and work, or where to raise your children. These choices could be far more consequential with unpredictable and immediate effects on your quality of life and your future than a vote for a president.
And that is the story of Chinese American David Wang and his Shenzhen-born wife Candy Yang.
In 2019, they got married in Boston and had a baby girl. Shortly after, they moved to Shanghai to build their entrepreneurial careers. Just as they thought they would move back to Boston earlier this Spring, they couldn’t. The pandemic paralyzed their move. They decided to pivot.
In Season 5 True Colors Episode 9: Hard Choices - For Better and For Worse - Candy and David talked about their decisions under fast-changing conditions. What did they decide to do? How did that affect their quality of life and career trajectory? What about their young children?
Here’s our conversation.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
The Family by Chad Crouch
The Lean by Derek Clegg
Dead From The Beginning Alive Till The End by Doctor Turtle
Rosedale Daydream Back in the Room by Greg Atkinson
Need by Les Hayden
The Beauty of Maths by Meydn
Flux by The Ghost in Your Piano
True Colors – a Season 5 Special Series – is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1, Episode #3 and Episode #5.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud | RadioPublic
Three in ten Americans blame China or Chinese people for the Coronavirus pandemic, according to the Ipsos Poll. Anti-Asian harassment, assault and hate crimes have also been on the rise since the outbreak began. However, the racial bias against Asians in America has long existed in everyday life way before the virus.
In Season 5 True Colors: Episode 8: The Bias Before the Virus, Janet Wu, a former Boston-based television journalist at WHDH-TV and media personality, talks about a racially-hostile incident on the subway five years ago that made her confront her identity as a Chinese American.
That subway encounter took Janet on a soul-searching inner journey reflecting on the roots of her culture - China - and her upbringing in her birthplace - America.
Listen to our conversation here.
Janet Wu is currently a reporter for Bloomberg Business News.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
Trees in the Wind by Daniel Birch
Tumult by Kai Engel
Perennial by Pictures of the Floating World
Inside the Moon by Stephan Siebert
True Colors – a Season 5 Special Series – is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1, Episode #3 and Episode #5.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud | RadioPublic
When was the last time you felt your life was turned upside down?
How did you find a way out?
Last Spring when Covid-19 outbreak led to a series of campus closures, forcing tens of thousands of students to move out of their dorms in a matter of days, Kimberly Jung, a graduate student at MIT Engineering School, got the news on her mobile phone.
Stunned, she kicked into crisis-ready mode.
As a U.S. army veteran with three years of combat experience in Afghanistan and emergency response training dealing with natural disasters relief, Kimberly quickly followed orders to move out, and found a critical mission to help save lives.
Ventilators were badly needed in hospitals emergency rooms filled with Covid patients. Kimberly decided to join the MIT E-Vent Team as the chief executive to help guide the engineers to design an FDA approved low-cost ventilator prototype that would soon be picked up by manufacturers not only in America, but around the world.
In Season 5 True Colors: Episode 7 Mission After Mission, Kimberly talks about her mission-driven mindset and calling, which is instantly motivational and simultaneously inspirational.
Listen to our conversation here.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
The Gloaming by Josh Woodward
Return of the Indigo Sparrow by Tropo
That's Exciting by Pictures of the Floating World
Stage 1 Level 24 by Monplaisir
Kimberly Jung is currently the COO of PickleRobots in Somerville, MA.
True Colors – a Season 5 Special Series – is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1, Episode #3 and Episode #5.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud | RadioPublic
As the Black Lives Matter movement spread across America earlier this summer, many Asian Americans began to reflect on their personal history of struggling for racial equality.
In particular, one civil rights group has pushed for attitude change among Asians to reach across the racial divide and join African Americans and other communities of color in the fight for social justice.
In Season 5 True Colors: Episode 6, Jenny Chiang and Dr. Mabel Lam of the Asian American Commission (AAC) in the state of Massachusetts share their personal story of growing up with and without Black friends, and their own reckoning with the urgent need to come together for the greater good.
Listen to our conversation here.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
The Way I Feel by Derek Clegg
Break Through by Pictures of the Floating World
Rain by Unheard Music Concepts
Chill Out Theme by Komiku
Above the Clouds by Bio Unit
The Army’s March by MMFFF
Silver on the Outside by Heather Christie and Vir McCoy
That’s Exciting by Pictures of the Floating World
Dr. Mabel Lam is a psychologist in Cambridge, MA and a commissioner of the AAC. Jenny Chiang is the Executive Director of the AAC.
True Colors – a Season 5 Special Series – is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1, Episode #3 and Episode #5.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud | RadioPublic
To whom do you feel indebted for your civil rights and citizenship status in America?
Your parents or your parents’ parents? Or yourself?
Frankly, I had never considered this question until I came across Eileen Huang’s critical letter urging the Chinese American community to confront their anti-Black racist statements and stereotypes.
In her words, “We owe them (referring to Africans Americans) everything.”
In Season 5 True Colors: Episode 5 “We Owe Them”, Eileen makes a case for Asians to acknowledge what she perceives as our racist attitude against Black people in America, and to begin difficult conversations with our parents' generation.
Eileen Huang is a creative writer, and a junior at Yale University.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
Break Through by Pictures of the Floating World
Inside the Moon by Stephan Seibart
The Place I Called Home by Julie Maxwell
As the Crow Flies by Axeltree
Dreaming Days by Ketsa
True Colors - a Season 5 Special Series - is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1 and Episode #3.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes |SoundCloud I RadioPublic
Support Us?
One in a Billion podcast is produced by One in a Billion Productions Inc - a non-profit media productions. (501c3). Support us! Donate.
Imagine this.
You have Covid-19.
You’re running out of breath.
You’re inside a hospital emergency room getting a blood transfusion.
Suddenly this happens. There’s a leak somewhere.
Your bodily fluids spew and splash all over the bed sheets, some of the droplets land on the exposed skin of the emergency physicians and nurses risking their lives to save you.
Is this an impossible scenario?
No.
The lack of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for healthcare workers dominated headline news earlier this year, and continues to be a challenge for some hospitals around America.
In Part 4 of Season 5 True Colors: “Protecting Frontline Doctors & Nurses”, I talked with Dr. Alicia Lu about the risks she faced as an Emergency physician in New York hospitals. Not only did she feel helpless and frustrated, so did her partner Dan Wu. Together, they came up with an idea. It’s called the “1000 frontline suits” campaign.
Dr. Alicia Lu is a New York City based Emergency Physician.
Dan Wu is a Privacy Counsel & Legal Engineer at Immuta, an automated data governance platform for analytics. He holds a Harvard J.D. & Ph.D.
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
On the Clock by Pictures of the Floating World
Gemini by Josh Woodward
Driving Through Tunnels by Daniel Birch
Malachite by Andy G. Cohen
First Day of Spring by David Hilowitz
Marimba on the Loose by Daniel Birch
Dreaming Days by Ketsa
True Colors - a Season 5 Special Series - is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
In this 10-part podcast series, we have expanded our focus beyond Asians to include the African American experiences in Episode #1 and Episode #3.
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud
One in a Billion podcast is produced by One in a Billion Productions Inc - a non-profit media productions. (501c3). Support us! Donate.
It’s been four months since the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician of Louisville, Kentucky. Her tragic death in her own apartment has triggered ongoing protests demanding police accountability.
As the sound of fury and cries of justice rage on across the country, there is one young African American woman who wants to voice her sorrow in a poem, dedicated to Breonna Taylor.
Why a poem?
“I don’t know Breonna, but she could have been me.” Serina Gousby told me in our podcast interview.
26-year-old Serina Gousby is a Boston-based poet, blogger of her website “The Rina Collective”, and a Development Associate/Boston Writers of Color Group Coordinator at Grub Street. When I saw her reading her poem “In Honor of Breonna Taylor’s Birthday” on Facebook, I was instantly captivated.
In Part 3 of Season 5 True Colors: "Stand With Us”, Serina reads portions of her moving poem and shares her thoughts about racial inequity, her faith, and her fight for social justice.
True Colors - a Season 5 Special Series - is about the color of one’s character in a time of crisis.
*Photo of Serina Gousby. Courtesy of Serina Gousby
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
Horses by Pictures of the Floating World
The Ramble by Chad Crouch
Hip Hop Instrumental 2 by Ketsa
Funky Banane Nightclub ID by Checkie Brown
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud
One in a Billion podcast is produced by One in a Billion Productions Inc - a non-profit media productions. (501c3). Support us! Donate.
Who can assure you when you can’t breathe? What do you need to hear from ER Doctors when you are in ICU? In the age of Covid-19, these questions are more pressing and personal than ever.
In Part 2 of our Season 5 True Colors: “Finding Humanity in Emergency”
Dr. Anita Chary and Dr. Paul Chen, both are ER doctors in Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They vividly describe their experience trying to save lives and to assure Covid patients in those life or death moments. Who can make it? Who can’t? It’s never obvious and often defies logic and reason. Through it all, how are ER doctors themselves changed, when their job is over?
True Colors - a Season 5 Special Series - is about the color of one’s character in time of crisis.
Episode #2 - “Finding Humanity in Emergency.”
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
Horses by Pictures of the Floating World
Driving Through Tunnels by Daniel Birch
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud
Support Us?
One in a Billion podcast is produced by One in a Billion Productions Inc - a non-profit media productions. (501c3). Support us! Donate.
We kick off Season 5 today (July 14th) with a 10-part series True Colors.
True Colors is about the color of one’s character in times of crisis.
How do you respond after you’ve seen the video of George Floyd dying under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis? What can you do to confront anti-black racism in America?
Veteran ABC News correspondent/anchor Ron Claiborne and I (Host, Mable Chan) had worked for years at ABC News Good Morning America. For the first time, we discuss the issue of race, racial profiling, white supremacy, and police violence as he’s seen and experienced in Episode #1 - “Being Black in America.”
Music used:
One in a Billion Theme Song by Brad McCarthy
The Fifth Journey by Ars Sonor and M. Nomized
Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie
Snow Day by Pictures of the Floating World
New Day by Alan Spiljak
Gemini By Josh Woodward
We want to include you in this conversation.
To send us your comments or stories, email us @ info@oneinabillionvoices.org
Or go to our Facebook page or our website at OneinABillionVoices.org under “Pitch a Story.”
Share your thoughts? Pitch us a story?
“One in a Billion” connects Asians and Americans through storytelling, one person at a time.
Subscribe to “One in a Billion” below:
PRx | iTunes | SoundCloud