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We're in a big moment for Asian American representation, but there’s always more work to be done. We’re excited to be joining a long line - and new wave - of Asian American storytellers striving for deeper representation. Our show’s style is a blend of what you’d hear in public radio programs like This American Life, Code Switch, and StoryCorps — with an Asian American lens inspired by shows like Nancy, Second Wave by Thanh Tan, and the diverse range of independent APIDA shows by the Potluck Podcast Collective.
Season 1 unpacks a racialized headline about Asian homeowners, follows one person’s journey in accepting his Filipino heritage, and presents conversations with our listeners on the term "Asian American" itself. The level of reporting and production required to deliver these kinds of stories requires time, resources, and outreach to communities. That’s why we’re launching a crowdfunding campaign to help us get Season 1 of Self Evident across the finish line – including working with more Asian American reporters and producers to expand this pilot season and investing in community engagement and marketing.
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We created Self Evident because we know that while Asian Americans are not a monolith, mainstream media doesn’t always reflect that. There’s a multitude of identities and experiences that fall under the term “Asian American,” and as we grow our goal is for our stories, team, contributors, and partnerships to reflect those varied experiences, including those of South Asian, South East Asian, East Asian, Pacific Islander, and multi-ethnic communities.
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Our goal is to get 1000+ backers giving small donations of $1, $3, or $5 dollars. Asian American stories are under-represented on networks like NPR. By contributing, you’re helping us show public radio stations and sponsors that we want more of these stories to be told and heard on a national level. Every dollar counts, but the number of supporters is just as critical. Help us get there by sharing our campaign with your friends, family, and co-workers!
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We believe that storytelling should be an act of community participation. To keep our stories as grounded as possible, we’ve built a nationwide panel of more than 200 individuals who reflect a diverse range of Asian American communities and identities. So far, this panel has helped us shape our show by sharing their perspectives, giving feedback on episodes-in-progress, and even appearing on the show. By asking you to support our work, we're also inviting you to join our listener community and take part in this journey!
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Our host, Cathy Erway, is host of the IACP award-winning, James Beard Award-nominated podcast Why We Eat What We Eat, from Gimlet Creative. She has also produced and hosted the podcast Eat Your Words at the Heritage Radio Network since 2009. As a seasoned writer and reporter, Cathy is the author of the cookbook The Food of Taiwan and the memoir The Art of Eating In. The rest of our team is made up of passionate and experienced producers, reporters, and advisors coming from places like Latino USA, Snap Judgment, BuzzFeed, The Moth, Audible, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and more. Our audience development team is made up of founders with experience scaling regional and national organizations and building communities like CreativeMornings/Baltimore, 826DC, and Make America Dinner Again.
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We are proud to share that after a year of working on a volunteer basis, we’ve recently received development funding from our Season 1 presenting partner, the Center for Asian American Media, and additional support from the Ford Foundation. This has allowed us to focus our efforts and get started on production, but we have even more stories we want to tell and people we want to reach.
Your support will help us to take Season 1 across the finish line. We’ll extend our episode count from 3 to 6, and invest in community engagement, events, and promotion to help our show reach as many listeners as possible.
We are raising $100,000! That may sound like a lot, but we see it as a necessary investment on our way to creating a sustainable show that draws a national audience and allows us to pay Asian American and Pacific Islander storytellers for their work. For context, a single reported story can take over six months to develop. Along the way, we might spend two hundred hours speaking with two dozen people, to end up with a 40-minute episode. Funding helps the team stay afloat, produce episodes of a high caliber, market the show, and compensate the people who’ve pitched in to get this show off the ground.
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Your contribution will go toward: paying more Asian American reporters and producers, research, sourcing, fact-checking, travel, tape syncs, editing, original scoring by Asian American composers, sound design, licensing, mastering, legal fees, insurance, studio space, equipment, software, community outreach, promotion, and events.
If we receive less than $100,000, we’ll scale down our episode count, and put less towards engagement and marketing work. But we are launching in May 2019 no matter what – so any contribution you make will be going towards work that will be seen and heard. If we beat our goal, we’ll start investing in Season 2 and the future of the show. We're also sending a signal to funders and distributors that audiences across America want Asian American stories to exist and thrive. Your support shows a growing demand for Asian American representation – not just for Self Evident, but for the great work that all Asian American storytellers are doing right now.
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We’ve got a bunch of rewards to thank you for supporting our mission, including Self Evident tote bags, stickers, prints, access to special events, and more. We think the enamel pins, featuring our logo designed by Grace Abe, are particularly stunning!
A very special thank you to Their Studio for our crowdfund video.
DP: Federica Nànfēng
Sound mixer: Luigi Porto
Editor and colorist: Roberto Scaravilli
And gratitude to Thi Bui (https://www.thibui.com/) for her support!