Inheriting is a show about Asian American and Pacific Islander families, where the past is personal. Season 1 traces the journey of seven individuals who each have a question about their history, so they turn to their families for answers. Each episode explores how their most personal, private moments have been a part of history and ripple through generations.
In our first season, the show tells the stories of families across the Asian American and Pacific Islander diaspora, from Cambodia, Guam, Japan, India, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. You’ll hear conversations between parents and children, spouses and siblings and grandparents, processing the past in real-time. Hosted by NPR’s Emily Kwong, Inheriting seeks to break apart the AAPI monolith and unpack the legacies Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are constantly inheriting.
Here are some of the stories featured in season one of Inheriting.
Carol Kwang Park & The L.A. Uprising
Carol Kwang Park’s family owned a gas station in Compton at the time of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. Park didn’t understand why tensions came to a head in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King. Her mom was actually stuck at the gas station during the Uprising and Park was worried she wouldn't make it home. As an adult, a personal crisis finally prompts Park to start processing this event and ask her mom about her experiences.
On learning to work at the family gas station as a kid:
“(My mom) grabbed this plastic crate box, and she looks at me and she says, 'You're double digits. You're 10 years old, you can work now.' ... (So) I get up on this box because I was still too little to reach the buttons of the register, and (my mom) proceeds to teach me how to basically sell gas.”
"Don’t get me wrong. I did complain and I did get mad at mom. I would be like, 'This is unfair. It’s child labor. This is wrong. But let me go get my backpack. I’ll be in the car. See you in two minutes!'"
On finally asking about what her mother experienced during the Uprising:
"She had called 911 and no one was coming. She knew it was not good. People throughout that day had also told her you better get going. ... It was the first time she said that she was scared."
“When I'm teaching, I tell the students, go home and talk to your parents, and it will change your lives and how you see them and how they see you.”
“She just gave me this look, and it was just that moment of a mother and daughter staring at each other and realizing there is love between us. There is a recognition. She's seeing me, and I'm seeing her, in this very moment.”
On her work today as a professor teaching students in her Introduction to Race and Ethnicity class at CSU Long Beach:
“When I'm teaching, I tell the students, go home and talk to your parents, and it will change your lives and how you see them and how they see you.”
Victoria Uce & Surviving The Khmer Rouge
Victoria Uce knows what her parents went through under the Khmer Rouge. Her dad was forced into becoming a child soldier in the regime’s youth brigade. Uce now wants to understand how she was raised with so much grace and love in her childhood when her parents’ experiences were far from that.
On learning about her dad's experience during the Cambodian Genocide:
"He used to tell me that he used to steal food for his siblings, but if you're caught you risk death. How is that something you go through as a kid? And how did that make him feel?"
On how she feels asking her dad questions about his past:
"I see this more as me holding his hand and letting him know, people do want to hear your stories and this is your story. This is something that belongs to you and it's always going to be a part of you and that's OK."
On how her Cambodian community in Long Beach has found healing, despite many of them experiencing genocide back home:
"For them to come together [and] share recipes, which would've been lost, share language or anecdotes, songs, or memories, I think that's something that's so vital to them and definitely has become quite the anchor in their lives.”
Bảo Trương & The Vietnam War
Bảo Trương’s parents both fled Vietnam in 1975 following the war there. His dad, Thuận Trương, was a pilot for the South Vietnamese Air Force, who evacuated nearly 100 people to Thailand just before the fall of Saigon. Thuận Trương detests the current communist government in Vietnam, mourning the country that existed before the war. But Bảo Trương, who never felt like he fit in growing up in Texas, desperately wants to live in today’s Vietnam.
On Bảo Trương’s experience visiting Vietnam as an adult:
"I was like, this is the half of me that was always meant to be here. I felt like I was finally amongst peers, amongst friends. Making my own friends as an adult in Vietnam really made me feel like I was home. ... Nowadays, I think Vietnam calls to me, every day."
On organizing the Mr. Jong dinner pop-up series in Los Angeles, at which he and his friends cook classic Vietnamese and Taiwanese dishes with modern twists:
"It feels like I’m at my grandma’s house. It feels warm. I feel hugged, I feel loved. It feels like this is the community I’ve been looking for."
"Nowadays, I think Vietnam calls to me, every day."
On what food means to him:
"For Asian families … we can be a little repressed with our emotions, and I feel like food is the way that we show love to each other. You’re nourishing people."
Leah Bash & Japanese American Incarceration
Leah Bash’s dad was just a baby when he and his entire family were forced into an incarceration camp during World War II, along with nearly 125,000 other Japanese Americans. Bash is now on a mission — a generation later — to figure out how her dad's experience has affected her own mental health struggles.
Reflecting on her dad’s experience during camp:
“I feel very strongly that you can't be born into such a traumatic situation, in an unsafe situation, as a baby, without it having some effect on the trajectory of the rest of your life.”
“It’s an untouchable subject. I can't just call up a cousin and be like, ‘Hey, does your mom suffer mentally from camp? It's not the happy subject that people wanna talk about.’”
On how she wants to move forward by starting the conversation about the past:
“This is something people did to us. We suffered from this. And there's healing to be done. It's not our fault if we have emotional issues. It's because we've been scarred and we haven't healed, and now we need to start the conversation about healing.”
Saira Sayeed and Shakeel Syed & 9/11
Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Shakeel Syed fought for the civil liberties of Muslims who were unfairly targeted by the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. But his activism had a cost. He was away from home on nights and weekends, absent from his wife, Saira Sayeed, and their four kids. Sayeed took on the work at home by herself, and they’ve never really talked about it — until now.
On witnessing how Muslim men were targeted following 9/11 and how their wives inspired Sayeed:
“There were other people whose husbands … had gone through so much, they were put in prison, they were deported. And here they are bringing up four or five children on their own and they held their families together. I really drew strength from those women. Those women are true heroes.”
“I can't be out there like Shakeel, but I can do this. I can bring up children who are going to be productive, honest citizens of this country. And still be proud of practicing Islam and being Muslims.”
On the choice she and Syed made together about their roles within the family:
“Shakeel and I made that decision. That one person would be at home and one person will work, and it just happened to be him. So what if I'm at home with the kids? That was a decision that we made.”
On whether Syed thinks his activism hindered his relationship with his children:
“I had a deep belief and a sense of security and assurance that (Saira) will fill that gap. Could I have spent more time (with the kids)? Undoubtedly, yes. Did I spend as much time as I could have, should have? No I did not. … I wouldn’t be able to do an iota of what I did if it was not for the extraordinary and exceptional support of Saira in my life.”
Leialani Wihongi-Santos & Guam
Growing up on Guam, Leialani Wihongi-Santos was taught the U.S. "saved" the island. But her family’s CHamoru history as relayed by her grandpa reveals a deeper, more complex story.
On learning about the false narrative of the U.S. presence in Guam:
“After the Americans came in — they ruined the land, they bought out all our land, they tore everything down. But I didn't hear that story until I was older.”
On future generations learning about the history of Guam:
“If you are on a land that has experienced a lot of trauma, especially if you are the people of that land, have you learned that land's history?”
On her mission to uplift Pacific Islander knowledge and experiences in her work today:
“There's so much that our community needs, and that isn't gonna be achieved without us specifically spearheading it. Because as of right now, the library information science field and archival studies in general, is very white.”
Nicole Salaver & The Third World Liberation Front
Nicole Salaver’s uncle, Pat Salaver, was one of the leaders at the forefront of the Third World Liberation Front, which brought ethnic studies to colleges nationwide in the late 1960s. But not many people know about Pat’s work. Salaver is trying to change that.
On the lack of recognition today of Pat as a Filipino civil rights hero:
“If you ask any Latin American person, who is Cesar Chavez? If you ask any African American person, who is Malcolm X? Who is MLK? Everyone knows who they are. Any American knows who they are. But if you ask a Filipino American or Asian American, who is Patrick Salaver? … They have no clue. And to me, he is just as important as those people. And he sacrificed just as much as those people.”
"To be a good descendant is to ask questions and to connect with our elders..."
On her own work today, making a film about her uncle’s life:
“It's my life's mission, not only to raise my son, but also have (Pat’s) story out there so that other Asian Americans and just Americans in general see the importance and sacrifice that my uncle laid his life for.”
On how asking questions about the past can bring families together and lead to healing:
“To be a good descendant is to ask questions and to connect with our elders and it doesn't even have to be that old of an elder, like it can be an older sister or an older brother. Liberating others through storytelling, through oral history, and Kapwa, which is a Filipino saying of togetherness … interconnection with others and empathy, seeing yourself in other people.”
Find full episodes of the "Inheriting" podcast at LAist.com/Inheriting. Subscribe to the show on NPR, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
