Contributors

Interested in joining us? We’re looking to expand our collective of journalists, activists, and DJs to help with the production of a weekly show We have a lift-as-we-climb model of mentorship and could also use help in web posting, social media posting, and event coordination. Asian American musicians, we’re looking for music to mix into the show. If you are interested in contributing in this way, please contact us at apex@kpfa.org or 510-848-6767×464

Contributors

Geraldine Ah-Sue is an award-winning podcast producer interested in using creative media to inspire a more loving and just world. She was the producer for the second season of SFMOMA’s podcast, Raw Material, which focused on art, community and social justice. Her work has been featured on StoryCorps on NPR, KALW and KPFA. Geraldine is also a producer for the Disability Visibility Project podcast, and the creator of the fun-loving, pun-filled radio drama Playing with Food. During the day, she works alongside the brilliant scholars, teachers and staff at Oakland High School.

Marie Choi has been involved in community and student organizing around racial profiling, education, and building ethnic studies programs since she was a high school student. Marie has since supported organizing for prisoner support projects, dignity in the workplace, and healthy communities.  She is also a new mama, educator, radio host and producer.

Salima Hamirani became interested in audio after an accidental volunteer gig at a radio show, and like all accidental predestined meetings, Salima met radio and Salima fell in love. Her primary passion is writing, but she’s fine-tuning her radio chops and hopes to use both media to help educate, incite, inflame, and entertain. She also freelances for the National Radio Project’s Making Contact and during her off time, she leads surveillance camera walking tours of Oakland with a group of activists linking government oversight to poverty and racism.

Ayame Keane-Lee is a junior at Berkeley High School’s Arts and Humanities Academy. She is a slam poet with Youth Speaks and a graduate of Youth Radio’s summer intensive. Her award-winning visual art has been featured at KALA, Youth in Arts, through the state of CA libraries through Growing Up Asian in America and most recently, SFMOMA. She is a poetry editor and creator for Kerosene Magazine. Her arts mentors are Miriam Stahl and Gabriel Cortez.

Jalena Keane-Lee is an award-winning filmmaker and the founder of Blue Peel Productions, an all-female video production team. Jalena’s work has highlighted a young woman of color running for office, emphasized the importance of campus activism, and helped to destigmatize menstruation. Her short documentary, The Construct; Female Laborers and the Fight for Equality, follows Burmese female construction workers. She is also working on a feature-length documentary about Native Hawaiian activists and a narrative series based in the Bay Area.

Eunice Kwon works at the Sustainable Economies Law Center in Oakland and is committed to promoting economic empowerment in communities of color. More recently, she was the interim director of the Asian Pacific American Student Development at UC Berkeley and a Coro Fellow in San Francisco. She has also worked as a graphic designer for several congressional and local campaigns, served as a housing commissioner for the City of Berkeley, and is on the board of Asian Women United, a non-profit that spotlights the diverse experiences of Asian American Pacific Islander women through publications, digital productions, and educational materials. 

Miko Lee is a theater artist, writer, activist and arts education leader. She believes in the power of storytelling as a transformative act. She has enjoyed creating original multimedia theater with incarcerated youth and at professional companies around the country including Berkeley Rep, The Public Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum.  She currently sits on the leadership team of Teaching Artist Guild and is the executive director of Youth in Arts.

Lindsay Oda tells stories through writing, marketing, cooking, and most recently, radio. She’s been published in Hoodline, Liquid Bread Magazine, IPS News, and Golden Gate Xpress covering everything from local restaurant openings to detainment of Kurdish rights activists. She finds the experience of radio production  to be stressful, therapeutic, and empowering at the same time. She hopes the finished product inspires you as much as it inspires her.

Preeti Mangala Shekar is a feminist researcher, journalist and a communications expert. Preeti has previously worked with the Global Fund for Women as part of their communications team. She has served on the board of Media Alliance, and has been an advisory member of Women, Action and Media, a Cambridge-based group committed to increase women’s positive representation in U.S. media. Preeti’s radio work prioritizes the voices and perspectives of marginalized voices, in the Bay Area and those in the global south.

Robynn Takayama is a community artist whose work has been presented through video, web, and gallery installation in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Chicago. A graduate of the KPFA First Voice Apprenticeship, she has contributed to national and local public radio programs and the Peabody-awarded documentary on Asian American history, Crossing East. Robynn served on the CPB-funded Makers Quest Talent Committee, charged with finding the most imaginative producers and sound artists and urging them to take public radio beyond its traditional airwaves.

Thank you to our past hosts and producers: Renee Yang Geesler, Pratap Chatterjee, Tara Dorabji, Phatrick Huang, Eric Park, Ivan Jaigardar, Kyung Jin Lee, Kiwi, Kenni Camota, Lawton Chan, Curtis Loo, Nishat Kurwa, Yun Suh, Klay Ordona, Weyland Southon, Wayie Ly, Adriel Luis, April Elkjer, Jason Jong, Eloise Lee, Sam Mende-Wong, Jane Chang, Amit Pendyal, Ellen Choy, Yvonne Tran, RJ Lozada, Roseli Ilano, and DJ Baagi, Karl Jagbandhansing.