Podcasts

Daniel K. Isaac is best known for his ensemble role on the Showtime series Billions where he plays portfolio manager Ben Kim. But 2022 was a pivotal year for the actor and playwright, whose passion is the stage. He starred in The Chinese Lady at the Public Theater; he made his playwriting debut with Once Upon a (korean) Time for the Ma-Yi Theater Company; and he’s currently starring opposite Linda Lavin in You Will Get Sick at the Roundabout Theater. Daniel was born in Southern California, the only child of a single mother active in her evangelical Korean church. As a gay teenager, he struggled against his sexual orientation and even underwent conversion therapy. (Spoiler alert: It did not work.) In a candid, funny and yes, raunchy, conversation he opens up about his early sexual experiences, his estrangement from his father and his ongoing conflict with his mother, who disowned him when he was in college and is still “in the closet” about being the mom of a gay son — despite the fact that Isaac has turned many of her remarks into the viral hashtag #accordingtomymother. Prepare to laugh, cry and cover your young children’s ears.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of the acclaimed novel The Evening Hero, a darkly comic story about a Korean American doctor in rural Minnesota facing retirement and the resurgence of long-buried secrets from his past. A professor of creative writing at Columbia, Marie grew up in the rural town of Hibbing, MN, in a community very much like the one in her novel, where her father was the area’s only anesthesiologist. In a lively conversation with Juliana and Catherine at her home on the Upper West Side, Marie shares stories about her parents (who were among the earliest Korean immigrants to the States, arriving in 1953) and their determination to raise their four children to be as assimilated as possible, not even revealing their Korean names. Juliana and Catherine hear about Marie’s short-lived days as a pre-med student at Brown, her post-grad years at Goldman Sachs while working on her first book (the YA novel Finding My Voice) and the origins of the influential Asian American Writers’ Workshop, which she co-founded with three friends at a downtown diner 31 years ago. They also discuss Marie’s lively social media profile and her now-famous advocacy for cannabis treatment to treat severe autism, inspired by her son, Jason.

Kathleen Kim is the talented puppeteer behind Ji-Young, the electric guitar-playing, ddukbokki-eating seven-year-old Muppet character who made her debut on Sesame Street last fall. Kathy was born in Flushing, Queens to parents who immigrated to the States in the 1970s. Puppeteering was just a hobby until 2014, when Kathy — who had been working as a reality TV producer — was accepted into a program at Sesame Workshop and found herself fast-tracked into the niche world of professional puppetry. Kathy tells Juliana and Catherine how she first fell in love with the craft; what it’s like working on set alongside Cookie Monster, the Honkers and Abby Cadabby; and her experience hearing from so many Asian Americans about what the existence of a character like Ji-Young has meant to them.

In recent years we’ve seen a boom of Asian American actors in film and TV. But for decades, John Cho was practically the only one. He first came to fame in 2004 playing Harold in the Harold and Kumar films, a role that challenged many people’s ideas about what a leading man could look like. He’s built his career thoughtfully ever since, taking roles (Sulu in the Star Trek films, Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop) that don’t play into negative stereotypes. The son of a minister, Cho was born in Seoul and moved to the States when he was six. He has just written his first book, Troublemaker, a middle grade novel about a 12-year-old Korean American boy’s experience of the LA riots. In a candid and open conversation, Cho recalls his own experience of 사이구(SaIGu), his memories of growing up in the church and the bottled up anger he’s often felt as an Asian American man. Juliana and Catherine also get to hear about Cho’s love of Little House on the Prairie and how books helped him through his peripatetic childhood.

Eric Kim is a writer for the New York Times and author of the cookbook Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home. Over the past couple of years, Eric has become something of a darling in the New York food world not only for his innovative and idiosyncratic creations (think: sheet-pan bibimbap, gochugaru salmon, Stouffer’s style mac & cheese) but the intimate stories that accompany them. His readers know that as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, he loved the McNuggets and greasy ball pit at McDonald’s. They also know that for his first date with his boyfriend, he made kimchi and mayo sandwiches. Eric attended NYU and was on his way to getting a PhD in English at Columbia when he dropped out to pursue food writing full time. He tells Catherine and Juliana about his experience moving home during the pandemic, where he stayed nearly a year to work on recipes alongside his mother. He also shares his theory about the connection between Atlanta’s strip clubs and lemon pepper chicken wings, the story of how he came out to his parents and his not-very-Korean take on the best way to make rice.

If you’ve seen a Pixar movie in the last 20 years, you’ve almost certainly enjoyed the work of Peter Sohn. A director, animator and voice actor, Sohn’s credits include Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL.E, and 2015’s The Good Dinosaur, which he directed and co-wrote. Another fun fact: Peter served as the physical model for Russell, the lead character in Up. Peter tells Catherine and Juliana about his memories of growing up in the Bronx in the ‘70s, where his parents owned a grocery store. He also shares stories about his mother, a talented artist whom he credits for sparking his lifelong love of movies (despite her later objections to his choice of career). Animation fans will enjoy hearing about Peter’s path to CalArts, his experience co-directing the English language version of Ponyo (stressful!) and the types of new multicultural stories he hopes to tell.

In this month’s KoreanAmericanStory on KRB 87.7 FM, Angie Kim, Community Organizing Fellow at Minkwon Center for Community Action, talks about her experience as a DACA Dreamer and her involvement in advocacy for young immigrants.

In this month’s KoreanAmericanStory on KRB 87.7 FM, Executive Director of Restore NYC, Jimmy Lee, talks about his personal journey of passion, faith and social change, starting from working on Wall Street, discovering a need to help women with AIDS in Africa, and coming back to the U.S. to start an NGO that brings shelter and aid to sex-trafficking victims in New York.

In this month’s KoreanAmericanStory on 87.7 FM, Doogaji creators Charles and Victoria Thompson talk about the importance of bicultural identity, and how their books are meant to instill this value in Korean American children.