Voices Without Borders Podcast: Bridging Asian and Latinx America
The course “Asian American and Latinx Literature and Film,” first offered at Duke in Spring 2025, explores the diverse yet interconnected histories and identities of Asian American and Latinx communities. While these groups differ by country of origin, racial and ethnic identities, migration histories, and relationships with the U.S., they also share common experiences shaped by imperialism, militarism, labor, and immigration law. The course emphasizes these shared struggles as a foundation for solidarity and bridge-building across ethnic lines in the Americas.
As a final project, students collaborated on semester-long research into historical or contemporary intersections between Asian American and Latinx studies. Each group produced a short podcast episode for public audiences, tackling topics such as affirmative action, political shifts during the 2024 election, racial misattribution, portrayals of women in film and media, and Japanese communities in Brazil. These diverse projects demonstrate how Asian American and Latinx Studies can be thoughtfully connected while recognizing the uniqueness of each field.
The resulting podcast archive, published here with some student names changed for privacy, marks the beginning of a growing digital collection. It reflects how literature, film, and critical inquiry can foster cross-cultural understanding and create meaningful dialogues between communities.
Episodes
Beyond the Decision: Affirmative Action, Race, and the Future Of Higher Education
The Voting Paradox: Why do some minorities vote against their self-interest?
Margins: Multi-Media Publication
Margins is a multi-media, collaborative publication devoted to centering the narratives of Asian Americans and Asians in America. This publication – released by the Asian American Studies Working Group (AASWG) – is an intervention in the Asian/American community and an invitation for Asian/Americans to engage in more nuanced conversations about identity.
"We aim to (re)politicize Asian/American identity, expanding the vocabulary for understanding how we, as Asian/Americans, navigate our experiences. By bringing out voices from the margins, we want to build solidarity within the Asian/American community through stories that resonate with you. Bodies is the inaugural issue of Margins. Bodies is an expansive concept that is rooted in the Black intellectual tradition. It encapsulates the physical body, how we are perceived as racialized—but also gendered, classed, sexualized, and politicized—bodies. However, Bodies also refers to the body as a collective. Bodies goes beyond the individual human form, such as bodies of water, body counts, and bodies in the media."
– AASWG
View Margins Issue 1: Bodies online View Margins Issue 2: Ghosts online