Frontera Fest: Marian Thambynayagam
The eleventh episode of The Chutney Bubble Tea Half Hour is the first of the Spring 2002 semester. This show features Brooklyn-based poet/actor/performer Marian Thambynyagam, a University of Texas alumnus who, as an undergraduate was a leader in the student struggle for an Asian American Studies program.
Center for Asian American Studies: Director Search & Community Development
The twelfth broadcast of The Chutney Bubble Tea Half Hour, this show deals with the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas and features the Interim Director, Mia Carter, Search Committee member and UT undergraduate Cindy Kim and Community Liaison and UT alumnus Irwin Tang.
Asian American Images in Hollywood
Broadcast number 21 of The Chutney Bubble Tea Half Hour looks at the pros and cons of Hollywood's history with Asian Americans. The first half of the show introduces the broad spectrum of stereotypes that are found in film and television and examines the racial politics behind such stereotypes.
Marketing Asian Culture: "Yellow Apparel"
The 22nd broadcast of The Chutney Bubble Tea Half Hour previews the Austin-area showing of the student-made documentary film Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool. Like the film, this show discusses the political and social consequences of cultural commodification in a racially stratified society. One of the student filmmakers, Anmol Chadda, participates in the discussion.
Against Abercrombie: the Asian American Anti-Racist Movement
The 24th broadcast of The Chutney Bubble Tea Half Hour takes a critical look at the political response of Asian Americans to a series of racist T-shirts produced by popular outfitter Abercrombie & Fitch.
Ramu by Moses Bhagwan
Moses Bhagwan wrote "Ramu," a moving tribute to an archetypal figure in Guiana's history, the sugar cane cutter carrying his cutlass home from the fields, in 1964. At the time, Bhagwan was a political prisoner in a detention camp run by British colonial authorities. He wrote the poem, another one dedicated to his wife, and another invoking freedom in a notebook given to him by his sister.
repeat movement until by Nadia Misir
"repeat movement until" was composed by Nadia Misir, who holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens College. The poem gives elegaic voice to a wedding ring handed down in a family and evokes its experience with labor, with skin, with surfaces, with temperatures, with grandmothers and granddaughters, with death.
One Last Bag by Elizabeth Jaikaran
"One Last Bag" was composed by Elizabeth Jaikaran, the author of the short story collection Trauma. With its buoyant wit, it levitates what is otherwise heavy: the weight of an overstuffed suitcase and, through the figure of a migrant trying to please her Queens cousin, the weight of family expectations.
Nirmala Rajasingam Singing About the Death of Her Sister
Audio recording of Nirmala Rajasingam singing a Carnatic rendition of a poem about the murder of her sister, Tamil feminist dissident Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. The poem was written by S.Sivasegaram. Nirmala Rajasingam has performed this piece at numerous memorials for Rajani Thiranagama and other Tamil dissenters assassinated by the LTTE, including Kethesh Loganathan and Maheswari Velayutham.