Jack Straw Writer and artist Shin Yu Pai concludes our trilogy of events featuring Jack Straw Writers in partnership with Humanities Washington’s Speakers Bureau. Join us in person, or stream live via YouTube or Facebook.

In many Chinese sayings, “ten thousand” is used in a poetic sense to convey something infinite, vast, and unfathomable. In a sense, the story of Asians in America is just that. In her podcast Ten Thousand Things, Shin Yu Pai explores a collection of objects and artifacts that reveal personal and cultural values, stories of diaspora, and tales of trauma that illuminate the Asian American experience.

In this talk enriched by audio clips, Pai shares intimate stories from Asian American communities drawn from two seasons of her chart-topping podcast. From a second-hand novel to a blue suit worn by a congressman on January 6, Shin Yu Pai will discuss Asian American histories, the complexity of Asian American identities and where they fit or don’t fit within larger conversations on race, and what the Asian American experience was like during pandemic.