ACAM Dialogues Episode 06: An Interview with Dr. Casey Mecija (Hosted by Isa S. You, feat. Dr. Casey Mecija)
Tune in from your device via Anchor.fm!
ISA: The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program would like to acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.
[Recording start]
CASEY: So if we think about sound, not just as conceptualized within, like conventional notions of music, right, or, or the ways that we’re used to defining it, or recognizing it, then you know, it opens different ways of feeling and knowing what a sound can be and what a sound can do in the world. And, you know, there’s a lot of possibility in that.
[Recording pause. ACAM theme]
ISA: Hello and welcome to the ACAM podcast. We hope that this podcast can be a way to continue building connections between ACAM students, staff, faculty and community partners, while also providing our community members with a platform to share similar work they’ve been doing in their community during this time. I’m your host Isa. Our guest this week is Casey Mecija.
CASEY: Hi, I’m Casey Mecija. I am an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. I’m also a transdisciplinary artists who makes music, sound Visual Art and Film. And I guess I’m also…. not, I guess, but I’m also the parent of a four year old. So there’s a lot being done right now.
ISA: In this episode we talk about Casey’s time in her band Ohbijou, her academic work on queer sound, and the use of music in building of community. Let’s take a listen.
As the Asian Canadian Asian migration studies program, we’re always interested in hearing about people’s experiences of migration. So can you tell us a bit more about your and your family’s migration story?
CASEY: That’s a great question. Thank you for asking that. So my family arrived in Canada in the 1970s. During a wave of labor migration from the Philippines. My mother used nursing as a way to build a life in Canada and break a cycle of poverty in the Philippines. My father worked in manufacturing as a mechanical engineer and found employment in Canada as well. These professions, notably nursing, are inextricable from a colonial history, where the export of labor to places like the US and Canada were instituted by the Marcos regime in partnership, in collaboration with the US, wherein remittances became the stronghold of the Philippine economy and nursing programs established by the US and the Philippines were used to fill labor shortages in the Global North. So yeah, it’s a history that is complicated. I’m second generation Filipinx to Canada. And my story may feel very familiar to many Filipinos, people whose families are filled with nurses, back factory laborers, etc. But this familiarity has a political history, right? And so that’s why I share a brief history of it. There are many people, academics, community members that write about this history, know this history, live this history. So that’s just my two cents on it. On top of that, my sisters and I grew up in a suburb in the province of Ontario, called Brantford, predominantly, well, a predominantly white suburb, but many racialized people do indeed, live there. A large indigenous community as well. So that’s a bit of my story.
ISA: Yeah, and in what ways do you think that history has influenced or shaped your work?
CASEY: Right, so you know, what my experiences as a second generation Filipinx and candidate has shaped both my research and my artistic work and a lot of interesting ways. So, you know, I played music for a little bit over a decade in a band called Ohbijou. We were labeled, you know, the quintessential indie pop band, in many ways, and building a, you know, small career within the Canadian music industry was interesting as a racialized queer person. And so, you know, there were many moments where I didn’t feel comfortable enough to, you know, outwardly share my diasporic experience or my, you know, queer subjectivity in any way. But as I grew older, and as I became aware of different politics and different languages or or theories with which to articulate my experience, sharing, my family’s history became more important to me in my music. So there’s ways in which the story pervades my creative work and research in explicit ways, but also, it’s always there, you know, I live, breathe and am diasporic and Filipinx, I’m queer. And so those experiences are always a part of how I think, feel, express, etc.
ISA: Yeah, so how did you end up in academia after your time in the band?
CASEY: Yeah. Yeah, it wasn’t really a conventional trajectory, by any means. You know, I took a lot of time in between my degrees. I enjoyed my experiences in the band, Ohbijou, but, you know, desired more stability, both financially and personally. I should say that, you know, alongside my parents migration story is, is the accruement of, you know, capital and wealth and a life of middle classness that my sister and I, you know, were the recipients of, which allowed us to, you know, take the time to pursue art and music in the way that we did in our younger years. And that’s not the case for everyone. So I just wanted to flag that. But you know, I wanted to just build skills, different skills, a different skill set with which to engage community differently. And I wanted to find different ways to talk about my desires, my politics, my subjectivity, outside, and alongside the form of music, right. So, academia felt like a space where I could do this, it was a space that and remains a space that I can be creative in, not just in my research, but also in my teaching, you know, the classroom feels like a stage in many ways, the lectures are performances, they’re performances that are draining a lot of the time. And, you know, the challenge is how best to engage the audience, right? In both, you know, my experiences of music and in academia, so there’s a lot of strange alliances in the different paths I have experienced in my life.
ISA: And how did you come to the decision to study sound?
CASEY: So it’s funny because when I first entered my PhD studies, I didn’t want to write about myself in any way. I didn’t want to think about music. I wanted to really think outside of what I was doing, like every day in my music, and I really tried to disavow my music practice as part of my research project. And my mentors at the time two academics named Dina Georgis, Dr. Dina Georgis and Dr. Robert Diaz were like, “This is your life. You should write about your… like, this is what you do, this is how you love this is how you express yourself. This is how you form community, you know, like, let’s, let’s think about that. And it might be generative to you and inspiring in ways that are surprising.” And that’s exactly what happened. Like I allowed myself to, you know, own up to how much sound and music were a part of my life. Own up to how much sound and music have shaped who I am and how I relate to others. And so it was, it wasn’t like a decision that happened one day, one afternoon, it was something that I had to grow towards. And I’m so lucky that I had those mentors at the time that helped to shape my thinking.
ISA: And you mentioned that you also do visual art or visual practices, or work within visual mediums. And so how does working in sound compare to working in visual mediums for you?
CASEY: Yeah, that’s a hard question. I mean, I think that um, you know, that the ways in which I’ve worked with visual mediums, like film that it requires sound or has in my practice has, they’ve kind of been paired in a way that is necessary for that form. But in terms of how they differ, or what I think sound does differently than visual mediums is that, you know, I think that we have and there’s a lot of people that write about, you know, the hierarchy of the visual, right? Like the ways in which we rely on the visual for how we perceive or how we write, for how we talk about what is around us and I really turned to theorists like Nina Sun Eidsheim, who theorizes that music and sound is actually transferable energy, right? It’s a, you know, it’s a way to think about the materiality of sound, it’s a way to think about vibration, right? A way to conceptualize sound is vibration. And if we are thinking about sound, as vibration, it just opens the body up to different ways of knowing and perceiving. And I think that there’s a politics that becomes exciting when we think about sound in this way.
ISA: In your academic work, you touch upon this idea of queer sounds. So how do you define that personally?
CASEY: Yeah, I mean, this idea of queer sound is something that I am still thinking through and building on of course. And so where I’m at with it, and, you know, there are many scholars that have informed and have inspired my theorizing of queer sound, such as Ashon Crawley and Fred Moten, and Christine Balance, but, um, so, my theory theorizing of sound or queer sound is, is grounded or routed through, you know, histories, genealogies of queer theory and queer of color critique, that are inspired or use experiences of sexually and racially marginalized communities as a method with which to critique social norms. Right, you know, method to critique normativity and I think that, you know, queer sound destabilizes what we think we might know about social constructions of identity, in particular Filipinx identity because my project is mostly routed through thinking about Filipinx diaspora and Filipinx subjectivity. So, you know, in my project, I’m using queerness to gesture to embodiment, and to sexuality, but also to a psychosocial history in which Filipinx people have been rendered or have been conceived of, as always already queer to Imperial sensibilities, right. So guided by the lessons that are laid out by queer theory and queer of color critique and queer Diaspora Studies. I just hope that my theorizing of queer sounds can urge people to listen closely to sounds or listen more closely to sounds, with hopes of allowing these sounds to queer s, while at the same time opening up transformative possibilities, if that makes sense.
ISA: And how do you identify queer sound, like what are the markers of queer sound?
CASEY: Yeah, I mean, so that’s the challenge, right? So like queer sounds are in excess of how they have been, you know, often conceived of or formulated, right? And so I can give you an example of how I’ve encountered a sound that has queered me or has queered my relation to the world. Just recently, speaking of internet challenges, my internet modem modem or I guess, the nodes that allow the Internet to, you know, work across a large space, they weren’t working and I had to call the help desk or the number associated with the technical services. And I called this number and I had this lovely conversation with the person that was on the other end of the line. And as he was talking, I started to hear or like, listen carefully to the sounds that were in the background of our conversation and I kept hearing roosters, I kept hearing the call of roosters, and it was incredibly loud. And as I was listening, I was like, “Oh, those are roosters,you’re located… You’re probably in the Philippines, right?” Because it sounds like the Philippines in the morning. And so I asked him, Are you in the Philippines? Like, are you? Are you calling me from the Philippines right now? And he said yes. And not to go too much into the detail of our conversation. But you know, in that moment, it just had me pivot to thinking about, you know, the circuits of labor that we rely on to keep our technology afloat, right, like who is helping us, right. But sort of labor economies rely on the, you know, the racialized knowledge and service of Filipino people abroad, right. And so, you know, my thinking about queer sound is that, you know, a sound is, is more than what you think it is, right? And we can be queered by it, if we listen closer, and perhaps in that, in listening, in listening closer, there might be a politics of social justice or knowing that becomes possible.
ISA: Mm hmm. And in your dissertation, or your thesis that I was reading, you draw distinguishment between hearing and listening. And so what does that mean? And also, what does it mean to disobediently listen?
CASEY: Right. So, you’re hitting me with all the easy questions. I mean, I think that I think that there are ways in which, you know, hearing, you know, becomes like, so easily conflated with something that is mechanized, or made possible through the ear, right, that orality is, you know, a sound or a frequency that enters the ear. That that is the only way that it is processed, right? Or that is how we come to know what sounds are or what they mean, in the world. And so, I think when I am talking about… I think when I’m talking about listening, I’m thinking about, like, how we can listen beyond just the ear, right? And there’s lots of people that write about this type of listening. Oh, Christine Balance writes about, disobedient listening, right. And that’s a way to, you know, hear through the ear, but also to feel history, right. So what what, how do we perceive what we’re listening to in other ways, right? Like, how do we disobey what we’ve been told what a sound means, right? And so when I think about like, multi sensorial ways of engaging with sound, it just provides a deeper method of listening, right? It thinks about what becomes possible, when we think about sound as not only holding emotional registers that can be moving, right? Like sound can move us music can move us, but like, what is the political potential when we actually think about how sound can touch us, right? If sound is actually energy and vibration that moves in and between us and like there’s a different political potential, right? And you know, there’s a lot of work that’s being done on reimagining sound in the register of low frequency vibration, or beginning with the premise that vibration is rather always already itself a kind of mediation and I’m thinking about Tina Campt’s important work in her book Listening to Images, but I’m also thinking about the UK based Deaf Rave movement. You know, the organizers of this event define sound as a vibration of a certain frequency in a material medium rather than centering the perception of sound via vibrations in a hearing ear, right. So, there are ways in which we feel, perceive sound that are beyond the hearing here that I’m hoping my research can point us to.
ISA: And how do language and accents and translation fit into that concept?
CASEY: When I was describing how much of my resistance to thinking about sound was because, like, it just inhabited my life in so many ways, like, I was playing music. And I wanted to know, and feel the world differently at the time when I was starting my PhD studies, when, like, right in front of me, like, sound is like, is the root of all of my thinking, right? And how I have come to know myself in the world. And so my project is, or my research is, is inspired by the ways that I have been queered by sound and how my queerness is enunciated and sounds and like, you know, stop me if this starts to feel a little bit confusing. You know, there are so many sonicities and sensations that have filled my life that have, you know, urged me to think differently and have urged me to be otherwise in the world. And in my research, I talked a lot about my discomfort around hearing, my parents speak Tagalog, which is the most widely spoken language in the Philippines, and the disjuncture between knowing and not knowing what they were saying, right. And I think this is something or an experience that a lot of second generation + diasporic people share that, you know, the language of their family members or their parents or their grandparents is a language that wasn’t necessarily passed down to the children for you know, very complicated reasons, right. So, my parents’ hesitation towards teaching me Tagalog was a strategy of protecting my sisters and I from racism. And so there are ways in which the sound of Tagalog in my household as a child was familiar to me, but also queer to me, right? Like it was the sound that I knew but didn’t know right? i The words and sounds familiar, but the meanings were queer to me. And so this queer sound was really what prompted me to start thinking about what queer and what queerness might do for theorizing sound and how it might point us in in different, exciting directions.
ISA: And thinking about this in the context of music, I’m thinking about genre and how do we reckon with genres of music shaped by colonialism? And can music be an exploration into decoloniality?
CASEY: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that’s a really difficult question. And I think that we, we talk about genre, and when we talk about, like, persisting structures of colonialism within music, I I turn to affect right, I turn to the ways in which genre and notation and you know, colonial ways of knowing, reading, performing music can’t be held… become flimsy in when in confrontation with feeling and affect, right. And so, you know, words have limits. And when I’ve experienced performance or have been on stage performing, there is a sensation of timelessness. There is almost a feeling of omnipotence that I sometimes become overwhelmed with, that are I think for a moment decolonial in their substance.
ISA: So both music and radio are sonic mediums. And I know you’ve been the host of the Doc Project previously. And so how do your experiences in radio and music compare?
CASEY: Yeah, it’s a really good question. Thank you. So, radio and music are definitely different sonic mediums. And there are all sorts of different ways of engaging with radio, right. And, you know, I’m so happy that there is this podcast form that, you know, in many ways, resists the institutional hold that big, you know, media conglomerates hold on the ways in which we, you know, receive and tell stories. So I think that the big differences between music and radio as sonic mediums, and speaking from my experience, of course, is that, for me, radio was scripted, right? Radio was scripted, again, is beholden to an institutional hierarchy, right? That impacts the story that is being told, you know, you would hear my voice on the radio, but not my voice. Right. It was produced, right, I was written for, I was edited. I was trained on cadence and the ways in which someone should be speaking on the radio for a very particular audience. Right. And so CBC Radio One audiences are very different than, you know, the podcast audience that might be listening to this episode, right. And so that was difficult for me to reconcile with, right. And, you know, music, of course, allows for more agency, a way to tell a story and linear and not nonlinear ways, allows for expansive instruments that are both speaking in, in terms of words. And non speaking in terms of sounds, you know, like, there’s just, I think, more opportunity to tell stories, the way that I feel most comfortable with, through music versus radio. This is not to say radio doesn’t hold an important place or position, my life and the life of others, because it certainly does. But for me, music is a more creative, medium, and outlet.
ISA: And I’m just thinking about that in the context of Ohbijou, just from what I’ve been reading about the band and why you guys paused it, and does that in any way time to this idea of like, being limited in some ways by institution, or industry or hierarchy?
CASEY: Yeah, in some ways, yeah. I mean, and those hierarchies where at their most macro level, you know, funding industries and institutions and record industry and like having to deal with the challenges of negotiating contracts and things like that, to micro level challenges, like, you know, our, our band was made up of, you know, a lot of white members who, you know, are incredible people, but, for me, um, didn’t understand the core of some of the challenges I was experiencing, or continue to experience as a racialized queer person in the world. Right. And, and this is not, you know, their fault. But, you know, there, I think were limits in that formation that I was, you know, just tired of, and we continue to be friends and it continues to be a musical formation that I would probably return to in some, like, in some way someday. But you know, I think we all just needed a change and could find agency in different places and spaces?
ISA: And are you working on music right now?
CASEY: Yeah, so the last thing that I recorded, or the last album I recorded was called Psychic Materials that was released in 2016. And so it’s like, quite some time has passed since then. And I have not recorded any music. I think that, you know, my therapist would give one story, but the story that I give is that, you know, like, life in different ways, kind of just took over. You know, I defended my PhD and got this job at York during the pandemic, and, you know, became a parent when I was completing my PhD as well. And so the time to make music just hasn’t been there, though, I do think about it often and want to return to it, and want to think of ways to integrate it into my research, the way that I present my research, and the way that I create and curate my courses. You know, I’m, there’s probably ways of integrating music that will enliven the experience or just open up audiences, students to different ways of knowing and perhaps feeling my research.
ISA: In the song Sounds That Mark Our Words, which I’ve been listening to on repeat, I’m curious with the opening, who’s speaking in the opening?
CASEY: Oh, right. Okay. So yeah, Sounds That Mark Our Words. At the beginning of that song is a recording of my mother. And I was recording her as we were landing in the Philippines together, this was a trip to the Philippines. Well, my first trip to the Philippines as an adult, because I visited the Philippines before as a child, so this trip held different meaning. And so I recorded her as we were landing, and she was reflecting on her experiences of the Philippines and the poverty that she and many Filipinx people experience in that country. And I thought that that was a fitting way to not be didactic about, you know, what the message of those words were, but to provide a different sonic entry point into thinking about diaspora, love, struggle, and I guess family.
ISA: And in the music video, you intermix digital footage with some footage from when you were younger, from your childhood. And so how does nostalgia play into that? If you don’t mind me asking you wait.
CASEY: I think, in Sounds that Mark Our Words, there’s a mixing of different types of footage, as a way of marking, you know, a queer, you know, experience queer temporality, right? A mixing of the past, present, future. That largely is how I understand my life and how I understand how I love in this world and things like that, you know, the footage of me as a child… capturing moments of growing up in Brantford, Ontario. And that’s mixed with footage from a multicultural festival in Brantford called the Villages where you know, the City of Brantford gives money to small, you know, ethnic communities to create their ethnic village in Brantford, Ontario, where they can share food and share culture and, and so I filmed the Filipino village in Brantford. My mom was the mayor or the president I guess of the Filipino Association at the time. And so the hope was to show the different ways that my Filipinx-ness, my queerness, my history, and my, you know, present come together in queer ways. And yeah, that diaspora isn’t this, like linear thing. Queerness isn’t this linear thing that? You know? We are who we are.
ISA: No, I think it does. It does to me, at least. And so I’m thinking about you mentioning earlier how you are a parent or like, what is mother the word you would prefer?
CASEY: Yeah. So my son, my son calls me Mama. Yeah. Okay.
ISA: Yeah. So thinking about how you mentioned earlier how you are a mother of a four year old? How has your relation to music changed? And I say this because I read your dissertation, and you talk about how you went from singing songs about yourself to singing songs to your child. So yeah, how has that changed? How has that evolved?
CASEY: Yeah, I mean, since having my son, my relationship to music has changed in many, I think, exciting ways, or unpredictable ways. You know, as a younger person, I was using music largely for myself. You know, I think that there are complicated feelings, that can’t always neatly be expressed through conventional modes of communication. And, you know, music was a way for me to learn more about myself, but also about others. And for me, music was a way to express my emotions, music was a way for me to reflect on my life. And after having Asa, music became, you know, something for me to give to him. So, where it was such an inward thing, where it was, like, so focused on my well being and my, like, self reflection, when he came into the world became about how can music help him? How can music create joy for him? How can music make him dance, you know, and so, you know, where much of my younger life was like, sitting in my room playing guitar for myself, my adult life is, like, honestly listening to Nicki Minaj on repeat in the car, and, and being okay with, like, pop music that I may have not otherwise listened to, and like finding enjoyment in, in music that my son is now curating for me, right. And it’s just opening up a world of appreciation for the ways that music, and you know, music that comes from a very neoliberal capitalist origin story like pop music, how pop music, you know, makes people happy. And you know, that the joy that it brings my son is another way of appreciating that genre, and that form that I may have just like, easily judged or, you know, turned my nose up towards when I was younger.
ISA: And I think I saw that you did a cover of Dear Prudence.
CASEY: Oh, God.
ISA: In a compilation album, like Indie Lullabies? So that was before you had your kid, right? Yeah. And so how has your relation to lullabies also changed? Like, does it feel… have you sung the song since? Does it feel different?
CASEY: Right? That’s so funny. That’s so funny, because someone asked me about Dear Prudence, like last week, like that song is, was something that I was asked to record as part of a, like a compilation coming out of Japan. And, you know, honestly, the thought of a child or having a child in my life at that time was, I don’t even think, a part of how I imagined my life to be. And so now with Asa in the world, and thinking about, like the use of voice as a way to discipline but also a way to comfort and express love, the form of the lullaby, you know, became integrated into my life in ways that were surprising like I never imagined myself to be singing to my belly, you know, as a way of, you know, hopefully stirring some calmness in whatever was in there, right. Like, I never imagined that for myself and I never imagined, you know, like, being in a bathtub with a two year old singing In My Life by the Beatles. Right. And so yeah, I think it’s just a testament to how music can surprise but also how, you know, not just music, but sound can be so transformative and can be so surprising, I guess. And then I said that already, but I’m always amazed at how sound and music is a part of how I parent or is a part of my relationship to my son.
ISA: And in that context of using music, or connecting through music, How can music be used in building of community? And does community in turn shape sounds?
CASEY: Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I think that as I was saying, at the beginning, I think that, you know, music is both moving emotionally, but music is also moving, it compels us to move our bodies, right. Like, we hear music, and we sway we hear music, and we convene, and we move and I, and I think that in the ways in which sound and again, I’m thinking of the Deaf raves, and, you know, music festivals and concerts, and, you know, just performances at large, there’s a way in which music convenes people, right. And I think that that convening holds the potential to change the world, that’s like, you know, at its at its like, broadest, I think that, you know, there are ways in which music can inspire people to do things differently. And, and, you know, this is like, not the most academically, theoretically dense explanation of what music can produce. But I do think that there’s a way in which music brings bodies together that then can then be transferred to something else that can possibly become another world.
ISA: What sort of sounds do you gravitate towards? Or do you find yourself gravitating towards?
CASEY: I mean, if I’m gonna be honest, right now, I’m gravitating towards Renaissance by Beyoncé. Speaking of sounds that make people move, but, you know, the sounds that I gravitate towards, and I can talk about the ones that have been moving me recently, you know, I have been missing my family. And so, you know, a conversation with my mother on the telephone has been a sound, you know, not just in the words that were being spoken. But in this, like, the, the exchange of sounds, the sound of my mother’s voice, you know, not just what she was saying to me, the sound of her voice provided me so much respite was providing me so much relief, and the sound of the plane that we took, that eventually landed in Vancouver, like, was a sound that meant that, you know, my son got to visit with his donor, and this was like, the one trip he wanted to take this summer that became possible, right? And so, you know, these sounds hold personal meaning to me, I always think about, you know, the author Anne Carson and she wrote once and I hope I’m not misquoting her, but she wrote that “in every sound is autobiography.” And I believe this to be true, right? And there are ways that we can make our personal experiences into the sonic substances that we encounter. But there are also ways that we can understand the world differently to the sounds that we engage with. So it’s not just our personal narratives that become imbued in these sounds, there’s ways that we can know about our social life differently as well.
ISA: And going back to your previous music production, I noticed that a lot of your previous songs involved since I’m curious, like, Is there specific reasons? Is it just you like the sound? The texture of it?
CASEY: So there’s a lot of synths in the music that I’ve made. I think because I do love the sound of synthesizer, I have a Roland Juno that produces really, I think beautiful, warm, textural sounds as you described. And that’s just what my ear and body likes to experience. I like the sound of a piano in a big, empty room. I like the sound of someone singing in a bathroom. Like there are different ways in which the environment. [notification] I thought I turned that off, I apologize. There are different ways in which the environment that sounds inhabit, shape how sound is perceived. So the resonance of sound, the echo of a sound, there are different ways in which a sound can also be transformed by the space in which it lives that I think contribute to why am I gravitate towards it.
ISA: And last question, which is an easy one. What’s next for you?
CASEY: Oh, what’s up next? Okay. So as many of my academic colleagues know, the summer is slowly or very quickly… I shouldn’t have said slowly because it’s very quickly coming to an end. And I’m actually prepping a new course called Music and Society, a course that was assigned to me. And so I’m trying to think about how to teach music and sound to second year undergrads. Which I’m excited about, but which has, you know, also posed a lot of, you know, philosophical challenges and creative challenges around how to do it in the most engaging but also, most, I guess, theoretically, I’m not gonna say rigorous but I am rigorous way. So that’s what I’m working on. And I’m going to try and enjoy the rest of whatever summer is left while also trying to write some articles and do the academic dance that is required of us.
ISA: Well, thank you so much for, you know, meeting with me and being interviewed.
CASEY: Thanks. Thank you so much for having me.
[Sounds That Mark Our Words]
ISA: You just heard an interview with Casey Mecija, as well as the first minute of her song Sounds That Mark Our Words. You can find out more about her and her work in the links in the show notes.
[ACAM outro]
ISA: Thank you for listening to this episode which was made possible by the Chan Family Foundation’s generous support. If you have an idea for an episode of the ACAM podcast, we’d love to hear from you. Send us your ideas by emailing us at acam.program@ubc.ca. To be notified when the next podcast episode is released and to stay up to date on all things ACAM, please follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @UBCACAM and like us on Facebook at Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies UBC.