While We Were Burning is a domestic thriller set in Memphis examining the intersection of race, class, and female friendship, and the devastating consequences of everyday actions. On today’s show I'm joined by Memphis native and author, Sara Koffi, to discuss her debut novel. Sara Koffi is a writer and editor from Memphis, Tennessee, with a BA in English from Whittier College. As a writer, she strives to explore the nuances of “unlikable” female characters and humanize Black women by giving them space on the page to breathe. Other episodes mentioned: Ep129 Special Feature: Black is America episode highlighting Tom Lee

When was the first time you saw yourself represented on screen? An actor or actress who looked like you? For better or worse, media shapes how we think about ourselves and others and often fills in the gap when we don’t have first-hand experience with certain situations, circumstances, or groups of people. For me, as an Asian American woman growing up in the 90s, Asian Americans weren’t completely invisible but we had limited and often stereotypical roles. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up with an Asian American actress to look up to. Today we’re delving into the life of our first Asian American movie star, the opportunities she seized, the challenges she faced, and the legacy she left. I’m joined by Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong. In addition to writing Not Your China Doll, Katie’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Believer, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in 2021 and gave the TED Talk “As American as Chop Suey.” Katie also writes the newsletter Half-Caste Woman. A fifth-generation Chinese American who hails from Southern California, she now lives in Brooklyn.

Currently there are over 22 million Asians across the US representing a range of ethnic groups originating in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Yet, oftentimes, the ways we think of Asian American history is tethered to the East and West Coasts. But Asians in America have a long history in the Deep South, a history that has garnered growing attention. Documentaries like “Far East, Deep South” and “Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South” follow the filmmakers as they explore their personal family histories. How does knowing these histories help us have a fuller and richer understanding not only of Asian Americans but also the South? And how might these histories be shaping our shared present and future? Today I sit down with Dr. Shaolu Yu, whose work examines these questions and more. Dr. Shaolu Yu is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and the Chair of Asian Studies at Rhodes College. Trained as an urban geographer in an interdisciplinary background and participating in projects in urban studies in China, the U.S., and Canada, she has developed a comparative and global perspective and a mixed method approach in her research on cities. Her papers have been published in the journals Annals of Association of American Geographers, The Professional Geographer, Urban Geography, Geographical Review, and The Journal of Transport Geography.