Behind the Mic: Interning for Reproductive Justice in the AAPI Sphere
By Aimee Bowling
In the Fall 2023 semester, I worked with Syna Pal and VAYLA on the Spotify podcast “Our Bodies, Our Stories.” Syna and I have been working on the podcast for the past two terms, and we have been able to put our own unique spin on it by adding more nuance and context to each of our episodes and ensuring to also pull in personal anecdotes to further our points. To overview the general episode-making process, Syna and I will discuss relevant topics for Reproductive Justice with an AAPI lens, and then we do our research on the chosen topic. Next, we write an episode script, and we have the script approved by our supervisor, Ellen, at VAYLA. Following approval, we record the episode, do the social media aspects of the podcast, publish it, and send it to the world.
Over the course of our internship term, as Syna and I have been in charge of the podcast, we have struggled with feeling that our work was not making an impact. Although education is always necessary, we think it is also important to feel like you’re having an impact and wanted to create a podcast episode that consisted of more than a Google search. Therefore, as the third season progressed, we took a more deliberate approach to including critical theory and thought in our podcast episodes. By including critical theory and thought, we’ve been able to add a new layer of analysis to our episodes by discussing the role not just systems of power play on Reproductive Rights and Justice but also on women, gender-diverse people, people of color, and specifically on AAPI persons.
Although adding this extra layer of analysis does extend the time between episodes for “Our Bodies, Our Stories,” our work has more weight to it and is better able to express the nuance that people who are interested in reproductive justice sometimes struggle to fully grasp. As the reproductive rights and justice landscape is constantly changing, it is important to have spaces like our podcast that add clarity and are a safe space for people with uteruses to come together and discuss issues that specifically pertain to people with uteruses.
If you would like to listen to the podcast, please follow this link! I hope you enjoy it!