The Bánh Mì Chronicles | Podcast - Nhac.vn

The world is a lot right now. Between the headlines and the collective burnout, we all need a second to just pause and breathe.In the first of this two-episode special of the“Chill-Out Chronicles” edition of the pod, I’m joined by my good friend and resident pop culture nerd Anjali Misra. We are temporarily stepping away from the doomscrolling to get into a rabbit hole on another topic: What is Randy’s favorite songs of the 2000s? (I decided not to rank them in order). From my exploration into Indie Rock and the early waves of K-pop to the reign of the Pop Divas, we do a deep dive into the legacy and impact of these songs, and from the artist(s) who created them. Spoiler Alert:Songs discussed on this episode (Pt. 1):Rock With U —Janet JacksonZero–Yeah Yeah YeahsHung Up—MadonnaCut to the Feeling—Carly Rae JepsenElectric Feel—MGMTToxic–Britney SpearsTears Dry on Their Own–Amy WinehouseEspresso–Sabrina CarpenterLove At First Sight—Kylie MinogueHelena Beat—Foster the PeopleGame of Love–Michelle Branch & SantanaAll Night–BeyonceTreasure–Bruno MarsAbracadabra—Brown Eyed GirlsFire–2NE1Be Sweet—Japanese BreakfastLady Marmalade—Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Mya, Lil’ Kim, and Missy ElliottWe know everyone has that one song they’re ready to fight for. After you listen, drop a comment below: What is the one 2000s track we definitely missed?

Trigger/Content Warning: Kala and Randy discussing examples of state-sanctioned v*olence from ICE, law enforcement, and government agentsEpisode recorded on Tuesday, March 24th, 2026; 3:30 pm US Central TimeIn this emergency episode, I connect with Kala (He/They) aka “Your Protest Safety Kuya” to address the current wave of ICE raids happening at U.S. airports. He dives deep into the changing landscape for travelers—whether local, domestic, or international—and provides essential strategies for protecting yourself and advocating for others in the face of state-sanctioned v*olence.Key Discussion Points* The Current Landscape: Understanding the deployment of ICE and CBP agents at airports and what to expect in the coming weeks.* Know Your Rights While Traveling: Practical “dos and don’ts” when ICE is in the vicinity, including how to handle searches of smartphones, laptops, and GPS trackers.* Advocacy in Action: How to safely support and document (via photo/video) if you witness someone being searched or harmed by law enforcement.* Responsible Tech Use: Navigating face-recognition features and social media safety while participating in movement work.* Inclusive Safety: Specific considerations for travelers who are undocumented, neurodivergent, or living with disabilities.* Movement Security: Preparing emergency contacts, legal counsel, and paperwork for those publicly outspoken against government actions.Collective Community EffortThis conversation emphasizes that safety is not just an individual task but a collective community effort. By staying informed without being alarmist, we can provide the nuance and context needed to protect each other and build a more resilient movement.Bio:Kalaya’an Mendoza (He/They) is a Frontline Safety and Security specialist, human rights defender and direct action trainer with over 25 years of on-the-ground experience. He is the co-founder of Across Frontlines, a grassroots collective that works alongside frontline communities around the world from Aotearoa (Ah-o-teya-rho-a) to Turtle Island in their struggle for justice and self determination.Accompanying Links:Digital Security Checklists for Activists: https://activistchecklist.org/Protest Safety Resources: https://linktr.ee/kalamendozaResources:* https://activistchecklist.org/travel/* https://www.nilc.org/resources/community-alert-immigration-arrests-at-airports/* https://immigrantsrising.org/resource/guide-for-undocumented-individuals-traveling-in-the-u-s/Tools:* https://activistchecklist.org/travel/Also check out previous episode of the podcast with Jung Han on Protest/Civilian Safety:Full episode: https://substack.com/@banhmibites/p-175159957Minisode: https://substack.com/@banhmibites/p-175678613Bánh Mì Bites is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

TW/CW: Mentions of child ab*se, ICE v*olence, and other state-sanctioned v*olence. There was a brief mention of the late union-leader, Cesar Chavez during the recording of the episode on (3/10) before the recent allegations of s*xual assa*lt against Chavez came to light. A great honor to bring in Joon “J.S.” Park to the podcast. J.S. is a Korean American based in Tampa, FL, and currently serves as a hospital chaplain. He’s a published author behind recent books such as 2024’s “As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve” and 2026’s “We Are Made of Us.” He runs his IG account under @ JSPark3000 where he shares his knowledge and experience on grief and loss, as well as unlearning toxic masculinity and intergenerational trauma. We discuss these intimate experiences and how this is tied into his work as a chaplain and his deeper involvement in social justice causes. J.S. talks about why it was important for him to memorialize civilians k*lled in Gaza, under ICE custody, and other state-sanctioned violence through his social media. J.S. Park is a hospital chaplain, published author, and online educator. For nearly eleven years he has been an interfaith chaplain at a 1000+ bed hospital that is designated a Level 1 Trauma Center. His role includes grief support, attending every death, trauma, and Code Blue, and end-of-life care.J.S. has been interviewed by CNN, NPR, CBS News, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Bay News 9, and FOX13 Tampa Bay, among others, for his work in death and dying. He is the author of As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve, published by W Publishing of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, and an upcoming book on contending with our family-of-origin and family dynamics, published by Tarcher Books of Penguin Random House.J.S. served for three years as a chaplain at one of the largest nonprofit charities for the homeless on the east coast. J.S. is a board certified chaplain and has a MDiv completed in 2010 and a BA in Psychology. He also has a sixth-degree black belt.J.S. currently lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife, a nurse practitioner, and their daughter and son.Instagram: jspark3000Bio:

What does discovering an author who shares your similar lived experiences mean to you? I sit down with my friend and Khmer American content creator, Sophia Lee based out in the Boston area. She is the founder of the IG account BeyondtheMekong, which highlights books and writings by Khmer diasporic authors and other Asian American/diasporic authors. Sophia shares with me about her love of reading and the joy of finding Cambodian and Asian authors, and what it means to highlight those voices and find connections with other fellow Asian bookstagrammers. We discuss some of our favorite readings from Khmer authors and so much more in this episode!Books & Authors mentioned on this episode:Ma and Me by Putsata ReangAfterparties by Anthony Veasna SoLast Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen ZiaSambath MeasVaddey RatnerFirst, They Killed My Father by Loung UngWhen Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy HimThe Rape of Nanking by Iris ChangHuman Axe by Han KangLurlene McDanielPut it on Record w/ Dr. Sokunthary SvaySlow Noodles by Chantha NguonThe Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo VillavicencioRemembering Water: a Memoir of Departure and Return by Tuan PhanBio:A second-generation Cambodian-American and the daughter of genocide survivors, Sophia Lee aims to bridge the gap between readers and Cambodian diasporic authors, and to explore the importance of heritage language reclamation for Asian American identity via social media.Sophia has served the Cambodian-American community for over 10 years. She co-authored the Cambodian Texans chapter in ASIAN TEXANS: OUR HISTORIES AND OUR LIVES, and helped organize the More than a Number exhibit, featuring Cambodian Genocide survivor stories, at the Lynn Museum. Her writing is featured in the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association’s The Still House Zine, and you can find her at BeyondtheMekong on Instagram and Substack.

Award-winning, critically acclaimed queer Korean author and literary translator Anton Hur makes a special appearance on this episode from Australia, where he’s currently doing his residency. I’ve known Anton for the past 10+ years, and have watched his ascending rise in the Korean and Western literary world. I asked him questions about his debut fiction novel, Toward Eternity, and what he has learned as an author after years of translating successful Korean literature for an English-speaking audience. We chatted about the art of translation in literature, AI’s consequential effects on writers, the responsibility of speaking out on social issues, Palestine, and anti-authoritarianism, Mariah Carey’s legacy, and more. Check this episode out, and follow Anton Hur’s work!Bio:Anton Hur is the author of Toward Eternity (HarperVia) and No One Told Me Not To (Across Books). He was born in Stockholm and currently resides in Seoul. He studied law and psychology at Korea University and specialized in Victorian poetry at the Seoul National University Graduate School English program under Dr. Nancy Jiwon Cho. He won a PEN Translates grant for his translation of The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae and a PEN/Heim grant for Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny, the latter of which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. His translation of Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City was also longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, making him the third translator in history to be double-longlisted in the same year, and he also judged the prize in 2025. Love in the Big City was also longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award, which Anton also judged in 2024. His translations of Kyung-Sook Shin’s Violets and Lee Seong-bok’s Indeterminate Inflorescence were consecutively longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards. His other translations include Kyung-Sook Shin’s The Court Dancer, Violets, and I Went to See My Father, Sung-Il Kim’s Bleeding Empire series, Kim Choyeop’s If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, and Baek Sehee’s international bestseller I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki and its sequel. His co-translation of Beyond the Story: 10-Year History of BTS debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. He has taught at the British Centre for Literary Translation, the Ewha University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, and the Bread Loaf Translators Conference. Anton is represented by Safae El-Ouahabi at Rogers Coleridge & White in London.Website: AntonHur.comInstagram: AntonHur Bluesky: @ antonhur.com

I’ve known Travis C. Lau since the beginning of the pandemic, as we follow each other on social media. My interview with him for this episode was the first real conversation I’ve had with him. From the moment I hit record, we hit it off like long-lost siblings discovering new things about each other. In this episode, Travis looks back on his complicated relationship with his parents and his relationship with the queer community during his college days, and how that affected his relationship to his own queer Chinese identity. We chatted about his poetry and how his disability and neurodivergence have impacted his work and a deeper understanding of himself. Travis talked about his friendship with the late Alice Wong, a disabled Asian American disability activist and author, and how he wants to remember her. Also, he treats us to a reading of one of his poems. Travis Chi Wing Lau (he/him/his) is Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College. His research and teaching focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature and culture, health humanities, and disability studies. Alongside his scholarship, he has been published widely in venues of public scholarship and poetry, including three chapbooks--The Bone Setter (Damaged Goods Press, 2019), Paring (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Vagaries (Fork Tine Press, 2022)--and a full-length collection of poems, What’s Left Is Tender (Harbor Editions, 2025). He is also co-editor of Every Place on the Map Is Disabled, an anthology of disability poetry and poetics, published with Northwestern University Press in 2026. He was the winner of the Christopher Hewitt Award for Poetry (2019), recipient of the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Artists Elevated Award in Literature (2024), and the Ohio Arts Council's Artists with Disabilities Access Program Grant (2025). [travisclau.com]IG: travisclauBio:

TW/CW: Discussion of G*nocide, State-Sanctioned V*olence, RacismJenny Chan, Executive Director of Pacific Atrocities Education (PAE), joins me as a guest for this week’s episode as we discuss the many parts of Asian American history during the 19th century to pre-World War 2 that have been forgotten in US History, and the racialized harm and v*olence that Asian Americans experienced during that time. Jenny dives into the Asian Pacific Wars that were happening during WW2, specifically imperial Japan’s atrocities, which include the Nanking Massacre, the Bataan Death March, and the Korean and Chinese comfort women. She brings up how necessary it is to share all of this history to gain a deeper understanding of what we are all seeing today in the US and across the globe. Tune in to learn more about this discussion. Jenny Chan is the director of Pacific Atrocities Education (PAE), a San Francisco-based nonprofit she established in 2014 to raise awareness of World War II atrocities in the Asia-Pacific region, such as the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the "comfort women" system, through books, videos, and digitized archives that have engaged over 800,000 online visitors annually. Under her leadership, PAE's internship program—offering opportunities in research, community outreach, digital archiving, and oral history—has profoundly shaped participants' careers, with several former interns advancing to become professors and scholars.Visit Pacific Atrocities EducationInstagram: pacificatrocitieseduFacebook:Pacific Atrocities EducationBio:For More:

TW/CW: ICE Raid violence, imprisonment, and deportationRecorded on 2/5/2026, 9:05 amQuyen Dinh, Executive Director of SEARAC (The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center)joins me as a guest for this emergency episode regarding the current ICE raids happening in Minnesota and across the US. In Minneapolis-St Paul, ICE and CBP have been doubling down efforts to detain residents, including those with legal status, and have been under major scrutiny for the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The SE Asian communities, home to many Hmong, Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese residents, have faced threats from ICE and CBP agents, and the deportations among that particular group have escalated since the Trump 2.0 administration. We talk about the challenges and uncertainty with SE Asians who are being detained and going through the deportation process. We bring up Parady La, a Cambodian man who died under ICE custody earlier this year, and how his family is still searching for answers as to why he was denied medical care before his death. Quyen shares insights into what SEARAC and other SE Asian community organizations are doing in response to the ICE raids and ways to help protect their communities. Resources & Additional Information:SEARAC's website, FB.IG. BlueSkySEARAC resources for SEA refugees facing deportation pageMutual aid efforts:MinnesotaAAPIs United in the Twin CitiesHmong American Partnership’s mutual aid efforts Other mutual aidfundraisers.In Vietnam, Cambodia, and LaosCollective FreedomBa Lo ProjectKnow Your Rights materials in Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, or Vietnamese, or other Southeast Asian languages, you can visit MN8’s website. Click here for written resources or here for videos.SEAFN Deportation Resources

To honor and celebrate Black History Month, I invited Chicago journalist and author Arionne Nettles to discuss her research and experience with Black Chicago’s long-lasting impact on Black culture through music, journalism, literature, politics, social justice, and so on. We talk about Chicago-based media magazine Jet’s impact on covering Emmett Till’s murder, which propelled the start of the Civil Rights Movement. From Buddy Guy to Gwendolyn Brooks, Kanye, to the Obamas, Nettles explains how Chicago has been the epicenter of creativity, innovation, and tenacity for Black creatives and leaders. We unabashedly talk about how Chicago is and will remain the best city in the world :-). Check Get your copy of “We Are The Culture” now:Available on: Chicago Review Press , Independent Publishers Group , Barnes and NobleAlso, please support Black-owned bookstores in Chicago: @ callandresponsechi @ semicolonchi @undergroundbooks @ slantoflightbooks Bio:Arionne Nettles is a professor, culture reporter, and audio aficionado who serves as the Garth C. Reeves Eminent Scholar chair and instructor for digital journalism at Florida A&M University. As a journalist, her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing, and race & class disparities, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, WTTW, and WBEZ. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything, published by Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press.Instagram: arionnenettles Website: https://arionne.com/

TW/CW: Mentions of child exploitation, sexual violence towards women, fraud, and other potential community trauma.For this special episode, I invited my good friend, past guest, and longtime Khmer American community leader, Sina Sam, to the show to discuss the allegations made against Khmerican founder, Phatry Derek Pan, involving financial grifting, child exploitation & predatory behavior towards the Cambodian community both in America and in Cambodia. It is important to note that Phatry has not been charged or found guilty of these allegations, and that the information we are sharing is based on the experiences and stories shared by community members, which will remain confidential for safety purposes. Sina and I also chatted about the pervasive nature of the predatory and toxic behavior of some of the Khmer leaders and members in community spaces, and how the people who have been the recipients of their harm are often not believed, forced to leave their community space(s) or exit out of the work that they have been doing in the community, and not be able to see their abusers be held accountable, and not to mention, the trauma they have to endure long after. Sina shares her reflection on what accountability can look like in community spaces and in supporting survivors. Many thanks to Sophia Sam for her contributions in this episode and for gathering stories from folks who have experienced harm in Khmer community spaces. For additional resources, please check out the following: Individual Khmer therapists: Recommended by Krystal from Mealea Collection:Zona Keo (LCSW) at soulfulconnectiontherapy.org (U.S. based)Sophay (Pai) Duch (LCSW) at sophayduchlcsw.com (U.S. based)Sombok Psychology in Phnom Penh (Cambodia based, echoed by another Khmer person as “the only trusted therapy center in PH)Yo Phon (LCSW) in Siem Reap (Cambodia based, recommended by Mealyann Nita Saing/Miss Cambodia USA)