For more than a year, Dmae Roberts has been conducting interviews about the historic and current relationship between African Americans and Asian Americans debuts. What began as a documentary featuring the Crossing East Archive collected for MediaRites‘ 8-hour radio series on Asian American Pacific Islander history series Crossing East has become  Relations, a timely chronicle of the Model Minority Myth and how Asian Americans are rejecting that myth to work toward support for Black Lives both in Portland and the Bay Area. Catch the debut of this new work. featuring the music of David Ornette Cherry.  Hear his music at DavidOrnetteCherry.com.

(Aired 11am on  Tues 6/06/17 on KBOO 90.7FM )

Ellen Choy. Photo by Kiwi Illafonte

Crossing East: Relations is a one-hour documentary produced by Dmae Roberts, executive producer of MediaRites’ Crossing East series with Robynn Takayama and Alan Montecillo.

The documentary, with script editing by Catherine Stifter  and mixed by engineer Clark Salisbury, addresses the Model Minority Myth and the historic relationship between AAPIs and African Americans.

As part of a 10th anniversary celebration of the Peabody-winning radio series Crossing East, which aired on 230 public radio stations around the country we’ve been producing this documentary as well gathering more than 100 hours of oral history recordings for the Crossing East Archive.

Ellen Choy (right) Photo: Brooke Anderson Photography

Interviews recorded by Crossing East producer Robynn Takayama in the Bay Area include:

Interviews recorded by Crossing East Executive producer Dmae Roberts and Alan Montecillo in Portland in collaboration with APANO’s Kara Carmosinoand her Model Minority workshops. These include