

They Call Us Bruce
Jeff Yang & Phil Yu
Hosts Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present They Call Us Bruce, an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 3, 2022 • 1h 18min
147: They Call Us Year of the Tiger
Jeff and Phil welcome Potluck Podcast pals Ada Tseng (Saturday School) and Raman Sehgal (Modern Minorities, Quarantined Comics) to celebrate the Lunar New Year and discuss superstitions, superheroes, Michelle Yeoh, Lou Diamond Phillips, urine, basement bunkers and utility journalism.

Jan 27, 2022 • 43min
146: They Call Us Lisa Ling
Jeff and Phil welcome award-winning journalist Lisa Ling, host of the new docuseries TAKE OUT WITH LISA LING. She talks about her own family's Chinese restaurant roots, the new ubiquity of Asian cuisines -- and the untold stories behind them, and why she does indeed have the best job in the world.

Jan 20, 2022 • 34min
145: They Call Us Mayor Michelle Wu
Jeff and Phil welcome Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston. She talks about breaking barriers as the first woman and first person of color elected to lead her city, hitting the ground running, "getting city hall out of city hall," and embracing both legacy and innovation.

Jan 13, 2022 • 1h 4min
144: They Call Us Very Asian
Jeff and Phil welcome Michelle Li, reporter and anchor for KDSK in St. Louis, and Marian Chia-Ming Liu, Operations Editor for the Washington Post. They discuss racist voicemails, reclaiming our Asian names, and the significance of being Very Asian in 2022.

Jan 6, 2022 • 1h 21min
143: They Call Us 2022
Jeff and Phil return from the holiday "break" and ring in the New Year with one last look back, talking about The Good, The Bad and The WTF of 2021 -- including Marvel movies, squid games, library rockers, big city mayors, licorice pizzas and the damn omicron.

Nov 25, 2021 • 1h 23min
142: They Call Us Thankful 2021
Jeff and Phil welcome entertainment writer/critic friends Hanh Nguyen and Piya Sinha-Roy to catch up and discuss recent pop culture happenings, including Squid Game, Eternals, and Cowboy Bebop. They also play a Thanksgiving edition of their favorite segment: Thankful, Not Thankful and WTF.

Nov 19, 2021 • 29min
141: They Call Us Ally Maki
Jeff and Phil welcome actress Ally Maki, who stars in the Marvel series Hit Monkey. They discuss making movies and television during the pandemic, embracing the wild weirdness of an animated primate assassin, and creating community of shared identity: Asian American Girl Club.

Nov 12, 2021 • 1h 14min
140: They Call Us The Good Asian
Jeff and Phil welcome writer Pornsak Pichetshote, creator of the noir crime comic book The Good Asian. They discuss the inspiration behind his Chinese American detective Edison Hark, the real-life history at heart of this hard-boiled mystery, and why The Good Asian, set in 1930s Chinatown, feels like a tale for modern times.

Nov 5, 2021 • 1h 1min
139: They Call Us Asian Faces
Jeff and Phil welcome journalist Elise Hu, author of the forthcoming book Flawless, and David Yi, found and editor of Very Good Light. They discuss "aggressively Asian" faces, multi-step skincare regiments, and the global rise of K-beauty.

Oct 28, 2021 • 1h 3min
138: They Call Us SL Huang
Jeff and Phil welcome mathematician and award-winning science fiction author SL Huang, who also happens to be a stuntwoman, firearms expert, and the first woman to be a professional armorer in Hollywood. They discuss her unique career, the recent tragic firearm incident on the set of Rust, the extensive procedures involved with on-set weapons safety -- and how things can go wrong.