The Vergecast - Pirate Radio » Dial up!

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

How the Hmong diaspora uses the world's most boring technology to make something weird and wonderful. Episode two of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Mia Sato. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for the show comes from Retool. Too many companies run critical operations on duct taped spreadsheets, Slack workflows, and whatever else they could cobble together. Not because they want to, but because building internal tools means weeks of waiting on someone else's backlog. That's where Retool comes in. Build custom internal tools just by describing what you need. Prompts something like,

Build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data, in your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to retool.com slash Verchcast. We all need to retool how we build software. What's up, y'all. I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds.

dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Hey everybody, it's time from the Vergecast. For the next week or so, we're actually running a mini-series on the feed called Pirate Radio. It's three stories about how pirate radio continues to grow and exist. We already ran a story earlier called Outside the Wire about the United States propaganda efforts in Afghanistan. I'm here with Kevin Wayne, our features editor. What are we doing today?

Stories called Dial-up. It's about the Hmong people in the Midwest and the very unconventional ways they run their pirate radio stations. Very cool. Here we go. I'm Kevin Nguyen. features editor at the verge. One thing about having your email address listed on a website is that you get a lot of email. I get dozens of pictures a week, but sometimes in that deluge of mail, you find something really special. Like, there's a time I got this one subject line, how one Asian diaspora is reimagining the conference line. Actually, that's a terrible subject line. Hey, sorry,

just being honest. By the way, this is Mia Sato. She's a freelance writer based in Chicago, and she's the one responsible for this very bad subject line. Hello. Anyway, I opened the email, and Mia had outlined his story about how Hmong people had for years been using conference call lines, the most dreadfully boring technology that exists, to make something really weird and really quite wonderful. What are we listening to? So that was just a little bit of a radio show. But it kind of sounded like we, like, we said like there were 23 listeners. Like it kind of reminded me of like being in a conference call meeting.

Well, you were. This is a really interesting kind of radio show. For one, that language you were hearing was Hmong. The Hmong people are a New York giant, tinful bombers. The Hmong people are a small ethnic group. There's just under 300,000 of them in the United States. And what makes it so interesting is that these shows of which, which there are many, are all run through free conference call software.

And do you speak Hmong? Not a lick. So wait, how did you even find these conference call radio stations? So I am from Wisconsin, and I think that automatically separates me from a lot of Americans and that I know who the Hmong people are. I grew up around Hmong folks. I grew up around their culture and their arts and their language. and I knew that they had really specific news needs.

And that's because there's just not a lot of media that's written in Hmong, right? Right, yeah. And the Hmong language has a very relatively short history in its written form also. They didn't have a written form of their language until about the 1950s. So when I was an intern at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, I wanted to know how they got their news. And I wasn't really getting satisfactory. answers. They said that newspapers, you know, aren't really too popular. They have like Facebook

groups and things like that. And then super offhandedly, a source I was talking to mentioned the telephone radio shows. And I had no idea what he was talking about. Once I found out about these lines, naturally I went to do research to see if anyone else knew about this. And lo and behold, a former professor of mine had authored a whole paper and was and currently as working on a book on media. Hi name is Lori Kido Lopez and I'm an assistant professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research is on different forms of Asian American media and for my research in Wisconsin I've been looking at Hmong American media. This was totally new to me and so I sat

down with her, read her research and she had been doing extensive studies and interviews with folks among folks around the state trying to figure out what these lines were and how they played into Hmong American culture. So basically these are 24-7 radio stations that Hmong American people tune into just using their cell phones. So they have a conference call, and it just runs all day and all night every day of the week. And it's set up pretty much like a radio station where they have a host who is assigned to sort of facilitate conversation about a certain topic every hour of the day and they stay on a schedule so that they can know what they're going to listen to, whether it's going to be conversation about health or Hmong culture or

religion or just storytelling or maybe singing traditional songs. I would say it's the most popular form of mass media in the Hmong American community. Right off the bat, she said she is not aware of any other media forms like this or people using this technology in this way. But that said, there are elements to this format that are similar in some ways to more mainstream media forms. So, like, it's like podcasts or normal radio in that you use your voice to communicate to your community. But it's also kind of like citizen journalism and media because it's participatory. So people don't just call in. They also speak back to the host. But then that kind of sounds like a chat room. So it's all over the place and it's also not bound by geography.

So as long as you have the phone number, you can call in from anywhere. Yeah, I think the cool thing about it is that it's not necessarily illicit, but it is kind of like a form of like pirate radio, right? Like it exists to speak to a marginalized community that doesn't often get spoken to. And in this case, literally in Hmong, and then it uses a technology in a way that it's not supposed to be used. You know, it's like kind of subversive in that way. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really like on their own terms. So there's a lot of agency that are that's given to.

hosts and owners of the lines where if you were among person and you wanted your own line tomorrow, you could figure it out, right? And you could do it. And you could find hosts amongst your friends or families and be like, do you want to have the Thursday at 5 p.m. slot? You can talk about whatever. So it's very led and shaped by the community for the community. So why do you think the conference call radio shows work specifically for among people? It sounds like, at least according to Professor Lopez, that no one else is doing this. Yeah, it's a really complicated question, and it has a lot of layers to it. So, you know, even within the monk community, it isn't for everyone.

It seems like it's a lot less popular for people, you know, say my age, second or third generation among Americans. And the community isn't monolithic, so opinions are divided, to say the least. So I would say it's hard to pin down just one reason why this format works for them. but Professor Lopez does have some ideas. So first I would say that it just being an oral medium is really resonant for Hmong American people. So they have a rich oral culture where singing songs and telling stories and communicating orally is really important. And also there's a history of older Hmong people not being literate necessarily in English or Hmong language.

And so if people's lives were really disrupted by the war, then they often. and didn't get to learn how to read and write. So then they come to the U.S. and they have a history of really communicating well orally and having a need to really listen to stories and tell stories. But then I also think that it being on their cell phones is also what made it really take off as a mass medium. So then just having a cell phone, they can just turn it on, call the number, and tune in. So you can see the rise of these programs is really complex. and there's a mix of technological changes, wider accessibility to technology,

and maybe just a few people with a really clever idea that others eventually latched on to. But I think to really understand why people are so active on these lines, you need to also understand the history of how the Hmong people came to the United States. The Hmong are an ethnic minority with origins in China and then later Southeast Asian countries, like Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and they've experienced persecution for hundreds of years. Even before I began reporting this story, I heard Hmong people refer to themselves

as a people without their own country. That's because they were forced to flee violence and oppressive rule over and over again. In the 1960s, United States forces recruited Hmong in Laos to help resist the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, and that conflict is called the Secret War. Hmong soldiers ran spy missions deep inside enemy territory, even entering China to tap telephone lines there for the CIA.

During that, tens of thousands of Hmong men and boys were killed in combat, in addition to about 50,000 Hmong civilians killed. Their casualty rate was a hundred times higher than that of the United States in Vietnam. In the years following the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Hmong people were essentially scattered around the world. And Sang Meng, who left their homeland, came to the United States, where they settled mostly in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. There are some Hmong people in France and Australia, but the vast majority still live in Asia. So if you're a Hmong American and you don't live in an enclave like St. Paul or Fresno or Sacramento or Milwaukee, it's likely pretty normal to not encounter another Hmong person in your day-to-day life.

Basically, you have this diasporic community that is all over the world with a rich oral culture and innovative, easy to access, semi-digital spaces that they basically made for themselves, and they've been doing this for years. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard. It can be really scary, too. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will even work. But here's a better thought.

What if it did all work? What if your instincts were actually right all along? Shopify wants to help you get there. They're the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide and nearly 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S., from established brands like Allbirds and Heinz to companies just getting started. Their design tools make it simple to create the exact online presence you're envisioning, with hundreds of ready-to-use templates available. And with built-in marketing tools, you can launch full email and social campaigns in just a few clicks, so you can connect with customers wherever they are.

It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. You can sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash vergecast. You can go to shopify.com slash vergecast. That's Shopify.com slash vergecast. Support for the show comes from Grammarly. You don't need reminding that the world moves fast. But work today requires clear communication and when every message counts, sounding rushed or generic can be getting lost in the shuffle. Grammally gives you one place to think, write and finish your work where you already write, while giving you access to agents that help you sound natural and engaging. No matter what kind of writing you're doing, Gramerly helps you get ideas done faster and move from draft to done with less friction. You can use Gramerley's

AI chat to brainstorm ideas, outline a solid draft, then refine it with context-aware suggestions that fit what you're working on. See why 90% of professionals say Gramerley has saved them time writing and editing their work. In a world of generic AI, you don't have to sound like everyone else. With Grammarly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com. That's grammarly.com. So you talked to some of these DJs, right? I did, yes. And like, I guess what is it like to run one of these lines? So these people are really invested in them, and they spend a lot of time running them, organizing them, keeping things running smoothly. and many of the hosts and callers I spoke to

also described really meaningful friendships they've formed through the lines the same way that you and I might talk about internet friends who you know in some sort of removed or isolated context but you might never meet them in real life but that said there's still your friend and you still share part of your life with them. One person connected to the lines that I spoke to was Me Vang.

She's 53, she lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, And she is prolific and beloved by her listeners. I don't have time to volunteer outside of home to my community. And by hosting my own show in the telephone conference, that's my community work to my people. That's my volunteer work to my community. She hosted shows for about a decade. Earlier this year, she finally quit hosting.

She got too busy with other things. But her shows mostly focused on relationships, personal growth, and especially cooking. Teaching people cooking on air, so they would come and listen to me and then they can go home, take my recipe and cook at their home. And I also talked about multiple subjects of self-improvement, ranging from social-discipline children or being a mother or romantic relationships or any kind of relationship with people or just keeping up your house cleaning, anything self-improvement I talked about on air. Listeners loved her cooking shows. She said that throughout the years, they've sent her all. all sorts of gifts in the mail after hearing her talk through recipes on air.

And they would send her like dry foods and kitchen utensils like pasta machines and traditional Hmong accessories. And one even sent her money when her son graduated high school, which I thought was really funny. Wow, that's amazing. Hmong people traditionally were not as open talking about relationships in general or romantic relationship in general. And romantic relationships, it's a topic that I'm very passionate about.

So I was amazed when I first called in and talked to them. I was amazed how much we have changed and able to discuss such topic publicly, openly. One of the stories of hers that stuck with me the most was about Mother's Day and Father's Day on the lines. Mother's Day, Father's Day celebration. We didn't have those back in blows. Hmong culture traditionally doesn't have many holidays and Mother's Day and Father's Day were something that Hmong refugees knew to the United States had to learn when they first came here.

So the idea of having a holiday dedicated to outwardly expressing love and gratitude to your parents was a new thing for them. We did not have a social opportunity to appreciate our mom and dad, and then they die, and then this telephone conference become available. and we have the chance to socially let the world know how we feel about our mom and dad. A lot of Hmong folks that I spoke to, they were like, we never said, like, I love you. We showed our love through actions and by being, you know, good children and our parents showed their love through taking care of us. But that verbal exchange was just not part of their traditional culture.

The first few, while they delivered their message to their mom or dad, another. and Father's Day. And back in June, right around Father's Day, I got the chance to hear what she was talking about. So it's a Friday before Father's Day, and I call in right at 6 p.m. The show is supposed to go from 6 to 8. There are about 20 callers on the line when I initially call in, and they're all there to listen and share what Father's Day means to them or tell stories about their dad. Come and say hello to everybody.

You are now unmuted. Hello. So I introduced myself on the line, let them. know who I am and what I'm doing, and they know that I don't speak Hmong. So a few of the callers on the line spoke English and translated for me here and there, or shared their stories about their dad in English. I would like to talk about my father. So because Father's Day is this Sunday.

One woman by talked about this being her first father's day after her dad died last fall. For us that doesn't have a father anymore, When daddy comes, you don't know where to go. So you could go to the cemetery and bring him flowers. And it's not, it's not like when he is here that you can see him and talk to him or even just be here visiting him. So to me, the other day is a day that I do cherish and I will always remember, even though he's no longer here. I think that I'll remember his smile and his love. So Father's Day is very, very important to me.

And I am very happy that I am here in this country and that I'm able to share and I'm able to celebrate and just share this special occasion of Father's Day with my family. That's stuck with me. And I think it's because it exemplifies so much of why I find these lines to be really special. and incredible. It seems like a lot of Hmong American cultural evolution happened and continues to happen on these lines. I think it's sort of amazing that people like Me Vang got to watch that happen in real time within her community on the lines. And Mother's Day and Father's Day are just two examples of that cultural evolution and change. When I initially called into the line, I thought I would just be kind of in the background listening and recording. I had it like on speakerphone

on my cell phone in my kitchen while I was making dinner. But about halfway through the call, just when I thought the callers had forgotten I was there, they invited me to join, first asking me to talk about my own father, and then asking me questions about myself. O'Lea? Yeah. Some of you, you were now unmuted. Experience with your father with us, too, since we're all talking and you're not just listening.

Sure. Do you hear some of your experience with your father? Yes, I would love to. So you've been researching this story for months, and this is the first time you've spoken on it, did something kind of like crack open for you once you kind of had a first-hand experience? Yeah, I felt really grateful. The whole process of reporting this story, I was and still am an outsider to this community. And so they were really welcoming. I'd called in and listened for research many times to this line, but I had never actually spoken on the lines before. I had never been. been unmuted, so I was pretty nervous. So my father is from Japan.

And my parents met when my father came to Wisconsin for school, for college. And so my mom is American from Wisconsin, and my dad is Japanese, and they come from two completely different cultures and world. You know, I love my father. He's still alive. I'm really thankful. And one thing that is hard, though, is, for instance, I won't be able to see him this father's day because my dad lives in Japan, actually. You never hear English on these lines.

And here these people were, like, translating for, like, the girl who doesn't speak Hmong, who is, for some reason, interested in what we're doing here. It was really kind and really just a wonderful moment. And I even, halfway through the show, they were like, hey, Mia, like some of our normal callers, they don't speak English very well, and they don't know what you're saying. So we're going to switch all to Hmong now. Is that okay? And I'm like, oh my God, like, I am an intruder here. Like, you do what you need to do. It is totally okay. But they opened their space that they created for themselves to an outsider. And they expressed how happy they were that I was, that I joined them that day and shared with them that day. So it felt really rewarding. And I felt really humbled to be there. Come here anytime now, you are the monk sister now. All you need to do, just the mom that you can come and join us. I'm going to give you a program so you can hold.

Miss Lee, the woman who owns a line I called into, sees what she's doing by owning and operating a line as a form of community service for the Hmong people. She talks a lot about wanting to do this despite being busy because she cares about the people on the other end of the line, and not just on Father's Day. For many Hmong people, this is part of everyday life. I mean, I'm just happy that, you know, in America, we have something like this,

that it doesn't matter where we all, we can stay in touch, we can learn from each other. And it's a way of making friends, it's a way of changing people's life through the teleconference. That's all I know. This special episode of Virchcast, Pirate Radio, was made by Mia Sop. Andrew Marino and Kevin Nguyen. Fact check done by Maya Hibbet. Special thanks to BAM studios in Chicago

for letting us record. And a shout to Nealai Patel, Virge EIC, for letting us, in the spirit of pirate radio, hijack Virchcast.