Highlights

This Month We’re Feeling the Power of Stories from AAPI Creators

Orange and white circles overlap in the bottom right part of this image, looking almost like waves crashing against the dark blue, nearly purple color that makes up the rest of the image. Over that blue the words "Asian and Pacific Heritage" appear in white.

“My Chinese-Taiwanese grandma used to say that our Asian community comes from a long line of spoken words,” wrote Audible editor Hsin Chao for the introduction to our collection of AAPI titles. “From the ancient deities in our fairy tales about world creation, to the heroes whose achievements are in our epic poems, we are the descendants of storytelling.”

Audible celebrated Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month by continuing to shine a light on the contributions and experiences of those AAPI storytellers. Encompassing the entire continent of Asia and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the Asian and Pacific umbrella is as far-reaching as it is diverse—a fact that’s reflected in our collection of audiobooks, podcasts, and interviews featuring the breadth of Asian and Pacific Heritage identities and stories.

This month, listeners in the US were able to stream Lily Chu’s The Stand In for free by asking Alexa-enabled devices, “Alexa, what’s free from Audible?” We’re excited about Chu’s follow-up Audible Original, The Comeback, which is releasing in July and is also voiced by the delightful Phillipa Soo. Fans of TV’s “Fresh Off the Boat” and Viceland’s “Huang’s World” know creator’s Eddie Huang’s larger-than-life personality and sense of humor—now he’s opening up in the forthcoming Audible Original memoir Homecoming, about spending the pandemic in his father’s homeland of Taiwan. And in June we’re releasing a truly unique short story that puts a twist on the “choose your own adventure” format, the Audible Original Project Kawayan, by National Book Award finalist Randy Ribay.

On our social media channels, we put the spotlight on exciting titles by AAPI creators including the award-winning Ken Liu’s Audible Original short story The Armies of Those I Love; Kimiko Guthrie’s novel Block Seventeen; Jenny Lee’s modern treatment of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the YA series Anna K.; and Phuc Tran’s memoir of immigrating as a child to the US from Vietnam in the 1970s Sigh, Gone. Listeners were also treated to free audio snippets from best-selling and award-winning titles by AAPI women like Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, and Ling Ma’s Severence.

Audible employees were invited to attend a seminar hosted by diversity, inclusion, and equity organization Coqual about building cross-racial solidarity in the workplace. The seminar included founder and program director of the Chinese Immigrant Family Wellness Initiative (CIFWI), Esther Hio-Tong Castillo, Ph.D., speaking about the dilemma faced by AAPI professionals who feel pressure to assimilate in order to achieve a sense of belonging, but at the risk of cultural erasure.

Product manager Jennifer Peng shared with our community what it means to her to celebrate her Chinese provenance and accent: “It’s been a journey for me to finally realize there’s nothing for me to be ashamed of. And Audible made it easier for me to embrace my heritage. I’ve found that many of my coworkers share similar journeys.” Sharing experiences like these is integral to building understanding, respect, and a sense of belonging. As Chao put it: “Stories help us form our voice, discover our place in both old and new worlds, and define our identity in the continuum of time.”

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