Episode 107: Building Hoosier Asian American Power
Guests: Maria Douglas - Co-chair, Hoosier Asian American Power
Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers and I’m recording from Bloomington.
So this may be the last one of these I do in this format for awhile. I resolved in the new year to spend less time editing podcasts and more time just getting valuable information out there. As such, I’ve got a series of LIVE interviews scheduled in the coming weeks with statehouse candidates like Nate Stout and Sharon Wight, labor organizer Mark Gevaart, and the multi-talented Dana Black, with more to come. Plus we’ve got a series of virtual town halls on the books with congressional candidates Brad Meyer and Jackson Franklin on top of our regular Sunday morning news show. Lots of big things on the horizon here at HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network, but first this can’t-miss conversation with Maria Douglas, co-chair of Hoosier Asian American Power.
From her bio at their website, Maria “is a transracial Korean adoptee. She has lived in Monroe County for over 30 years and has a Master Degree in Social Work. Maria labels herself as a “Community Servant.” She is former Vice-chair and current member of the Monroe County Women’s Commission, Advisor for the Bloomington’s branch of the NAACP Youth Council and the chair of the Schools Subcommittee. She co-chairs the Civic Engagement Sub-committee for HAAP. Maria works, every day, to embody the mantras “if you see something, say something,” “better together,” and “if you can’t love yourself how the hell are you going to love somebody else.”
This interview is a wide-ranging conversation about Asian American history, identity, political invisibility, and power-building, grounded in both historical context and Maria’s personal experience and organizing work. I’ll frame the discussion by situating Asian American history within the broader (often sanitized) story Americans are taught, then hand it to Maria to unpack how Asian American communities have been erased, stereotyped, and fragmented — and what it takes to build political consciousness and collective power, particularly in Indiana.
But real quick, before we get to the interview, a big ask. This is an independent media project; we don’t paywall content; we don’t sell out to advertisers; we don’t have billionaire benefactors. Only individuals like you keep this thing going. It is a foundational principal of HoosLeft and the Progressive Indiana Network that we refuse to hide valuable information behind paywalls in the middle of a political crisis, even if that’s not in our financial best interest. So please, if you find value in this work, go to ProgressiveIndiana.net and subscribe at the paid level - it’s only $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help us build the infrastructure that will pop the right-wing media bubble in this state. You can make a one-time contribution to HoosLeft on Cash App or Venmo. Links are in the show notes.
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Now, here is my conversations with Maria Douglas.
In The Interview:
4:30—10:30 Introduction to the Asian-American Journey
Whitewashed American history glorifies European migration, brushes Native genocide under the rug, and talks SOME about the Black struggle, but rarely tells Asian-American stories.
Recommended Reading
10:30—21:30 Exploitation, Colorism, and Historical Parallels
How Chinese migrants built the transcontinental railroad (Guardian)
Chinese Exclusion Act (Wikipedia)
California’s Alien Land Laws (EJI)
Indiana bars China, Russia from owning Hoosier farmland with new law (IndyStar)
Immigration Act of 1924 (MPI)
Indiana House Bill 1099 (BillTrack50)
State Department suspending immigrant visas for 75 countries (AP)
FDR and Japanese Internment (Independent Institute)
Teaching about Nazis and the Holocaust in German schools (DW)
Right-Wing Campaign to Block Teaching for Social Justice (Zinn Education Project)
Indiana Senate Bill 88 includes “divisive concepts” language (BillTrack50)
21:30—29:00 Beginning to Right Our Wrongs, Sort Of
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 (Truthout)
How the Civil Rights Movement Influenced U.S. Immigration Policy (US Conference of Catholic Bishops)
Ongoing US Neocolonialism in Korea (Hampton Institute)
Asian Representation in Media
29:00—46:30 US Role in Exploiting Korean Women & Children → Maria’s Personal Story
Korean “Comfort Women”
Adoption Fraud Separated Generations of South Korean Children From Their Families (PBS)
South Korea moves to end ‘baby exports’; state to take full responsibility for adoptions (Straits Times)
Coming “Out of the Fog” (The Immigrant Story)
Patrick Armstrong (Patrick in the World)
South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning (FRONTLINE)
46:30—55:30 Asian Americans in Indiana
“Mapping Asian and Pacific Islander American History in Indiana” (Indiana Landmarks)
Immigrants in Indiana: Where They Live, Who They Are, and What They Do (Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture)
Indiana University student stabbed in alleged racially motivated attack on bus (ABC)
Bloomington woman pleads guilty to federal hate crime for stabbing Asian IU student (IDS)
April Hennessey ends term as MCCSC board president (Herald Times)
About Hoosier Asian American Power (HAAP)
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF)
55:30-1:05:00 The Importance of Collective Power in This Moment
Trump administration’s posts using white nationalist language (PBS)
What is remigration, the far-right fringe idea going mainstream? (Al Jazeera)
Are You a ‘Heritage American’? Why some on the right want to know if your ancestors were here during the Civil War (Atlantic)
ICE shooter Jonathan Ross reportedly married to Filipina who immigrated to the U.S. (San Antonio Current)
The Awful Origins of the Fetishized ‘Submissive Asian Woman’ Stereotype (Everyday Feminism)
“The Alt-Right’s Asian Fetish” (NY Times)
Once again, that was Maria Douglas, co-chair of Hoosier Asian American Power with a deeply personal, yet historically grounded conversation about Asian American identity, erasure, and power in the United States. We talked about how the “shiny” version of American history leaves out whole communities, how Asian Americans are often rendered invisible or boxed into the model-minority myth, and why storytelling itself becomes an act of resistance when institutions refuse to tell your story. Maria connected early Asian migration to the present day, traced what it means to build community and political consciousness in a place like Indiana, and made the case that real power starts with unmasking, solidarity, and showing up as full human beings in the political process.
And I’d appreciate it if you human beings show up this Sunday morning for HoosLeft This Week, streaming live on YouTube, Facebook, and of course at the new ProgressiveIndiana.NET. Indiana’s most thorough weekend news and politics talk show, it’s a lot of fun — if you can call following the news in this timeline fun. My panel and I go “around the corn” to cover all the week’s top Indiana news stories and look at US and international happenings through a Hoosier lens. I hope to see you there in the comments, but if you can’t make it live, the program will be available for download later Sunday afternoon.
Thanks once again to Maria for this interview, and for opening up to all of us. One last reminder to please consider supporting HoosLeft and the wider Progressive Indiana Network with a paid subscription if you’re able. This independent media project relies solely on the generosity of kind patrons like you to make this information available for free to everybody. Again, that’s at ProgressiveIndiana.Net. We could also really use a follow on social media at progressiveindiananetwork on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel at the same handle. Over on Bluesky and TikTok, the handle is @PINIndiana.
You can find me on @HoosLeft.US on Bluesky, Instagram and Threads; @HoosLeft on all the rest. Direct message me at any of those sites with feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns or email me at scott@hoosleft.us. Finally, please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on, too. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state — one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
