Kat Chow
Kat Chow is a reporter with NPR and a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is currently on sabbatical, working on her first book (forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette). It's a memoir that digs into the questions about grief, race and identity that her mother's sudden death triggered when Kat was young.
For NPR, she's reported on what defines Native American identity, gentrification in New York City's Chinatown, and the aftermath of a violent hate crime. Her cultural criticism has led her on explorations of racial representation in TV, film, and theater; the post-election crisis that diversity trainers face; race and beauty standards; and gaslighting. She's an occasional fourth chair on Pop Culture Happy Hour, as well as a guest host on Slate's podcast The Waves. Her work has garnered her a national award from the Asian American Journalists Association, and she was an inaugural recipient of the Yi Dae Up fellowship at the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She has led master classes and spoken about her reporting in Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Valparaiso, Louisville, Boston and Seattle.
She's drawn to stories about race, gender and generational differences
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For decades, a majority of the Vietnamese-American electorate has leaned Republican. Now Asian-Americans are more likely to register as independents, with very complex opinions on national issues.
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Experts call it "affiliative kinships" and the "opposite of othering;" whatever you call it, when race comes up in presidential race, the candidates feel the need to establish their racial cred. -
Shereen Marisol Meraji and Kat Chow talk to young people who crowd-sourced an open letter to their loved ones, asking them to care about police violence against black Americans. -
It's hard to figure out what to say after this week's horrific violence, which began with two viral videos of police shooting black men and ended with a deadly attack by a gunman on police officers. -
As more information about the shooting that killed five police officers surfaces, we asked people from Dallas to share their stories about how conversations around race and policing are shifting. -
Kat and Gene hash out something they've been mulling over for a while: that feeling of obligation that you haveto root for something, because it's theoretically for you. -
President Obama recently signed a bill striking the term "Oriental" from federal law. It was a reminder for NPR's Kat Chow of the fact that her father still uses the word — to describe himself. -
We started a conversation about food and race. Who gets to cook and become the face of a culture's cuisine? While our question was prompted by an interview with Rick Bayless, the issue transcends him. -
Our most recent #NPRObamaEffect chat explored how — or whether — the Obama years have shaped how Latino communities and people across the country think about identity today. -
Rick Bayless is a master of Mexican fare. He's also a white guy from Oklahoma. Over the years, that's made him the target of criticism. Who gets to be the ambassador of a cuisine?
