About The Show
Long Distance is the first and only documentary podcast series about stories in the Filipino diaspora.
It is a collection of Filipino audio stories set a long way from home.
What does it mean to be Filipino outside of the homeland? To grow up there and to have to leave it? Or what if you’ve never been there at all?
Each episode moves beyond typical immigrant narratives to share thoughtful tales of love, loss, history, and humor through audio documentaries and creative approaches to storytelling with sound.
The Philippines has one of the largest diaspora populations in the world, and yet these stories are rarely covered in mainstream media. Long Distance is a podcast for the people and stories of this community.
Producer’s Statement
In 2016, I began working on an audio project about Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown. But after extensive interviews and research, and through my work as a journalist, I saw a great need to tell thoughtful, well-reported audio stories about my community.
That’s how Long Distance got started.
Recently, Filipino stories have made headlines through food and politics. But there are also more complex narratives about the Filipino experience unfolding beneath mainstream culture — a wave of Filipinos making their mark in art and entrepreneurship, young Filipinos redefining their identities online, and a real yearning across generations to learn and document their diasporic history.
Long Distance is a place for all of these stories and more.
I was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve always been interested in stories about people in new places and finding “home,” wherever that may be. Through Long Distance, I hope to capture the sounds of this international community and to tell our stories through audio and visual documentaries that open minds and maybe even tickle ears and imaginations.