From the Los Angeles Times, welcome back to Asian Enough.

Each week on this podcast, we talk to one guest about the joys, the complications, and

everything else that comes along with being Asian-American.

I'm one of your hosts, Jen Yamato.

And on today's episode, I'm your other host, Johanna Blia.

I'm a tech reporter at the Times.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Johanna.

It is great to have reporters from across this newsroom join the conversations this season

Yeah, I'm happy to do and I'm really excited to be here.

I'm also really excited about today's guest.

Like me, she's Filipina, she's a powerful woman, and she lives in the Bay Area.

That song you're hearing right now, it's called Here, and it's the first single off

rapper and poet Ruby Ibarra's full-length album, Circa 91.

She shot the music video for the song in the Philippines, which is where she was born,

and in the Bay Area, where she and her family immigrated when she was four.

When I was making music, a lot of it really involved just me trying to find my voice even

as a young child.

I never really felt that, no, I belonged in the US, and at the same time, I never really

felt that I belonged in the Philippines because I grew up over here.

The music is just Ruby's side hustle.

When she's not rapping about immigration, identity, and every brown Asian's favorite

topic, skin whitening creams, she's working as a scientist at a Bay Area biotech company.

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