How Aunties Power Our World

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What does it mean to be an “auntie”? Studies have shown that aunties — whether they are a family member, a chosen maternal figure or a parent’s friend — play a crucial support role in a child’s upbringing. But the work doesn’t end at the family unit. Aunties are often the ones showing up and acting as powerful forces of social change. We’ll talk with artists, scholars and community organizers about the underrated power of aunties, and the ways in which they actively redefine the nuclear family unit and our systems of care. Guests: Kristina Wong, comedian and performance artist; Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama; her kids' book "Auntie Kristina's Guide to Asian American Activism" comes out Spring 2026 from Beaming Books Jocelyn Jackson, chef and community organizer; founder, JustUs Kitchen; co-founder, People's Kitchen Collective; executive producer, Life is Living Festival; former chef-in-residence, Museum of African Diaspora Kareem Khubchandani, educator, scholar and performer; associate professor of theater, dance and performance studies, Tufts University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Kiki Weedy Podcasts comes from San Francisco Opera, a company sister Helen Prejean on a life-altering journey where her faith is put to the test.
0:08.4	This fall celebrate the homecoming of one of America's most important operas, Dead Man Walking, September 14th through the 28th.
0:15.6	Introducing the five-year price guarantee from Xfinity.
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0:29.2	and subject to change.
0:31.4	From KQED.
0:32.7	Thank you. From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:48.3	What does it mean to be an auntie?
0:50.6	Across cultures, aunties of blood and aunties of choice play a crucial role in the lives of families.
0:56.0	We're going to talk about all kinds of aunties, but we're also thinking about a specific figure in our culture today.
1:03.0	The middle-aged woman without children who maintains a rich web of connections with families with children.
1:09.0	We're going to talk with artists, scholars, and community organizers
1:12.6	about the underrated power of aunties
1:15.1	and the ways in which they actively redefine
1:17.7	the nuclear family unit and our systems of care.
1:21.0	It's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:37.3	The life of our family here in the Bay is rich in aunties.
1:42.1	We have a community of women who have been deep
	...

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