Welcome back to Saturday School, the podcast where Brian Hu and Ada Tseng teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history! This season is all about "Asian Americans in Love," as we explore memorable Asian American onscreen romances in film that paved the way for the Jessica+Louises, Dev+Rachels and Glenn+Maggies of today. We begin with the Samuel Fuller film, The Crimson Kimono, starring James Shigeta.

He plays a Japanese American detective that ends up in a love triangle with his partner and a key witness in their case. Back in 1959, when the film was first released, the posters promoted the film with the scandal of an interracial couple. "YES, this is a beautiful American girl in the arms of a Japanese boy!" the tagline read. "What was his strange appeal to American girls?" 60 years later, Brian and Ada expertly attribute his appeal to the timeless phenomenon we call "James Shigeta's hotness."

Mentioned in this episode:

Listen to Inheriting from LAist & NPR

"Inheriting" is a show about Asian American and Pacific Islander families, which explores how one event in history can ripple through generations. In doing so, the show seeks to break apart the AAPI monolith and tell a fuller story of these communities. In each episode, NPR’s Emily Kwong sits down with one family and facilitates deeply emotional conversations between their loved ones, exploring how their most personal, private moments are an integral part of history. Through these stories, we show how the past is personal and how to live with the legacies we’re constantly inheriting. New episodes premiere every Thursday. Subscribe to “Inheriting” on your app of choice

Listen to Inheriting now!