Excellence in Audio Storytelling, Short-Form
J. Faye Yuan, Yiyan Zheng,“Memories of Water - After Ida: Left in the Dark,”
Queens Memory Project
ABOUT THE WORK: The impact of this episode is defined by its ability to bridge the dangerous information gap between local emergency infrastructure and the vulnerable immigrant communities it struggles to reach. By amplifying voices often excluded from climate policy conversations, this project has sparked direct engagement with city officials, mobilized community dialogue, and strengthened the archival legacy of the Queens Memory Project.
The reporting facilitated a critical feedback loop regarding "Notify NYC," the city's primary emergency alert system. The investigation revealed that while the system offers email alerts in multiple languages, its text message alerts, the most immediate warning system, do not support this feature. Furthermore, we conveyed to NYCEM that many elderly Chinese residents lack the digital literacy to navigate email registration, effectively cutting them off from life-saving information. This reporting has provided NYCEM with qualitative data needed to re-evaluate how they engage with non-English speaking seniors.
The episode galvanized community discussions through three offline events: two at Queens Public Library branches and a featured discussion during Climate Week on Governors Island in New York City. These events drew diverse crowds, ranging from policy-curious citizens to flood survivors seeking solidarity. The engagement went far beyond passive listening; at one event, an attendee arrived with over 40 pages of their own independent research to discuss. Others shared personal, harrowing accounts of being trapped by floodwaters without an exit strategy. These forums transformed the podcast from a digital file into a space for collective healing and climate education, fulfilling the audience's desire to better understand the crisis threatening their homes.
This episode serves as the anchor for the latest season of the Queens Memory Project, titled "Memories of Water," which documents the hyperlocal impact of climate change. Since launching in 2017, the Queens Memory podcast has produced 41 episodes and garnered over 10,000 listeners. The podcast’s commitment to excellence was recognized in 2023 when the previous season won a Gold Signal Award in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category. By focusing on the intersection of housing inequality, information gap and climate disaster, this episode continues that legacy, ensuring that the stories of those displaced by storms like Ida are not washed away, but preserved to inform future resilience efforts.
Born in Shanghai and raised in the American Midwest, J. Faye Yuan is a New York-based curator, producer, and documentary editor. Her work explores socially relevant issues related to historical memory, diaspora identity, and climate activism. In addition to filmmaking, she is the curator for the Queens Memory Project – a community-led archiving program supported by Queens Public Library and Queens College – and the host of its multi-lingual podcast about Asian immigrant communities in Queens, NY.
Yiyan Zheng is a New York City–based editor and journalist at World Journal, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States. She also contributes to Initium Media and the Queens Memory Project at the Queens Public Library. In addition, she co-hosts the podcast Community², which examines how minority communities connect, collide, and reshape one another in unexpected ways. Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Zheng holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Waseda University in Japan and a master’s degree from Boston University.
Honorable Mention: Mia Warren, Aria Young, Leina Gabra, Quincy Surasmith, “Working 9 to 5 to 9,” Feet in 2 Worlds
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