During the last episode, my good friend Kanchan Gautam and I discussed our experiences as Third Culture Kids and cultural appropriation. Today, we explore the deep roots of colorism in our South Asian and Latin American communities, along with dating and making friends while brown in predominantly white spaces. Musical Guest: Stephanie Henry. […]
Kanchan Gautam and Julián Esteban Torres López discuss their experiences as Third Culture Kids, which then evolves into a conversation about cultural appropriation. Kanchan Gautam is a novice birdwatcher, myco-enthusiast, and amateur naturalist. She is proud of her Nepali heritage and she spends time exploring identity and cultural narrative in Oakland, occupied Ohlone territory. Musical Guest: Annah Sidigu. […]
Blended Future Project is creating a new cultural identity where multiracial and multiethnic people are understood and free to develop and collaborate their own unique culture(s). It actively unites multiracial and multiethnic people and integrates them fluidly into the cultural communities of all other racial and ethnic groups. Julián speaks with the leaders of the Blended Future Project, Maris Lidaka and Beth Chin, to further understand this movement, as well as hear about their own mixed-identity journeys. […]
How can we reimagine school systems to fit the concerns of students in the 21st century? Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick, who are at the center of the innovative The Pearl Remote Democratic High School, teach us about democratic education. The Pearl is a personally relevant and student-centered educational experience. Students benefit from being part of a dynamic international learning community while being supported by mentors, educators, and professionals. The Pearl’s students are prepared for whatever life they choose. Musical guest: San Palo. […]
On today’s episode, we speak with Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Dr. Robin Harwick to identify the pain points of our education system, and to explore how we can deconstruct and rebuild it anew. They are the co-authors of the book YOU are the Revolution! Education that Empowers your Black Child and Strengthens your Family, and also are at the center of the innovative The Pearl Remote Democratic High School. Musical Guest: Jinnat. […]
On today’s episode, we re-enter the Afro-Latino Actors Studio with Carlos Carrasco: actor, filmmaker, and director of the Panamanian International Film Festival. We examine the heart of art, how the sounds of things carry the emotions of things, we deconstruct language into its most fundamental pieces, explore how art is a process of selection, and much more. Musical Guest: Chromic. […]
The Nasiona’s Writing Prompts League is the gymnasium of the mind. Every prompt master was once a beginner. Check out our stats, rankings, and league leaders after 6 of our 6 season tournaments. One-hundred and twenty-one international competitors participated, 37 qualified for the SEASON 1 FINALS TOURNAMENT in June 2021. […]
And the winner of THE NASIONA’s Micro-Nonfiction / Poetry Writing Prompts Series, Tournament #6: WHEN I LEARNED I WAS DIFFERENT is […]
Go on social media and type the hashtag #AntiUribista and you will find photos of cities in Colombia declaring themselves Anti-Uribistas as they resist state violence. Today, I cover the eight years Álvaro Uribe was president of Colombia, from 2002 to 2010, give you a thorough overview into the many reasons behind the current Anti-Uribismo movement, and glimpse into the United States’s love affair with Uribe, along with its role in Colombia’s militarized state since the turn of the century. […]
Let’s go inside the Afro-Latino Actors Studio with Carlos Carrasco: actor, filmmaker, and director of the Panamanian International Film Festival. Carrasco will take the lead on stage, then give us the VIP tour backstage, behind the curtains, where we glimpse into what it is like to be an immigrant Afro-Latino in acting in the US, and how this experience has impacted his identity and drove him to also dedicate his time to social impact causes for Latin actors, theatre, and film. Musical Guest: Tre. Charles. […]
Colombia’s history has the following pattern: people are massacred or enslaved, displaced, the land is freed, and the élite, foreign powers, and multi-national corporations come in to exploit the land and the labor force. What is going on today, during the Great Colombian Uprising of 2021, is an extension of this history. Since April 28, the Colombian government has been killing, torturing, disappearing, and sexually assaulting Colombian people on the streets throughout the country. Please don’t look away. […]
As we idle into Spring, with all its transformative, and deeply metamorphic connotations, let us embrace that gentle introspection. Let us always wonder, and be unafraid of the strange doors this wondering inevitably opens. […]
World premiere of Tre. Charles’s debut single/music video for “Stressin.” Tre. Charles is a singer-songwriter who dives into the depths of his soul to try to bring you into his world with an expressive blend of warm and soulful undertones. This track embodies personal and social struggles that Tre. Charles has experienced throughout his life as a young Black man in America. This timely track and its visuals are sure to capture the isolation that many have felt through this pandemic. […]
In this essay, Betancur reflects on raising a bilingual, bicultural child in today’s socially charged climate. The act of reading to his infant daughter in Spanish leads him to consider both the advantages and potential disadvantages to growing up bilingual, the joys of sharing his cultural heritage with her and the fear that she will face the kind of racist, exclusionary intolerance he experienced as a child simply because of the language(s) she speaks. […]
“Gay” takes on multiple meanings and connotation as the author dissects depression and the facade of happiness, as well as sexuality and its variable expressions. […]
This essay is an attempt to explore the author’s relationship with the Arabic language and love. Although his relationship with his father is the centre of this exploration, this essay remains a love-letter to all of Nofel’s friends and former lovers and an invitation to a different linguistic experience of love. […]
During a solitary evening in New York City, the author contemplates the chasm between glamor and brutality, between transitory human connection, and disaffected loneliness. […]
This essay recounts a story of mutual discomfort between two teenagers. The speaker considers the events in retrospect in which he realizes the degree to which he made a person, to whom he was romantically interested, uncomfortable. The piece centers on communication breakdown, the failure of a friendship, misapprehension of others, the speaker’s journey to self awareness, and a healthier, yet still evolving, approach to intimacy and rejection. […]
In Backstrokes the author describes a reconnection with a cherished friend and kindred spirit from four decades ago. Their meet-up sparks a series of reflections in which she reassesses the value of usefulness as a lifelong priority. […]
“Yellow Fever” is a coming-of-age piece that explores the fetishization of young Asian and mixed-race women. It describes the frustration of being seen as an exotic prize and not as a woman with complex emotions or as a human having value beyond men’s sexual desires. […]
After living in Connecticut for a decade, Victoria Buitron, at fifteen years old, returns to reside in her hometown. […]
The true story of what can happen to a relationship when you see what you shouldn’t and refuse to see what you should. […]
The short essay Encounters with Māya (Illusion) takes us on a journey through dreams, poems, and sacred texts to reflect on living as a human, awakening to ‘reality’, and staying connected to one another through hardship. […]
“My Dead Darlings” is a creative nonfiction essay that focuses on the author’s personal connection to Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Lisbon sisters from Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides. The characters are used as conduit through which to explore the experiences of teenage girls. […]
Themes of belonging, of isolation, of expressions of identity, and of the nuances between the African American and the African Immigrant experience arise from a conversation between the author and the author’s inner voice. […]
As the narrator encounters winter-stranded birds desperate for whatever food they can find, she considers a night in which she witnessed a girl desperate to reunite with her abusive boyfriend, as well as the narrator’s own desperate attachments to an abusive lover. […]
“The World Behind the World” grapples with the restaurant industry’s insularity and examines how that exclusivity embodies wider dynamics of power, race, and class. […]
“Cold Coffee” is a creative nonfiction piece by Helena Ducusin that depicts her experience growing up half-Filipino and half-white in an Americanized household. It describes her interactions with parents, comparisons made to her friends, and the hurtful reactions of strangers that hindered her search for identity as she grew older. […]
This piece is about the author’s ongoing struggle with her decision to not press charges against her rapists. It also includes struggles she had with how her family and friends reacted to her victimhood and coping mechanisms. The author makes a subtle defense for her decision to cope. […]
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