Episodes

  • Falling in love in a time of colonization

    Falling in love in a time of colonization
    May 22 2024
    This week Code Switch digs into The Ministry of Time, a new book that author Kailene Bradley describes as a "romance about imperialism." It focuses on real-life Victorian explorer Graham Gore, who died on a doomed Arctic expedition in 1847. But in this novel, time travel is possible and Gore is brought to the 21st century where he's confronted with the fact that everyone he's ever known is dead, that the British Empire has collapsed, and that perhaps he was a colonizer.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    31 mins
  • Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists

    Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists
    May 15 2024
    As protests continue to rock the campuses of colleges and universities, a familiar set of questions is being raised: Are these protests really being led by students? Or are the real drivers of the civil disobedience outsiders, seizing on an opportunity to wreak chaos and stir up trouble?

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    31 mins
  • In 'Chicano Frankenstein,' the undead are the new underpaid labor force

    In 'Chicano Frankenstein,' the undead are the new underpaid labor force
    May 8 2024
    Daniel Olivas's novel puts a new spin on the age-old Frankenstein story. In this retelling, 12 million "reanimated" people provide a cheap workforce for the United States...and face a very familiar type of bigotry.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    34 mins
  • Exclusion, resilience and the Chinese American experience on 'Mott Street'

    Exclusion, resilience and the Chinese American experience on 'Mott Street'
    May 1 2024
    This week on the podcast, we're revisiting a conversation we had with Ava Chin about her book, Mott Street. Through decades of painstaking research, the fifth-generation New Yorker discovered the stories of how her ancestors bore and resisted the weight of the Chinese Exclusion laws in the U.S. – and how the legacy of that history still affects her family today.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    31 mins
  • How Jewish Communities Are Divided Over Support of Israel

    How Jewish Communities Are Divided Over Support of Israel
    Apr 24 2024
    In the wake of October 7, and the bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli government, many American Jews have found themselves questioning something that had long felt like a given: that if you were Jewish, you would support Israel, and that was that. But as more Jews speak out against Israel's actions in Gaza, it's exposing deep rifts within Jewish communities – including ones that are threatening to break apart friendships, families, and institutions.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    41 mins
  • The Rise and Fall of the Panama Canal

    The Rise and Fall of the Panama Canal
    Apr 17 2024
    The Panama Canal has been dubbed the greatest engineering feat in human history. It's also (perhaps less favorably) been called the greatest liberty mankind has ever taken with Mother Nature. But due to climate change, the Canal is drying up and fewer than half of the ships that used to pass through are now able to do so. So how did we get here? Today on the show, we're talking to Cristina Henriquez, the author of a new novel that explores the making of the Canal. It took 50,000 people from 90 different countries to carve the land in two — and the consequences of that extraordinary, nature-defying act are still echoing through our present.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    32 mins
  • Reflecting on the legacy of O.J. Simpson

    Reflecting on the legacy of O.J. Simpson
    Apr 12 2024
    With the news of O.J. Simpson's death on Thursday, we're revisiting our reporting from 2016, where we took a look into how Simpson went from being "too famous to be Black," to becoming a stand-in for the way Black people writ-large were mistreated by the U.S. carceral system.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    17 mins
  • How Frederick Douglass launched generations of Black and Irish solidarity

    How Frederick Douglass launched generations of Black and Irish solidarity
    Apr 10 2024
    What's a portrait of Frederick Douglass doing hanging in an Irish-themed pub in Washington, D.C.? To get to the answer, Parker and Gene dive deep into the long history of solidarity and exchange between Black civil rights leaders and Irish republican activists, starting with Frederick Douglass' visit to Ireland in 1845.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show more Show less
    32 mins