Blended & Blurred

Karen Alladin is a first generation Filipina-American originally from Arlington, Virginia. She is an acupuncturist and herbalist who owns Meridian Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine, a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. She owns and operates Meridian Acupuncture with her husband, Robert Patrick Gittli, a Louisville native with Scottish and Irish ancestry. Together they have two children, Aurora and Ridley. She is passionate about food, a proponent of food as medicine, and educating her patients to take their health into their own hands. She is also a yogi and an aerialist who has performed on aerial silks with Turners Circus in Louisville, Kentucky. As someone with her own varied interests and passions, she believes a person can have many facets. Karen believes a person's ethnic background and upbringing helps shape them as complex humans beyond definition.

Check out Meridian Acupuncture here. Follow on IG here. 

Song Clips in this episode include: 

"Oo" by Up Dharma Down
"Bayan Ko/ The Impossible Dream" by Ryan Cayabyab Singers featuring Denise Parungao &Ejay Arisola

If you enjoyed this episode please give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, subscribe, and SHARE!

This episode features Jeannette Ralyea Watson whose multicultural background includes a mother from Burkina Faso, a father from the US, and a French Chicago upbringing.

Born in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, Jeannette Ralyea Watson immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago at a young age. Growing up within the French speaking community of Chicago, she has been able to maintain her cultural integrity as a Burkinabé but sees her American lifestyle overpowering her identity.


The song clips included in this episode are below: 

Thundercat - "Them Changes"
Ram Passomayé - "Coulibaly Tidiane & Dafra Star"
La Femme - "Ou va le monde?"

You can find Jeannette on IG @jnettealouette 


Ps.  If you enjoy this podcast, please consider liking, commenting, subscribing and sharing! 

This episode features Jeannette Ralyea Watson whose multicultural background includes a mother from Burkina Faso, a father from the US, and a French Chicago upbringing.

Born in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, Jeannette Ralyea Watson immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago at a young age. Growing up within the French speaking community of Chicago, she has been able to maintain her cultural integrity as a Burkinabé but sees her American lifestyle overpowering her identity.


The song clips included in this episode are below: 

Thundercat - "Them Changes"
Ram Passomayé - "Coulibaly Tidiane & Dafra Star"
La Femme - "Ou va le monde?"

You can find Jeannette on IG @jnettealouette 


Ps.  If you enjoy this podcast, please consider liking, commenting, subscribing and sharing! 

In this episode we chat with Kara DeLost, based in Louisville, KY on her experience as a Korean American Adoptee.

Kara is an associate brand manager at KFC US and a Korean American adoptee who grew up in a transracial household. She uses her platforms to unpack the complexities of being separated from her culture and unique dynamic of growing up with parents who do not look like her.

You can read more about her story below: 

https://www.goal.or.kr/AOK_kdelost 

Follow Kara on IG @kdelost

Songs included in this episode: 

BTS "Dynamite"
Rhianna "We Found Love"

If you enjoy this podcast please subscribe, leave a review & share. Thank you!

In this episode we chat with Kara DeLost, based in Louisville, KY on her experience as a Korean American Adoptee.

Kara is an associate brand manager at KFC US and a Korean American adoptee who grew up in a transracial household. She uses her platforms to unpack the complexities of being separated from her culture and unique dynamic of growing up with parents who do not look like her.

You can read more about her story below: 

https://www.goal.or.kr/AOK_kdelost 

Follow Kara on IG @kdelost

Songs included in this episode: 

BTS "Dynamite"
Rhianna "We Found Love"

If you enjoy this podcast please subscribe, leave a review & share. Thank you!

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Ariana Bina has a unique blend of
Mexican and Iranian heritage. She currently resides in Austin, where
you can find her teaching private music lessons and performing on her
violin, piano, or accordion.

Song clips played in this episode include: 

Nina Simone "My Baby Just Cares for Me"
Steve Jordan "Soy de Tejas"
Googoosh "Gol bi Goldoun (Rangarang)

The book recommended at the end of this episode is 

Bordlerlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa, an American scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Ariana Bina has a unique blend of
Mexican and Iranian heritage. She currently resides in Austin, where
you can find her teaching private music lessons and performing on her
violin, piano, or accordion.

Song clips played in this episode include: 

Nina Simone "My Baby Just Cares for Me"
Steve Jordan "Soy de Tejas"
Googoosh "Gol bi Goldoun (Rangarang)

The book recommended at the end of this episode is 

Bordlerlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa, an American scholar of Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.

Preface: Identities are deeply personal.  It can be difficult to identify oneself on the basis of race, gender and/or religion alone. The topic of non-identity explored in this share come from an influence of Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist studies of non-attachment and self liberation.

Join host Shadia Heenan Nilforoush as she introduces the podcast and shares her background as an Iranian-American with an Islamic Pakistani upbringing. She expresses her challenges around navigating mixed and multicultural identities, how it is impossible  to check only one identity box, and considers non-attachment to identity. Shadia indirectly poses the question: How does one proudly claim an identity when their identity is multifaceted?

Song clips include:

1. Velvet Underground - "Venus in Furs"
2. Nazia Hasan - "Disco Deewane" 
3. Liraz - "Mahtab"

Text read at the end of the episode included below:

Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People

By Maria P.P. Root

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-Not to justify my existence in this world.
-Not to keep the races separate within me.
-Not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity. -Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify. -To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me. -To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.
-To identify myself differently in different situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.
-To change my identity over my lifetime -- and more than once.
-To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people. 
-To freely choose whom I befriend and love

Maria P. P. Root, PhD, is author of "The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier"

IG: @blendedandblurred
www.shadiajoon.com/podcast

Preface: Identities are deeply personal.  It can be difficult to identify oneself on the basis of race, gender and/or religion alone. The topic of non-identity explored in this share come from an influence of Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist studies of non-attachment and self liberation.

Join host Shadia Heenan Nilforoush as she introduces the podcast and shares her background as an Iranian-American with an Islamic Pakistani upbringing. She expresses her challenges around navigating mixed and multicultural identities, how it is impossible  to check only one identity box, and considers non-attachment to identity. Shadia indirectly poses the question: How does one proudly claim an identity when their identity is multifaceted?

Song clips include:

1. Velvet Underground - "Venus in Furs"
2. Nazia Hasan - "Disco Deewane" 
3. Liraz - "Mahtab"

Text read at the end of the episode included below:

Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People

By Maria P.P. Root

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-Not to justify my existence in this world.
-Not to keep the races separate within me.
-Not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity. -Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify. -To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me. -To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.
-To identify myself differently in different situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...

-To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.
-To change my identity over my lifetime -- and more than once.
-To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people. 
-To freely choose whom I befriend and love

Maria P. P. Root, PhD, is author of "The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier"

IG: @blendedandblurred
www.shadiajoon.com/podcast