Stacy Torres is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America. She recently wrote an essay for The Guardian newspaper, titled “I used to laugh at my Chilean father’s paranoia about life in the U.S.—not any more.”

We talked to her about her father, intergenerational paranoia, life at an American university right now, how to cope in an authoritarian regime, fingerspitzengefühl, and more.

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

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