Foreign & National

In our first episode, we try to explore the ins and outs of living with family during a pandemic. We had a ton of fun making this and hope you enjoy what you hear.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

A month ago, PBS released interesting videos talking about the unrest between milennials/Gen Z and older generations and we felt inspired to wrap up our 3rd season talking about "Ok Boomer". It's likely no surprise that wealth disparity and environmental harm has continually increased since the baby boomer generation, causing frustration amongst the younger generations. On the flip-side, baby boomers often believe young people feel entitled and complain without recognizing the need for hard work. In this season finale, Shan and I share our stories and research about the origins of the phrase "Ok Boomer", statistics to paint a picture of milennial/Gen Z concerns, and some perspectives from Baby Boomers.

This week we’re really excited to have Ed Loh interview with us. Ed is the Head of Editorial for the MotorTrend Group, the group responsible for some of the biggest automotive journalism today. We got a chance to ask him about how he got into the automotive journalism industry, his experience with the relatively wide diversity of the automotive industry, how Americans don’t realize how lucky we are with our automotive industry in the country, and his favorite minivan.

Professor Rahul Chakraborty is a faculty member at Cal State Fullerton, where he is the director of Bilingualism & Speech Laboratory, primarily focusing physiological evidence of first and second language interaction in adult bilinguals. His most recent work throughout the last few years have been about accent bias, its prevalence and the role that it plays in society and geopolitics.

Accent bias is something that affects everyone, yet is rarely acknowledged in bias-related discourse. From hospitals to education, accent bias is prevalent in people's subconscious (or conscious) judgements of others. Some people even believe they can tell another's body shape judging by that person's accent. In this episode we learn about the professor's research, discuss the ethics of businesses making accent-related decisions, and the path to his ideal future without such biases.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

Your favorite restaurant with an always-broken ice cream machine. This week we’re taking a look at McDonald’s as part of our Brands & Culture Series!

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s is now one of the most recognizable and popular chains in the world. They’ve influenced culture across the map from food supply to employment, to advertising to franchising, to Western globalization. There’s no way to cover it all in a 30-minute episode but we go through broad strokes and hope that you learn something new- we sure did.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

This week we’re showing an interview we did with Omar Singh, Khalsa Aid Director for the US.

In our last season we talked about the Farmer’s Protest originating in India in August 2020. This protest is a massive movement for Indian farmers rising against the Indian government’s new and devastating farming laws. The impact of these laws encompass 58% of a 1.35 billion people population, and the protests gained worldwide support, at one point with up to 400 million protesters.

Khalsa Aid is an international non-profit humanitarian organization that provides support to victims of disasters worldwide. We wanted to talk to Omar to get an update on the status of the farmer’s protest, what’s really driving the Indian government to avoid repealing their laws, how the protestors are sustaining themselves, and his take on western media’s reluctance to talk more about a protest of a population hugely responsible for most of the world’s spices and food consumption.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

We’ve recently been hearing about friends and colleagues leaving America due to struggles to form deep social connections and their perception of self-centeredness in America vs. where they want to move to. We took this as inspiration to talk about individualist and collectivist societies. 

Individualistic cultures emphasize the individual and his/her/their goals, happiness and achievements. Collectivistic cultures focus on group goals, a group’s well-being and relationships. Both of us were raised with both collectivist (Indian) and individualist (American) cultures. We talk about the pros and cons of each and our experiences to find our balance between the two through examples. 

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

You know that one friend or that group of fans that’ll emulate and defend a celebrity no matter what they do? Today we talk about celebrity devotion or hardcore “stans”. Stans and stan communities provide really interesting takes on sociology and anthropology, from humans’ needs for community and connection to just how hard they fight to preserve it and the lengths they’ll go to copy their role model. We talk about some of the research we did and the effects celebrity devotion can have, both positive and negative.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

Continuing from last season’s episode on the rise in Anti-Asian hate crime during the pandemic, this week we interviewed Senior Counsel at the Asian Law Caucus Winifred Kao. Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus is an organization that serves low-income AAPI communities, focusing on housing, immigration, and civil rights. We bring Winnie on to talk to us about a survey conducted by ALC showing how heavily Covid-19 has been affecting especially low-income Asian and Latinx workers. One statistic showed that only 12% of surveyed domestic workers and home health care workers were regularly provided N-95 respirators. More than 2/3rds of those paid below minimum wage received no information on what to do if they got sick from Covid-19. We talk to Winnie about these findings, the lack of enforcement around regulation that should theoretically be protecting workers, and how to advance accountability.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!

Did your heritage’s food go from getting you bullied at school to glamorized by everyone? Ours did. This week’s episode we talk about those stories and we do some research on the bigger food trend that’s driven that perception change, along with some history on Indian food in America.

Want to suggest an episode idea or share your own story? Find us on Twitter/IG (@foreignandnatl) or email us at [email protected]!