From Where to Here

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From Where to Here just got nominated for a Signal Award in the culture, belonging, and inclusion category, and I needed to tell you about it.

I started this podcast selfishly. I moved from Montreal to Alabama and spent years struggling to find my footing. No community, no landmarks, no idea how to belong somewhere new. From Where to Here was my way of working through that, and eventually, a way to give other people a stage to share their own versions of that story.

A nomination like this means more visibility for every guest who trusted me with their story. It means more listeners who might hear something that makes them feel a little less alone, a little less stuck between two worlds. It means more resources to keep building the in-person community events that brought so many of you together, and that we're bringing back in spring 2027.

If this show has ever made you feel seen, I would love your vote. Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#

Thank you. I appreciate you more than I can say.

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
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Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

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What does it sound like when a language has a word for something yours has never even tried to name?

This is Between the Words — a language-focused segment clipped from Episode 27 of From Where to Here.

Sheyla from Blitar, East Java, Indonesia teaches us five words and concepts from Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese that reveal something profound about Indonesian culture.

Maaf — the word for sorry that you never say just once. You repeat it until the situation moves on, and the person across from you keeps saying it is okay until the conversation finds its way forward.

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika — Indonesia's national motto in old Javanese, meaning unity in diversity. Thousands of islands. Hundreds of tribes. One nation that found it was stronger together.

Baper — a combination of Bawa (to carry) and Perasaan (feelings). A word for someone who is too invested, too emotional, carrying too much. A word English does not have but absolutely should.

Ngabuburit — a Javanese word for the act of doing nothing while waiting to break your fast during Ramadan. One word for a very specific, very human moment.

Terima Kasih — thank you. Simple. But paired with the story of a girl who could not find the words for depression in any language she grew up with, it lands differently.

Sheyla also shares what it felt like to navigate three languages at once as a teenager in Memphis, why she eventually stopped expressing herself emotionally in Indonesian and Javanese, and what it means to lose connection to a language because the people around you could not hold what you were trying to say.

This one is about more than words. It is about what happens when the language you need does not exist in the one you were born into.

Parts 1 and 2 of Episode 27 are linked below. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you stream.

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
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quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
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📱 More language & culture, daily.
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He left Lebanon at 16 with a picky eater's palate and his grandmother's recipes locked in his memory. Today, Joseph Matta is the Owner, Founder, and Head Chef of Joseph's Table in Birmingham, Alabama, a Mediterranean and Lebanese restaurant where every plate carries the weight of a border crossed and a memory kept alive.

This is Immigrants' Table, a series from From Where to Here shining a light on immigrant-owned restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama, the people behind the food, and the stories that travel with every plate.

In this conversation, Joseph talks about growing up in Lebanon under French colonial influence, learning English as a third language, and landing in Alabama after coming through Houston, Texas. He talks about what it means to cook from scratch every single day, why he still puts onions in his grandmother's chicken soup even though he hates them, and how a Lebanese mother and a Cajun mother-in-law found common ground through French.

This is not a story about a restaurant. It is a story about what you carry with you when you leave, what you refuse to change, and what it feels like when a bowl of soup tastes exactly like someone you love.

Joseph's Table is located at 9340 Helena Road in Birmingham, Alabama. Order the creamy stuffed chicken rolls first.

From Where to Here is a bilingual podcast exploring cultural identity, language, and the stories of people who have built lives across borders. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and everywhere you listen.

Subscribe so you do not miss the next table.

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Part 2 of 2.
If you have not listened to Part 1 yet, start there. This conversation picks up right where we left off.

In Part 1, Sheyla shared how she arrived in Memphis at 9 years old carrying two languages and spent years quietly setting them both down. In Part 2, she talks about what it looks like to find your way back.

This half of the conversation is about reclaiming. How she started looking into Indonesian history and realized she had never truly learned it. How sourdough bread became a way back to something she could not yet name. How running Breadcrumb, her micro bakery in Birmingham, Alabama, turned into more than a side project. How teaching herself Korean through K-pop over two years was never really about Korean at all. How belonging does not always look like fluency, and how making something with your hands can be its own form of coming home.

There is a moment in this episode where I ask Sheyla what she would tell that 9 year old girl who landed in Memphis scared and alone carrying two languages. Her answer stayed with me.

This is a conversation about finding your way back to yourself on your own terms, in your own time, in whatever language feels most like home that day.

If this one resonated, send it to someone who knows what it feels like to be from more than one place and still searching for where they fully belong.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you stream, or watch Part 2 right here on YouTube.

#fromwheretohere #birminghamalabama #bilingualpodcast

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🔗 LINKS & CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST

Get in Touch:
- Instagram: @bread.crumb.bham

Resources:
- The Jakarta Method book

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Part 1 of 2
She arrived in Memphis at 9 years old speaking two languages and spent years quietly setting them both down. Not because she forgot them. Because it felt safer.

Sheyla grew up in Blitar, East Java, speaking Javanese at home and Bahasa Indonesia at school. She navigated an American childhood without a roadmap, picked up English, French, a bit of Japanese, and taught herself Korean through K-pop and sheer curiosity. She thought she might become a linguist. Life took her into tech instead. Today she lives in Birmingham, Alabama, works in banking technology by day, and runs Breadcrumb, a micro bakery where she channels that same hunger for connection into flavor fusions inspired by cultures from all over the world.

The through line of her story is not the languages she gained. It is the one she is still trying to find her way back to.

In this episode Sheyla opens up about what it felt like to land in Memphis as a scared nine year old with two languages and no roadmap, the Indonesian word Maaf and why you never say it just once, what most people get wrong about Indonesian culture, how she taught herself Korean through K-pop out of pure curiosity, and the listener question about not feeling Indonesian enough but not fully American either that stopped her in her tracks.

This is a conversation about language loss, bilingual identity, and what it means to reclaim yourself on your own terms.

If this one resonated, send it to someone who knows what it is like to be from more than one place and fully at home in neither.

*** Heads up: this one gets deep. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by call or text.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you stream, or watch the full episode right here on YouTube.

#fromwheretohere #languageandidentity #indonesianimmigrant

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Immigrants' Table is a series from From Where to Here shining a light on immigrant-owned restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama — the people behind the food, and the stories that travel with every plate.

Akash Kapoor grew up in Ranchi, India, was sent to Catholic boarding school at age 10, and built one of the most talked-about Indian street food restaurants in the country — Curry Up Now, now right here in Birmingham, Alabama. But the story behind the menu goes deeper than most people expect.

In this episode, Akash opens up about the Indian street food you simply cannot replicate outside of India, the family dinner rule he has carried from Ranchi to Birmingham, and why chicken tikka masala, according to him, was not even known in India twenty years ago.

He talks about his grandma's 4 PM snack that most people would not dare try, the Sunday dosa ritual he grew up with and still chases today, and the samosa he put inside a burrito that became one of Curry Up Now's most beloved dishes in Birmingham, Alabama.

This is also a conversation about what it means to bring your culture to a new city — not just the food, but the table, the rituals, the one word in Hindi that has no English translation, and the rule that never changed no matter where life took him: be home for dinner.

If you are curious about Indian food culture, immigrant restaurant owners in Birmingham, or the stories that travel further than the people who carry them... This one is for you.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you stream, or watch the full episode right here on YouTube.

#immigrantstable #fromwheretohere #indianfoodbirmingham #birminghamalabama #foodandculture

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Immigrants' Table is a series from From Where to Here shining a light on immigrant-owned restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama — the people behind the food, and the stories that travel with every plate.

Avlo Alvaro grew up in Chihuahua, Mexico where carne asada was never just a meal. It was the reason to gather: after church, at the park, on birthdays, at every celebration that mattered. Today he co-owns Trampled by Tacos in Birmingham, Alabama, and every dish on the menu carries a piece of that history.

In this episode, Avlo opens up about the Mexican food Birmingham rarely gets to hear about beyond tacos and burritos, the family recipes he carried from Chihuahua to his Birmingham kitchen, and what it really means to feed people from a place of pride and memory.

From barbacoa slow cooked with a family seasoning nobody else has, to flank steak marinated in Modelo for 24 to 48 hours, to the caldo de camarón and ceviche that remind him of beach days back home — this is the story behind the food and the immigrant restaurant owner who brought it to Birmingham, Alabama.

If you are curious about the world, the people who carry their cultures across borders, and the food that keeps those stories alive — From Where to Here is your next favorite podcast.

#immigranttable #fromwheretohere #birminghamalabama #birminghamfood #immigrant

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode: a woman diagnosed with hearing as a child, a teacher who kept turning her head away, and a kitchen conversation that dissolved into noise. That's the true story of an Alabama woman who lost her hearing as a girl and found her voice in American Sign Language.

This is the finale of the Language Legacy series on From Where to Here, where teenagers from Alabama sit down with elders from immigrant, refugee, and Deaf communities. Guest Mary Lowman, now 66, walks host Denay through losing her hearing, refusing a cochlear implant, and life before and after TTY machines.

The heart of the episode is grammar you won't find in an English class. ASL strips out helping verbs and articles, replacing them with facial expression as language itself. Mary demonstrates it live and explains why an interpreter who can't show emotion isn't really interpreting. She also shares the story of Martha's Vineyard, a real island where deaf and hearing neighbors all signed as a matter of course.

Her sister is the one person who never gave up trying to understand her. Share this with someone who's ever felt like the world wasn't built for how they communicate.

#DeafCulture #ASL #LanguageLegacy #SignLanguage #FromWhereToHere

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🤝 EPISODE SPONSOR
Red Cat Coffee House
This episode is brought to you by Red Cat Coffee House and their Landmark Series Coffees. You can find the coffee blends online at https://theredcatcoffeehouse.com/shop/, at your Red Cat locations, or at your local Piggly Wiggly.

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Loulou Guedou grew up between Ivory Coast and Benin, and this deep dive pulls the moments from her full episode that go past the guidebook: why hospitality there means being treated like royalty from the moment you arrive, why voodoo in Benin is a religion and not a warning sign, and why "I'm from Africa" barely scratches the surface when there are two very different countries behind that answer.

She also gets into the unwritten rules of greeting someone (three kisses in Ivory Coast, four in Benin, and the very real adjustment to American handshakes and hugs), plus the running joke about Baoulé women and why they're known for marrying outside their culture.

This is part of Beyond the Surface, the cultural deep dives pulled from the full conversations on From Where to Here, the moments that show up once you stop being a tourist and start actually listening.

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.

Send us Fan Mail

Louise "Loulou" Guedou grew up speaking a dialect with 63 versions in one country, got sent away from her parents at age 10 for boarding school in Benin, and later found herself standing in front of her groom while he tried to guess which veiled woman in the lineup was actually her.

In this episode of From Where to Here, Louise shares what it's really like growing up between Ivory Coast and Benin, two West African cultures with their own languages, greetings, and wedding traditions, and how she carried all of it with her when she moved to Birmingham, Alabama in 2013. She opens up about learning English through pure trial and error, the accent that made her feel completely lost her first year in America, and the moment she realized Southern English and classroom English were not the same language at all.

We get into the parts of Ivorian and Beninese culture most people never hear about, including the traditional bride price negotiations, the symbolic kola nuts that can make or break a wedding, and the widespread stereotype about Vodou that Louise sets straight once and for all. She also talks candidly about raising two bilingual toddlers with her fiancé from Burkina Faso, why her son now corrects her French, and the real reason she's raising her kids to speak "Frankish," a mix of French and English that's entirely their own.

This is a conversation about identity, marriage across cultures, immigrant hospitality, and what it actually means to build a home between two continents.

If you're raising bilingual kids, married into another culture, or just love hearing what life really looks like beyond the surface, hit play and get to know Louise "Loulou" Guedou.

Follow and connect with Loulou! 
- Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat: @ms.lou8ze

Subscribe to From Where to Here wherever you listen to your podcasts!

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🏆 You can help From Where to Here win a Signal Award
Voting is open until October 15th and takes 30 seconds. If this show has ever made you feel a little less alone, cast your vote at https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/
(Can't find the show? Search "From Where to Here" in the search bar)

📩 Let’s stay connected.
Join my email list list for thoughtful reflections, resources, and behind-the-scenes moments I only share there.

✨ Get My Latest Free Resource
Do you live between cultures, languages, or versions of yourself? Take the free In-Between Index quiz and find out exactly where you land. →
quiz.fromwheretoherepod.com

🎧 Subscribe & Follow
Follow From Where to Here on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you don’t miss a conversation.

📱 More language & culture, daily.
Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @fromwheretoherepod

🤎 If this episode meant something to you…
Leave a review or share it with someone who’d love it too.