Migratory Patterns

This week I'm bringing you the first of my conversations with two sisters who've shared a similar globe-spanning bi-cultural upbringing. Ethar Baba is the youngest in a family of 6 Sudanese-American children who all split their time between their parents' hometown of Khartoum and Washington, D.C. Moving back and forth between cultures during her childhood caused some problems, making her feel sometimes like she didn't fit in in either place. It wasn't until she got to college where was able to accept and begin to integrate her two identities. Ironically, it's only been since she started living in China, and she picked up an insatiable travel bug, that she's been able to finally get a sense of where "Home" is in all of that. For now, anyway.

Note: This interview was recorded live at meeting of the Beijing chapter of Podcast Brunch Club, which is why you'll hear some moving about and the occasional clinking of glasses and silverware. in the background. To learn more about PBC check out the bonus episode from June.

We kick off Season 3 of the show by welcoming our newest team member to Migration Media, Michelle Ibarra! Her show, Pop Abroad, explores the keys to finding success and living your best life overseas. The show's first season explores the importance of community in our lives and how successful people have built theirs. Her own desire for community led her to the organization Girl Gone International, where she's thrived as the Shanghai-based Community Manager for Asia & Oceania. Along the way, she's had stints in Argentina, South Korea and Europe, and now she says that she might be ready for some time back in the US. But I'm not sure if I believe her. Given how good she is at the whole community-building thing, I think that her call to live overseas hasn't quite expired yet.

Check out Michelle's podcast, "Pop Abroad" here, or by searching for it wherever you get your podcasts! You can also follow Michelle on Instagram at @PopAbroad. Learn more about Girl Gone International and search for a chapter near you by visiting them online, or on all of the social media places:

Welcome to Season 3 of Migratory Patterns! After dozens of conversations across 2 seasons I'm more passionate than ever about exploring the lives of international migrants. What drives us to move away from home? What makes us stay overseas? And how does it change us? As an expat myself, I'm exploring these ideas within my own life, and I'm thrilled to be able to share my conversations about them with a wide variety of people who are living outside of their places of origin. From two Sudanese-American sisters who shared a parallel bi-cultural upbringing, to a Chinese woman who followed her husband to New York City, to an Argentinian-Israeli in Boston who is breaking new ground in the field of mental health for migrant families, this season features the most diverse group of guests yet. I think that we raise more questions than answers, but they're questions that need asking, and I can't wait to share them with you!

This is it dear listeners. We've come to the end of yet another season- and what a ride it's been! When I began this experiment last summer I was searching for community. I was thinking a lot about the changes that I have gone through as I have spent more and more time overseas, and I was wondering if anybody else out there was going through the same thing. Now only have I discovered that the questions that have been coming up for me are nearly universal among people who choose to live overseas, but there is also precious little space for us to talk about them with each other. So this podcast has not only gained a small but growing audience, but it's become a passion project that has all but overtaken everything else in my life, and it's inspired some big changes, as you'll hear... To wrap up Season 2 of the show, I'm joined once again by amazing partner in life, Alisa Rutherford-Fortunati, to talk about the incredible shifts that have taken place in our lives over the last 6 months, and how our #MigrationStory is about to undergo a drastic evolution!

While growing up in his native Argentina, Brian O'shea never quite felt like he belonged, so it's no surprise that his idea of where "Home" is boils down the sum of an equation with ever-shifting values that works out to something like Home = Where You Are + Where Your family Is + Where the People You Care About Are. It's probably one of the most adaptable and relate-able definitions that I've come across so far- which makes sense, since Brian is one of the most adaptable and relate-able people that you can ever hope to meet. And it's those traits that have helped him achieve massive success as a vlogger in China, where he has tens of millions of fans who tune in to his videos. He's become what I like to call a "bridge person," someone is uniquely positioned to help connect people from different cultures, and he's created a space where Chinese people can learn about their own culture through his discovery of it.

Jun Trinh never thought he'd be in China. As a half-Chinese kid growing up in Toronto he refused offers to take trips there with his family. He never went to Mandarin class. But now, 11 years after a detour during an around-the-world trip all but marooned him in Beijing, he's thinking about his next steps and reflecting on the internal voyage of self-discovery that he's been on since he's been there. His time in China has not only changed him, but he's had the very rare opportunity to make a visible, tangible impact on the culture. He's opened a successful restaurant that has blazed a culinary trail in the city's ultra-competitive, world-class F&B scene, and his talents even landed him on TV, first as a contestant and a judge on popular cooking shows, and then as a host of his own travel / cooking show. So how does one follow up such n incredible decade-plus stint like that? Could the only logical next goal be to become a yacht captain in the Mediterranean? Just who is this guy, anyway? Does he even know?

What it's like to want it all, to be able to live in 2 worlds at once? Like several other people who I've spoken with,, Gabe Clermont often feels like he's rooted in two worlds: His hometown of New York, and the place where he's been able to thrive professionally. In part 2 of our conversation, we touch on the challenges that feeling at home in multiple places can present. What does it mean to be a New Yorker at heart, but not feel like he has opportunity there? And why does he miss one city while he's in the other? Is he living an "overseas story," or a "migration story?" Is he living overseas because he's mission-driven, or has he been called to it? And at our core, what makes somebody want to make such a leap in the first place?

Gabriel Clermont has a deep affinity for his hometown of New York, yet feels that it was kind of inevitable that he made the leap to living overseas, trading one global media hub for another. Each of his parents has an extraordinary #MigrationStory, and he "Didn't want to be the least adventurous person in [his] family." As familiar as living in a global hub is to him, when he arrived, he encountered a new kind of diversity, and, unlike New York, things weren't tailored specifically for your tribe or niche. You need to find a way to fit unto the systems and communities that are here- or you create one of your own. And while the very act of being able to move abroad shows how much agency one has, it doesn't mean that the path isn't riddled with obstacles, such as the Year 1, Year 3 & Year 5 hurdles that weed out many an adventurer. And how might these challenges differ for folks who go abroad at a different stage of life? Is it easier for kids to make the leap overseas straight out of college, or is it better to wait until you've had a chance to go through some of your formative young adult experiences within your home culture before doing so?