When the Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, who opposes same-sex marriage, came to visit Lithuanian-Americans in Chicago, Eglė Malinauskaitė greeted him with a banner "Nausėda yra homofobas". The picture went viral but the person behind the banner remained unknown.

For the first podcast episode of 2022, we met Eglė in their room in Chicago to talk about the power of bold protest and the absence of LGBTQ voices in the Lithuanian-American community.

This episode kicks off the series of conversations with global Lithuanians on their relationship with Lithuania and their work to inspire progressive changes in Lithuanian society, even when they don't live there physically.

We called this series Rethinking Lithuania to challenge the traditional narrative of what defines us as a community. These conversations are held by Karolis Vyšniauskas, one of NARA's editors, who's currently studying journalism masters in New York University.