The Found in Translation Podcast

0:00- Dahwula’s introduction

0:32- “Where are you from?”

2:28- Early adolescence in America, culture-based discrimination

3:21- Experience in ESOL classes

6:46- Lack of exposure to language and culture outside of home life

7:37- Bullying cultivating a seed of resentment towards Dahwula’s African background

10:48- The rift between the African Americans and Africans

13:51- Complex feelings about culture as an adolescent

15:12- “I didn’t care about the culture until other people started caring about the culture”

15:51- Absorbing American culture

17:58- The risk of culture as a trend

19:53- The cultural experience of food

20:14- Dahwula’s favorite Liberian food

21:40- Learning through observation as a child

26:49- “The internet taught me to question more”

34:28- Dahwula’s response to being put in boxes as an adolescent

40:54- Mutual understanding in communities of other immigrant children

42:25- “Where are you currently in your identity journey?” + Dahwula’s reflections on self- autonomy

44:53- The sacrifice that comes with finding a middle ground of self-autonomy

45:46- “What do you define as your culture?”

47:22- Permanent connection to Liberian culture

49:39- Utilizing art to advance culture and break boxes of expectations

52:06- The evolution and maturity of African culture

53:25- The evolution of Dahwula’s interest in fashion

55:25- Dahwula’s influences and inspirations

58:32- The outdated “American Dream”

59:00- Dahwula’s American Dream

1:00:37- Liberia as a vacation spot for Dahwula, not a permanent residence

1:04:12- 48% of the way self-actualized

1:06:55- “What do you see for the future of your culture?”

1:07:31- “The thing about culture is you don’t necessarily need to relate to understand something”

1:08:16- The importance of building cultural bridges

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

This episode features Found in Translation’s Creative Director, Ola.

Intro/Outro Music: Happy Ending by Kelela

The Found in Translation Podcast is a Pan-African sociopolitical education interview series reflecting on modern Afrodiasporic history and the legacy of the black radical tradition in an updated context. Follow us on Instagram at @foundintranslationdmv

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested being the show, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Uche Ezejiofor speaks with Sierra Leonean recording artist Kenzo Cole about their experience as a queer, gender non-conforming first generation Sierra Leonean in America.

Dazed magazine’s 2017 article covering the House of Kings and Queens, a secret, self-constructed LGBT sanctuary in Sierra Leone: https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/36873/1/lee-price-photos-of-sierra-leones-lgbt-community-where-gay-is-a-sin 

Curated by MIT Press Direct, the following are a selection of political cartoons drawn by African artists expressing the push factors of emigration from Africa: https://direct.mit.edu/afar/article/53/3/30/93187/Migration-Emigration-and-Immigration-African

Intro/Outro Music: Decisions by Kenzo Cole

Found in Translation is a DMV-based Pan-African cultural platform and documentary podcast interview series exploring the cultural multidimensionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

Follow us on Instagram at @foundintranslationdmv

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

On this episode, we discuss George Jackson and the origins of Black August, our individual and collective revolutionary potential, and the power of Black August in supporting a Pan-Africanist framework for black liberation.

Texts mentioned:

Soledad Brother by George Jackson

Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson

Found in Translation is a DMV-based Pan-African cultural platform and documentary podcast interview series exploring the cultural multidimensionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

Follow us on Instagram at @foundintranslationdmv

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

2:52 Introduction

3:30 Ethiopia’s regional distinctions

4:06 The current regional conflict in Ethiopia

6:33 The media’s role in misrepresentation of Ethiopia

8:53 Tribal differences in cultural traditions

11:11 The Visa lottery

14:25 Story: Arriving in New York

17:22: The importance of honesty in communicating the American experience to those abroad

19:35 Exchanging American currency

22:07 The role of immigrant advocates

22:55 "The people who arrived here first should take responsibility for [the safety and comfort of] newcomers"

24:00 Fear of deportation

25:01 "you don't just come here and relax" 

26:40 "America is uniquely challenging", mental colonization, cultural erasure by assimilation to whiteness

30:08 "is America glamorized?"

31:12 The impossibility of hiding your identity as an immigrant

34:04 The experience of immigration to America from an uncolonized African country

37:18 The Ethiopian Orthodox Calendar

38:49 America as a closed society

41:20 The importance of finding community

42:02 "When I travel somewhere the first things I look for are where the Orthodox church and Ethiopian restaurants are"

42:28 Food as a connection to culture

43:24 "The more I make what they make, the more it feels like they're living again, so it means everything to me"

44:19 "What inspires the importance of you holding your culture close to you?"

45:39 "I'm not gonna cut your hand and keep it with me"

46:25 Ethiopian culture post-civil war 

48:35 "How your re-learning of Ethiopian history shaped your worldview and understanding of who you are?"

51:48 "The African immigrant experience is so consistently centered around education"

58:40 The stress and emotional invisibility of education and immigration

59:27 "No one knows who I am here"

59:53 African misrepresentation in American media

1:02:01 The importance of "informing our own" 

1:06:09 Mitigating the emotional toll of immigration

1:07:29 Imagining alternatives to traditional community resource networks

1:11:46 Perspectives on America's future 

1:13:03 Returning to Ethiopia

1:14:38 "No matter what condition I go back to, I feel like I'll be happier there"

1:17:24 Perspectives on Africa's future

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @@foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

0:32 Introduction

1:11 Chigo’s story

4:44 The post-colonial seeds of Anti-Black sentiments from Africans

7:33 Potential remedies towards a more positive global representation of Black Americans

8:22 The responsibility of today’s generation of Africans to address toxic aspects of our culture

10:46 Chigo’s identity journey through literature

11:28 No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

11:45 Half of a Yellow Sun and the Nigerian Biafran War

14:08 Transcendent Kingdom and the disconnect in first-gen familial relationships

15:21 Transcendent Kingdom and religion

15:51 Deep-rooted attachment to Christianity in West African culture

18:55 Christianity as a tool of White Supremacy

20:03 Spirituality as a very personal and individual practice

21:01 The demonization of traditional spiritual practices in African media

23:36 Are we getting closer to a return to authentic African spiritual traditions?

27:45 Spirituality as an organizing tool against white supremacy

30:44 The importance of watering down dense information to make it easier to consume

31:29 “I would frame it as understanding your culture”

33:53 Chigo’s Pan-Africanist journey

35:34 “you can’t destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools“

36:21 “in fortifying Africa you will collapse imperialistic systems“

36:47 Individual vs collective power

37:11 Comfort as a tool of oppression

41:41 Progressive aspects of culture as weapons of comfort

45:45 “What’s the role of the heterosexual community in deconstructing heteronormativity in the US and Africa?”

46:16 The importance of challenging gender roles

50:20 Chauvinism

58:01 self-censoring

1:00:50 The importance of community-building

1:01:27 Chigo’s community garden

1:06:24 “Different cultures in Africa have celebrated and revered queer and trans people in their community”

1:09:54 Identity reclamation/“How do we navigate a return to traditional contexts of African culture?”

1:11:32“Is there anything you’d like to say to people who share the same cultural space as you but are still early in their self-actualization journey?”

Texts Referenced

Authors Referenced

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

0:00- Language as a mode of connecting to culture

1:03- Other connections to culture 

2:01- Experiences with religion

2:18- Skepticism about the church environment & coming to terms with questions around religion

4:19- The church taking advantage of desperate people/Faith rooted in fear vs hope

4:37- Fear-based perspective on life in the older Nigerian generation

6:05- Constant atmosphere of spirituality in Nigerian homes

7:23- Religion as a source of hope

8:25- Varying degrees of religious commitment in our younger generation

9:00- Modern, forward-thinking Christian churches

10:15- The church as a place of community

11:08- The church as an echo chamber of problematic behavior

11:34- Toxic masculinity in Nigerian culture

12:53- Nigerian women's issues in the US vs abroad

14:58- Who owns the culture? Nigerians abroad or Nigerians in the US?

16:53- Transition

18:39- How much of your self-identity is rooted in you being Nigerian?

20:47- Aspects of your culture and nationality bleeding into other aspects of who you are

22:21- "Tell me a story about a moment in your life that forced you to question your perspective of your identity."

26:31- Experiences as a Nigerian kid influencing relationships with Americans in peer settings

29:35- Do you currently have any behaviors or beliefs ingrained in your Nigerian background?

29:54- Do you want to go back to Nigeria?

32:02- Where do you want to end up?

33:44- What would you say to the younger version of yourself?

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]

A spoiler-filled audio review of the 2019 film Guava Island. 

A written version can be found on www.roomfornuance.blog.

2:15- Language & it’s relation to culture 

6:35- Reading & literature 

8:12- Relating to the previous generation of Africans 

10:46- The death of curiosity as a survival mechanism 

13:02- Expectations & our responsibility to our parents 

15:44- Religion as a part of the culture 

18:45- Abandonment of history due to white supremacy 

21:53- Picking up the pieces of African history 

23:05- Christianity as the foundation for reinforcing patriarchal dynamics in the nuclear family 

24:52- Breaking the cycle 

25:13- Abuse in African households stemming from culture expectations 

26:10- The Biafran War & it’s direct effects on the culture 

27:46- Culture as something malleable 

28:34- The awareness of our generation 

29:58- The need for collective healing 

32:21- The wave of normalization of therapy 

32:55- Living as the most authentic version of ourselves 

34:13- What would you say to a young African Child in a traditional household in 2020? What would you say to yourself 19 years ago in your household? 

35:57- What do you see for the future of Nigerian culture? 

Found in Translation is a Pan-African documentary interview series exploring the cultural intersectionality of African descendants across the global diaspora. Guests reflect on the layers of their identity and the role of culture in the modern world.

To keep up with future episodes and additional resources please subscribe to our substack newsletter: foundintranslation.substack.com

Follow us on Instagram @foundintranslationpodcast

If you'd like to provide feedback or if you're interested in sharing your story on the show please email us at [email protected]