Jamaican scholar and assistant professor Nisha Terry Young joins me for a grounded conversation about identity, belonging, and the labels we inherit when we move to the United States. We explore the difference between immigrant and expat—and how those words quietly shape the way women migrants are seen, judged, and expected to perform competence in their new lives.

Nisha shares how her identity as a Jamaican woman fuels her work, and how her decision to pursue a PhD became a direct response to the limiting narratives placed on immigrants in American schools. We talk about the quiet pressure migrant women feel to prove their value, the fatigue of constant adaptation, and the emotional cost of rebuilding identity in spaces where anti‑immigrant and anti‑Black narratives still sit in the background of everyday life.

She also takes us home to Jamaica—its mountains, riverbanks, wood‑fire cooking, music, and mangoes—and reminds us how home stays alive through taste, sound, and small rituals that steady us when loneliness creeps in or when the grief of the old self shows up unexpectedly.

This episode is for any woman navigating competence loss, language shame, identity whiplash, and the slow, uneven work of belonging in a new country.

Part two continues next week.

Five practical tools every migrant woman can use to stop feeling lost

Ever felt overwhelmed after moving abroad? This episode gives you the missing manual. Host Yolanda Reshemah breaks down two essential skills every immigrant, expat, and migrant woman needs:

• Learning the hidden rulebook of your new culture and;
• Using curiosity and optimism as practical survival tools.

You’ll walk away with five clear, actionable strategies to help you feel more grounded, more capable, and more at home in the place you’re rebuilding your life.

As the woman who has relocated six times, host Yolanda shares her tools learned the hard way ... through life, not from books and theories.

She first moved at age 10, then as a teen, a young professional, a wife and most recently as a mother.

On Wednesdays guest conversations bring you lived experiences from a community of women who know where you are and how you feel.

If this episode gives you something real, follow the show and share it with one woman who needs this today.

My expectation was that we were going to buy me a Barbie ... jeans, and bubble gum!

This conversation with writer and storyteller Yuliya Patasy is an unusual exploration of what it means to arrive somewhere new — physically, emotionally, culturally, and generationally.

Yuliya immigrated to San Francisco as a child, landing in a converted garage apartment packed with grandparents, great‑grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the weight of her parents’ hopes. Her early memories of life in a country that no longer exists are vivid: “I’ll never forget what it was like to live with 12 people in an apartment [ in the Soviet] sharing a bathroom.”

She shares the pressure her parents felt to “turn things around quickly,” the loss of professional identity, and the disorientation of entering a system where the rules — social, cultural, bureaucratic — were entirely different. She also speaks candidly about the humor and heartbreak of childhood expectations, like the moment she realized Barbie was not life‑size: “I was like, this? No. I hate this.”

We talk about belonging, language loss, and the tension between honoring the culture you came from and raising children who are fully rooted in the place you now call home. Yuliya reflects on her memoir, which began as a simple recipe collection and became a deeper excavation of family, memory, and identity. And she offers grounded wisdom for families stepping off a plane today, carrying their hopes in a suitcase: “There are good people everywhere… building relationships is really the path to feeling at home.”

If you want more tools, stories, and honest conversations about building a life abroad, follow the show. Each episode gives you something real you can use and someone real you can relate to.

Moving abroad can look exciting from the outside — but inside, many immigrant and expat women carry a silent truth: loneliness, identity loss, homesickness, and the pressure to hold everything together.

In this solo episode, I talk honestly about the emotional work women do when they uproot their lives, often without a title, paycheck, or community to hold them. 

I share the tools that helped me feel lighter - dealing with one big emotion at a time, rebuilding identity in small steps, and giving yourself permission to "faff around" and be un-serious in a life that often feels heavy. 

If you've ever felt invisible, overwhelmed, or permanently on duty after moving abroad, this episode officially reminds you that you're not the only one living through the immigrant experience: the opportunities, challenges and being heard.  You're allowed to feel good and have some levity. Often.

Leave a comment. Share your rituals for adding lightness in your life

https://www.instagram.com/placeswecallhomepod

I’ll never forget what it was like to live with 12 people in a Soviet apartment sharing a bathroom.

Writer and storyteller Yuliya Patsay joins us to explore the emotional work of immigration, belonging, and identity — from her childhood arrival in San Francisco as a refugee from what was then the USSR, to the life she’s built today.

She shares the reality of childhood immigration — the disorienting impact of an abundance of resources, diversity, culture shock, and the courage it takes to rebuild your identity when you don't understand the language, rituals and experience.

We talk about the pressure her parents felt to “turn things around quickly,” the loss of professional identity, and of entering a system where the rules — social, cultural, bureaucratic — were entirely different. She also speaks candidly about the humor and heartbreak of childhood expectations, like the moment she realized Barbie was not life‑size: “I was like, this? No. I hate this.”

Her story resonates with immigrant women, expat families, and anyone who has ever called another country home.

Follow the show for more stories about migration, identity, and belonging — and the quiet, powerful work of creating a life in a new country.

Yulia (rhymes with Goo-lia) Patsay is a writer and comedian navigating American life with Soviet programming. She is the author of the memoir Until the Last Pickle and creator of the Substack Buckle Up Bubelah.

Practical guidance for migrant women rebuilding life in the USA.

This episode shares three practical lessons for migrant women who are working hard to build a new life in the United States.

These lessons come from my conversation with Janet Xu in episode #67, who moved from China with $300 in her pocket and rebuilt her life through persistence, community, and a clear sense of identity.

You’ll get three takeaways that help you stay grounded during the hardest parts of relocation:

• Stay rooted in who you are.
  Keep your heritage, your goals, and your ambition close. They help you stay steady while you adjust to a new country.

1. Don't mute your voice, you accent and your culture.
   Your background is a strength. It supports you as you find your place and build confidence.
2. Expect hard work — inside and out.
   The external work matters, but so does the internal work: managing loneliness, homesickness, and pressure.

Hear what’s possible when you stay committed to your path and trust your judgment.

Share your takeaway with guests and host: email: [email protected].

A blueprint for migrant women eager to turn obstacles into opportunities.

Most women exploring life abroad feel overwhelmed by cultural shifts, language barriers, and the fear of losing themselves—until you hear Janet Zhu’s story.

Janet shares raw, live stories of her journey—from the initial excitement, loneliness and identity shifts to creating a life that honors both her Chinese heritage and American dreams.

What you get:

• Hear how embracing your culture fuels your confidence,
• How to cultivate community through service, and
• Why financial independence is crucial for women abroad.

  Her journey reminds you that success is about achievement and also about being at peace with who you are—regardless of where you came from.

Listen now, share it with women who need a little reminder, and follow the show for more real conversations about life abroad.

How to rebuild with kids, handle culture shock, and find your footing as an expat mom. immigrant mom.

Feeling lost after moving abroad? This episode names the quiet grief women carry when you immigrate-homesickness, language shame, identity wobble, and the pressure to make the move "worth it". Karen - a professional organizer from Israel shares how she rebuilt in the U.S. in her 40s: making friends from zero, helping her kids learn a new language, reopening her career, and adapting to culture without erasing herself.

You'll leave with simple ways to protect your energy, communicate with confidence and release the feelings in your body.

Listen now and start creating the life you moved for-- one small win at a time.

Moving to a new country is an emotional, psychological, and cultural upheaval. In this episode, Korean‑Canadian entrepreneur Monica Hyang-sil Chang shares her powerful story of rebuilding her identity after immigrating from Korea, to Toronto, Canada, to Marin County in California.

This episode is for anyone searching for belonging, rebuilding identity after migration, or learning how to stay grounded while living far from home.

Monica opens up about the pressure many Asian women feel to 'fit the box,' the stereotypes she pushed against, and what it meant to become one of the only Korean women running a food business in her region. We explore the real challenges of loneliness, homesickness, culture shock, and the mental health impact of starting over in a new country — experiences familiar to immigrants, expats, and anyone navigating life abroad.

Visit San Koran cafe

If this resonates leave a 5‑star review. I really helps us know how to support you.

Life abroad can stretch you, soften you, and sometimes drain you in ways you didn’t expect. In this episode, I’m sharing five clear signs that your expat life — or the spaces you’re in — are costing you too much emotionally, and what it looks like to take your power back without abandoning yourself.

If you’re an expat or immigrant woman navigating homesickness, isolation, microaggressions, shrinking to fit in, or feeling invisible, this conversation will help you name what’s happening and decide what you need next.

We talk about:

• the quiet ways you start shrinking to stay accepted
• feeling depleted after every interaction
• performing gratitude instead of being honest
• the emotional cost of staying in rooms that don’t see you
• how to choose spaces that let you be present, not disappear

I also share a personal story from my own life in the U.S. — a moment when I stayed in a difficult space, why I made that choice, and what I learned about belonging, boundaries, and self‑trust.

I also share a personal story from my own life in the U.S. — a moment when I stayed in a difficult space, why I made that choice, and what I learned about belonging, boundaries, and self‑trust.

This episode is for the woman abroad who keeps asking:
“Do I matter here? Can I belong here and still be myself?”

If this speaks to you, follow The Places We Call Home on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and leave a 5‑star review so I know these conversations are meeting you where you are.