It’s now just a matter of time before federal benefits are restored that help nearly 700,000 Tennesseans put food on the table.

 But the government shutdown exposed just how many people struggle to keep their families fed. So we’re putting hunger at the center of our Roundabout episode today. We’ll bring you the latest on SNAP and food distributions. We’re also taking your calls about your own experience as a recipient or a volunteer. That number is 615-760-2000. And if you’ve got a pop-up feeding program, please share. It’s SNAP and hunger in the roundabout. 

This episode was produced by Josh Deepan and Mary Mancini. 

GUESTS

Additional Reading: 

WPLN'S SNAP Coverage 

On today's show, we honor those who’ve served their country by welcoming three combat veterans from Middle Tennessee, all from the decade after 9/11.

A cook. An HR specialist. And an intelligence officer. It takes more than the infantry to go to war. Wisdom from our neighbors who answered the call of duty and were forever changed. 

This episode was produced by Josh Deepan. 

GUESTS

Bill DeMain has been creating and evolving for decades. A prolific songwriter, music journalist, walking tour guide, and one half of the pop duo Swan Dive, he’s still not slowing down. In fact, during the pandemic, he added yet another career to his résumé: cartoonist. Today, Bill tells us how it all started, why he continues to try new things, and his thoughts on the untimely death of his friend and co-writer, Jill Sobule.

Further reading and listening

The latest wave of Kurds is arriving from Turkey — fleeing political repression and nationalist hate groups. They're coming to a very different America than the Kurds who have called Nashville home for generations. It’s an America in turmoil — a place where immigrants are increasingly seen as enemies within, to be rooted out and sent back to where they came from.

In this final installment from The Country In Our Hearts, we meet a new generation of Kurdish Nashvillians and leave on a hopeful note with a Kurdish new year celebration.

Series Credits:

The Country In Our Hearts was reported and produced Rose Gilbert, who also produced the visual trailer. Meribah Knight edited and co-produced the series. Sound design by Martin Cruz, and traditional music is by Arkan Doski. The original logo artwork is by Nuveen Barwari.

Special thanks to Paul McAdoo and Jennifer Nelson and huge thanks to Mehmet Ayaz, who made so much of this storytelling possible. Additional thanks for all of the people who welcomed Rose in Kurdistan, like Azad Sameen, the Barmarne family and the village of Chalke; and, of course, the many journalists she met along the way, Suha Kamel, Makeen Mustafa, Paul Idon, Namo Addullah and Wladimir van Wilgenburg.

They opened businesses and raised their kids. As those kids grew up, they had to figure out how to navigate the world of a first-generation Kurdish-American teenager. And in that world, something new was forming — something that threatened to tarnish the sterling reputation their parents worked hard to build.

The Country in our Hearts is the story of how Nashville became home to the largest Kurdish diaspora in America is an epic one. A tale of bloody genocide, of freedom fighters, of stunning perseverance.

But the story of the Kurdish people, no matter where they are, is a story about a country that only exists in the hearts of its people. And the lengths they’ll go to make it real.

Guest:

Series Credits:

The Country In Our Hearts was reported and produced by Rose Gilbert, who also produced the visual trailer. Meribah Knight edited and co-produced the series. Sound design by Martin Cruz, and traditional music is by Arkan Doski. The original logo artwork is by Nuveen Barwari.

Special thanks to Paul McAdoo, Jennifer Nelson and Samantha Max.

In this special broadcast, featuring episode 2 from The Country In Our Hearts, we see all this family lost to war and displacement. But also, what they are determined to reclaim and rebuild.

The story of how Nashville became home to the largest Kurdish diaspora in America is an epic one. A tale of bloody genocide, of freedom fighters, of stunning perseverance.

But the story of the Kurdish people, no matter where they are, is a story about a country that only exists in the hearts of its people. And the lengths they’ll go to make it real.

Guest:

• Dilman Yasin, cultural advisor of the podcast

Series Credits:

The Country In Our Hearts was reported and produced Rose Gilbert, who also produced the visual trailer. Meribah Knight edited and co-produced the series. Sound design by Martin Cruz, and traditional music is by Arkan Doski. The original logo artwork is by Nuveen Barwari.

Special thanks to Paul McAdoo, Jennifer Nelson and to the village of Chalke, and the people there who showed Rose so much hospitality.

WPLN's Rose Gilbert dives headlong into one family’s migration odyssey from Iraqi Kurdistan to Nashville.

To really understand what this family — and so many others — were fleeing from, we need to go back to one terrible, pivotal day in 1988. And to do that, we need to go to Kurdistan.

The Country in our Hearts is the story of how Nashville became home to the largest Kurdish diaspora in America is an epic one. A tale of bloody genocide, of freedom fighters, of stunning perseverance.

But the story of the Kurdish people, no matter where they are, is a story about a country that only exists in the hearts of its people. And the lengths they’ll go to make it real.

Series Credits:

The Country In Our Hearts was reported and produced Rose Gilbert, who also produced the visual trailer. Meribah Knight edited and co-produced the series. Sound design by Martin Cruz, and traditional music is by Arkan Doski. The original logo artwork is by Nuveen Barwari.

Special thanks to Paul McAdoo, Jennifer Nelson, Namo Abdulla, Luqman Abdulqadir and the Halabja Chemical Victims Society.

Audio of interviews with victims of al anfal chemical attacks came from the Kurdish Memory Programme. Audio of the interview with a Halabja chemical attack victim is courtesy of Kurdistan 24. 

WPLN is reviving one of the the station's most popular projects: Curious Nashville.

The recipe is simple. Listeners ask questions and we find the answers.

But the bar is high. Instead of answers that can be found through a quick Google search, we're taking queries that will take us somewhere unknown or unexpected.

Tune in to hear News Director Tony Gonzalez share some of Curious Nashville's great hits, as well as previews of some of the mysteries that reporters are looking into now. And you can submit your question below:

This episode was produced by Tony Gonzalez and Cynthia Abrams.

Every community needs a “keeper of the flame” – someone who can connect the present with the past.

And in Middle Tennessee, we’re fortunate to have several of these sages who can remind us of our history. At WPLN, that’s the gift Nina Cardona shares with listeners each day on the NashVillager podcast – connecting the past with the present, while helping us break out of the news cycle and think about the news in a historical context.

Today, we hear Nina's story and the why and how of what she does to connect us to Tennessee and beyond.

Welcome back to In My Place — a series about finding, and losing, home in a growing Nashville.

This season, we’re getting to walk through the specific steps from homelessness to housing with people who have done it.

In our last 8 episodes, we’ve talked about everything from connecting with services for the very first time to celebrating an apartment. But for many folks it doesn’t stop there — so neither did we.

Most recently, we spent time trying to understand why having a place, even though it’s great, is really hard. So, in this episode, we’re talking with people about what it’s like to experience becoming unhoused again.

This series was created thanks in part to support from Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and was produced by Judith Tackett.

Guests:

Further listening: