In episode three of season three*, Marjan Vayghan talks about the challenges and inadequacies of her American education as a new immigrant from Iran in the mid-nineties, and her uncle’s disappearance after arriving at LAX from Iran during Trump’s travel ban in 2017, while also asking Michele about the optimism of bringing a child into this messed up world.

We Are All Americans is a podcast series Inspired by the fact that my Russian great-grandfather gained his US citizenship after serving in the US Army and my Lithuanian (or Austrian, or Russian, or Latvian - depending on who is telling the story) great-grandmother entered the US on fake passport. Each episode is a different recorded conversations about how family stories are passed down from generation to generation and what it means to be American in the contexts of multiculturalism, immigration, military service, black lives matter, white privilege, and indigeneity.

*Recorded on July 27, 2020 via Zoom, in the midst of the global COVID 19 pandemic and the reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement after the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd.