An Immigrant’s Life

Jet Labrador is a comic book portrait artist. We got into a conversation about our love for basketball, books, meditation, Kobe Bryant and how it all inspire our lives. He also told me about rupturing his patella, going through depression during his almost yearlong recovery, and how it gave him time to reflect on his life and get back to painting comic book characters once again.       CEMA's...

Anastasiia Buina is a Jewelry designer. We talked about her life as a World Champion Acrobatic Rock'n'Roll dancer in Russia, and the toll it took on her social life and mental health, including her eating disorder due to the strict diets, strenuous training, and incessant body shaming of her coach. After moving to the US, she learned the benefits of therapy, which helped alleviate her body...

Ajit Randhawa is a Real Estate Attorney. We talked about how immigrants' parents don't know how to retire, the positive effects of bullying, the meaning of love, his love for anime and how it helped him succeed in law school, and his experiences as a Real Estate Attorney.            🎤ALL LINKS BELOW 🎧   YouTube: https://bit.ly/3g0qe2g   Apple: https://apple.co/34KNRa2   Spotify: https://...

Kyikyi is the owner of “Himalayan Dumplings by Kyikyi" the 1st woman-owned Tibetan food brand in the US. She spoke about her grandparents escape from Tibet through the Himalayas, causing her to be born and raised in Nepal and India, due to China’s colonization, studying at an all-girls Catholic boarding school despite being a Buddhist, her experiences as a refugee, how lucky she was to be spon...

Munashe Kaseke is the author of “Send Her Back and other stories” and was released by her publishing house, “Mukana Press.”   We talked about her growing up in Harare, Zimbabwe as a highly curious kid that was fostered by her parents helped her get a scholarship to the “whitest” part of America: Des Moines, Iowa, where she pursued a doctorate of pharmacy, which she used to start a pharmacy website...

David Young Kim is a Muralist and co-founder of KAA collective.    Due to his Korean immigrant parents trying to establish their lives in America, he grew up as a latchkey kid, and without parental supervision he joined a Filipino street gang.     After feeling betrayed by his gang, and by then living in a suburb of Los Angeles, he decided to attend UC Davis to escape his gang life. Following his...

Olga Fedorova is a Photographer born in Ukraine and bred in Brooklyn. After the fall of the Soviet Union, their family plunged into poverty which pushed them to immigrate to Brooklyn where she lived an insular Russian life till she discovered the East Village, there she transformed from a member of the American Ballet into a punk. After meeting her husband who is a photographer, she finally took t...

Dr. Jack Paduntin is the President of Pacific Oaks College. He came on the podcast to talked about being a perennial great student in Bangkok, Thailand, until he moved to Dallas to acquire his Masters. There he suffered from culture shock both socially and academically, exacerbated by his lack of proficiency in English. As a result, he was told by his College Dean to “go home”; instead of heeding...

Sarah Alshamaily is a Physicist & Astronomist. Tired of the lack of government stability, not to mention seeing dead bodies everywhere after the US invasion of Iraq, Sarah’s family migrated to Dubai, UAE in search of a better life. Following her high school graduation, she immigrated to Canada alone to study in Victoria, BC, and after fighting through 2 years of setbacks, being told she will n...

Mark Teodosio is a Filipino comic book creator of "The Realest Bayani". He came on the podcast to talk about his experience growing up in Brooklyn, being the only Asian boy in a Latino neighborhood which earned him the nickname “Chino,” being witty to survive and when that’s not enough his dad enrolled him in a ninjutsu class, the positive effect of bullying, Filipino’s connection to hip-h...

Margarita Chmykhalova is a RN & a US Army Major. Originally from Ukraine, she immigrated to the US after seeking asylum for religious persecution. She came on the podcast to talk about fake social media impersonators, immigrants being frozen in a time capsule and its effects, avoiding to be a marketing ploy of her people, growing up hiding books from her parents, advocation against sexual abus...

Lana Rusić is a Make-up Artist extraordinaire. She came on the podcast to talk about the thin line between her TikTok characters and her real life persona, being the first Uzbek to be born in Denmark, doing a DNA test that revealed her varied ethnicity, the romantic story of how her parents met, why women should be cautious with feminism, importance of gender roles, her therapeutic visit to Baku,...

I talked to Creative Director, Jose Reyes. He told me a romantic movie-like beginning, how he followed a woman he loved to New York, and how it sadly ended, we talked about his love for New York city, getting married during the peak of the pandemic after meeting his “person,” his wanting to be a father, the importance of sharing experiences with people, his definition of success, not feeling homes...

Originally from Delhi, India, Tanya Hurria now lives in Surrey, British Columbia. She came on the podcast to talk about the importance of sharing your personal stories, how Disney movies inspired her to immigrate, her using an immigration consultant but still getting denied which made her apply on her own, missing “home” but not the physical one, her late great father, getting confused by DST, fee...

Kley Klemens is the cocreator of the fabulous food blog Jewkarta . He sat down with me to talk about the contrast between Indonesian and Filipino culture, growing up a closeted gay man in a Muslim society in Jakarta, Indonesia, how he used to “catfish” white men on the internet to find himself and explore his sexuality, how love allowed him immigrate to Canada, why Canada makes him feel free as a...

I talked to Press Secretary for the Office of the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, Johise Namwira. We talked about her family’s forced exodus because of the aftermath of the Rwandan massacre from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kenya and eventually to Winnipeg, Canada, after her dads serendipitous meeting with a Mennonite couple, growing up in Canada with a strong cultural Con...

I talked to author/poet, Svens Telemaque. We talked about how he was uprooted from Montreal to Miami, Florida by his mother after his parents' divorce, how his ego got the best of him that lead him to a life of crime, his decision to change his life by moving back to Montreal, cancel culture, what do we do with the art of monstrous men, his writing process, challenges of writing a book, dealin...

I talked to model, Attieh Elena. We talked about how the pandemic affected her and her modelling career financially and mentally, how she deals with being gifted with an ectomorph body and the jealousy that comes with it from other women, her Lebanese and Ukrainian roots, growing up in a small town in Manitoba in the middle of Canada’s “Bible belt,” her tumultuous high school life being a closeted...

I talked to the artist, Sumayyah Nabiyeva. She shared to me her humble life in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she used to play with shampoo bottles that she created cities with, growing up in Maryland wanting to be a “white girl,” how the pandemic propelled her to start her “hijab journey” and the positive effects that came with it, and she corrected some of my personal misconception about Islam     ...

I talked to NASA Engineer, Elio Morillo . He told me about his mom’s incredible sacrifice of being a well-known school principal to cleaning houses and doing odd jobs, when she moved them from Ecuador to New York then to Puerto Rico, and then back to New York, to give him better life opportunities. Learning about English and life from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, growing up a “smart ass” that he transla...

I talked to Brand Architect, Sele Akhigbe. We got to talking about the confidence of Nigerians and their National pride, suffering multiple concussions, moving to Cornwall for school that became a learning experience, how moving to Seattle helped him be himself, the difference between Canada and America’s patronism, Americans love for Canadians, and possibly being a preacher someday.         👇🏽...

I talked to radio host, Franklin Rodriguez. Our conversation began with a hilarious story about his birth, then we talked about his reggaetoncentric radio show “The Spanglish Hour”, taking advantage of opportunities, his immigrant struggles, comparing himself to Canadians, the immigrant mentality of always being in survival mode. We paid tribute to his late father and how he plans to pass his fath...

I talked to Lawyer and fellow podcaster, Christine Abrigana. We talked about her experiences growing up in Davao, her mom’s immigration to Germany through a “pen pal” process that led her marrying Christine’s dad, her belief that her mom works for the CIA, being bullied in high school for her looks and surviving it by using her brains, being hit as a child and the trauma that comes with it, her im...

Ashish Bhatia @mr.bhatia.in.canada is an International Student in Waterloo, Ontario. He came on @Animmigrantslife podcast to talk about his decision of leaving his lofty life in Faridabad, India for Canada to learn new culture, self-growth, and opportunities. We also talked about his experiences as a foreign student, why he decided to give tips to aspiring and current International Student, and ho...

I had a great conversation with the Multifaceted Actress Yollanda Chimbarami. She talked about growing up in a farm in Harare, Zimbabwe, being a trillionaire because of inflation, from being a shy kid to attending a bootcamp to join Miss Zimbabwe, being a celebrity in Zimbabwe and restarting her life in Manitoba, Canada, the contrast of life in Canada vs Zimbabwe. We also talked about her acting a...