Banterly

Today we tackle self-love through a cultural lens. Our guest Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed, is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She creates at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. She's turned out over 500,000 Asian American voters, recorded five years of the award-winning #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast,...

We explore self-love through sexual empowerment. Our today's guest is Anna Lee. Anna is the owner of the wellness company Lioness. Lioness is the first and only intelligent vibrator on the market. But beyond its niche, Lioness is a telling legacy of Anna's journey from a complicated childhood where sex was associated with pain & shame into a position of innovation focused on female pleasure an...

Today, joining us to speak on dating, comedy, finding, and being the source of inspiration is the oh-so wondrous, deeply hilarious, and boldly thoughtful actress and comedian Aparna Nancherla. She has appeared on several Late Night talk shows, Comedy Central, Inside Amy Schumer, and acted in plays like Crashing and The Great North's animated series. And if you are in New York City, catch Aparna an...

Saadia & Shahjehan sit down for a completely unscripted, unfiltered conversation to test their chemistry as co-hosts for season 13. In short, it is there. They exchange their own dating stories, including the failures and uncomfortable moments. In addition, they find common ground in their Desi culture along with the differences they experienced as they navigated the dating world. Hosts: Saadi...

It's official: Immigrantly Podcast is on its 13th season! So for Season 13, LOVE is in the air. We're going to explore all things relationships. Our conversations are going to tackle the constructs we've built around relationships. In addition, we'll be exploring how different political and sociological factors affect the relationships we create with each other. To help us tackle these topics and...

Today we are speaking with an Afghan journalist facing threats under a Taliban regime that is becoming more hostile towards the press every day.   To protect him, we have concealed all aspects of his identity, including altering his voice, to prevent any person from seeking to harm him. Therefore, we will also call him Follad Ahangar, not his real name.  Our goal through this episode is to give yo...

Today, Tanvi Misra, an award-winning independent journalist focused on migration, urban policy, and criminal justice, returns to talk about the process and concentrate on her collaborative article “We Have to Survive,” which represents the advocacy found in immigrant communities.  In this article, Tanvi interviewed four women, from community leaders to activists, to paint a portrait of how migrant...

Our today's guest Paula Wood is a multifaceted woman. She's an artist, a mother, a former editor, and an activist. This conversation brings charm and groundedness because Paula is deeply relatable. We talked about the way our proximity to it shapes our understanding of history, whether history and current events have any objectivity to them, collective denial in privileged groups, and the role of...

We are so excited to have Blair Imani join us today. Blair is an author, educator, and influencer living at the intersections of Black, Bisexual, and Muslim identity. She is the author of "Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream", and "Modern HERstory". Her most recent book, "Read This To Get Smarter", is inspired by her viral 30-sec microlearning series, Smarter In S...

This Thanksgiving, Immigrantly colleagues are bringing you a fusion episode, largely reflection-oriented, on the fun and follies of Thanksgiving. Saadia Khan, Yudi Liu & Kylee Roberts share their relationship with Thanksgiving, what they ascribe to, and how they observe this complicated holiday. Enjoy! Producer & Host: Saadia Khan Associate Producer & Content Editor: Kylee Roberts Cont...

It's a common narrative - for immigrants to compensate for positions below their training and education. The conundrum of being overqualified yet foreign was something Alexandra Mori experienced when she first moved to Vancouver. Now she is a regional vice president of the Bank of Montreal. Saadia and Alexandra speak on this process, what shocked them about their new environment, the learnings and...

Today we are so excited to have Khaled Hosseini on Immigrantly. Khaled Hosseini is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "The Kite Runner," "A Thousand Splendid Suns," and "And the Mountains Echoed."  For this conversation, we are passing the mic to one of our content writers, Aleeza Kazmi. Aleeza is a first-generation Afghan and Pakistani American. Producer & Narrator: Saadia Khan Asso...

Ever made eye contact with someone reading on the subway? Uli Beutter Cohen has. As the creator of Subway Book Review, Uli shares *that* moment that ignited her quest to document people and books. Now her platform, which combines digital, oral, and written storytelling, spans over 20 countries. Uli explains what is behind a book (a reader and author), how books paradoxically offer both escapes and...

Saadia sits down with recurring guest, Saira Rao and her publisher, Jessica Regel, for a very real conversation on the state of social justice issues. To put it simply: No, things have not gotten better. They break down the culture of (white) liberal complicity that comes from having a Democratic president. They discuss whether the term "diversity" has become a meaningless word and explore the dyn...

Shahjehan Khan is a voice-over artist, actor, musician & podcaster. He is currently the host of the podcast, a seven-part podcast series about American-Muslim life post-9/11.  Special thanks to Noorjehan Khan for the episode title. This episode is sponsored by Stamps.com Producer & Host: Saadia Khan Associate Producer & Content Editor: Kylee Roberts Content writer: Aleeza Kazmi Editor:...

Our today's guest  is an actor, writer, and singer.  He recently landed a significant role in the upcoming Netflix series as the anti-hero, Hunter Rose. This opportunity is historic because he is the first Arab Muslim actor to lead in a comic book adaptation. We talked about what this casting means for him, how he has navigated the world of acting, the contradictions in media and theater, & wh...

Jamie Broadnax is the founder of an online community, , which she created in 2012 for self-identifying women nerds of color. Since then, Black Girl Nerds has transformed into a multimedia platform and podcast dedicated to changing the narrative around geek culture for people of color.  We talked about exciting matters such as the perception and reality of nerd culture and how the Bechdel test can...

Hari Kondobalu is our guest today. He is a comedian, writer, podcaster, & filmmaker who is best known for his outspoken 2017 documentary which calls out "The Simpsons" for its controversial portrayal of Indians in its character Apu.  This episode is brought to you by Stamps.com Producer & Host: Saadia Khan Content Editor: Kylee Roberts Content write: Yudi Liu  Editor: Tom Whelan Follow us...

Today, on Immigrantly, we speak with Dharon E. Jones. He is a highly talented musical theatre performer from Brooklyn who played Riff in West Side Story. Jones is also a multifaceted artist, performer, and content creator. His resume includes walking NY Fashion Week, performing beautiful choreography in music videos, and appearing in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” While his resume is quite impressiv...

Our guest today is Anna Qu. She writes to make sense of cultural diasporas and the immigrant experience, including her own. Anna grew up in New York, earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College, & currently resides in Brooklyn. Her work, which has appeared in publications like Poets & Writers and Jezebel, recasts the narratives ascribed to immigrants with honesty and...

In Season 12 of Immigrantly, we explore the narratives that haven’t been widely covered across media. Why are we still coming up short in telling fully inclusive stories? Is it time to pivot away from mighty media giants and start making our own stories? What does representation look like in an increasingly digital age?  These are some of the questions we hope to tackle in Season 12. We have an ex...

Today's guest is Professor Josef Sorett. He is an expert in Religious and African American studies at Columbia University. We talked about the boundaries between secular and sacred, how religion has influenced Black culture from hip hop music to social movements, and why returning to the junctions of religion and culture can be a source of reconciliation and investment in what is common. This epis...

Marla Louissaint, whose performance credentials include “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and “Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr, Rosewater” sits down with host and producer Saadia, along with Marla's longtime friend & Immigrantly associate producer, Kylee, to reflect on the road to becoming an ex-Jehovah’s Witness and the Founder/President of an abolitionist nonprofit called "Claim Our Spa...

This week on Immigrantly, we explore the relationship between the environment and religion through a physical vessel that is the Church of Holy Communion on West 20th & 6th Ave New York. The episode reviews the Churches many past lives, including a fitness center and an elite nightclub. Through this historical-social lens, Immigrantly is asking the questions we all have considered: what is a r...

Today's guest Nouri Sardar is a Muslim poet, filmmaker, & co-host of the 786 Boulevard podcast. However, he stands as a change agent at the intersection of religion and social justice at a more fundamental level.  This episode is sponsored by Citizenpath. Go to citizenpath.com and use coupon code "Immigrantly" to get 15% off. This episode is sponsored by Db. Click on the link below to get 10%o...