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"What's in Name" is a special edition of The Alien Chronicles Podcast. It centers on the discussion around how some people who migrate to America change their names to more mainstream American names. 

In this episode, Saadia Khan talks to a Syrian refugee living in Berlin. Thair Orfahli grew up in Syria, in a middle-class family. His childhood was relatively normal, and he was studying law in Lebanon when the Syrian war broke out, what ensued was a series of fateful events which led him to leave everything behind, risk his life by riding a flimsy boat across the Mediterranean to get to Germany...

Saadia interviews Jade Chang. Jade is the author of The Wangs vs. the World. The book has been named a New York Times Editors Choice as well as best Book of the Year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, NPR, and others. Jade has appeared on national programs and she has spoken to audiences at universities and book festivals. According to NPR "Her book is unrelentingly fun, but it is also raw and profane—a story o...

Priya Minhas is a writer and producer from London. Her writing explores South Asian immigrant identity. Priya is a contributing writer to The Good Immigrant USA, an American edition of an award-winning best-selling anthology exploring race.  Her writing is featured in BuzzFeed, Burnt Roti, Kajal Magazine and Brown Girl Magazine. She is currently based in New York where she works with artists produ...

Huda Al-Marashi is the Iraqi-American author of First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story, a book the Washington Post called "a charming, funny, heartbreaking memoir of faith, family, and the journey to love. If Jane Austen had grown up as a first-gen daughter of Iraqi parents in the 1990s, she might have written this.” Her other writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the L...

In this episode, Saadia talks to Chimene Suleyman. Chimene is the editor of The Good Immigrant USA, and a contributing writer to the original best-selling award-winning British anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound, 2016). Chimene’s work has also appeared in the Guardian, Independent, IBTimes, The Quietus,  News night, BBC Radio 4’s Today Program, NPR, and Sky news. Chimene and Saadia talk about t...

Beth Schuman and Nizar Farsakh are part of an organization called Combatants for Peace. The egalitarian, bi-national, grassroots organization was founded on the belief that the cycle of violence can only be broken when Israelis and Palestinians join forces. Committed to joint nonviolence since its foundation, CFP works to both transform and resolve the conflict by ending Israeli occupation and all...

 Saadia Khan changes the format for this episode. She introduces three immigrant stories. Each immigrant shares their experiences in the US in their own words from a different vantage point. You will hear from them what it's like to be an immigrant in the US. Each perspective is unique in that it unravels the complexities of being an immigrant through the lens of the narrator without any leading q...

Sanjana Bhatnagar and Stephanie Munn are high school students and Students for Refugees (SFR) representatives. S.F.R. is working to raise funds to support educational facilities and individual student programs in affected countries as well as supporting local refugees. There are a broad range of things that SFR engages in, but their primary goal is to get students involved in helping refugees. SFR...

Saadia Khan talks Susan Muaddi Darraj, a Palestinian American. Susan talks about her experiences as a child of immigrants and how her dual identity has shaped her life. Susan is an Associate Professor of English at Hartford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland. Susan is also a Lecturer in the Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Writing program. In 2014, her short story collection, A Curious Land: S...

Samira Sadeque is a New York-based Bangladeshi journalist and poet focusing on migration, the refugee crisis, gender, and mental health. She completed her M.S. in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School in 2017. Samira began her journalism career in Dhaka, Bangladesh, covering the 2013 factory collapse, the country's ethnic and religious minorities, and its LGBT community. Her work appears in R...

Saadia Khan talks to Suzie Afridi. She is a Palestinian American stand up comedian. She was born and raised in Jericho, in the West Bank.  Her dad was a Welder, and her mom was a farmer. When she was fourteen, her family immigrated to San Jose, California. She attended San Jose State University. Suzie is an accountant by profession, but she realized she was terrible at her job and decided to pursu...

Saadia Khan talks to Tahmina Watson about pressing immigration issues. Tahmina is a nationally acclaimed immigration attorney and the founder of Watson Immigration Law, in Seattle, Washington. She was a barrister in London before immigrating to America. Tahmina is also the author of “The Startup Visa: Key to Job Growth & Economic Prosperity in America.”  In addition to appearing on CNN, Forbes...

Saadia Khan reminisces about her trip to Turkey as she interviews Melike Ayan. Melike is originally from Turkey. She is the New York Correspondent for Bloomberg HT Television where she provides in-depth coverage and analysis of major economic and business trends, including in-depth reporting on global corporations. Additionally, Ayan established her own company, Mel Strategies, which specializes i...

Saadia Khan talks to Lisa Genn. Lisa was born in Russia, she and her parents left Moscow in December 1989 on the verge of the collapse of the Soviet Union in hopes of resettling in America under a program for bringing Soviet Jews to the United States as refugees. Lisa is a lawyer by profession but has worked on human rights issues throughout her career. She is a city girl who spends most of her ti...

Saadia Khan talks to Edafe Okporo, an LGBTQ refugee from Nigeria.  He is a fierce advocate for Human rights specifically those of LGBTQ community in NY and around the globe including West Africa. His passion to help others like him stems from his struggle which propels him to stand up for the defenseless. Currently, Edafe is the Director of RDJ Refugee Shelter.  He is the author of BED 26: A Memoi...

Saadia Khan talks to Reshad Ahmedi, an immigrant from Afghanistan. Reshad worked for ten years on U.S.-funded re-construction projects in Afghanistan, until insurgents targeted him for his affiliation with the United States. Reshad is in the US on a Special Immigration Visa (SIV) to the United States. He is now an Assistant Project Manager at a local Tectonic Engineering & Surveying. Reshad is...

In this first episode of Season 2, Saadia Khan talks to Alyssa Mosley. Alyssa was born and raised in the homeland of Lenape people, also known as Bridgeton NJ. She is the enrolled member of the Nanticoke Lenni- Lenape tribe; it’s the largest Indian tribe in NJ. The history of the Lenape tribe goes back over 10,000 years. Most of Lenape people faced forced migration to Canada or midwestern US but s...

Saadia talks to Alessia Valfredini, an Italian American. Alessia is also a Professor at Fordham University in NY. She teaches modern languages and literature, and she is rarely taken for an immigrant, In this episode, we take a glimpse into her personal life and her perspective as a Western European immigrant living in America 

In this Special Edition of The Alien Chronicles, Saadia Khan talks to Eric Maddox, a fellow podcaster and founder of the Virtual Dinner Guest Project and a US citizen living as an immigrant in Valencia Spain. They talk about the nuances of being an immigrant in the EU, racism in America and much more 

In this episode, Saadia Khan talks to Daisy Khan about her personal journey to America and her perspective as a modern religious scholar in America. Daisy Khan is one of the most prominent female Muslim leaders in the United States. She is also the Executive Director of the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) and Author of Born with Wings.

Saadia interviews Ali Yarkhan, a branding executive, who has worked for internationally renowned brands like Prada and Giorgio Armani. He is also a director who wants to create documentaries that highlight social issues. On a personal level, he continues to explore and practice Sufism’s diverse cultural legacies in an attempt to achieve inner peace. In this episode, Ali talks about different facet...

Saadia talks to Nadine Ali, a Pakistani American, about her journey to the US, her life as a baker and her rather unconventional path to sweetness. Currently, Nadine owns a successful business as a baker in NYC, she is also a mom and loves to dance! 

Saadia talks to Nicole Duran, Dominican Republic native. Nicole is currently working as a hairstylist and is also a student focusing on psychology and public speaking. With faith, she is trying to bring her community together. She believes that where you come from does not define where you will go. 

In this episode, Saadia talks to Juan Escalante, a renowned digital strategist and nationally recognized immigration advocate about his experiences as an immigrant in the US and his role in spearheading the immigrant rights movement for the last 10 years.