Divided Families Podcast

Iris Tzafrir is an Israeli resident in the United States who writes and speaks about her family’s stories of surviving the Holocaust and about being the descendant of Shoah survivors. Compelled by her son’s school history project to speak publicly about her father’s memories of the Holocaust for the first time, she and her siblings finally decided to join their father in visiting the physical site...

Steven Vitto has been a researcher at the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum for over thirty years. With deep expertise in examining documents both physical and digital, he has reconnected numerous families over the years. In this episode, Paul talks to Steven about specific stories of family reunions and the work that leads up to them. One resource Steven mentions are the Arolsen Archives, which was...

In this episode, Eugene and Paul look back on the Divided Families Podcast, one year later. The two also reflect on 2020 and possibilities for the future of the podcast. Stay tuned for new episodes in 2021, and thank you to all of our listeners for your continued support! For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast. You can also contact us at dividedfamiliespodcast@gmail.com.

In our final episode of the season, Paul reflects on the stories we have featured in recognition of National Adoption Month with two other members of the Divided Families Podcast team, Liat Shapiro and Mailé Nguyen. Liat and Mailé share their experiences as adoptees, relating in different ways to the concept of "coming out of the fog" and the duality of adoption as an institution of both family cr...

Our second episode commemorating National Adoption Month features three members of a collective of transracial adoptees advocating for abolition of the transracial international adoption system: Meghan Kelly, Chris Santizo-Malafronti, and Eleanor Vasquez-Kelly. Meghan and Eleanor share their radicalizing and transformative experiences of "coming out of the fog" as adoptees and their search for the...

Glenn Morey was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1960. He was abandoned days after birth, taken to Seoul City Hall, then to a Holt orphanage, and adopted at the age of six months to the US. In 2013, Glenn and his wife, Julie, began filming The Side by Side Project, a documentary series that captures the voices of 100 inter-country Korean adoptees. In this conversation, Eugene and Glenn talk about wh...

Professor Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. Originally from Cuba, he was separated from his parents during the Cold War through what became known as Operation Pedro Pan, the airlift of minors out of Cuba to escape potential plans to send children to communist indoctrination camps. He writes about his experience in his m...

Al Otro Lado is a bi-national, social justice legal services organization serving indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico and Southern California. Back in January, Eugene was able to visit their office in the Los Angeles area, and spoke with Regina Ramirez, who works in the legal department, and Melissa Flores, who manages communication. In these two conversations, Eugene ask...

This is the unedited version of this episode to preserve this account in its entirety. The edited, condensed version can be found on our profile. Yuka Yasui Fujikura was separated from her father and sent to Tule Lake Japanese Internment Camp when she was just 14. In this episode, Paul speaks with Yuka about life in the camps and the resilience required to build a life after leaving them in search...

Yuka Yasui Fujikura was separated from her father and sent to Tule Lake Japanese Internment Camp when she was just 14. In this episode, Paul speaks with Yuka about life in the camps and the resilience required to build a life after leaving them in search of an education. Yuka also tells the story of her brother Minoru "Min" Yasui, who was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for...

In this episode, Eugene gets an overdue lesson in Asian American studies in a conversation with Franklin Odo, an activist, historian, and professor at Amherst College. Professor Odo provides an overview of legal landmarks in United States immigration history as well as insights to his personal position as a Japanese American in academia during the civil rights movement. Together, they explore whet...

Jenna Gilbert is the Managing Attorney of the Los Angeles office of Human Rights First, where she oversees the pro bono legal representation of indigent asylum seekers. She provides support to volunteer lawyers from law firms in the Los Angeles area who represent asylum seekers at all levels of the system. Back in January of this year, Eugene was able to visit Jenna in LA, where they sat down to t...

In this episode, Eugene and Paul look back on the first six episodes to talk about some behind the scenes thoughts and the direction and future of this podcast. For updates, follow us on Instagram at @DividedFamiliesPodcast, and contact us at dividedfamiliespodcast@gmail.com

Stefani Kuo is a playwright/performer and native of Hong Kong and Taiwan. She is currently an MFA Playwriting Candidate at the Yale School of Drama, and has been awarded, among others, a Jerome fellowship. In this episode, Eugene sits down to talk with Stefani about her latest play, "Final Boarding Call," which tells the human stories of the Hong Kong protests through the seven interconnected char...

This is just a quick message recorded by Eugene and Paul to talk about the Value Our Families Week of Action, which aims to remind our representatives that immigrants and refugees must be ensured the same resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, push for defunding of CBP and ICE to reallocate funds to longer-term safety strategies, and ensure humane family immigration policies. For more information...

Megan Essaheb is the Director of Immigration Advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, an organization that advocates for an America in which all Americans can benefit equally from, and contribute to, the American dream. AAJC is also part of the Value Our Families campaign, which is a network of organizations that aims to strengthen the family immigration system. In this conversation,...

Yeonmi Park and her mother were smuggled from North Korea to China when she was just thirteen. Today, she is a human rights activist that speaks out against the North Korean regime and advocates on behalf of victims of human trafficking. In this episode, Paul speaks with Yeonmi about life in North Korea, her harrowing escape, and why she continues to act and put herself in danger when she is final...

E.J. Joseph is an actor originally from Brooklyn who has been organizing protests against police brutality with a few friends in Los Angeles. His group recently started an organization called "Amplify the Movement" which aims to create a safe and inclusive space to amplify the voices of Black and marginalized communities. In this episode, Eugene sits down with E.J. to learn more about what got him...

Yi-Ling Liu is a nonfiction writer covering technology, culture & society in China. She has written for various outlets such as The New Yorker, The Economist, and Foreign Policy, and is currently a visiting scholar at the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. In this episode, Paul talks to his friend Yi-Ling about her recent piece in Harper's Magazine, "Dream State," which cen...

On May 28, 2020, Paul was part of a webinar sponsored by the National Committee on North Korea titled " 70 Years of Separation: U.S.-DPRK Divided Families." He was joined by Chahee Lee Stanfield, a Korean-American divided family member and Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Divided Families, and Dr. Katharine H.S. Moon, Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies, Professor o...

Olamide Omidele, now Olamide Omidele MD, recently graduated from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai early and is now working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this more casual episode, Eugene speaks with Olamide to try and see the pandemic from the perspective of those in the medical field. Olamide also explains the difficult scenes one can see in the hospital these days, wit...

Mary Murakami was 14 when she was moved with her family to Topaz Japanese Internment Camp in Utah during the 1940s under Executive Order 9066. In this episode, Paul visits Mary in her suburban home in Maryland to speak with her about life in the camps, and why it is so important to remember and be vocal. An unedited version of the conversation can be found in our list of episodes, and you can lear...

This is the unedited version of this episode to preserve this account in its entirety. The edited, condensed version can be found on our profile. Mary Murakami was 14 when she was moved with her family to Topaz Japanese Internment Camp in Utah during the 1940s under Executive Order 9066. In this episode, Paul visits Mary in her suburban home in Maryland to speak with her about life in the camps, a...

E.J. Koh is a winner of the Pleiades Editors Prize for Poetry and author of a recent memoir, "The Magical Language of Others." The memoir is built around letters her mother sent her during her upbringing, when her parents left her and her brother in America to pursue a job in South Korea. One Korean term for this situation is "gireogi gajok" or "geese family," coined because, like geese, the paren...

We hope everyone is doing well during these uncertain times with the COVID-19 outbreak. In this episode Eugene speaks with his friend JinJin, who tunes in from quarantine in Macau. JinJin is an MFA candidate at NYU who previously pursued a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to speak with dislocated mothers in marginalized communities around the world. The two talk about JinJin's "Pandemic Diaries," which...