Feet In 2 Worlds

After the U.S., India has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world. New York City-based Ramaa Reddy calls her 93-year-old aunt Indira in Bangalore to see how she’s doing.

When Covid-19 hit Italy in April, Italian immigrants Sara and Maria were stuck in San Francisco. So the neighbors began reminiscing about all the things — music, bread, Neapolitan scenery — that home meant to them.

Rosa — an undocumented Mexican immigrant who cleans hotel rooms in Phoenix — lost her income just a few weeks into the coronavirus pandemic. But she quickly fought back. Reporter Maritza L. Félix tells us her story.

Philip and Niki Zias are Greek immigrants living on Long Island. When they first moved to Queens in the 1960s, their home was filled with music, food, and laughter. On this Call Your Elders segment, their granddaughter Anna pays them a visit.

When New York City became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, Brooklyn-based producer Beenish Ahmed struggled over whether to visit her parents in Ohio or stay put. Her parents — a landlord and hairdresser who immigrated from Pakistan in the ‘70s — begged her to come home. When Beenish finally decided to go in May, she recorded that journey, and the discoveries she made about her family’s r...

In our first Call Your Elders conversation, Haitian-American producer Florence Barrau-Adams checks in on her parents, Monique and Eric, to see how they’ve been making the best of quarantine.

When the coronavirus hit the United States, two immigrants — Heeja and Elsa — wrestled with the same question: should I remain in America, despite the flawed U.S. response, or return to my home country? Having sought a better life in the United States, both women are rethinking their ideas of America and arriving at different conclusions.

"A Better Life?" is a new podcast produced by Feet in 2 Worlds exploring how COVID-19 has changed immigrants’ lives and challenged their ideas about the promise of America.  Coming August 20th, the show features the work of journalists who are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Feet in 2 Worlds has partnered with public radio station WDET to award fellowships to four journalists covering food, immigrant culture and communities of color in Metro Detroit. Their first audio postcards are sound-rich snapshots of people and places in the Motor City's diverse food landscape.

For many of us food is the most evocative way to recall different times and places. For almost 20 years the only way Yewande Komolafe could connect with her homeland of Nigeria was through food. Food shaped Yewande's profession, and it also gave her a unique perspective on the experiences of other immigrants in the U.S.

For decades New York’s Pearl River Mart was the place to go for Chinese goods. Pearl River wasn’t just a department store, it was a cultural landmark. Then in 2016, after 40 years in business, the store closed. But its faithful customers and its founders weren't ready to let go. Michelle Chen tells the story of her family’s store: from its origins at the cusp of the Cold War, through economic ups...

Yara and her family were forced to flee Syria and gained asylum in the US though they never had dreams of living in America.  They long for the life they loved in Damascus, but they must make a home in this new place.  That's hard enough without the constant reminders that they're not fully welcome here.

People immigrate for different reasons -- economic insecurity, political instability, or the simple desire to see another part of the world.  But when they leave their home country, they're usually leaving someone behind.  Most immigrants know the challenge of keeping connections with their families. Some may be separated from their loved ones for years, straining those relationships. Nathan Yardy...

More than a million New Yorkers carry a municipal ID, issued by the city. The ID NYC program was launched in January 2015 to help undocumented immigrants and others unable to obtain other forms of government identification. City officials point to the program as an important aspect of New York’s sanctuary policies for immigrants without legal papers.  But the strident anti-immigrant policies of th...

“When I first took [the hijab] off, I felt it was such an elaborate performance, but after two or three months, I’m so quick with it, I’m like a little ninja, you’ll be shocked how fast I do it, I remember a woman looked at me and was like ‘did I just see this girl?'” Reporter Tahini Rahman produced our story about how a young Muslim woman struggles to reconcile being the person she wants to be an...

When Americans talk about what they admire most about immigrants - and yes, many Americans do admire immigrants - one thing they point to is how elderly people are supported in cultures from other parts of the world.     India Home is a group of community centers throughout the borough of Queens set up to support South Asian seniors.  Alex Wynn and Sruti Penumetsa are graduate students at The New...

Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things that the rest of us take for granted in our daily lives.  Tiu Wu is a graduate student from China studying sociology at The New School in New York City.  When he looked around his neighborhood in Brooklyn he noticed an unusual number of 99-cent stores.  These Chinese-owned discount shops all seemed to be selling the same merchandise and competing for th...

Ask most people to name a sport that’s popular with immigrants and they might say soccer or baseball.   These are global sports with famous players making big money, yet all you need for a pick-up game is an empty lot, a ball, and for baseball, a stick to hit that ball with.  Now what about ice hockey?  Yes, ice hockey. Long associated with nordic countries, Russia and North America - in other wor...

The legal challenges facing communities that protect immigrants.

Fear and dread have swept through immigrant communities following Donald Trump’s election as president.  Trump has promised to immediately deport 2 to 3-million undocumented immigrants once he takes office, and since Election Day the nation has seen a dramatic increase in hate crimes aimed at Muslims and immigrants, widely thought to be inspired by Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric....

As a witness to war and brutality in her native Bosnia, and then as a refugee, Mersiha Mesihovic found solace and a means of creative expression in dance. Despite the wounds of separation from home and family, Mersiha had all the skills to be a great dancer. But the way she moved became an obstacle. When she arrived in New York (via Sweden and Los Angeles), Mersiha found a way to harness the emoti...

In the past few years, a growing number of undocumented youth brought to the United States as kids, often called “Dreamers,” have become immigration activists. Feet In Two Worlds reporter Shiva Bayat introduces us to Esther, who in many ways embodies this immigrant experience. For one, she “came out” publicly. But what is typical about Esther’s story stops right there, and instead, she takes us to...

For Filipino immigrants, the ritual of packing gift boxes, known in Tagalog as balikbayan, nurtures family relationships tested by time and distance. In this podcast, Rosalind Tordesillias explores the meaning of balikbayan and how it’s changed for Filipino immigrants today.

In this podcast, Janie Shen and Shadi Garman delve into the challenges immigrant parents face when raising trilingual children. We'll hear from Professor Xiao-Lei Wang; Micky Wu, a Taiwanese multilingual teacher at My Mini Hands; and Kseniya Schneider, a Belarusian mother who is raising her son to speak Russian, Hebrew and English. 

Imagine moving to America and starting a new life with your family: nice home, better schools, new friends. But just when you begin to thrive, the secret you’ve been hiding suddenly gets out, and you find yourself thrown out on the streets, alone.