Immigrantly: Our Mission
What is Immigrantly?
To say that, “politics is personal” is summarizing the immigrant experience with one simple sentence. Our livelihoods have historically been shaped by policies, dating back from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the creation of ICE, to current proposed changes that would increase USCIS fees. Our freedom of mobility, access to resources, and proximity to loved ones are all dictated by policies.
Immigrants are the living embodiment of the fact that “politics is personal.”
But, how do these policies affect immigrants as human beings? How do we construct our own identities? How do our experiences affect the ways in which we have relationships? What narratives do we create for ourselves and what narratives are created for us? These conversations are what often fall between the cracks of public political discourse.
Immigrantly aims to fill these cracks by sharing stories of first generation immigrants and second generation children of immigrants, through cross-cultural conversations. Our host, Saadia, is an immigrant herself, along with being a human rights activist. We work to build a space that requires a willingness to engage in vulnerability and honest dialogue.
Ultimately, the objective is to shed light on how being an “immigrant” in America automatically conflates with one’s skin color, ethnicity, and religion. The conversations explore the ways in which one’s identity creates nuanced experiences and powerful stories. This allows the listener to obtain a glimpse of what America looks like through the lens of a diverse group of people.
As a result, we have been able to tap into a landscape of diverse, rich perspectives. Our guests range in age, cultural background, immigration status, and occupation. But they’re not people who can be contained into one “box.” Our episodes are interdisciplinary in nature and our guests are no exception.
In our conversations we’ve asked Parnaz Foroutan, an author of fiction, about the role of the American media in western propaganda. With Wardah Khalid, a policy analyst on Capitol Hill, we spoke about how young women can learn to define their individual narratives. In our most recent episode with filmmaker Iram Parveen Bilal, we discussed how a science background in environmental engineering can provide a foundation for building a story.
Immigrantly produces a version of journalism that sheds light on political issues through the personal narrative. But we’ve made it clear that we’re dedicating our platform to elevating the marginalized, the underrepresented.
But doing that means keeping ourselves in check as well.
Sometimes, it’s important to hear “harder” perspectives. The types of conversations that bring forth things that we as “left leaning” people need to hear.
This was perhaps best demonstrated in our episode with Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, titled, “Raise Your Hand If You’re A Racist.” We spoke about the ways in which other minorities can be racist and the dialogue that needs to occur in our communities to combat this. Saira recalled a moment in her congressional campaign where she was deliberately excluded from an event for Asian congressional candidates.
“I was told by more than one person there that they feel like my platform is too radical and alienating and do you know why? It's because I had black lives matter on my website. And I was told specifically to take that down, because it's too alienating to a lot of Asian people.”
Accountability is important to us. As we continue on our mission, it’s important that we continuously create spaces in our discussions for ways in which we can improve. As listeners, we hope that you will never shy away from engaging in this dialogue with us.
If there’s anything you need to know about us, it’s that we’re not afraid of differing opinions. In fact, we welcome them with open arms. We believe that diversity in perspective is what brings depth and richness to a conversation.
At the end of each episode, Saadia asks the guest to define America in their own terms.
The answers, like the guests, have been wide-ranging.
According to Latif Nassir, the Director of Research at WNYC’s Radiolab, America is
“A bag of values. A place where people decided what to fight for. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.”
Actress Sheetal Sheth states that
“America is supposed to be the best part of all of us. You can’t have America without all of that being seen. [It’s about] creating a place where we can have freedom and be the best versions of ourselves.”
To Nisha Sharma, a RITA award winner and author of My So-Called Bollywood Life, America can be summarized as
“Possibilities. I still believe that. Even though America is going through political turmoil there is still possibilities for positive change, positive growth and for dreams to come true.
Xiao Wang, the co-founder/CEO of Boundless, a company that helps families navigate through the immigration system, states that
“America is aspirational. There's always something here and that you can aspire to be, to become or to grow into or to, you know, experience. And that no matter, all of these constraints, from institutional from structure from other disadvantages, the spirit of this country is still lies on like people aspiring to become the best version of themselves that they can be.”
Ultimately, Immigrantly aims to encourage the listener to use these conversations as a tool to create their own narratives about their identities, cultures, and this country.
That being said, what does America mean to you?
Immigrantly podcast streams on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode.
For more information, you can follow the podcast on:
Twitter @Immigrantly_pod
Instagram @immigrantlypod
Facebook @immigrantlypod
