Code Switch

'Mar-a-Lago face:' MAGA's aesthetic loyalty test

01 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The MAGA look -- you know the one: dramatic eyeliner, long, wavy hair, sheath dresses -- is a defining feature of President Trump's Republican party. ...

Being an “ally” is kind of cringe. Why?

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

People have been talking about being "allies" for a long time now. But what has that actually meant, over the years? And how performative should allys...

Markwayne Mullin is conservative, Christian, Cherokee, and the new head of DHS

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On Monday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the newest head of the Department of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem. It's an enormously co...

What Trump's language has in common with cult language

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When President Trump says things like “fake news,” “witch hunt” or even “Make America Great Again,” he’s not just using catchy phrases -...

The Scouts are too woke, according to Pete Hegseth

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently put Scouting America — formerly known as the Boy Scouts — "on notice." The once great organization was ...

The Black civil rights leader who sued to be called “Miss”

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s Alabama, 1963. A black woman stands before a judge, but she refuses to acknowledge his questions until he addresses her by the same honorific g...

What the success of "Sinners" does (and doesn't) say about race and Hollywood

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sinners has already broken records — it's the most Oscar-nominated film in the history of the Academy Awards. But is the movie itself actually histo...

Why Iranian perspectives often get flattened and caricatured

07 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Iran has 90 million people of different ethnicities, faiths, and backgrounds, who have very different ideas about the country. Iranian American schola...

How the internet got gentrified

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We all know what gentrification looks like IRL — boxy, corporate-owned apartment complexes, places to get a quick bowl for lunch, streets that are d...

Remembering Jesse Jackson

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The late Reverend Jesse Jackson was — and still is — a revered civil rights activist, political trailblazer, and pop culture icon. For his critics...

The Young Lords' legacy of fighting for Puerto Rico from the mainland

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

While Puerto Rican independence is in the spotlight after Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show, we're throwing it to our play cousins at  La Brega, a...

White Culture

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Carl — President Trump's nominee for a senior State Department role -- was called out for his commentary on "white erasure" during his Senate...

The U.S., Cuba, and the people caught between

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. has been deporting people from Cuba in record numbers. That has come as a shock to many Cuban American communities, who had long enjoyed spec...

Trump shared a racist "joke." That humor is an American tradition

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When President Trump shared a racist video on his Truth Social account last week, the blowback was real. But the video is also part of a tradition tha...

Was dating while Black always so hard?

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Dating can be tough. Dating while Black? That can feel nigh impossible sometimes, given how the long tentacles of racism have wrapped themselves aroun...

Bad Bunny, resistance, and the Super Bowl halftime show

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Can a superstar be an actual voice of resistance? How does Bad Bunny's choice to perform at the NFL Super Bowl halftime show square with his politics ...

The history of Black History Month, one hundred years in

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In so many spaces, celebrating Black History History month means learning a few fun facts about famous African Americans. But Black History Month was ...

Americans are worried about crime. Here’s how politicians leverage it

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"Fighting crime" is often used as a justification for many of the Trump administration's policies — from mass deportations to its actions in Venezue...

What the history of U.S. protests illuminates about today

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

To the casual observer, it might seem like the U.S. has spent years in a constant state of protest — and they’re only getting more intense under t...

What the quarter-zip craze tells us about Blackness and respectability

24 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does the humble, boring quarter-zip sweater have to do with respectability politics and Blackness? Apparently, a lot! When two young Black men on...

How local police extend ICE's reach, even in sanctuary cities

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sanctuary policies have been described on both sides of the aisle as protecting immigrants. But in many ways, in practice, they have given rise to a s...

Freedom through the eyes of foes: Rev. Martin Luther King and Sen. Barry Goldwater

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In honor of MLK Day, we sit down with historian Nicholas Buccola, author of One Man’s Freedom, to re-examine the concept of "freedom" by comparing t...

Venezuela and the long tradition of US interference

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is just the latest chapter in a long, troubling history of American intervention in Latin Ame...

Jelani Cobb talks democracy, Trumpism, and the future of journalism

10 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

2026 is off to an intense start, but many of the events we're seeing play out today come out of dynamics that have been building for years. Jelani Cob...

How 'The Joy Luck Club' highlighted the complicated dynamics of immigrant families

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Connecting across generations can be tough, even in the same family. This is at the heart of Amy Tan’s 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club. This week, we'r...

Support for Israel is waning, but many White Evangelical Christians remain steadfast

03 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Among the American public, support for Israel has fallen among almost every demographic group. But for many White Evangelical Christians over the age ...

From "CRT" to "DEI": A history of race and moral panics

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A few years back, many politicians were raising the alarm about the dangers of "CRT" in schools. Today, the new risk to public education is "DEI." Wha...

Where ICE came from, and where it needs to go

27 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2018, in light of some pretty aggressive rhetoric and policies being enacted by the Trump administration, many people were asking a pretty direct q...

What the 1968 fight for ethnic studies classes teaches us about today

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The fight over the soul of higher education is very alive right now, with the Trump administration engaged in dozens of investigations and multiple la...

Keep culture and tradition alive at the mahjong table

20 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do we keep family traditions alive? For some people, it's by speaking their heritage language, or learning how to cook family recipes. For Nicole ...

The fight over public education, from Texas to the White House

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For months, the Trump administration has been making moves to dismantle the Department of Education — with mixed success. But when it comes to the f...

The evolution of blackface in the age of AI

13 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With AI image and video generators, it's become easier than ever to create hyper-realistic clips of almost anything. Today, we're looking at the lands...

In the Trump era, has the word 'racist' lost its meaning?

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past few weeks, President Trump has amplified derogatory and stereotypical comments about people from Afghanistan. He's derided Somalians as ...

Remembering disability activist Alice Wong

06 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Alice Wong was a major force in disability activism. She passed away last month at the age of 51. For Here and Now, reporter Elissa Nadworny speaks wi...

How the Trump administration is reshaping immigration

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Though there’s a massive backlog of immigration cases that need rulings, the Trump administration has been firing immigration judges. Ximena Bustill...

Gratitude isn’t just for Thanksgiving

29 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the millions of Americans that celebrate Thanksgiving, it's a time when many people reflect on the things and the people in our lives that they ap...

How poetry helps Ada Limon navigate life, even when it’s tough

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we enter "cozy season," we're revisiting our conversation with Ada Limon, who just wrapped up her tenure as the U.S. Poet Laureate. She talks to us...

Fearing deportation, undocumented parents are preparing to leave their kids behind

22 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today on the show, NPR immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd introduces us to two families in Washington, D.C.. One has made the difficult decision to se...

How undocumented families are navigating the looming threat of ICE

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today on the show, NPR immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd takes us into the dimly lit living rooms of immigrant families — families trying to figure...

How Trump's cuts to public media threaten the first Native American station

15 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On October 1, 2025, public radio stations lost all of their federal funding -- and for Black and Native American community stations, the cuts hit hard...

Tribal colleges are a unique resource — and they're under threat

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College has classes on everything from Native American studies to gardening to equine sciences to the Hidatsa language. Like oth...

The hidden history of demonizing SNAP recipients

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Around 42 million people in the United States get SNAP benefits each month to cover basic needs like eggs, bread, and infant formula. Because of the g...

Freedom of speech has never been for everyone

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fights over free speech have taken up a lot of space in the zeitgeist lately. People on both the left and right claim to be the defenders of free spee...

How Zohran Mamdani is scrambling establishment Democrat's brains

01 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Zohran Mamdani has become one of the most popular and polarizing politicians in the last year. How did the New York City mayoral candidate go from a r...

How Elon Musk and JD Vance plan to 'save civilization' with more babies

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do conservatives like JD Vance and tech executives like Elon Musk have in common? They, like other pronatalists, want to “save civilization” ...

Unpacking the Trump administration's immigration raid in Chicago

25 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After midnight on September 30th, helicopters hovered above a large Chicago apartment building, and heavily armored agents rappelled from the choppers...

Racist slurs, naughty words, and how dictionary editors define them

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do we define slurs like the N-word? Whether it’s heated debates about racist or ableist slurs, arguments about gender, or even new kinds of prof...

What does Israel mean to American Jews?

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Even since before October 7, 2023, American Jews have found themselves grappling with what it means to speak out against Israel and the rifts in their...

Stacey Abrams on how voter suppression threatens democracy

11 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Stacey Abrams is one of the most high-profile voting rights activists in the U.S. She says whether we have an actual democracy might literally depend ...

Voting rights are at risk. Here's why.

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Next Wednesday, the Supreme Court hears a case that could further weaken the Voting Rights Act, which was passed to ensure fair districting and voting...

Why Malala Yousafzai is a hero in the West but not back home

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why is Malala Yousafzai so revered in the West while being much less popular in her home country of Pakistan? On this week's Code Switch, we unpack ho...

Is the American dream a scam?

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the pod: author Edgar Gomez talks about what it was like growing up poor, queer, and Nicaraguan Puerto Rican in Florida. His new memoir, ...

The stakes of calling Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week: why the term "genocide" matters when talking about Israel's actions against Palestinians in Gaza. On Tuesday, a UN commission said it found...

How calls for mass deportations went mainstream

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Calls to ban “third world immigration” in favor of “remigration” -- or, mass deportation -- went from fringe ideas in far right circles to one...

Digging into our ancestors' drama

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we're bringing you a special episode from our play cousins over at the podcast "Our Ancestors Were Messy." We hear about how Zora Neale Hur...

How racism kept Americans out of pools

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we're looking into the history of public swimming pools in the U.S., and the legacy that pool segregation has had on swimming skills in the...

How Trump's D.C. takeover criminalizes homelessness

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On August 11, President Trump announced his intention to "rescue" the nation's capital. A central feature of his plan involved using federal officials...

Statelessness, but make it funny

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mo Amer is the creator and star of the hit Netflix comedy series Mo. It's a first-of-its kind Palestinian-American sitcom with a fraught plot line a...

Hot weather kills. Who gets protected?

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The heat disproportionately kills poor, elderly and people of color. So on this episode we're focusing on the lives of those impacted, from roofers in...

You told us — what brings you joy

02 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On this bonus episode of the show, we're hearing from some of YOU about what brings you joy, how you connect joy and justice work, and why joy is so i...

Is joy an act of resistance?

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The phrase "joy is resistance" has been popping up all over the place lately. But what, exactly, does it mean? In this episode, we're unpacking what j...

Protests are near constant. Do they work?

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To the casual observer, it might seem like the U.S. has been spent years in a constant state of protest, from the Women's March in 2017 to the racial ...

Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit d...

The books, movies and music that shaped the Code Switch team

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Once upon a time, members of the Code Switch team were just kids, learning about race and identity for the first time. So on this episode, we're shari...

From gr*pists to nip nops, how self-censorship shapes the language of TikTok

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you noticed people using terms like "unalive" and "pew pews" on social media? There's a reason for that: some people are changing the way they sp...

The lighter side of immigration: A day at the park in Queens

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Code Switch, we're doing a different kind of immigration coverage. We're telling a New York story: one that celebrates the beautiful, eve...

Dispatches from the living memory of trans people of color

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trans people are major targets of the second Trump administration. But in a way, that's nothing new; trans people have been fighting for their rights,...

Iranian American identity was under scrutiny long before the U.S. struck Iran

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're throwing back to a conversation we had in 2020 with Jason Rezaian, Iranian American journalist who had been previously jailed in Iran. Back in J...

The administration's fight against antisemitism is dividing Jews

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In recent months we've seen the Trump administration punishing speech critical of Israel in its widening effort to combat what it sees as antisemitism...

How the news can make us think we need more policing

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As President Trump flirts with invoking the Insurrection Act on anti-ICE demonstrators in LA, we look back at the national protests of 2020, when Trum...

What Trump's fixation on 'white genocide' in South Africa tells us about the U.S.

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How the false notion of "white genocide" traveled from the political fringes to the Oval Office. The week on Code Switch, we're talking to a reporter ...

Why tacos are as 'American' as apple pie

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The hunger for Mexican food in the U.S. is longstanding — from the conquistadors' love affair with chocolate, to the classic San Francisco burrito. ...

How race science shows up at the doctor's office

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We've probably said it a hundred times on Code Switch — biological race is not a real thing. So why is race still used to help diagnose certain cond...

Arab and Black communities are trying to reconcile after Trump's election

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump's win exposed political tensions between Arab-American voters — who were critical of Democratic support of Israel's war in Gaza, and Black vot...

40 years ago, Philadelphia police bombed this Black neighborhood on live TV

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're looking back on the day a Philadelphia police department helicopter dropped a bomb on a rowhouse in a middle-class neighborhood. Even though tha...

In the face of trans erasure, what can we learn from Marsha P. Johnson?

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marsha P. Johnson was a trailblazer in the fight for gay rights. But Johnson's legacy extends beyond her activism: "Marsha was a really full person wh...

Why now is the time to find power in "otherness"

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Viet Thanh Nguyen came to the U.S. as a refugee from Vietnam when he was four years old. Growing up in San Jose, California, Nguyen remembers the mome...

Revisiting the fight over the Lakota language as Trump targets "divisive narratives"

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the Trump administration targets the Smithsonian Institute for "divisive narratives" and "improper ideology," it got us thinking about how we prese...

Why Trump is sending Venezuelans to El Salvador

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of President Trump's main campaign promises was carrying out mass deportations. We look at how the Trump administration is testing the U.S. legal ...

What's lost in Trump's DEI ban?

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump has put diversity, equity, and inclusion in his crosshairs — but there's no consensus on what DEI even means. Some say that that fuz...

With measles on the rise, what we can learn from past epidemics

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the U.S. health system grapples with new outbreaks and the risk of old diseases making a comeback, we're looking to the past to inform how people i...

What Mahmoud Khalil's arrest means for ... everyone

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia alum, was detained by ICE for his role in leading pro-Palestinian protests at his former unive...

This Palestinian American's debut novel may not be political — but her existence is

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To be a Palestinian American writer right now can lead to a lot of expectation to focus on identity and devastation, but in her debut novel, Too Soon,...

A look at the human toll of the construction of the Panama Canal

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Panama Canal's impact on the geopolitical stage far outreaches its roughly 51-mile stretch of land and water. This week, we're trying to understan...

Black audiences see themselves centered in a brand new soap opera

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

B.A. Parker digs into the historical connection between Black Americans and soap operas with the launching of "Beyond the Gates," the first ever soap ...

The NFL's concussion problem beyond CTE

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, the NFL agreed to an uncapped settlement to pay former players diagnosed with brain disease. The agreement came after players sued the league...

What a Black enclave lost in the Los Angeles wildfires

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Altadena was the site of the Eaton fire, one of two major wildfires in Los Angeles County in January. The wind and flames destroyed more than 9,000 st...

An NFL star on what the game costs those who play it

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dominique Foxworth played in the NFL from 2005 to 2011. After he retired, he went on to become the head of the NFL Players' Association, the union tha...

Untangling the history of Black rights on Native land

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How the criminal legal system considers who is and isn't Native, and what that means for the Black people who are members of tribal nations. This repo...

What football tells us about race, labor and power

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The way football is played and who plays it — from the pee-wees to the pros — tells us so much about race, labor and power in the United States. I...

Hip-hop is 'fight the power' but also advertises for the power

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Critics point out the apparent hypocrisy of a pro-Black rapper like Kendrick Lamar headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, since the NFL isn't exactl...

B.A. Parker is learning the banjo

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Parker has been trying to find her place in the banjo world. So this week, she talks to Black banjo players like Grammy nominee Rhiannon Giddens about...

The co-opting of MLK Jr. by...everybody

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Luther King Jr. was relatively unpopular when he was assassinated. But the way Americans of all political stripes invoke his memory today, you'...

Why laughing while crying is so Korean

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian Youngmi Mayer talks about how her Korean family uses humor as a tool for survival. She gets into the Korean comedic tradition and why the sad...

"The police are our friends"?

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How should Black parents talk to their kids about the police? Gene gets into it with his friend Chenjerai Kumanyika, host of Empire City, a podcast ab...

How celebrating an Ecuadorian New Year's tradition brings us closer together

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year, fam! This year, we're celebrating Ecuadorian style: by burning away what we want to let go of from last year and creating space for mo...

He was shot in Vermont. Now he wants to go home to the West Bank

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Shot and severely injured while visiting family in Vermont in 2023, Hisham Awartani grapples with his recovery in the U.S., and the unfolding war at h...

Luigi Mangione and America's pent up pain

20 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Even before Luigi Mangione was arrested for killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the reaction to the shooter was far different than other ins...

Freedom, Autonomy and the Elián González Story

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Twenty-five years ago, a boy named Eliaán Gonzaález appeared — remarkably alive — in the waters off the coast of Miami. Immediately, his fate be...

Dreaming of a Black Utopia in Trump's America

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Black Utopians, author Aaron Robertson tells the story of how Black folks have created many different versions of utopian communi...