Code Switch
Episodes
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...
Where tradwives and leftists agree
07 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We continue our conversation about the hellscape of modern motherhood, and look into an alternative to the tradwife lifestyle.We want to hear from our...
Momfluencers, tradwives, and the perils of modern motherhood
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Motherhood in the U.S. is revered. Actual mothers? Not so much. But momfluencers and tradwives are stepping in to fill that void. We dive into that wo...
The 'little r' racist idea that swung the election
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What lessons should we all be taking from the historic match-up between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris? New York Times political correspondent Astead ...
When Pretendian investigations go wrong
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are wild stories about the fraudsters who pretend to be Indigenous, but sometimes casting doubt on people's indigeneity can cause more harm than...
The day Trump won...again
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Code Switch team spent Election Day talking to folks about how the outcome might impact them. From green card holding Trump supporters in Queens, ...
You can't outrun voters' feelings about the economy
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As we take in the news of another Donald Trump administration, we thought who better to turn the mic over to than the hosts of NPR's Politics Podcast....
Diving into the Black Manosphere
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The manosphere is a sprawling online ecosystem aimed at disgruntled men. Now a subset of the manosphere aimed at Black men is exposing cracks in Black...
Spitting on Andrew Jackson's grave with Rebecca Nagle
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
That's how Nagle begins her new book and how she frames the version of history she's telling. The book digs into the past and future of Native soverei...
In Michigan, Arab Americans weigh the power of a vote
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We travel to Dearborn, aka the "capital of Arab America." The Dearbornites we met said that the war in Gaza is the key issue on their minds as they co...
Ask Code Switch: Am I the "token" at work?
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Ask Code Switch, we're getting into the question a lot of minorities face when climbing the ladder at work – am I rising because I'm ta...
Two Palestinian writers on the right to share their stories
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the year since the devastating Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Even more have been injured or displac...
Ask Code Switch: Is it a preference or fetish?
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Ask Code Switch, when it comes to race and dating, how important is diversity in your dating history? What does the race of our past roma...
The Trump campaign strategy to demonize Haitian immigrants
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we're looking into the endgame of the racist and false rumors targeting Haitian immigrants. Are the lies being told about migrants across t...
Ask Code Switch: Is picky eating about taste or race?
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today on Ask Code Switch, we're talking about taste. How we eat, why we prefer certain foods, and where those preferences come from. We're getting int...
Latinos are moving to the far right. Paola Ramos thinks she knows why
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As we close in on the election, it's Trump-supporting Latinos that some pollsters believe could decide this race. So how did we get here? In her new b...
Ask Code Switch: Do bike lanes cause gentrification?
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today on Ask Code Switch, we tackle a question about race, bike lanes and gentrification. Who are bike lanes serving? Are these safety measures protec...
Fighting back on book bans
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
B.A. Parker brings us around the country to see what access to books is looking like for students in Texas, librarians in Idaho and her own high schoo...
Ask Code Switch: The racial politics of washing dishes?
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Ask Code Switch, we're getting into the politics and power dynamics of race and dishes in the workplace (which is more fraught than you m...
The park. Sunday. Queens, New York.
11 Sep 2024
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...
Ask Code Switch: Is this a racist question?
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ask Code Switch is back! Lori Lizarraga and the Code Switch team tackle all new listener questions this fall. From the tacky and tricky to the cringe ...
Going back to school with schizoaffective disorder
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Vargas Arango was having a fairly typical day — hanging out at his home in Medellín, playing Xbox with one of his friends. Only, when he sp...
What James Baldwin can teach us about Israel, and ourselves
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's been more than ten months since devastating violence began unfolding in Israel and Gaza. And in the midst of all the death, so many people are tr...
Black praise in white pews: When your church doesn't love you back
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you participate in a faith practice that has a rough track record with racism? That's what our play-cousin J.C. Howard gets into in this week's...
Race, Romance and Reality TV
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reality TV has been referred to as a funhouse mirror of our culture. But even with its distortions, it can reflect back to us what we accept as a soci...
Who's "woman" enough: The long history of sex testing in sports
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are some female athletes asked to prove her womanhood? To understand how we got here, we're bringing you episode one of Tested, a new podcast seri...
The beauty and entitlement of traveling as a tourist
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Summer is a time when many Americans are taking off from work and setting their sights on far-off vacation destinations: tropical beaches, fairy-tale ...
'Not a badge of honor': how book bans affect Indigenous literature
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For some authors, finding their book on a "banned" list can feel almost like an accolade, putting them right there with classics like The Bluest Eye a...
Kamala Harris, Revisited
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With Kamala Harris entering the presidential race, we look back at what has shaped her personally and politically —from being the self-described "to...
The return of the U.S.'s oldest drag king
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For decades now, drag queens have captured the national imagination. Drag kings, on the other hand, have been relegated to a less prominent position i...
Honoring my enslaved ancestors: Episode 2
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every summer B.A. Parker returns to Creswell, North Carolina, where her family still has a farm. But she's mostly avoided actually going to the nearby...
Honoring my enslaved ancestors: Episode 1
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In part one of two episodes, B.A. Parker meets people who, like her, are grappling with how to honor their enslaved ancestors. She asks herself: what ...
How one event in history can ripple through generations of a family
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week we're bringing you the first episode in a new series called Inheriting, created in collaboration with our friends at LAist Studios. In each ...
The truth and lies behind one of the most banned books in America
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Author Mike Curato wrote Flamer as a way to help young queer kids, like he once was, better understand and accept themselves. It was met with immediat...
Some freed people actually received '40 acres and a mule.' Then it got taken away.
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The promise of "40 acres and a mule", is often thought of as a broken one. But it turns out, some freed people actually received land as reparations a...
The history of trans misogyny is the history of segregation
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As anti-trans legislation has ramped up, historian Jules Gill-Peterson turns the lens to the past in her book, A Short History of Trans Misogyny. This...
Should we stop using the word "felon"?
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we're turning our sights on the word "felon", and looking into what it tells us (and can't tell us) about the 19 million people in the U.S....
100 years of immigration policies working to keep out immigrants
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden just issued an executive order that can temporarily shut down the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum seekers once a daily threshold of cross...
White evangelical Christians are some of Israel's biggest supporters. Why?
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As war continues to rage in the Middle East, attention has been turned to how American Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians relate to the state of Israel. ...
Falling in love in a time of colonization
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week Code Switch digs into The Ministry of Time, a new book that author Kailene Bradley describes as a "romance about imperialism." It focuses on...
Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As protests continue to rock the campuses of colleges and universities, a familiar set of questions is being raised: Are these protests really being l...
In 'Chicano Frankenstein,' the undead are the new underpaid labor force
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Olivas's novel puts a new spin on the age-old Frankenstein story. In this retelling, 12 million "reanimated" people provide a cheap workforce f...
Exclusion, resilience and the Chinese American experience on 'Mott Street'
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the podcast, we're revisiting a conversation we had with Ava Chin about her book, Mott Street. Through decades of painstaking research, t...
How Jewish Communities Are Divided Over Support of Israel
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of October 7, and the bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli government, many American Jews have found themselves questioning something that h...
The Rise and Fall of the Panama Canal
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Panama Canal has been dubbed the greatest engineering feat in human history. It's also (perhaps less favorably) been called the greatest liberty m...
Reflecting on the legacy of O.J. Simpson
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With the news of O.J. Simpson's death on Thursday, we're revisiting our reporting from 2016, where we took a look into how Simpson went from being "to...
How Frederick Douglass launched generations of Black and Irish solidarity
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What's a portrait of Frederick Douglass doing hanging in an Irish-themed pub in Washington, D.C.? To get to the answer, Parker and Gene dive deep into...
WTF does race have to do with taxes?
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's that time of year again: time to file your taxes. And this week on the pod, we're revisiting our conversation with Dorothy A. Brown, a tax expert...
Who does language belong to? A fight over the Lakota Language
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many Lakota people agree: It's imperative to revitalize the Lakota language. But how exactly to do that is a matter of broader debate. Should Lakota b...
Getting let down by the 'Great Expectations' of electoral politics
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is brought to you by our play cousins over at NPR's It's Been A Minute. Brittany Luse chops it up with New Yorker writer and podcast host...
In the world of medicine, race-based diagnoses are more than skin deep
13 Mar 2024
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...
This conspiracy theory about eating bugs is also about race
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gene Demby and NPR's Huo Jingnan dive into a conspiracy theory about how "global elites" are forcing people to eat bugs. And no huge surprise — the ...
The musical legacy of Japanese American incarceration
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In February of 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government issued an executive order to incarcerate people of Japanese descent. That l...
Why menthol cigarettes have a chokehold on Black smokers
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the U.S., flavored cigarettes have been banned since 2009, with one glaring exception: menthols. That exception was supposed to go away in 2023, bu...
Before the apps, people used newspapers to find love
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the history of Black romance, Gene and Parker are joined by reporter Nichole Hill to explore the 1937 equivalent of dating apps — the p...
How college footballers led the fight against racism in 1969
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's 1969 at the University of Wyoming, where college football is treated like a second religion. But after racist treatment at an away game, 14 Black...
What it's like to be a Black woman with bipolar disorder
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Three springs ago, I lost the better part of my mind," Naomi Jackson wrote in an essay for Harper's Magazine. On this episode, Jackson shares her exp...
Taylor Swift and the unbearable whiteness of girlhood
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift has become an American icon, (and she's got the awards, sales, and accolades to prove it.) With that status, she's often been celebrated ...
A former church girl's search for a new spiritual home
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After leaving the Pentecostal Church, reporter Jess Alvarenga has been searching for a new spiritual home. They take us on their journey to find spiri...
What happens when public housing goes private?
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The New York City Housing Authority is the biggest public housing program in the country. But with limited funding to address billions of dollars of o...
The women who masterminded the Montgomery Bus Boycott
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When people think back to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, they often remember just the bullet points: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and voila. But on th...
Everyone wants a piece of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy
10 Jan 2024
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'...
67 years after desegregation, Arkansas schools are in the spotlight again
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Classrooms in Arkansas were at the center of school desegregation in the 1950s. Now, with the LEARNS Act, they're in the spotlight again. Code Switch ...
Women of color have always shaped the way Americans eat
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the ingredients, dishes and chefs that are popularized have been filtered through the narrow lens of a food and publishing world dominate...
Here are our favorite Code Switch episodes from 2023
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's that time of year again, fam, when we look back at the past 12 months and think, "WHOA, HOW'D THAT GO BY SO FAST?" So we're taking a beat: for th...
Revisiting 'The Color Purple' wars
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Color Purple remake drops this week and to celebrate, we're bringing you this special episode from our play cousins over at Pop Culture Happy Hour...
This is what "real self-care" looks like
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"You can't meditate yourself out of a 40-hour work week with no childcare and no paid sick days," says Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. But when you're overworked ...
Watching 'Renaissance' and what we hear in Beyoncé's silence
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We're bringing you an extra treat this week from our play cousins over at It's Been A Minute: In the credits for 'Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé' the...
The world can be painful. But love is possible, too
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kai Cheng Thom is no stranger to misanthropy. There have been stretches of her life where she's felt burdened by anger, isolation, and resentment towa...
Can you travel the world — ethically?
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Traveling is supposed to open your mind and expand your horizons — but what if it doesn't? In her new book Airplane Mode, author Shahnaz Habib sugge...
A Tale of Two Tribal Nations
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The word "reservation" implies "reserved" – as in, this land is reserved for Native Americans. But most reservation land actually isn't owned by tri...
Who Has The "Right To A Story?"
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this week's Code Switch, we hear from two Palestinian American poets who talk about what it's like to be Palestinian American in the U.S. Fady Joud...
How does a computer discriminate?
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
OK, not exactly a computer — more like, the wild array of technologies that inform what we consume on our computers and phones. Because on this epis...
All The Only Ones: The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We're bringing you something special from our play cousins over at Embedded: the first episode of a three part series about the often neglected histor...
Looking For My People In The Black Punk Scene
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
More than a decade since B.A. Parker last dabbled in the Black punk scene, she heads to a punk a show, and remembers a question from James Spooner: "W...
Giving up on identity with Ada Limón
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ada Limón is many things: the U.S. Poet Laureate, a recently named MacArthur "Genius," a Latina, a summer person becoming a fall person. But undernea...
The agony and ecstasy of parenting with Hari Kondabolu
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Being a new parent is exhausting at the best of times. There are diapers to change, bottles to fill, screaming sobs to quiet down. But beyond all the ...
What does it mean to be good?
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In her memoir Rivermouth, author Alejandra Oliva recounts her experiences working as a translator and interpreter for people seeking asylum in the U.S...
Student activists are fighting big coal, and winning
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
South Baltimore has some of the most polluted air in the country. Local teenagers are fighting polluters back, and slowly building toward climate just...
Probation and parole — the under-researched arms of mass incarceration
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the past decade, the problem of mass incarceration has gotten increased attention and thought. But in his new book, Mass Supervision, Vincent Schir...
'I Can Die For This Country, But I Can't Learn'
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In June, the Supreme Court banned affirmative action at colleges and universities across the country, with one glaring exception: military academies. ...
Remembering and unremembering, from Kigali to Nashville
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, the idea of the "American Dream" has been a powerful narrative for many immigrant communities. But for just as long, many African Ameri...
Fall football — or the fall of football?
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the NFL is gearing up for the start of its 104th season. But as this new chapter begins, we're looking at some of the league's old problems...
Bad Bunny, Reggaeton, and Resistance
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bad Bunny, the genre- and gender norm-defying Puerto Rican rapper, is one of the biggest music stars on the planet. He has also provided a global mega...
What Makes A Good Race Joke?
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When a comedian of color makes a joke, is it always about race, even if it's not about race? Code Switch talks to comedians Aparna Nancherla, Brian Ba...