Code Switch
Episodes
The Fallout of a Callout
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu called out Hollywood's portrayals of South Asians with his documentary The Problem With Apu. The film was also a crit...
Self-Care Laid Bare
19 Apr 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 ...
W2s and WTFs
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You finally get through the confusing, stressful work of doing your taxes only to hear back from the IRS: you're being audited. And it turns out that ...
Women in hip-hop push back against the male gaze
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The male gaze objectifies, consumes and shames people for not fitting into a mold. This week, we're looking at how that affects women in hip-hop. Our ...
The Tricky Obligations of Utang Na Loob
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Utang na loob is the Filipino concept of an eternal debt to others, be it family or friends, who do a favor for you. In this episode from 2022, we bre...
The Women Behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've all heard about Rosa Parks and her crucial role in the Montgomery bus boycott. But Parks was just one of the many women who organized for years ...
Whose Nightmares Are We Telling? How Horror Has Evolved for People of Color
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Host B.A. Parker talks to Jasmin Savoy Brown, of the recently-released Scream 6, about playing a queer Black girl who lives. And film critics Richard ...
The Women Who Influence How America Eats
08 Mar 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...
This Racism Is Killing Me Inside
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we revisit an episode from 2018 that looks into how discrimination not only degrades your health, but can cost you your life. We hear the s...
Black History's Family Tree
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brett Woodson Bailey grew up knowing he was the descendant of "the father of Black history," Carter G. Woodson. He also grew up with the support and g...
The Merengue War
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the dance floors of weddings and bar mitzvahs to the Billboard Hot 100, chances are, you've enjoyed some merengue music – think about the 1998 ...
Reckoning With The NFL's Rooney Rule
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The large majority of NFL players are people of color. The coaches on the sidelines? Not so much. In this episode, we're looking at the NFL's famous d...
Celebrating Lunar New Year In A Time Of Grief
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, we dive into the traditions and stories that shape Lunar New Year, and why violence and tragedy in the U.S. on the eve of the ...
The Original Rainbow Coalition
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we turn to late 1960s Chicago, when three unlikely groups came together to form a coalition based on interracial solidarity. It's hard...
Bad Bunny, Reggaeton, and Resistance
18 Jan 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...
Meet Lori Lizarraga—Our Newest Co-host
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the world of local TV news, meet Code Switch's newest co-host, Lori Lizarraga! Before she was born, her mother had the nickname "Lori" ready for ...
Revisiting 'How The Other Half Eats'
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do race and class affect the way we eat? What does it mean to "eat like a white person?" And if food inequality isn't about "food deserts," what i...
How cumbia has shaped music across Latin America
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you're from Ushuaia or East Los Angeles, you've likely heard cumbia blaring from a stereo. From our play friends at NPR's Alt.Latino, Jasmine ...
Unlocking family history in 'Before Me'
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It wasn't until Lisa Phu had her own child that she started unlocking her mother's history. In her new 5-part series called Before Me, Lisa asks her m...
What We Watched in 2022
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are a lot of TV shows to watch out there - so the Code Switch team isn't trying to bring you a list of the "best." Instead, we're chatting about...
Why some Republicans want to narrow who counts as Black
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Republican officials in Louisiana want to change how Black people are counted in voting maps. If their plan is successful, it could shrink the power o...
Notes from America: 'Blackness (Un)interrupted'
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
So many of our perceptions of race have to do with color. How does that change if you've lived in both Black and white skin? Our Executive Producer V...
A lost bird, a found treasure
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bear Carrillo grew up knowing only a few details about his birth parents: when he was born they were university students, the first from their tribes ...
Live from Chicago: What makes a city home?
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is excerpted from the Code Switch Live show at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, featuring special guests José Olivarez, Sultan Salahud...
Throughline: How Korean culture went global
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From BTS to Squid Game to high-end beauty standards, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture and entertainment. How does a country go f...
Code Switch fam! Say hello to It's Been a Minute's new host, Brittany Luse!
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Code Switch's host B.A. Parker, introduces us to our play cousin It's Been a Minute's new voice, Brittany Luse! In Brittany's first two episodes she t...
Fear In An Age Of Real Life Horror, Revisited
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's that time of year again: celebrations of the macabre hit a little too close to home and brush up against our country's very dark past. We talk ab...
Skeletons in the closet, revisited
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
More than 10,000 Native human remains are currently sitting in a storage facility in a Maryland suburb. This week, how one small tribe is fighting to ...
Black reality in a world of fantasy
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why build a fantasy world that still has racism? B.A. Parker moderates a discussion on Black science fiction and fantasy with authors Tochi Onyebuchi ...
Omar Apollo on making music, being queer and Latinx
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
NPR's Alt.Latino gets a reboot, and for its first episode, they speak with R&B darling Omar Apollo. Apollo shares what it's been like being a role mod...
Gaming out race in Dungeons & Dragons
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most popular tabletop role-playing games of all time. But it has also helped cement some ideas about how we create an...
In 1962, segregationists set up "Reverse Freedom Rides"
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Recently, Republican governors have been sending migrants from the southern border to cities they deem more liberal under false pretenses. The politic...
Can therapy solve racism?
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 20% of Americans turned to therapy in 2020. That had us wondering: What exactly can therapy accomplish? Today, we're sharing the stories of two...
How the Pell Grant helped POCs go to college
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The cost of college has been on everyone's minds, especially with student debt cancellation. Pell Grants are one way many low income students have man...
What does it mean to "inherit whiteness?"
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Baynard Woods' new memoir, Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness, Woods reflects on how growing up white in South Carolina impacted his life. ...
What makes a good race joke?
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When a comedian of color makes a joke, is it always about race, even if it's not about race? In part two of our comedians episodes, Code Switch talks ...
What's so funny about race?
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a great joke about race? In the first of two episodes, Code Switch talks to comedians Ziwe, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes and Joel Kim Booster abou...
Into the glittering neon universe of 'P-Valley' with Katori Hall
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Starz hit show P-Valley takes audiences to a strip club in a fictional town in the Mississippi Delta. Part soap opera, part Southern Gothic, the s...
Lost In Translation
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today on the show, we're bringing you the stories of two families grappling with how best to communicate across linguistic differences. In the first s...
Meet B.A. Parker — our new co-host!
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fam: We finally have a new co-host of the Code Switch podcast! And we're just a *tiny bit* excited. So today on the show, we're introducing you to B.A...
Who belongs in the Cherokee Nation?
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1866, the Cherokee Nation promised citizenship for Black "freedmen" and their descendants. But more than a century later, the descendants of the fr...
School Colors Episode 9: "Water Under The Bridge"
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of this season, we've explored a rich history and complicated present, but what about the future? In the final episode, we catch up wi...
Code Switch's playlist for a summer road trip
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we're talking about the podcasts that podcasters listen to. These are the shows that members of the Code Switch team cannot tear our ears a...
School Colors Bonus: "Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary"
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pat Mitchell is the longtime principal of P.S. 48 – an elementary school in Jamaica, Queens. And while she cares deeply about her students and her w...
'Wherever you go, there you are'
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Many immigrants have described the feeling of being different people in different places. Maybe in one country, you're a little goofy, a little wild. ...
School Colors Episode 8: "The Only Way Out"
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the District 28 diversity planning process came around, many Chinese parents had already been activated a year earlier by the fight to defend the...
No Man's Land
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tens of thousands of children were adopted from other countries by parents in the U.S., only to discover as adults a quirk in federal law that meant t...
School Colors Episode 7: "The Sleeping Giant"
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In some ways, this entire season was prompted by the parents who organized against diversity planning in School District 28. So in this episode, we're...
On Food, Mattress Sales, and Juneteenth
19 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's the second year that Juneteenth has been a federal holiday — which means it's getting the full summer holiday treatment: sales on appliances, b...
School Colors Episode 6: "Below Liberty"
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Though a lot of parents and educators agree there needs to be some change in District 28, the question remains: what kind of change? When we asked aro...
The impact of COVID-19, a million deaths in
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A new book by Linda Villarosa looks at how racial bias in healthcare has costs for all Americans. Spoiler: Poverty counts — but not as much as you'd...
Spilling the T
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Code Switch's Kumari Devarajan found an unlikely demographic doppelganger in D'Lo, a comedian and playwright whose one-person show about growing up as...
School Colors Episode 5: "The Melting Pot"
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Until recently, School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., was characterized by a white Northside, and a Black Southside. But today, the district, and Queens...
Rethinking 'safety' in the wake of Uvalde
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of violence and tragedies, people are often left in search of ways to feel safe again. That almost inevitably to conversations about the r...
School Colors Episode 4: "The Mason-Dixon Line"
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the North and th...
How We Decide Who Is 'Worthy of Welcome'
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of Syrians have been displaced by ongoing civil war. In her new book, Refuge, Heba Gowayed follows Syrians who have resettled in the U.S., Ca...
School Colors Episode 3: "The Battle of Forest Hills"
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1970s, Forest Hills, Queens, became a national symbol of white, middle class resistance to integration. Instead of public schools, this f...
The Utang Clan
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Utang na loob is the Filipino concept of an eternal debt to others, be it family or friends, who do a favor for you. It goes back to pre-colonial time...
School Colors Episode 2: "Tales From The Southside"
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., has a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply, the Southside is Black and the farther north you go, the fewer ...
School Colors Episode 1: "There Is No Plan"
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2019, a school district in Queens N.Y., one of the most diverse places on the planet, is selected to go through the process of creating something u...
Coming Soon: Code Switch presents 'School Colors'
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Coming soon to the Code Switch feed: School Colors, a limited-run series about how race, class and power shape American cities and schools. Hosts Mark...
The LA Uprising, a generation later
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some call it a riot. Some call it an uprising. Many Korean Americans simply call it "Sai-i-gu" (literally, 4-2-9.) But no matter what you call it, it'...
Race, queerness, and superpowers in 'Everything, Everywhere, All at Once'
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can anything be more important than what's happening right now? That's the question a woman named Evelyn Wang is pondering right before she is thr...
A makeup company gets a facelift
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 70s and 80s, Fashion Fair was an iconic cosmetics company designed to create makeup for Black women of all shades. This is the story of that co...
A New Movement on Standing Rock
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do when all your options for school kind of suck? That was the question some folks on the Standing Rock Reservation found themselves askin...
The dance that made its way from Harlem to Sweden
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lindy Hop is a dance that was born in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s — created and performed by African Americans in segregated clubs and dance halls...
Why the N-word is so toxic
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It is probably the most radioactive word in the English language. At the same time, the N-word is kind of everywhere: books, movies, music, comedy (no...
Screams and Silence
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week marks the one year anniversary of a deadly shooting spree in Atlanta, where eight people were killed. Six of those people were Asian America...
What's In A Dad?
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gene Demby and comedian Hari Kondabolu are both new fathers, and they're both learning to raise kids who will have very different identities and upbri...
Mabel Fairbanks: The Ice Breaker
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Figure skating has always been about flair and drama. But what happens on the ice is nothing compared to what goes on behind the scenes. This week, wi...
The rise and fall of 'America's Dad'
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At the height of his career, Bill Cosby was one of the most famous men in the United States. He was the biggest and highest paid star in the country, ...
Can therapy solve racism?
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2020, nearly 20% of Americans turned to therapy. Many of those people were looking for a space to process some of the big, painful events they were...
Humor, poetry and romance on Code Switch Live
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Live from your computer screens, it's Code Switch! Guest hosts Ayesha Rascoe and Denice Frohman joined us to talk poetry and humor with special guests...
Bonus Episode: Consider the Lobstermen
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Canada, tensions between indigenous fishermen and commercial fishermen have been simmering for decades. On today's bonus episode, from our friends ...
The 'double-edged sword' of being a Black first
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's Black History Month, which is likely to bring boundless stories of Black Excellence and Black Firsts. So today on the show, we're talking about C...
Bonus: Getting real (like, really real) with Gabrielle Union
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We hear the phrase "unapologetically Black" thrown around a lot. But what does it actually mean? In this bonus episode from our newest play cousins at...
Playing Pretendian
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
People lie about being Native American all the time – on college applications, on job applications, in casual conversation. But how do "Pretendians"...
Bonus: Remembering the iconic, complicated André Leon Talley
23 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since he died this week, André Leon Talley has been described over and over again as "larger than life." But on this episode, brought to us by our fr...
A whiteness that's only skin deep
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We use words related to color to describe different racial categories all the time — Black, white, brown. But how much of race and identity actually...
They came, they saw, they reckoned?
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's now been more than a year since the so-called "racial reckoning" that marked the summer of 2020. The country, some said confidently, was having t...
Nikole Hannah-Jones on the power of collective memory
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What stories do we learn about the history of the United States? Who dreamed up those stories? And what happens when we challenge them? This week on t...
Ask Code Switch: What Does Race Have To Do With Beauty?
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This time of year, folks are being inundated with messages about how to become more beautiful. But beauty is an ever-changing goalpost that has everyt...
What We Watched in 2021
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Y'all, 2021 brought us a lot of TV. Some of it was even good! So this week, we're talking about the shows that had something interesting to say about ...
Bonus Episode: The blessing and curse of the '90s Latin Pop Explosion
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our play cousins at NPR's It's Been a Minute podcast reexamine the so-called "Latin explosion" of the late '90s: What it was supposed to be for audien...
What Is 'Latin Music' Anyway?
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The term 'Latin Music' can encompass everything from Celia Cruz to Bad Bunny to Selena Gomez to Los Tigres del Norte. It's rock, pop, hip hop, salsa, ...
A Glimpse At 'How The Other Half Eats'
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do race and class affect the way we eat? What makes dollar store junk food different from organic junk food? And when did Whole Foods become such ...
Imagining A World Without Prisons Or Police
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Derecka Purnell was growing up, the police were a regular presence in her life. Years later, the lawyer, activist, and author of the new book, Be...
Ask Code Switch: Thought For Food
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's Thanksgiving week, so we're bringing you a second helping of one of our favorite episodes, where we answer your questions about race and food. We...
'The Characters Are The Light'
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
You already know we love books here on Code Switch — and given that we're smack dab in the middle of Native American Heritage month, we thought we'd...
'Being Fly Is An Act Of Community'
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When 'Soul Train' first aired in 1971, there had never been a show like it. Fifty years later, that's still true. So this week, we're passing the mic ...
Love And Blood Quantum
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you're Native American, there's a good chance that you've thought a lot about blood quantum — a highly controversial measurement of the amount of...
Ask Code Switch: Parents Just Don't Understand
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Or do they? This week, we're answering some of your toughest questions about race and your parents. How do you create boundaries with immigrant parent...
Painting By Numbers
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 2020 census data is finally here! At first glance, it paints a surprising portrait of a changing United States: The number of people who identify ...
Skeletons In The Closet
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a small suburb of Washington, D.C., a non-descript beige building houses thousands of Native human remains. The remains are currently in the posses...
The Once And Future 'Karen'
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you've been paying attention to the news over the past couple years, you know what a so-called 'Karen' is: a white woman who uses her race and gend...
The Rise Of The BBL
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Black women have always faced immense pressure to make their bodies look a certain way. But if done the "wrong way," achieving that idealized figure c...
The Dramatic Life Of The American Teenager
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kacen Callender started out as a kid in St. Thomas writing fan fiction. Today, they are the author of multiple middle grade and young adult novels ful...
Who You Calling 'Hispanic'?
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
But seriously, who? Because while it is Hispanic Heritage Month, the notion of a multiracial, multinational, pan-ethnic identity called "Hispanic" is ...
The Making And Remaking Of Afghanistan
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For two decades, many Americans have seen Afghanistan depicted primarily through the lens of war. But that's not the full story — not even close. Af...
The Lost Summer
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, during the dog days of summer , a fledgling journalist named Shereen Marisol Meraji — maybe you've heard of her? — headed to Dur...