163: What if you grew up in a violent ga...

After becoming a teenage figure skating champion and Olympic athlete, a woman is broken open by grief, fame, addiction, and shame, but through motherhood, reinvention, and a return to the ice, she begins to stitch together the person and performer she was never allowed to fully b ... Show More

"After a decade of devastating loss, and medical trauma nearly destroys his will to live, a man reaches the edge of giving up before the fragile birth of his son brings him a new hope. Today’s episode featured Nathan Wieser. If you’d like to email Nathan, you can reach him at nat ... Show More

After being sent out of Cuba alone as a child, a man survives exile, smuggling, prison, and devastating loss, but in the aftermath, he must face the armor that protected him from the world and separated him from the people he loves.Today’s episode featured Carlos “JC” Perez. Carl ... Show More

The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Vietnamese-American author lê thi diem thúy is a poetic look at immigration, memory, trauma, identity and loss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

This episode might give you an identity crisis, or an identity revelation. Music: https://youtu.be/DWcJFNfaw9c 

The former East L.A. gang member has been dodging bullets for years – sometimes literally sometimes figuratively. Though he walked away from his criminal ways years ago, he opens up about the mindset that made that life seem like a good choice, the high that comes from being shot ... Show More

In his journey toward self-discovery, Shane must reconstruct his past by cobbling together memories of his kidnapping, upbringing, and the enormous swell of questions which once defined his identity.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

There’s a lot that can go wrong when your identity is at question. Charged with abandoning a baby? Check. Years in prison? That too. Accused of assassinating the head of Hamas? Why not. Learn about the travails of some unlucky saps in this episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for ... Show More

They say, when you’re up, your friends know who you are, but when you’re down you know who your friends are. The burden of being the one who made it is heavy, and in this episode, the Ellises talk about what it’s like to carry the weight. Dead ass. Learn more about your ad-choice ... Show More

As a minority, have you ever raised an eyebrow at a comment someone made? Unsure if it had racist undertones or not? Dealing with feeling like you're being dramatic or reading too deeply into it? In this episode, we talk about our experience being outside of our community bubble ... Show More

We talked to X Gonzalez who led the March For Our lives movement and was a survivor of the horrific Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. They touched on the struggles of being an activist, choosing what issue to care bout, and being non-binary. This is a great conversation for ... Show More