Code Switch

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, everyday life of the immigrant. Code Switch producer, Xavier Lopez and NPR immigration reporter, Jasmine Garsd spend a day at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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, dignity, and liberation for generations. So on this episode, we hear from trans elders about what their lives have looked like over the decades, and what messages they have for young people.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 January of 2020, the first Trump administration carried out a military operation killing Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian military commander. Now, the second Trump administration is striking Iranian nuclear sites. While lots has changed since 2020, much of our conversation with Jason is still eerily relevant.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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. As protestors have been detained for pro-Palestinian activism, we've seen attacks on Jews and people expressing concern for Israeli hostages in Gaza — and in the wake of all this, a lot Jews don't agree on which actions constitutive antisemitism. On this episode, we're looking at the landscape of this disagreement, and talking to the legal scholar who came up with the definition of antisemitism that the White House is using, and who says he's worried that definition is being used in a way that could hurt Jews instead of protect them.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 Trump last talked about invoking the act. Back then, there was broad energy around rethinking policing, but polls show that that energy has largely vanished. In this episode, we ask: what happened? Our guest points to what he calls copaganda – or pro-police propaganda.A previous version of this episode incorrectly said that Alec Karakatsanis works at Equal Justice Under Law. He currently runs an organization called the Civil Rights Corps.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 who was in the room during a meeting when President Trump pushed this conspiracy theory on the president of South Africa. And we're digging into what Trump's fixation on white South Africans tell us about anxieties over white replacement here in the U.S.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The hunger for Mexican food in the U.S. is longstanding — from the conquistadors' love affair with chocolate, to the classic San Francisco burrito. This week, we're exploring the history of Mexican food in the United States, and asking what it takes for a cuisine to become quintessentially "American."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 conditions, like keloids or cystic fibrosis? On this episode, Dr. Andrea Deyrup breaks it down for us, and unpacks the problems she sees with practicing race-based medicine, from delayed diagnoses to ignoring environmental factors that lead to different health outcomes.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Trump's win exposed political tensions between Arab-American voters — who were critical of Democratic support of Israel's war in Gaza, and Black voters — who remain the Democrats' most loyal supporters. That friction is especially pronounced in the majority Arab city of Dearborn, Michigan, and its majority Black neighbor, Detroit. This week, we go to a testy iftar dinner where Arab and Black folks sat down to begin having tough conversations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 that bombing and the fire it set off killed eleven people and left hundreds homeless, it's been largely forgotten. So how did we collectively memory-hole an event this big? And what does that tell us about race and policing even today?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 who lived a vibrant life. She was a muse and model for Andy Warhol," and a performer in New York City and London. In this episode, we talk to activist and author Tourmaline about what we can all learn from Johnson's legacy in times of adversity.Tourmaline's two books about Marsha P. Johnson — Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson and One Day in June — are out on May 20, 2025.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 moment he understood he was Asian-American. In his latest book, To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other, Nguyen examines the power in finding solidarity with other Others, especially in today's America.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

As the Trump administration targets the Smithsonian Institute for "divisive narratives" and "improper ideology," it got us thinking about how we preserve our history and everything that builds it, like language. So we're revisiting an episode from last year from the Lakota Nation in South Dakota over language — who preserves it, who has the right to the stories told in it, and who (literally) owns it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 system to make good on its promise, starting with the story of one family trying to find their 18-year-old son after immigration agents showed up at their doorstep.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 fuzziness is the point, and that the current anti-DEI push is part of a larger plan to undo the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 in marginalized communities can prepare themselves for how the current administration might handle an epidemic. On this episode, a conversation with historian and author Edna Bonhomme, about her latest book A History of the World in Six Plagues.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia alum, was detained by ICE for his role in leading pro-Palestinian protests at his former university last year. As Khalil's case has captured the nation's attention, free speech advocates see it as a test of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Trump administration argues they have the right to deport Khalil without charging him with a crime. On this episode, why Khalil's arrest should worry all of us.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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, Betty Shamieh shares the story of three generations of Palestinian women trying to find love, purpose and liberation.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 understand the canal's murky future - from climate change to President Trump's threat to take it for the U.S. - by looking at its turbulent, cataclysmic birth.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 focused primarily on a Black family.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy