Say That Again: Language Lesson
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Imagine teaching a language you’re still learning. Or raising your kids to speak it when you’re not yet fluent. For communities trying to revive their Indigenous languages, these are daily challenges – and at stake are both the history and future of their culture. In this episode, we meet educators and parents fighting to give their children their ancestral language, Lingít (Tlingit). What does it take to save a language?
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Say That Again: Talking Black, With Pride
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Language has power. This was a hard-earned lesson for Vivian Nixon and Elaine Richardson, two women who were told all their lives that their way of talking – talking Black – was something to be kept out of public and professional spaces. This episode follows their separate journeys to embrace the history, beauty, and breadth of Black English, and liberate long-buried parts of themselves in the process.
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Say That Again: Whose Job Is It Anyway?
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Legally, you can discriminate against someone because of their accent. Dominic Amegashitsi found this out firsthand when he first came to the U.S. from Ghana to start a new life. This episode follows his journey to communicating more confidently, and examines our assumptions about what it means to communicate well in one of the most important spaces in American life: the workplace.
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Say That Again: Hey Ma, I’m On TV!
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Diversity in media isn’t just about the way characters look; it’s also about how they sound. The creators of “Molly of Denali” knew that when they started producing the animated kids’ show about the adventures of an Alaska Native girl. We talk to producers about what it takes to meaningfully portray Indigenous peoples on screen. And we meet a family in Fairbanks, Alaska, who share with us what it’s like to finally see their own experiences – and hear their people’s voices – represented in ways that make them proud.
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Say That Again: You Are How You Sound
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After years of trying to blend in as a Los Angeles transplant, Cynthia Santos DeCure realized she had all but lost her Puerto Rican accent. So she set out to reclaim it. Across the country, Amy Mihyang Ginther struggled to find her voice as a young girl living in one world – the mostly white community she grew up in – while yearning for another – the Korean family who gave her up for adoption. Each woman’s story is a journey to discover what our voices say about who we are and who we could be.
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Introducing: "Say That Again?"
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What do our voices say about us? “Say That Again?” is a new podcast series about how our identities and experiences shape how we sound – and how the way we speak can be a source of pride, resilience, and shared understanding. New episodes weekly beginning Feb. 25.
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Holiday Episode No. 5: Joy
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Home Forum contributors Murr Brewster and Robert Klose were the top-of-mind answers to Monitor editors’ question: “Who should we bring to the table this holiday season to discuss joy?” Listen as the two writers talk about how, for them, joy requires that you be your authentic self. And that you keep moving, and looking.
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Holiday Episode No. 4: Hope
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In August, the United States left Afghanistan after 20 years. The Taliban poured in. Monitor writers Scott Peterson and Ann Scott Tyson spoke about how Ann managed to find light in this dark situation – in the brave work of PARSA’s Afghan National Scouts. She knew one the organization’s leaders, Marnie Gustavson, and got in touch. “It became apparent,” Ann says, “that this story was important to tell.”
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Holiday Episode No. 3: Love
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Francine Kiefer and her editor, Ali Martin, discuss how the work of two inmates addressing mental health issues in the Los Angeles County Jail reflects brotherly love. “Craigen and Adrian not only work with these men, they live with them,” Francine says. “They are incarcerated right alongside them. They get to know them. And as peers, they earn their trust.”
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Holiday Episode No. 2: Gratitude
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Howard LaFranchi’s encounter with a subway quartet of classically trained musicians in Argentina – Venezuelan refugees who had joined together – opens into a look at genuine appreciation of their musical gift. This quality of gratitude is one that Howard has seen not only in Argentina, but also in other countries where refugees fleeing war or economic crisis seek to use their talents to tangibly say “thank you” to their hosts.
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