Originally aired August 10, 2021.
Plot twist! Amina (“Dee”) and Annie, who are usually behind the scenes producing and engineering the show for Bihi, are star players today. Bihi interviews them about their new podcast, Culture Shock MN, and why they decided to make a multicultural interview podcast.
Amina (aka “Dee”) and Annie are friends and Minnesotans who are always looking for that story—the one about you living through something that shaped how you see the world and yourself in it. This story has to be told in-person, so the laughs and the pain are coexisting right there.
Amina moved from East Africa (Somali and Kenya) to the United States when she was middle-school age. Annie is a longtime Minnesotan has never even been outside North America. That said, having mental health challenges while living on the East Coast definitely threw her for a loop.
Together, Amina and Annie get away from the bite-size, reductive stories we see on social media and clickbait news and have full conversations with friends new and old. We discuss the culture shocks we’ve felt—the ones that made us who we are, and the ones we can’t WAIT to forget! On the way, we dig into interracial friendships, what it is to feel “like home,” family (chosen and born). We also get into mental health across cultures, the social issues that affect us all, and the pop culture pieces we’re excited about.
On this first episode, Annie and Amina interview each other and introduce the show before we welcome guests in future episodes.
Originally aired July 20, 2021.
Liz and Marilyn Peterson Haus start the episode discussing Haus’s latest, Half of a Whole, and its depictions of mental illness, twins, and zealotry.
After the break, James Beard Award-winner Beth Dooley joins Annie to discuss the intersections of food education, climate justice, local farming, and great recipes in the context of Dooley’s latest cookbook, The Perennial Kitchen.
Originally aired July 6, 2021.
It’s the Annie super-episode!
First, Ranae Lenor Hanson joins Annie live in the studio to discuss how addressing climate change is similar to addressing diabetes, how to push through feelings of hopelessness in climate conversations, and the importance of teachers learning from their students, all in the context of Hanson’s new work of nonfiction, Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress.
After the break, Annie and Maggie Shipstead dive Shipstead’s new novel Great Circle into gender politics across time, writing Hollywood and history, researching flight.
Originally aired June 15, 2021.
Dave brings Ramsey County librarian Tami Lee for a return appearance, thoughtful book recommendations for civil and social justice, and great analysis of why a book club isn’t advocacy on its own.
After the break, Annie and Maggie Shipstead discuss novel research, women’s stories in aviation, and sexism’s alterations over time, viewed through the lens of Shipstead’s new novel, Great Circle.
Originally aired May 4, 2021.
In the first half of the hour, Annie connects with Kao Kalia Yang to discuss Yang’s new children’s storybook Yang Warriors, along with the real-life refugee camp experience that inspired it, what it means to be a real-life hero, using questions to build meaningful person-to-person connections, cross-diaspora creativity, and talking about justice with your kids.
After the break, Josh rolls out a Legacy Episode and the group revisits a conversation with James Rollins, author of the Sigma Force adventure novels.
Originally aired April 27, 2021.
The first half of the show is a blast from the past as we revisit WO!R’s conversation with Adam Makos, discussing his book Devotion.
After the break (23:21), Sophie Lewis calls Annie from London to discuss her translation from French of Noémi Lefebvre’s Poetics of Work, delving into what “work” means inside and outside of a monetary context, translating insults and rhythms, police violence in the US and France, and why societies may want to pay their poets more.
