

Immigrantly
Saadia Khan | Immigrantly Media
Join Saadia Khan on Immigrantly, the award-winning podcast that dives deep into immigrant narratives and the messy beauty of identity, race, and belonging in America today. Each week, Saadia, a human rights activist, social entrepreneur, and proud cat mom, hosts unfiltered conversations with diverse voices: artists, academics, cultural disruptors, and everyday people with extraordinary cultural stories.At Immigrantly, we go beyond surface-level diversity to explore how culture, immigration, and inclusion shape real lives. We believe identity is powerful, but when unchecked, it can become an ego trap. That’s why every episode unpacks the nuance, humor, and contradictions of what it means to belong.Inclusive storytelling. Immigrant perspectives. Real talk—never flattened.To join this fun, thoughtful, and inclusive community, subscribe!
Producer & Host: Saadia Khan
Editorial Review: Shei Yu
Content Writers: Michaela Strauther, Bobak Afshari, Rainier Harris, Adiba Hussain & Saadia Khan
Sound Design & Content Editor: Haziq Ahmad Farid, Paroma Chakravarty, Steve Martin, Lou Raskin
Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson
Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Follow us on IG @immigrantlypodsTwitter @Immigrantly_podTikTok @ImmigrantlyYouTube: @immigrantlypodsSubscribe to our PatreonImmigrantly podcast is an Immigrantly Media production.For advertising inquiries, please email at info@immigrantlypod.com
Producer & Host: Saadia Khan
Editorial Review: Shei Yu
Content Writers: Michaela Strauther, Bobak Afshari, Rainier Harris, Adiba Hussain & Saadia Khan
Sound Design & Content Editor: Haziq Ahmad Farid, Paroma Chakravarty, Steve Martin, Lou Raskin
Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson
Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Follow us on IG @immigrantlypodsTwitter @Immigrantly_podTikTok @ImmigrantlyYouTube: @immigrantlypodsSubscribe to our PatreonImmigrantly podcast is an Immigrantly Media production.For advertising inquiries, please email at info@immigrantlypod.com
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 12, 2026 • 43min
The Promise of Queens
What does it look like when someone walks away from a prestigious career, on principle, and comes back fighting? Chuck Park did exactly that. A son of Korean immigrants who sold T-shirts on Canal Street, he rose to become a U.S. diplomat, then resigned in 2019 after the El Paso mass shooting and published his letter in The Washington Post. Now he's running a 100% grassroots campaign for Congress in New York's 6th District — Queens against a seven-term incumbent. No corporate PACs. No AIPAC money. No focus-grouped talking points.
In this conversation, Saadia sits down with Chuck Park to talk about what it means to run as a true outsider: abolishing ICE (and why that's not the same as open borders), calling Gaza a genocide out loud, the Working Families Party's closed-door betrayal, and why dumplings might be the most radical political tool in Queens right now.
They also get into the MSG myth, the difference between progressivism and leftism, and what Chuck says he'll do if he loses, spoiler: deep clean the bathroom first.
If you've been waiting for a politician who sounds like an actual human being, this one's for you.
Vote Chuck Park — June 23rd, NY-6. chuckforqueens.com
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Helena is on IG here
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 snips
May 5, 2026 • 55min
Once You Leave, You're Never the Same
Laura Peruchi, a Brazilian journalist and creator who runs The Tiny Apple and hosts Transplants, shares candid stories of starting over in New York. She talks about visa dependency, switching from Portuguese to English and how language shifts identity. Conversations cover building community in East Harlem, the hidden emotional toll on partners who follow, online hate, and why she centers women's immigrant stories.

Apr 28, 2026 • 46min
Hip Hop Into Your Raw Self with Zainab Hasnain FKA ZEEMUFFIN (Dec 2022)
Apply for the Vilcek Foundation Creative Promise Awards in Culinary Arts to win $50,000 in unrestricted grant money. Click on Vilcek.org for more information.
When we first sat down with Zainab Hasnain — DJ, producer, and writer FKA ZEEMUFFIN — back in 2022, she was already doing something remarkable: carving out space as a Pakistani immigrant woman in one of the most male-dominated creative industries in New York City. We're re-releasing this conversation now because a lot has changed since then, and we think it's worth revisiting.
Since this episode was recorded, Zainab has played Boiler Room, Governors Ball, and Glastonbury. She opened for Palestinian-Chilean artist Elyanna across her sold-out North American Tour. She's been featured in the New York Times and appeared in the Gap's Summer Campaign. Original music is on the way.
But this conversation is about how she got here — and it's just as compelling now as it was then.
We talk about growing up between Lahore and Long Island, learning the viola, falling in love with punk and hip hop, and eventually trading a career in finance and tech for a pair of turntables. We get into what it means to be a Pakistani woman taking up space in DJ culture, the parallels between hip hop and immigrant identity, how gentrification threatens the authenticity of Black art forms, and why Zainab believes DJing is, at its core, an act of empathy.
We also talk about food. Because on Immigrantly, we always talk about food.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
You can follow Zainab on IG @_zainabnyc
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apr 21, 2026 • 1h 2min
Praying in Secret: What It Really Costs to Be Muslim in America
Apply for the Vilcek Foundation Creative Promise Awards in Culinary Arts to win $50,000 in unrestricted grant money. Click on Vilcek.org for more information.
What does it feel like to leave your faith at the door, not because you're ashamed, but because you're exhausted?
In this episode of Immigrantly, host Saadia Khan sits down with Salman Khan, a journalist, composer, and Executive Producer of More Muslim, a narrative podcast that tells Muslim stories from the inside out.
Salman grew up Pakistani in Qatar, moved to New York in his late twenties, and found himself sneaking away to pray between classes — not because anyone told him he couldn't, but because the silence around him said enough.
The conversation unpacks the exhaustion of being the only Muslim in the room, how colonialism built the "Muslim aggression" myth, why the mosque became a lifeline in New York in a way it never was back home, and what it costs to be the unofficial spokesperson for 1.8 billion people.
This one is for anyone who has ever code-switched their way through an identity. Muslim or not.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Helena is on IG here
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apr 14, 2026 • 1h 14min
The Stories We Don't Tell About Motherhood
Apply for the Vilcek Foundation Creative Promise Awards in Culinary Arts to win $50,000 in unrestricted grant money. Click on Vilcek.org for more information
What do you do with grief for something that never was?
Helena de Groot spent years circling one of the most quietly radical questions a person can ask: whether or not to have a child. The result was Creation Myth — an 8-part audio memoir for CBC that became a Tribeca Festival Official Selection, landed on the New York Times Modern Love podcast, and earned praise from Death, Sex & Money to The New Yorker.
In this conversation, Helena and Saadia go to the heart of it, not the podcast, but the ache underneath it. They talk about whose grief Helena was holding while making it, what people were willing to say on tape, and what she knows now that she wishes she'd known at the start.
This episode is for anyone who has wanted, lost, chosen, or is still deciding. The grief rhymes, even when the stories don't match.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Helena is on IG here
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apr 7, 2026 • 55min
Giving With Strings Attached
What does it really mean to do good, and who gets to decide?
Saadia sits down with Dr. Rhea Rahman, an anthropologist at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and the author of Racializing the Umma: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White. After more than a decade embedded with Islamic Relief, the largest Muslim NGO in the West, Dr. Rahman asks the questions most of us avoid: when Muslim organizations fly across the world to help, whose definition of "help" are they using?
The episode gets into:
The "good Muslim" trap-how Islamic charities are pressured to depoliticize themselves to gain Western acceptance
Racial hierarchies inside Muslim communities and why South Asian Muslims are often disconnected from Black Muslim struggles
The savior mentality immigrants unknowingly inherit and the hard work of unlearning it
A radical reframe of Zakat: it's not charity. It's returning what was never yours to begin with
What abolitionist Muslims and mutual aid movements are building as an alternative
Whether you work in a nonprofit, donate to Islamic causes, or have ever questioned whether your good intentions are actually good, this one will sit with you.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 31, 2026 • 55min
Food Is Never Just Food (June 2025)
We love to romanticize food as a universal connector. But behind every plate is a story of power, privilege, and who gets to define what's "authentic."
We're bringing this one back because it hits harder than ever. Chef, food activist, and Studio ATAO founder Jenny Dorsey joins Saadia Khan to expose the uncomfortable truths about race, class, colonialism, and the politics of food. From childhood shame to the myth of fine dining, this is a raw conversation about who controls the narrative and who gets left out.
With SNAP cuts hitting millions, food insecurity rising, and the government eliminating the data we use to track hunger, this episode is more urgent in 2026 than when we first recorded it in June 2025
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 24, 2026 • 15min
Thoughts On Celebrating Eid When the World Is on Fire
How do you let yourself celebrate Eid when the world feels like it's falling apart? In this solo episode, host Saadia Khan reflects on the guilt and tension that came up this Eid and what it means to hold joy and grief at the same time. She unpacks two traps most of us fall into (performing grief vs. total compartmentalization), and makes the case that the two aren't opposites. This one is for anyone who has ever felt guilty for having a good moment or felt torn between living their life and staying awake to the world.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 17, 2026 • 1h 6min
Can Art Rewire Your Brain?
What if reading the right book or watching the right film could transform how you see the world, the same way psychedelics do?
In this episode, Saadia Khan sits down with Ramzi Fawaz, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, queer theorist, comic book scholar, and host of 'Nerd from the Future'. Ramzi's upcoming book “How to Think Like a Multiverse” makes a bold argument: that the humanities' art, literature, and media can function as psychedelic therapy, cracking open the way we think, feel, and relate to one another.
But this conversation goes far deeper than the classroom. Saadia and Ramzi unpack why young people are actually more self-aware than we give them credit for, what we get wrong about "woke" culture, how resentment can be a tool for healing (not just destruction), why identity is something you live — not own — and what it really means to stay in your lane as a form of activism.
Ramzi also gets personal about navigating sexual hierarchies in gay male culture, growing up Lebanese American in Orange County, and how his own name carries the weight of culture, language, and love.
This is one of those rare conversations that makes you want to rethink how you see yourself.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
BOYOT (Belong On Your Own Terms) is the next step. It’s our new app, designed to help you think through identity, culture, ambition, relationships, and the stories we carry — with guided reflections, prompts, and frameworks developed over years of conversations on this show.
It’s thoughtful. It’s challenging. And honestly, it’s the kind of space many of us wish existed earlier in our lives.
If you’re ready to go deeper than the podcast, subscribe to BOYOT and start the journey.
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 10, 2026 • 53min
Jonnie Park: The Asian Kid Hip Hop Wasn't Ready For
Jonnie Park was born in Argentina to Korean parents, crossed the US-Mexico border undocumented at age three, carried by a mother with two toddlers and nothing but courage, and grew up in Koreatown, Los Angeles, caught between Korean, Latino, and Black American culture.
He became one of the only Asian battle rappers in history to gain mainstream notoriety, starred in Run DMC, appeared in Awkafina is Nora from Queens, voiced a character in Raya and the Last Dragon, and now he's written a memoir, Spit: A Life in Battles, which drops on April 14th.
In this episode, Jonnie and Sadia get into what it actually felt like to step into a battle rap circle surrounded by hundreds of people, how hip hop taught him to be unapologetically Asian, the complicated relationship with his father that he had to write about first before anything else, and why immigrants, including his mother, built the best parts of America.
This episode covers: undocumented immigration, Korean American identity, battle rap culture, cultural appropriation vs. appreciation, Asian American representation in Hollywood, memoir writing, and generational trauma.
Join us in creating new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can find more information at http://immigrantlypod.com.
Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!
You can connect with Saadia on IG @itssaadiak
Email:saadia@immigrantlypod.com
Host & Producer: Saadia Khan I Content Writer: Saadia Khan I Editorial review: Shei Yu I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound
Immigrantly Podcast is an Immigrantly Media Production.
For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com
Belong on Your Own Terms (BOYOT) is the app created to help first-gen, second-gen, and diaspora communities move from confusion to clarity. With structured prompts and deep reflection tools, it helps you define identity without shrinking yourself for anyone else
http://studio.com/saadia
Don't forget to subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for insightful podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices


