The Mash-Up Americans

And end when it’s time. Wisdom from Lewis Carroll, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published by MacMillan in 1865. Thank you for joining us on this 30-day celebration of Lunar New...

Our hearts are broken and we’re so grateful for it. Meditations in an Emergency, by Cameron Awkward-Rich, from Dispatch, published by Persea Books in 2019.This Lunar New Year we’re trying som...

What is there but kindness? I Am Not Alone Here, by Jacqueline Suskin from The Verse for Now, published by Flower Press in 2025This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days o...

Despite reality, reality also demands joy. Life goes on. Thank you to Wislawa Szymborka for Reality Demands, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh, published in View With A Gra...

Be you, and do it on purpose! Thanks to Maya Angelou and Dolly Parton. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and words ...

Summoning our strength of heart with Rabbi Susan Goldberg of our beloved Nefesh in Los Angeles. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes wit...

Let Bong Joon Ho show us the way. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and words of wisdom and humor. Happy Year of th...

What is art?  Thank you to Shaun Usher of the Letters of Note Newsletter, one of our very favorite joys of the internet.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of ...

How do we ask for what we need? Different Ways to Pray by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, published by Far Corner Books in 1995. This Lunar New Year we’re t...

A poem (a prayer?) from Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and words of wisdom and humor. H...

James Baldwin has something to say about it. From Notes on the House of Bondage, published in The Nation in 1980.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily ...

More advice from some of the greats. Wisdom from across the 20th century from Franz Kafka and Eddie Murphy. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily ...

Remembering everything that comes in our name is essential. Be proud! Be Choi. Choi Jeong Min by Franny Choi, published in Poetry Magazine in 2016.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something d...

We can let it fall, sometimes. A Poem for Someone Who Is Juggling Her Life, by Rose Cook, from Notes From a Bright Field, published by Cultured Llama in 2013.This Lunar New Year we’re trying ...

A few proverbs from across the continents, tied together by the Dalai Lama. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and w...

Sometimes democracy requires patience. Don’t we know it! Democracy Poem #1 by June Jordan, from The Essential June Jordan, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020.This Lunar New Year we’re t...

 If we use our time well, we have plenty of it. A reminder from the philosopher Seneca, from On The Shortness of Life. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days...

Can you draw your own face? Some notes by Jorge Luis Borges from Horse, Stars, Men, published in Aleph and Other Stories by Penguin Classics in 2004. This Lunar New Year we’re trying som...

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón from Poem-a-Day, published by the Academy of American Poets in 2017.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily ep...

William Shakespeare says our riches on the inside is better than anything we could find on the outside, and we agree.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short da...

No kindness is ever too small. Thank you for Small Kindnesses to Danusha Laméris, from Bonfire Opera, published by University of Pittsburgh Press in 2020.This Lunar New Year we’re trying some...

You are always important, and you are always somebody, from Emily Dickinson.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and words ...

A reminder that we always need art by Edwidge Danticatt, from Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist At Work, published by Princeton University Press in 2010. Learn more at edwidgedanticat....

Yiddish proverbs always get it in very few words. For more wisdom and delight - This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, a...

A poem from Victoria Chang, from The Trees Witness Everything, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2022. Learn more @fattery12.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days o...

Today are the five remembrances from the Upajjhatthana Sutta (“Subjects for Contemplation”). They are meant to be recited each day.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 da...

A meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh, from No Mud, No Lotus, published in Parallax Press in 2014. Learn more at plumvillage.org.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of ...

Mary Oliver's Why I Wake Early  Published by Beacon Press in 2010. Learn more at maryoliver.com.This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episode...

Today, a poem by Gayle Brandeis. Learn more at gaylebrandeis.com. This Lunar New Year we’re trying something different - 30 days of short daily episodes with art, poetry, and words of wi...

 A few words of wisdom from the great Irish wit Oscar Wilde. More from Oscar Wilde https://bookshop.org/lists/mash-up-lunar-new-year-daily-podcast-book-listThis Lunar New Year we’re...

Writer and food expert Matthew Kang (Eater) joins the Big Korean Energy realm to unpack the current Korean food moment, from fine dining in Dallas to gochujang bottles at Ohio motels.We talk ...

The Korean Vegan’s Joanne Lee Molinaro joins us to talk about the cultural power and the politics of Korean joy. How can scarcity become abundance? Look to Korea! From budae jjigae to K-Beaut...

What makes something feel Korean? Journalist Tommy Craggs joins us to unpack Big Korean Energy, from the ’88 Seoul Olympics to Son Heung-min, Cubs fandom to K-pop Demon Hunters. We dig into h...

Bestselling novelist R. O. Kwon joins us to explore Big Korean Energy in literature and how she writes her desire (and freedom) onto the page.  She shares what it was like growing up in ...

From bootleg VHS tapes to a Tony-winning Broadway musical and Netflix megahits, Koreans have gone from “who?” to “whoa!” In this episode of our Big Korean Energy season, we sit down with Phil...

We’re living in Big Korean Energy. From Kdramas to ramen hacks, skincare routines to fandom rituals, Korean influence is everywhere, shaping how we connect, celebrate, and imagine the world. ...

If we're lucky, we're constantly growing, learning and telling new stories about ourselves. Writer Anna Holmes is here talking about starting new things in your 40s and 50s and finding commun...

How do we learn from the youth? MacArthur Genius and co-founder of United We Dream Cristina Jiménez join us to talk organizing and creating youth-led movements.And about repair through the ey...

Winning gives the push to do more - a light and hope and a sense of power. You have to acknowledge the little and big wins, to give you energy for the bigger and longer fights. We’re joined b...

Today to launch our season on tikkun olam, we sit down with Rabbi Susan Goldberg, the founder of Nefesh in Los Angeles and Rebecca’s very own rabbi-on-speed-dial. We laugh with our bellies an...

What do you do to repair your corner of the world? This season of The Mash-Up Americans we’re talking to a Rabbi, an Immigrant Justice activist, a Community Organizer and a Writer about how w...

In January 2023, Saadia Khan sat down with Amy Choi and Rebecca Lehrer for her weekly podcast Immigrantly. The conversation centered on their series on grief. The interview focused on grief, ...

It’s our last episode of the season(!) and we’re talking hospitality — what it looks like, what it means, what it does for our souls — and we can think of no better expert to turn to than Pie...

As people who care deeply about many things in this world (inequity, climate change, diversity, you get the idea), we could definitely learn to give less of a sh*t about other stuff — like wh...

Never meet your heroes? Fie, we say. The magnificent author, editor, and queen of Queens Min Jin Lee joined Rebecca and Amy on stage at The Greene Space to kick off The Mash-Up Americans resi...

To know us at The Mash-Up Americans is to know we love to be told how to do things well — how to be less racist, how to make a killer apple strudel, and so on. So it’s fitting that this week,...

If San Giving, aka Thanksgiving, isn’t the mashiest American holiday of all, we’d be pressed to think of anything else that even comes close. It’s when American culinary traditions (turkey, s...

Millennials will never know a world without hip hop, and frankly, we’re all better for it. Author, journalist, scholar, and all-around visionary Jeff Chang joins Amy and Rebecca to share abou...

Where there are boundaries, there’s also healing, love, grief, and acceptance, explains Dr. Pooja Lakshmin — but getting there is often a painful, awkward journey. The board-certified psychia...

Does having money make you a classhole? And what does that even mean? Producer, reporter, and Classy podcast host Jonathan Menjivar joins Amy and Rebecca as they tackle the awkward topic of c...