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This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 2.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.
150 Episodes
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30From the moment we wake up in the morning there are a trillion rules — big and little — governing our lives. But sometimes, we encounter one we just can't abide by. In a pitched moment of rule-questioning, a show about rules and the people who break them.
Years ago, producer Chana Joffe-Walt started reporting on one school in New York. She thought the story was about segregation and inequality in public schools. But the more she looked into it, the more she realized she was witnessing something else. She was seeing the inordinate power of white parents at this school. This is the first episode of Chana’s new mini-series: Nice White Parents.
This week, we celebrate pre-coronavirus summertime fun: at amusement parks! Ira Glass takes us behind the scenes at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, where the young staff – coached by a funny, fun-loving boss just a little older than they are – truly seem to love their jobs.
In space, in the ocean, by ourselves, or with others—we’re all just figuring out how to be apart.
As China's new national security law tightens its control over Hong Kong, we return to our episode about last fall's anti-government protests and check in to see how people are responding.
Michigan has passed its Covid-19 peak, and the state has started opening up. But it’s still been intensely difficult for the staff in the ICU at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. We've embedded with them over the past few months, and tracked how this pandemic has changed them and their city.
An exhaustingly familiar story. Maybe it’ll have a different ending this time, but maybe not. We hear what different people said and did one weekend in reaction to the killing of George Floyd.
In this moment of sorrow, protest, and rage in the wake of George Floyd’s death, we offer this as a break from the dreadful present: our show about Afrofuturism. It’s a way of looking at Black culture that’s fantastic and hopeful, which feels especially urgent during a time without a lot of optimism. Featuring the song "The Deep" by clppng.
Lissa Yellow Bird searches for missing people. Cold cases, mostly. People no one else is looking for. It’s not her job, but a lot of Native Americans go missing and their cases remain unsolved, so families often ask Lissa for help. But then, Lissa’s own niece goes missing.
While sports of all kinds have been put on pause, we bring you favorite stories from back when people were still on football fields, boxing rings, and basketball courts.
Last week, our episode "The Out Crowd" won the very first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a radio show. This is the episode that won, with some updates on the stories. Hear what the Trump administration’s "Remain in Mexico" policy actually means, on the ground, at the Mexican border.
During a time when a lot of us feel like we are living in a holding pattern, stories of people feeling stuck.
While the seniors danced at Prom Night 2001 in Hoisington, Kansas—a town of about 3,000—a tornado hit the town, destroying about a third of it. When they emerged from the dance, they discovered what had happened, and in the weeks that followed, they tried to explain to themselves why the tornado hit where it did. Plus other stories that happen on Prom Night.
Words can seem so puny and ineffective sometimes. On this show, we have stories in which ordinary people make last ditch efforts to get through to their loved ones, using a combination of small talk and not-so-small talk.
Desperate to know what happened to his family, a man obsessively decodes the only information about them he can get. That, and other stories of people looking into the void for answers.
Sometimes a sketch of a thing needs filling in for its true significance to be known.
Stories of when things go wrong. Really wrong. When you leave the normal realm of human error, fumble, mishap, and mistake and enter the territory of really huge breakdowns. Fiascos. Things go so awry that normal social order collapses.
The coronavirus has now fully arrived in the United States. This week, stories of people trying to rise to that challenge, in some pretty extreme situations.
This week, as the staff creates the episode from their apartments and houses, with our host in quarantine, in this moment when everyone’s reaching out to the people they love, we put together a collection of family stories, with some timely stuff at the top.
Things do not seem fine at all, but it’s hard to say why.
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My goodness. This story is the same as my own. It wasn’t during covid but she survived a recurrence of ovarian cancer and chemo. Her hair had been growing back and she’d just turned 60. My Mom was so vital and full of life but a Pulmonary embolism stole her from us. It was too late. We couldn’t save her. I would have given her part ofyliver or anything she needed. We needed her. We loved her and always will. 💕
Great content. I'd really love to transcribe your podcasts. People who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, non-native speakers, or suffer from auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder may have trouble following a fast conversation. Transcription provides an avenue for them to absorb everything you are putting out. My email is vickies2cents@gmail.com. Thank you.
The first 3 episodes are already posted on the show's page. I'm going to listen there to hear the continued story. https://castbox.fm/va/3117757
I legit don't get why people were so upset about this. It was so interesting. I am going to listen to the other episodes.
Another episode about race. Pass.
Nice White Parents feels to me like about the breakdown of communication between people who want a good thing and think they know best the way to get it and those who already exist in that space who feel like they aren't being listened to.
I like this episode. but to say they didn't know what they was doing to me is bs. it always easy to say u don't know what u are doing when u on the good, best, fortunate, etc. side. maybe being on the lower side it's easier seeing the misfortunes obviously, to me anyway. but if u at least try to have a open mind u could see also. I have personally have some people of color and white that know and see the difference and also see my potential and are willing to at least try to advance me in my life. This just sounded to me like a takeover. This whole podcast, all I heard was I will bring kids here only if it BENEFITS my kids. with that mind state we will never get where we need to be as a human race. like I said I like the information I heard but at the same time it's sad cause because we as human beings seem to be forever stuck, as usual, in a never ending story. Sorry if it sounds like a rant but this is my view of the podcast.
Interesting episode
Holy shit, this is enlightening – thank you for documenting this
Oh, OK This American Life, I see y'all. . I'm just 20min in & can tell already this will be one of my all-time fave episodes of T.A L. as I'm listening to Lissa on the phone FLASHIN on Suna(sp?)-just GOING OFF on his ass. . & I love it! I can tell Lissa is a Boss-Ass Broad & I love her & her attitude & determination. We need more folks like her in this world.. God Bless ❤🧡💛
so me
Having listened to this episode a second time recently, I believe it is a masterpiece. The story it tells is quite heartbreaking but also inspiring. The extra dimension of the women all with such different ways of responding to the boss-man is brilliantly executed. But the deeper layer of relating each woman's response to their own very personal experiences growing up is profound and reveals, in such an elegant way, how complex but explicable human behaviour is. And likewise the patriarchy.
This is my favourite kind of episode, like 24 Hours At The Golden Apple which I have listened to 100s of times. I would love to find out what other episodes are the same.
..isn't this expected although a little too soon..
liberate Hong Kong
Finally! The other side is at least mentioned. Only getting the story from kids under 21 is not a good way to understand what is actually happening there.
Need to listen to it all
So heartbreaking
I’m trying to adapt my ear to English speakers... he speak too fast :( have someone the transcription of this?
I’m trying to adapt my ear to English speakers... he speak too fast :( have someone the transcription of this?