Stories of Our City

After graduating college, Gaith Jann became a successful insurance risk analyst in his native Jordan. But after only a few years he became jaded by the business world, which left him hungering for a m...

2 Nov 20172min

In our previous episode, we shared the story of Cathy Rude and Connie Blokkum, two midwives who collectively started a birthing center in west Houston, Texas, six years ago. This week, hear Connie sha...

28 Sep 20178min

In a labor of love, three Texas midwives collectively started and are running a birthing center in the west Houston city of Katy six years ago. Hear from two of these women, Cathy Rude and Connie Blok...

14 Sep 20176min

Nasser Shorbaji, aka Chyno, is a bit of an anomaly. The son of a Syrian-Filipino couple from Damascus, Chyno—whose mother tongue is English— works as a hip-hop artist based out of Beirut, Lebanon. His...

24 Aug 201711min

For some, cross-stitch may conjure up images of sewing circles in the olden days or of simple patterns stitched using five shades of the same color. Elif (pronounced "a-leaf"), a native of Turkey, is ...

10 Aug 20177min

Life can be very dangerous for Iraqis who have worked with the United States Army during the Iraq War. Even for those who leave their Iraqi homeland, in many cases, their families and relatives left b...

27 Jul 20176min

For Issa Dababneh of Jolly Man Beef Jerky in Amman, Jordan, making beef jerky is more than a business—it’s a passion. Raised as the son of an owner of a grocery store chain in Chicago, a young Issa wa...

29 Jun 20174min

When Eddie, a young native of Seville, Spain, got tired of his homeland and caught the travel bug he decided to move to Paris on a whim. Without a job awaiting upon arrival, the obvious question haunt...

7 Jun 20176min