Get Back to Where You Once BelongedThis American Life episode #694, February 14, 2020
People looking everywhere to find a place—any place—where, for once, they don't have to be the odd man out. Includes transcript.
Act 1: Black in the USSR, by Emanuele Berry
Yelena Khanga grew up in Russia knowing almost no other Black people. Emanuele Berry asks Yelena what that was like. As Emanuele learns about it, she realizes something about being Black in America, too. (22 minutes)
Act 2: Nowhere Man, by Jeremy Raff
Raul felt like he had found his spot in the world: a job he was good at, a group of people he liked and admired. And then he got kicked out. Kicked out in this way he didn’t even know was possible. Reporter Jeremy Raff explains. (28 minutes) (A version of this story appears in The Atlantic from February 14, 2020.)
The ConvertThis American Life, episode 471, August 10, 2012
In 2006, a new convert showed up at a mosque in Orange County, California, eager to study the Koran and make new friends. But when he started acting odd and saying strange things, those friends got suspicious. To them, he was Farouk al-Aziz. But his real name was Craig Monteilh, and he was working undercover for the FBI.
In 2021 the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case arising from the surveillance reported in this episode.