Code Switch
What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story. Code Switch was named Apple Podcasts' first-ever Show of the Year in 2020. Want to level up your Code Switch game? Try Code Switch Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/codeswitch
Episodes
February 18, 2026 • 35 mins
The U.S. has been deporting people from Cuba in record numbers. That has come as a shock to many Cuban American communities, who had long enjoyed special protections that don't apply to most other immigrant groups. This week on the show we're talking about where this change fits into the trajectory of Cuban immigration to the U.S. We'll hear from Ada Ferrer, a historian at Princeton who shares how her family's divergent paths to th...
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February 14, 2026 • 21 mins
When President Trump shared a racist video on his Truth Social account last week, the blowback was real. But the video is also part of a tradition that has existed in the U.S. since the early 1800s — of using "humor" to spread and crystallize racist ideals. On this episode, we speak with Raul Perez, the author of "The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy," who tells us how making fun of Black people was cruc...
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February 11, 2026 • 39 mins
Dating can be tough. Dating while Black? That can feel nigh impossible sometimes, given how the long tentacles of racism have wrapped themselves around every aspect of our lives (and hearts.) But was dating any easier in the past? We're putting that question to the test on this special Valentine's Day episode of the pod. We revisit a conversation with audio storyteller and host of the podcast, Our Ancestors Were Messy, Nichole Hill...
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February 7, 2026 • 20 mins
Can a superstar be an actual voice of resistance? How does Bad Bunny's choice to perform at the NFL Super Bowl halftime show square with his politics of resistance to U.S. imperialism and decision to avoid the U.S. in his current world tour? We're speaking with Bad Bunny experts and authors of "P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance," Vanessa Diaz and Petra Rivera-Rideau.
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February 4, 2026 • 35 mins
In so many spaces, celebrating Black History History month means learning a few fun facts about famous African Americans. But Black History Month was designed to be much more radical — it was an opportunity for Black communities to learn about the aspects of their history that had been downplayed, diminished, or even actively suppressed. We talk to historian Jarvis Givens about his new book, “I’ll Make Me A World: The 100-Year Jour...
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January 31, 2026 • 17 mins
"Fighting crime" is often used as a justification for many of the Trump administration's policies — from mass deportations to its actions in Venezuela to its crackdown in Minnesota — despite the fact that crime is at a historic low, and has been falling for decades. We talk to Meg Anderson, NPR’s criminal justice correspondent, about how that taps into Americans' disproportionate fears about crime, and how that makes scenes like wh...
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January 28, 2026 • 28 mins
To the casual observer, it might seem like the U.S. has spent years in a constant state of protest — and they’re only getting more intense under the second Trump administration. So we’re revisiting our conversation with Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, the author of “A Protest History of the United States” about what forms of protest have worked in the past, and what lessons people can take from those protesters.
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January 24, 2026 • 17 mins
What does the humble, boring quarter-zip sweater have to do with respectability politics and Blackness? Apparently, a lot! When two young Black men on TikTok brought the quarter-zip into vogue for young folks, they unknowingly waded into some very long-lived discourse on Black fashion and looking "respectable." Today on the pod, we chop it up with Jonathan Square, professor of Black visual culture at Parsons School of Design, about...
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January 21, 2026 • 39 mins
Sanctuary policies have been described on both sides of the aisle as protecting immigrants. But in many ways, in practice, they have given rise to a specific kind of policing that gives ICE a much wider reach than it might otherwise have. We talk to anthropologist Peter Mancina, who is the author of a recent book, On the Side of Ice: Policing Immigrants in a Sanctuary State about his on-the-ground research embedding with police in...
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January 17, 2026 • 22 mins
In honor of MLK Day, we sit down with historian Nicholas Buccola, author of One Man’s Freedom, to re-examine the concept of "freedom" by comparing the legacies of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and conservative politician Barry Goldwater. In our conversation, Buccola reveals the profound gulf between Goldwater's abstract view of freedom and King's focus on the daily fight for dignity and individual liberty– and he helps us underst...
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January 14, 2026 • 33 mins
The U.S. ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is just the latest chapter in a long, troubling history of American intervention in Latin America. NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd brings us to the New York courthouse where President Maduro was indicted by the U.S. government. We also talk to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin, who explains how the modern concept of national sovereignty — a country’s ri...
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January 10, 2026 • 18 mins
2026 is off to an intense start, but many of the events we're seeing play out today come out of dynamics that have been building for years. Jelani Cobb, a journalist, historian, and the Dean of Columbia's journalism school, talks to us about his new book, Three of More is a Riot (Notes on How We Got Here: 2012-2025), which analyzes some of the major events of the United States' past decade and a half, and how they've set the ground...
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January 7, 2026 • 34 mins
Connecting across generations can be tough, even in the same family. This is at the heart of Amy Tan’s 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club. This week, we're bringing you an episode from NPR's Books We Loved series, where our very own B. A. Parker, along with Andrew Limbong and The Indicator’s Wailin Wong, discuss how miscommunication and misunderstandings between parents and their children continues to be a theme in stories of immigrant f...
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January 3, 2026 • 34 mins
Among the American public, support for Israel has fallen among almost every demographic group. But for many White Evangelical Christians over the age of 35, support has remained steadfast. And that support continues to be a major shaper of U.S. policy in the region. So today, in our final installment of the Code Switch History Class series, we're looking into the history and theology behind how White Evangelicals became so connecte...
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December 31, 2025 • 39 mins
A few years back, many politicians were raising the alarm about the dangers of "CRT" in schools. Today, the new risk to public education is "DEI." What do both of these moments have in common? They have all the elements of a moral panic. So in this installment of Code Switch History Class, we're looking at the history of moral panics in the U.S., and why they so often invoke fears about race and integration.
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December 27, 2025 • 18 mins
In 2018, in light of some pretty aggressive rhetoric and policies being enacted by the Trump administration, many people were asking a pretty direct question: Should ICE be abolished? Seven years later, amidst arguably even harsher policies and language, many are still asking that same question. So today, on the second installment in our Code Switch History Class series, we're taking a look at where ICE came from, and talking to an...
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December 24, 2025 • 40 mins
The fight over the soul of higher education is very alive right now, with the Trump administration engaged in dozens of investigations and multiple lawsuits against colleges and universities around the country. Billions of research dollars at those schools have been frozen, too. So today, in a special series called Code Switch History Class, we're looking back at another time of upheaval — a long, bloody strike at San Francisco Sta...
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December 20, 2025 • 17 mins
How do we keep family traditions alive? For some people, it's by speaking their heritage language, or learning how to cook family recipes. For Nicole Wong, it was through games — specifically, learning the ins and outs of Mahjong. Her research led her to start the Mahjong Project, and to write a book about what she was learning called Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora. So this week, we talk to Nicole about what it...
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December 17, 2025 • 38 mins
For months, the Trump administration has been making moves to dismantle the Department of Education — with mixed success. But when it comes to the fight over public education, some of the most significant dustups are happening on the local level, with school boards around the country. Today, we're looking at one of those fights, which played out in a rapidly changing suburb of Dallas called Southlake.
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December 13, 2025 • 15 mins
With AI image and video generators, it's become easier than ever to create hyper-realistic clips of almost anything. Today, we're looking at the landscape of AI influencers that depict Black people in various ways, from the mildly stereotypical to the ultra-demeaning. And we're talking to writer Zeba Blay about why she thinks these types of videos can erode the our society's ability to take the problems of IRL, human Black people s...
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