For this Independence Day:

Alexandra Petri, humorist and columnist for the Washington Post and the author of Alexandra Petri's US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) (W. W. Norton & Company, 2023), talks about our actual history, what we should have learned from it, and her spoof of it in her new book.

Andy Read, professor of marine biology and the director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, talks about why so many beached whales are turning up on the New York and New Jersey coastlines, and why claims from some groups that surveying for wind farms is causing the deaths are untrue.

Julia Lee, Korean American writer, scholar, and teacher and the author of Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America (Henry Holt and Co., 2023), shares her story of racial identity, ally-ship and finding her way while growing up in L.A. as a daughter of Korean American storekeepers at the time of the 1992 riots.

Through her own story and those of asylum-seekers, wrongfully convicted inmates, and others, Dina Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee and her latest, Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough (Catapult, 2023), examines whose stories are accepted and whose are rejected when the story you tell can determine your fate.

Ilan Stavans, publisher of Restless Books and the editor of the anthology The People's Tongue: Americans and the English Language (Restless Books, 2023), talks about the many sources of American English, from Sojourner Truth to Bob Dylan and more.

These interviews have been edited slightly for rebroadcast; the original versions are available here:

Having Fun US History (April 12, 2023)

Why Whales Are Dying in NY and NJ (May 23, 2023)

Julia Lee's Memoir/Manifesto of Being Asian in Black & White America (April 25, 2023)

'Who Gets Believed': Stories of Asylum-Seekers and Others (March 7, 2023)

The Many Creators of American English (Feb 17, 2023)