Imported Baggage: Recent Episodes
Nadia Zareen and Cedric Joseph
Imported Baggage is all about what makes us who we are. Parents, school, friends, religion, and culture all are factors when we decide our careers, our life partners, even down to the details of food and clothing. What did we choose for ourselves? What did we learn from our parents? What is from American culture? What is from the culture of our parents’ homeland?
We can’t navigate these questions without love and support. Join a conversation with two people who have been friends for almost 30 years. Nadia Zareen and Cedric Joseph have stood by each other through so many trials and successes because of their friendship and strength.
So come join us as we laugh our way through the myriad of events that made us who we are.
Is there only one way to have faith? Listen to two best friends hash out the differences between faith and religion. Nadia makes her argument about how she’s perfectly comfortable risking her own soul for her belief system. Can you say the same?
National pastimes, like sports, provide a means for immigrants to relate to their new countrymen quickly. Nadia’s father’s enjoyment of football led her to become a lifelong NFL fan with an unrelenting affection for the Chicago Bears. How does a Pakistani woman navigate her love of football, her culture, and dating all at the same time? Listen to the hilarity that ensues when two lifelong friends discuss the #gridiron. (Recorded May 2021)
Happy wife, happy life, right? At least that’s how the saying goes. Would you be surprised to learn that while the Quran allows for up to 4 wives, it also states that you have to be equitable between them and you’ll most likely mess it up? Listen to the discussion after Nadia reads her summarized verses from the Quran. We think you’ll be surprised.
Khadijah: The First Muslim Was A Woman
Did you know Prophet Muhammad’s first wife was 20 years older than him, divorced, and a small business owner? Her name was Khadijah and she is the first Muslim because she is the first person to believe her husband. Why is she absent from the Quran? How could having her as an example earlier help shape the lives of millions of Muslim women? When Nadia’s family was ripped apart by divorce, even the truth about the prophet’s first wife could not stop the fall out. When the community judges you for starting a business, ending a bad marriage and educating your daughters, what are you supposed to do? Hear what we did.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could read an entire book, not understand a word of it, and still get credit for reading it? Sometimes meeting a religious requirement is exactly that. Nadia describes her childhood experiences with reading the Quran in Arabic, then English, while navigating being a teenager in Miami, Florida.
It’s not possible that God doesn’t like dogs, is it? Listen to this funny but true tale of how one girl’s dream to have a pet becomes an inter-generational struggle through religion, culture and tradition.