Not Really Strangers

What Does it Mean to be a Stranger?

• USA for UNHCR • Season 2 • Episode 9

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In this special episode, host Suzanne Ehlers revisits one of Not Really Strangers' most enduring questions: what does the word stranger mean to you? Drawing from each conversation across the past two seasons, you will hear a collage-style episode featuring artists, advocates, business leaders, and more — each of them a refugee, the child of a refugee, or someone who has felt called to work alongside refugees. Together, their voices explore how the idea of a stranger shapes the way we move through the world, and what becomes possible when we choose to close that distance.


If this episode sparked something for you, we invite you to go back and listen to the full conversations from both seasons. Then, if you want to be part of building a world where we aren't really strangers, please consider making a donation to USA for UNHCR at www.unrefugees.org. Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, taking a few minutes to leave a review helps these conversations reach more listeners — and that matters more than you might think.



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SPEAKER_05

What does the word stranger mean to you? Frequent listeners will know in every episode, I ask my guest that very question. I want to know how they think about what it means to be a stranger through the lens of their life experiences, the work that they do, this moment in the world. Well, today I'm sharing a roundup of responses to that question from across two seasons of Not Really Strangers, a kind of collage-style meditation on what it means to be a stranger and why it matters. We hear from artists, advocates, business leaders, and so many others. Each guest is either a refugee themselves, is the child of refugees, or is someone who has simply felt called to advocate for and work alongside refugees. I don't want to say too much because I want you to experience the wisdom my guests have shared without my editorializing. But I invite you to listen for themes and for nuances. See what people's answers bring up for you and whether they shift your own thinking about what it means to be a stranger in this world. We'll hear first from LA Restaurateur Lin Ta.

SPEAKER_13

I mean, a stranger is an opportunity, I think, to explore your own curiosity, to expand what you think you know. For me, a metrics, a metric of success is if I can somehow blur the boundaries just for a moment between me and a stranger so that they may sort of take that, I guess, feeling and pay it forward to someone else. Um, because like I said, I and many young children go through this, but I think for me, it was especially sort of apparent or vulnerable to be the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and to be in a predominantly white and black school and to just so be so different and to be so like unapproached, to be strangered for longer periods of time, it really made me want to never make other people feel that way.

SPEAKER_05

Nonprofit leader, Susanna Pollack.

SPEAKER_10

I'm such a people person as at heart, that for me, the idea of a stranger is really about potential. Like a stranger to me is simply someone whose story I haven't heard yet. Yeah, yeah. Right? So the moment like I feel like in such a you know polarized world, but if we can move from the moment we could shift assumption to curiosity, then something changes. Um and it can happen in the simplest of ways, right? You when you ask somebody, you know, where they're from, what shaped them, what they care about, like this category of unknown person dissolves and a human being appear appears.

SPEAKER_05

Refugee advocate and refugee Nabine Damal.

SPEAKER_12

For me, um I think stranger means misunderstood. Uh sometimes it could also mean excluded, unknown. So in in Nepal, you know, we weren't accepted as Nepalese because we, again, my family had lived many, many, many generations in Bhutan. I have never been to Bhutan. I don't know anything about Bhutan. Um I lived in Nepal, but I don't know anything about Nepal in that context. Like in a such a beautiful country, people ask me about Mount Everest. You know, I lived in a refugee camp and have not really seen Hamandu and Pokhara and other beautiful places that Nepal has. And I've been here in the States and yet I don't feel American. I'm a US naturalized citizen. So it's, I just carry this stranger. Um, you know, I think again, it I I would just say it's for me, it's just sometimes being misunderstood and misjudged. And but I do think we have the ability to change that, such as with this podcast, not really strangers, you know, when we say, hey, tell me your story. Where are you from and what is your story? And I think that helps us connect and break that that silo of like, you know, how do we connect and how do we build that community?

SPEAKER_05

Marketer, podcast host, and community builder, Miriam Baddy Caram.

SPEAKER_08

I I think stranger is just an opportunity to make a friend. You know, I look, look, I think we have 8.5 million people who live here. There's eight of every single kind of person. That's partly, I think, why I love New York so much. The energy, the diversity. I love the subway. I love the energy of the subway. I think the best people watching, the best um fashion spotting, trend spotting happens on the subway. And I think, you know, it's an attitude. You can look at a stranger and see somebody who's another, or you can see a stranger and think, wow, that person has an interesting story to share. And it's an opportunity to connect.

SPEAKER_05

Philanthropic leader and disruptor Ada Williams Prince.

SPEAKER_09

I was drawn to the idea of my ancestors being forced to be forced into leaving a home or a place that was not their own into slavery. And it's a connection that I feel deeply rooted in my work to bridge culture and connection. But then later, I was working in international development and I got an opportunity to work in South and Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami as an emergency program manager with Save the Children UK. And that proved to me a lot more about our shared connections. I met a driver in Aceh, Indonesia, and uh, you know, we were working together. And he, when I first met him, he looked deep into my eyes and he was like, I am so sorry for your people. I was shocked. I was shocked. And I said, What do you mean? I mean, he had just lost everything, like 16 members of his like immediate and close family. And he he said, you know, for New Orleans, what happened to your people? Well, like, I mean, that just broke me, right? Like, how could he from across the world understand and see a connection in what happened in Hurricane Katrina? Um, and of course, I have family there, and so it was really difficult. Um, but that kind of compassion across oceans was just really heavy and deep.

SPEAKER_05

Physician, Dr. Suzanne Barakat.

SPEAKER_03

There has been this shouldered burden and responsibility as Muslims in this country to represent, you know, the second largest faith in the world. And it's exhausting when you're only ever seen in the lens of a national security threat. In my mind, you know, growing up, it was always be kind, smile, you know, turn them from strangers to friends with your warmth, with your compassion. I was a medical student rotating all throughout, you know, the small pockets of North Carolina, even rural parts. And there would be patients who would refuse to shake my hand, um, who would refuse my care altogether because I wore a hijab and I was visibly Muslim. And it was like this challenge to bring them to the other side and help them see who you really are. And and instead it was the exhausting, like, oh, you're the exception and not the norm, when actually I was quite the ordinary Muslim American. And it was just this exhausting burden.

SPEAKER_05

Professor and refugee twai and go.

SPEAKER_17

I think as a former refugee and as an immigrant, I often felt like a stranger. In this country still, I feel like a stranger. In academia, I feel like a stranger because I don't really subscribe to just science for the sake of doing science, but really to serve community, to take action and to really kind of um come up with a solution with the community that we meant to serve. And in many ways, sometimes I feel like a stranger when I'm in Vietnam, you know. So, but I've come to see strangeness not as in isolation, but as possibility, if you will. Um, a stranger to me is simply someone whose story you haven't heard yet. My belief is that when you share those stories, you can dissolve distance. And strangeness itself can actually be a gift. And it spark curiosity, it's bringing new perspective. And for me as a scientist, curiosity and new perspective is often when the most important discovery are made of.

SPEAKER_06

But, you know, you forget sometimes about everything going on out there, and you can get kind of myoplically focused in your day-to-day details. I think that's, you know, a danger. Um, because then you're not, you're not actively participating in the bigger, the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_05

Corporate executive and board member here at USA for UNHCR, Colin Brown.

SPEAKER_14

It's about the the everyday people whose lives are ripped apart by displacement. Uh, you know, it is about the parents, the nurses, the kids, the teachers, the, you know, the the fathers, the mothers. You know, it's it's the fact that this impacts so many people. Uh that, you know, and and therefore the grace of God goes, I, you know, it could just so easily be me. It could be my family, it could be my kids. And and at the end of the day, you know, to me, that's what it kind of means. We're not really strangers. You know, we we may choose not to necessarily acknowledge that, but uh, yeah, we're not really strangers.

SPEAKER_05

Dancer and stateless refugee, Ahmed Jude.

SPEAKER_16

But I see nowadays, like a lot of people say, refugees are strangers. No. Today I am the refugee. Tomorrow it might be you. So let's be nice to each other. We are looking at a world that's making countries fall every single day. So that provides a lot of refugees, right? If we keep considering each other strangers, how can we help each other?

SPEAKER_05

Actor, producer, and director Kat Graham, a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

SPEAKER_15

I've met so many people that I don't speak the same language of, and we're laughing over something five minutes later, and we don't speak the same language. And I think if people started to understand that boundaries limit you and keep really beautiful experiences away, and started to learn more about a shared world where people started to really understand that the lack of wheat in Sudan that the farmers have been directly impacted because of the war in Ukraine, and they actually witness these kinds of trickles in real time, then it's not just some karmic idea of what goes around comes around, but an actual true understanding that what happens in one side of the world really genuinely does affect nonprofit leader Gina Kraus-Famar.

SPEAKER_07

I used to work for an organization called Highs, and their subtext is welcome the stranger because it's um it's a Jewish organization and that's such a strong part of the Jewish faith. Um, so for me, in that context, stranger means somebody who is new to a place and who might look and feel and act differently than I do, but at the end of the day, has no is no less entitled to um dignity and respect.

SPEAKER_05

Human rights lawyer and professor Malika Sara Saar.

SPEAKER_02

I think I'm always operating in spaces where I'm I'm seen for whatever different reasons as stranger and and create connection against that um perception. Yeah. Um but I I also like it was something that is very that I remember distinctly for some reason. I've held this for decades as a as a like critical memory. I remember being um on the metro and um seeing this elder woman um and she um she had a Jewish star necklace and um that's something like in her 70s. And she looked like my grandmother. I mean, she so much of her was just my my grandmother's height and feel. Um and so I looked at her with this total sense of like connection and familiarity, and I I think I might have even smiled at her, and she just looked back at me with discomfort. Like, who do you think you are looking at me, smiling at me? Um, and and it was just one of those moments of like, wow, you you have no idea how I am actually connected to you. And also the sadness of feeling that the connection is in one direction and that there's not that she wasn't even entertaining on any level that the connection could be in the other.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but I think we all know that, right? Like, and and certainly when we come from um outsider communities, whatever those outsider communities are, we so often have an intimacy with the insider community. Yeah, but the reverse isn't true.

SPEAKER_08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I think so much of the work is challenging that asymmetry.

SPEAKER_05

Lawyer, advocate, and refugee Monica Maleth.

SPEAKER_01

Being strangers to almost everything, being strange, everything feeling strange to us is how we fail to create impact. So I'll say, let's be intentional with knowing that anything can be strange to you, but then being strange to you or anyone being stranger to you doesn't mean you can't get connected.

SPEAKER_05

Architected refugee, Krista Reeves.

SPEAKER_18

For me, being a stranger is not connected to being a refugee or anything like it. Um you stop being a stranger when you create a circle of people that is around you and that people get to know you.

SPEAKER_05

Restaurant manager and refugee Georgie Tabukashvili.

SPEAKER_11

I've been a stranger a long time. But honestly, I don't feel like stranger anymore and not here and anywhere. Because like we all are strangers, but we all we are strangers even for ourselves. So that's so but when I'm when I started to try and understand dead people and myself as well in that moment, I understand that there's no strangers. We all have like a same feeling, same hope, same fear, same needs. Uh we all have to pay bills and we all have to be happy, or we all want to be a happy. So that's that's I mean, I'm not stranger anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11

And I'm trying to give the people understand that there's no any strangers.

SPEAKER_04

Musician Tao Nguyen. What I love about it and what I love about performing is the invitation that we have to be in communion with one another. And in truth, we don't know each other, but in truth we do. I think we underutilize what we can be to each other as strangers.

SPEAKER_05

Hi, Suzanne here with one final reflection. When I was growing up, I was often told, you know, don't talk to strangers. But as I've helped my two daughters navigate the world, I've often wondered whether or not there's a reframing I can do to that counsel. I want them always aware of their surroundings. I want them always vigilant about their own safety and autonomy. But the truth is, not talking to strangers is really not the point. It's more about figuring out how to engage in the world in a way that keeps you safe, but also allows you the opportunity to be exposed to new people and to new ideas, and to not discount them because they're not what you're accustomed to or not what you were expecting to see in a certain place. As so many of my guests have reflected, the notion of a stranger often does more harm than good. But the good news is it's often easier than we imagine to go from seeing someone as a stranger to recognizing them as a fellow human being. I hope this episode has left you with some food for thought. And if you want to be a part of creating a world where we aren't really strangers, please consider making a donation to USA for UNHCR, the organization that produces this podcast and where I serve as CEO. Your support helps get much needed relief to people who've been forced to flee their homes. And it's a powerful way to let them know that you see the link between their humanity and yours. Before I go, I also want to offer a big thank you to Tao Nguyen, the musician that you heard from earlier. Tao graciously allows us to use an excerpt of her song, We the Common, as the not really strangers theme music. Go check out her portfolio. It's wonderful music. Finally, if you appreciated this episode, it would mean so much if you'd take a few minutes to leave a review. Help us spread these conversations that demonstrate in our global community the distance between us is often so much shorter than we think. Thanks for listening, and don't be a stranger.