Trump's 2018 zero tolerance policy which separated immigrant children from their parents at the border with no plan for reuniting them shocked the American conscience. And even though he claimed to cease the practice within weeks, zero tolerance is rooted in American law that dates back 100 years and remains on the books today. It can easily happen again. 

Efrén Olivares was on the front lines defending immigrant families, and the work was personal. Efrén himself is an immigrant, and he joins us to talk about his incredible book, My Boy Will Die of Sorrow: A Memoir of Immigration From the Front Lines.  

"We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact, if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it."

—J.D. Vance, Republican Senator and Vice Presidential candidate 

In this mini episode, historian Peggy O'Donnell Heffington returns to talk about how women without children became a focal point of the 2024 presidential election.

As a Black woman growing up in England, Catherine Joy White sometimes felt out of place at home and also disconnected from the place of her Jamaican ancestors. Until she began connecting with the stories of remarkable but often forgotten Black woman from history.

Their stories helped her re-envision what beauty means, how silence can also be strength, and what courage looks like. Such fortitude, like a thread of gold, can connect all of us to the past, and point us toward a better future. 

Tara Boyce says parenting with hope is more complicated than she anticipated.

Ross Gay says joy is something like what we feel like when we help each other carry our sorrows.

As a silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans, Meghan O’Rourke calls for revolution.

A transgender scholar makes history writing about transgender history.

The word “heathen” has fallen out of use, but the racist ideas behind it persist in the White American imagination.

A Métis woman reflects on the violence enacted on the bodies and lands of Indigenous people, especially women, in the United States.

A philosopher and prospective father wonders if things in the world are hopeful enough to bring children into it.

A Black Christian writer discovers the sacredness of rage.

An immigrant falls back in love with her culture and yearns to pass it along to her children.

When fighting monsters, we risk becoming monstrous.

After Rachel Held Evans died, Jeff Chu was there to finish her final book.

Reading scripture from the margins can change everything.

Vanessa Zoltan wanted to know if her childhood favorite ‘Jane Eyre’ stands the test of time. What she found can breathe new life into our favorite books.

Alex Zamalin shows how civility has been used to perpetuate oppression in the United States.

Ayala Fader examines the lives of hidden heretics within ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

Anna Sale knows how to talk about hard things like death, sex, money, family, and identity.

Taylor Petrey traces the development of doctrine about gender and sexuality within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.