This American Life Podcast “The Out Crowd” Notes

The Parts of the podcast that stood out the most:

  • There are thousands of people by the Mexican and The United States border living in a camp.
  • A family of 3 (a husband, wife, and their daughter) were kidnapped for 15 days in a city called Reynosa, Mexico. The wife was sexually assaulted by a guy who is involved with a drug cartel.
  • A woman from the camp asked a nurse named Helen Perry if they would be bringing condoms, so that the woman can ask her attacker to wear a condom to not get pregnant.
  • People living in the refugee camp are living in uncomfortable conditions. No one is keeping track of who entering and leaving the camp.
  • An asylum officer’s job is seek out the people who don’t really need help which means that people are trying to get a gain over the system.
  • One asylum officer’s story had said that the committing of frauds usually on a regular basis. The primary targets aren’t the one usually committing the frauds.
  • The primary targets are the Central Americans and the Middle Eastern people. The people committing the frauds are the Chinese and the Indian people.
  • The Chinese and the Indians have the same stories of them getting harmed with hockey sticks due to being a part of a seek party. If they were to speak against the party, the police told them they would be jailed.
  • A Honduran father and his son were fleeing Honduras to Mexico due to violence. Him and his son were being assaulted in Mexico by the police and the cartels. The Honduran father didn’t have any evidence to prove that he was assaulted due to his nationality and was sent to Mexico based on policy from MPP.

I think This American Life still takes the time for the participants to speak in Spanish before interpreting their words into English, knowing the majority of the listeners don’t speak Spanish because the listeners might want to hear how emotional the participants sound when talking about their experiences, so that the listeners can empathize with the participants on their issues. I think this podcast won the first ever Pulitzer Prize because the stories about the participant’s asylum process was extremely terrible for them and no one seems to be speaking on this particular of immigration.

Grade: 3.9/5

One thought on “This American Life Podcast “The Out Crowd” Notes

  1. Nomar, thanks for sharing about the parts of this podcast that resonated with you. I agree with you on this point: “I think This American Life still takes the time for the participants to speak in Spanish before interpreting their words into English, knowing the majority of the listeners don’t speak Spanish because the listeners might want to hear how emotional the participants sound when talking about their experiences, so that the listeners can empathize with the participants on their issues.” Although the listener may not understand the words the speaker is saying, the nonverbal part of the speaker’s message is clear and offers something that a secondhand account could not. Please remember to include quotes and questions in each post (see https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/communicationmigration/?page_id=2)

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