Margaret Cho grew up watching Joan Rivers perform standup on TV. When Margaret became a comic herself, Joan supported her with words, actions, and jokes.

In a family filled with strong women, the spirit, wisdom and love of Tia Mowry’s grandmother endures.

When Fawzia Mirza was 18, her mom enlisted her to smuggle her mom’s favorite fruit, Pakistani mangoes, from Canada to the US. Now, as a queer Muslim fimmaker, she still values the mango as a way they still connect.

Any successful partnership—business, romantic, or creative—starts with a meaningful connection between 2 people. Partners is a podcast about the people whose journey together led to the creation of something extraordinary.

Cultural constraints kept Alexander Chee’s grandmother from pursuing Chinese Calligraphy until late in life. Alex created the Yi Dae Up Fellowship in her name to help give women writers of Asian descent the chance she didn’t get.

When Franklin Leonard found himself out of his big-wig Hollywood job, he wanted to mope. His mentor, the legendary Hollywood attorney Nina Shaw, wasn’t having it.

The late actor Michael K. Williams and Aunjanue Ellis’s grandmother had one thing in common: neither needed words to tell Aunjanue how to follow her calling and be her truest self with confidence.

Zohran Mamdani’s college road trip through East Africa with his dad and uncle was a blissful tour of his heritage. Then he got his report card back.

When Sasheer Zamata enrolled at her university, she didn’t know where she was headed. A staging of a play by the school’s brand-new theater professor helped her find her purpose, her identity, and the confidence to try anything.

At 15, all Melissa Proctor wanted was a job at the local mall. Instead, advice from her mother helped her make history as the Miami Heat’s first ball girl.