America Together: Celebrating Diversity Podcast

This Hispanic Heritage Month we recognize Juan Felipe Herrera. He is the 21st US Poet Laureate and the first Mexican American to hold that honor.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might recognize the name Joan Baez, folk singer and rock and roll hall of famer, but did you know her father was a scientist who helped develop technology to detect black holes in deep space? Born in Mexico in 1912, Albert Baez grew up in Brooklyn, NY eventually studying mathematics and physics at Drew University and Syracuse University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NASA astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa broke the glass ceiling in a huge way. Blasting through the stratosphere in 1993 becoming the first Hispanic American woman in space.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Ty Herndon is one of country music's most engaged activists. He's, he's been knocking out hits for over 20 years. He's still writing music, but he's also working with teens and families to help raise awareness and offer support to members of the LGBTQ plus community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian Yenis interviewed Georgia state Senator Kim Jackson, who is also an Episcopal priest. Kim Jackson represents not only a historic shift in Georgia's politics. Her life story teaches us all something about grace, servant leadership and courage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leslie Jordan has been having a banner year with a new book, a new gospel album and a new show all while owning who he is a sober gay Christian man. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grammy award-winning musician, and one of America's most renowned choral conductors. Greg hella Johnson is one of America's most renowned choral conductors, a Grammy award-winning musician with an uncanny ability to make many voices sound like one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Colorado governor Jared Polis sits down with Fox News to share his experience as America's first, openly gay governor Polis touching on his personal life, including being a same-sex parent and giving us a tour of the governor's mansion.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Haing Ngor survived the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime, smuggling his niece to safety in 1979, he then revisited the horror five years later in a movie role, that made him the first asian man to win an Academy Award for best supporting actor.   Ngor was born in Cambodia in 1940. When the Khmer Rouge began the Cambodian genocide in the late 70s, Ngor's status as a doctor put him at serious risk. He had to watch his wife die in childbirth in a concentration camp because revealing his skills could have meant the death of his whole family. Ngor and his orphaned niece escaped to a Thai refugee camp, then emigrated to the U.S.   It was there that a casting director, working on a film about the tragedy, discovered Ngor, who was hesitant at first. He had no previous acting experience, and the process would take him back to Thailand in the role of a Cambodian journalist who survived a similar ordeal to his own. For his part in 1984's  "The Killing Fields" Haing Ngor won the Oscar for best supporting actor - the first and still only Asian man to win that award.   Ngor dedicated the rest of his life to raising awareness of the horrors he and others had survived and advocating for South Asian refugees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American space pioneer who tragically died in 2003  when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry.   Born in Karnal, India in 1962, Chawla earned an engineering degree before emigrating to the United States. She received a PHD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado in 1988,  went to work at NASA’s, Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.   Once she became a naturalized U.S. citizen, Chawla applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps, and was selected a few years later. On November 19, 1997, Kalpana Chawla made history as the first woman of Indian origin to rocket into space. Chawla was main operator for Columbia’s robotic arm using it to release and recapture a satellite.   Chawla has been remembered and honored in the years since the 2003 tragedy as an inspiration to young women worldwide. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices