Pod Insights The Moth American Dreams: Home - The Moth Podcast About this episode As America approaches it's 250th anniversary, we're dedicating our Spring Mainstage season, as well as a special three episode podcast and radio series, to exploring the American dream. Our first episode looked at American Icons, but today, we’re going to look at the concept of Home.
We’ve got two stories about how people make a home for themselves in America, how, in their own pursuits of happiness, people create space for themselves, how people live in America, even when it’s difficult.
This episode was hosted by Kate Tellers.
Storytellers:
Heather Crawford has to leave her home state of Texas in order to give her child the best possible life.
Eric Yu learns more about his father through visiting his family in China.
Transcript 0:03 Speaker 00 Welcome to The Moth. I'm Kate Tellers. 342 million people call America home. That's 342 million stories, 342 million perspectives, 342 million definitions of the American dream. The Moth is dedicating our spring mainstage season, as well as a special three-episode podcast and radio series, to exploring the American dream. Our first episode looked at American icons, but today, we're going to look at the concept of home. We've got two stories about how people make a home for themselves in America, how in their own pursuits of happiness, people create space for themselves, and how people live in America, even when it's difficult. Our first story is from Heather Crawford, who told us at a Twin Cities Story Slam,
0:48 Speaker 00 where the theme, appropriately enough, was home. Here's Heather, live at The Moth.
0:58 Speaker 01 My name is Heather Crawford, and I am a Texan. And I realize introducing it that way makes it sound kind of like I'm introducing myself at an AA meeting. But that's really not an inappropriate metaphor for how Texans feel about the state of Texas. We are firmly convinced of our state's superiority in every way, and we will fight you for it. But I am now a Minnesotan. My family and I, we moved to St. Paul in August of 2022 because, as it turns out, my Texan child is transgender. Yeah. And I don't know if any of y'all are following what Texas is doing to its transgender children, but I'd like mine to stay alive.
1:41 Speaker 01 So, after a lot of research and trying to figure out where we could go, we ended up here.
1:53 Speaker 01 And there is so much I love about Minnesota that I was completely taken by surprise by. I, in all legitimately, in all honesty, love the winter. Like, last year was like, oh my god, I'd never shut up about it, it was so good. I love the Mall of America.
2:16 Speaker 01 I am endlessly fascinated by the Skyway downtown. It's just, there is so much here that I love. And I have tried for the last 15 months to stop loving Texas and I cannot.
2:33 Speaker 01 When we moved here, the house that we bought in St. Paul, we bought it sight unseen because I'm stupid and I make bad choices.
2:41 Speaker 01 And it's, it's, the first time I saw it was 30 minutes after I closed on it. And it's beautiful, it was built in 1924, so it's 99 years old. It has so much character and charm, it's lovely, it's, it's so cool. And it's collapsing. Which we didn't find out about until about two months ago. We realized that there's a very uneven part of the floor in our master bedroom and so we had someone come out and look at it. He was like, "Yeah, your beams are all gonna fall down, like in the next two years." Super news. So... I feel like that house is a pretty good metaphor for who I am personally.
3:23 Speaker 01 Because I look okay on the outside, like I'm standing up and, and that's all fine. But I am constantly, every single day, I wake up furious that I am here.
3:37 Speaker 01 And I cannot be furious because my job is to keep that 17-year-old of mine alive. And to help them understand that we made the best decision that we could for them. This has been an unspeakably difficult year for them, making this transition.
3:58 Speaker 01 We left behind everything they'd ever known, their entire family is there. The only schools they'd ever gone to were there, all of their friends, everything. And I don't really have the words to explain what it feels like to look into your child's face and tell them that they have to move. Because the only home they've ever known wants to eradicate them.
4:22 Speaker 01 And there were about four months between when my husband and I made the decision and we actually moved. And in those four months, my kid had a panic attack severe enough that I had to give them Klonopin about twice a day. And, and there's, there's just, there's no answer to the question, "Why is this happening?" And I heard that over and over again, "Why is this happening? Why is this happening?" But I have to act like this is a good thing that we're here. And, and don't get me wrong, it is a good thing that we are here. I am grateful every single day that we were able to get out of Texas because there are a lot of trans children who can't.
5:05 Speaker 01 And I'll, I'll tell y'all, be proud of your state because it is unbelievably, exponentially easier to raise a trans child here than it is anywhere else. Like, Minnesota is as good as it gets. I am, I'm thrilled that we are here. But every day, I think about what I left behind and what I miss. And I miss the summer in Texas, which is just as silly as saying I love the winter in Minnesota. But I do, I miss cicadas, these great big tree bugs that make horrible noises that you can't think when they're screaming. But I miss the sound of cicadas. I miss sitting on the driveway at midnight with a beer in my hand and the temperature
5:50 Speaker 01 differential between the beer and the air is so great that the label is falling off the bottle. We don't have fire pits in Texas. We don't have fire places in Texas. What we do is sit on the driveway at midnight and drink beer. And you can feel the heat that the concrete has soaked up all day, releasing and burning the backs of your thighs. And that's where we have these slow, deep, thought-provoking questions. And that is, I miss everything about that. I resent the fuck out of Texas. I hate Texas. I love Texas. And I want to go home.
6:42 Speaker 00 That was Heather Crawford. Heather is a writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She still loves the snow. We asked Heather how she and Cass were doing now. Here's what she said. Cass is doing so much better these days. They finished high school last June, and once they graduated, they have really found their footing and are starting to blossom in the ways that every parent hopes to see when their babies grow up. They have their own apartment and a job that they love. They're doing really well, and for that I am so grateful. We also asked Heather about the idea of home and how that's been. Quote, "It's a peculiar thing, being a Texan. It never really stops. I've been back several times each year since we moved, and every time I have to leave it, it breaks my heart a little more.
7:26 Speaker 00 By every metric, Minnesota is a better quality of life, and I do love it here. But if anyone denigrates Texas in front of me, I still want to fight them. I can talk shit about Texas, but no outsider better even consider it. Texas betrayed me in such a fundamental way that I don't believe I will ever live there again. But I will never stop mourning for my first home, no matter how much I love my new one." I hear that, Heather. At The Moth, we're really proud to be able to shine a light on some of the vastness of the American experience, to share some of the stories of the multitude of people calling America home, and on all the people dreaming their own American dreams. We're not only sharing these on our podcast, but in cities all over the country.
8:10 Speaker 00 For a show near you, check out our website at themoth.org mainstage. After the break, a story about going somewhere else to find a bit of yourself. Back in a moment. Welcome back. Our next story is from Eric Yu, who told this at a Philadelphia Grand Slam, where the theme was "Making Waves." Here's Eric, live at The Moth.
8:39 Speaker 02 I was 16 when I discovered I had a cousin. I was flipping through an old photo album and I said, "Mom, who is that?" She goes, "Oh, you don't know? That's your cousin on your dad's side." "No, I don't know, Mom. You never told me about him." "Who's that sitting next to him?" And in that moment, I discovered I had not one, but two cousins on my dad's side, and they lived in China. It felt like someone handed me just two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and they were like, "Oh, did you want the rest? It's across the Atlantic Ocean." And I hadn't been back to China in years, but after this revelation, I knew I would have to cross that ocean. But I was already working on a puzzle: my father.
9:23 Speaker 02 I was born and raised in Westchester, Pennsylvania, with my sister and my mother. And for most of my life, my dad was always away, working in China to support us. I'd see him maybe once a year when he'd come visit us, and through a child's eyes, he was this elusive figure that would show up every once in a while, yell at me to finish my dinner, obliterate me at ping pong, and then disappear. Honestly, his absence was familiar to me. But it did take its toll on my parents' relationship, and by the time I started high school, he moved to the US in an effort to save the marriage. And while he was ultimately unsuccessful, and they got a divorce,
10:04 Speaker 02 this was the start, the real start, of our father-son relationship. I think he wanted to make up for lost time, and so he did all of the dad things. He would drop me off at school. We'd go out to eat together. We'd go on trips. He'd take so, so many pictures. He'd obliterate me in ping pong, still. And along the way, I started piecing together who this guy was. He loved to sing. He had this rich, operatic voice. He played basketball when he was younger. He had this jump shot that started from the side of his head, like that. He valued hard work. He was tough on me. And he never said as much.
10:47 Speaker 02 East Asian immigrants generally don't like to talk about their feelings. But I think he regretted not being around more when I was growing up. Fast forward a few years, it's in October morning, my senior year of high school. I'm very excited. That night, my dad's taking me to my favorite restaurant, Outback Steakhouse. And at the end of the school day, I get called to the principal's office. This has never happened to me before. I walk in, it's my principal, the guidance counselor, and my history teacher. They sit me down and they say, "Eric, your dad was involved in a car accident this morning, and I'm sorry to say that it took his life."
11:30 Speaker 02 Right as I was putting this picture of him together, someone lit the pieces on fire. Last year, my sister and I crossed that ocean and took our trip to China. It was my first time back in over eighteen years. I met my cousin, Feng Xiaorui. He's loud and warm. He challenged me to an arm wrestle within the first twenty minutes of meeting him. I beat him. I also met his wife and their adorable five-year-old daughter. I met my other cousin, Feng Yujie, his very pregnant wife, and he was softer,
12:12 Speaker 02 full of questions about me, and had the kindest eyes behind his glasses. Here were the people that I had only ever known of. Suddenly, in front of me, handing me a beer with lives that stretched so far past the edges of that picture I had seen all those years ago. I'll never forget that first night, we had dinner together as a family. The room was full of laughter and the spiciest, most delicious home-cooked meal. After we ate, my aunt took me to the closet and had me bring out this big suitcase packed with old photo albums of them and my dad, when he was a kid, a teenager and young adult.
12:57 Speaker 02 And as I flipped through the pages, they shared stories about how he was so charismatic. He was an extremely hard worker and a great student. They told me, "Zong richu dao bili lu, ta zong zi da chang ge." From sunrise to sunset, he never stopped singing.
13:26 Speaker 02 Here were the pieces I thought I had lost, not just in the photo albums, but there in the room. I saw him in the glint in my aunt's eyes when she made a sarcastic joke. I heard him in the sound of my uncle's voice when he was speaking, and especially when he was singing. And I realized there were never separate puzzles to assemble. It's always been one big picture, one that existed before me, one that's growing, and one that I'm grateful to fit into. Thank you.
14:05 Speaker 00 That was Eric Yu. Eric was born and raised in the Philadelphia area, where he currently works and resides. He's always loved performing in front of a crowd and is happy he got to both compete in The Moth and hear everyone else's incredible stories. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks so much for joining us. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope, wherever you call home, you have a story-worthy week.
14:43 Speaker 03 Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, senior director at The Moth, and co-author of their fourth book, How to Tell a Story. Her writing has been featured in McSweeney's and The New Yorker. Eric Yu's story was coached by Kate Tellers. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Kluchay, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardenale, Caledonia Cairns, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia Uranya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers.
15:27 Speaker 03 For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
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