Culture

Higher education has become one of the culture war’s key battlegrounds, where opinions clash on free speech, affirmative action and other issues.

WUNC Youth Reporter Donna Diaz is a second-generation Honduran American. During the summer of 2022, she traveled to Honduras for the first time where she connected with the family she had never met before.

As a child of two immigrants, Anita has a tumultuous relationship with the question: "Where are you from?" So, too, do many third culture kids — people who spend a significant number of their developmental years living in places that are not their parents' homelands. She talks with two third culture kids — one 35 and one 12 — and their moms about growing up between cultures and how they’ve built identity and relationships along the way.

Fandoms have got a lot of media attention for their toxicity. But there’s a big flip side — one that describes the mental health and community benefits of being a fan.

Guest host Anisa Khalifa first became a fan in high school. She gets an explanation from a psychologist about how being in fandoms benefits mental health, and a journalist describes what role the internet has played in shaping fan culture. Plus, Anisa invites the co-hosts of her K-drama podcast to reflect on how fandom brought them together — and what it means to be a fan.

The 8th annual Beats n Bars festival will be hosted at the American Tobacco Campus on Saturday, April 28 from 4 to 9 p.m. WUNC’s Kamaya Truitt sat down with event founder and curator, Crystal Taylor, to discuss the elements and impact of the festival.

In 2022, North Carolinians sought out entertainment close to home, pondered career moves, worked on their relationships, and considered adding new skills — like Braille and Cherokee language — to their personal toolkits.

For this summer’s Youth Reporting Institute, reporter Nassibah Bedreddine took a look at how intolerance has facilitated not only cultural assimilation but also cultural loss. She dug into her Algerian family’s history and documented how they are working to preserve their culture.

Was bluegrass born in a western North Carolina radio station in the late 1930s?

This summer, WUNC’s 2021 Youth Reporters turned on their mics and collected powerful stories from their communities. Kiana McKnight, from Greensboro, navigated through her community’s relationship with faith and mental health.