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I am super excited to welcome you to the start of season four. I hope you have been enjoying our look back at some of the older episodes. I know I have because it has been very cool to see how far the show has come.
As we kicked off the season, one of the things that I wanted to do in the spirit of looking back was revisit with one of my old guests. If you have listened to the first podcast episode, you already know, that season one started with Dana Saxon. Dana is a long-time contributor of The Black Expat. Not only was she in the first episode, she has written some incredible memorial pieces for us such as Dating Without Compromise and The Paradox of Privilege. She even participated in our web series, the Journey, when she was still living in the Netherlands.
Dana is someone that I’ve known for a long time. I was introduced to her from another third culture kid slash expat. I have met and hung out with her in person, which I can’t say for all the wonderful people I’ve met globally who are in this space.
When we recorded her first episode, she had just moved from the Netherlands to the UK and this was in the middle of 2020 with everything going on at the height of the pandemic, the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and everything that was swirling around that. In the middle of all that chaos, somehow Dana decided to move to a new country.
In that original episode, she was still finding her way around Bristol in the midst of the Covid lockdowns. She was also trying to figure out what community looked like, which was albeit difficult when everything was essentially closed. We also discussed Ancestors unKnown, her social enterprise platform that introduces students to their family histories and untold stories.
In this episode, we pick up where we left off. I wanted to revisit with her to know what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, you know, what’s going on with her. For you as an audience, you get to hear all the unfiltered parts of that, the good, the bad, and the extra.
“I don't necessarily see myself as an expat. I'll always identify as a Black American, because I think that the culture is part of who I am. That's undeniable. But I don't necessarily see myself constantly in relationship to an American nationality. I feel like my place in the world is just where I'm located. I don't have to constantly refer back to that expatriate aspect of my movement.”
EPISODE CONTENT | HIGHLIGHTS:
Life in Bristol (England) Post-Pandemic [5:11]
Trying to Find Community as a Solo Expat In her 40s [11:56]
Why Dana doesn’t see herself as an expat [23:34]
How she runs Ancestors Unknown globally [35:30]
The challenges of running a digital business [45:22]
How having a pet abroad reinforced the concept of home [46:36]