In this episode of Identified, host Nabil Ayers is joined by Jad Abumrad—artist, musician, journalist, and creator of Radiolab, Dolly Parton’s America, More Perfect, and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man—for a conversation about grief, family history, and what it means to belong to a culture you weren’t fully given.Jad shares stories from his Lebanese family: a great-grandmother whose ring he lost in the sea, a grandfather who buried his mother on the side of the road at age 10, and a father who narrowly survived a civil war and brought his entire extended family to Tennessee. But it’s only in recent years that Jad began to ask the deeper questions: What actually happened in Lebanon? Why did his family never talk about it? And what does it mean to claim a cultural identity that was never fully passed down?We also talk about:

Growing up Arab in the U.S. during the Iran hostage crisis and 9/11
His early reporting in Lebanon and how it helped shape his voice
The grief that shaped his family, and the one loss that reshuffled everything
Choosing to raise kids with a sense of inherited identity—even when you didn’t grow up with one yourself

Jad’s story is a moving reminder that family is built not just on what we’re given—but also on what we ask, uncover, and pass forward.

Guest: Jad AbumradHost: Nabil AyersExecutive Producer: Kieron BanerjiProduced by: Palm Tree IslandMusic by: Noella & Patricia Brennan

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Jad Abumrad: The Family Stories That Changed Everything