Behind the very public discourse about citizenship and how to achieve it are very personal family stories. Daisy Hernandez, associate professor of creative writing at Northwestern University, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her father – a refugee from Castro’s Cuba – and why we welcome some immigrants and shun others. Her book is “Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth.”

As the nation nears its 250th anniversary, it’s a fitting time to consider the very best – and very worst – of our foreign policy decisions. James M. Lindsay, Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, joins guest host John McCaa to discuss the strategies that expanded U.S. reach and influence, the ones that plunged us into war and conflict, and why some of the least well-known strategies became the most consequential. The Council on Foreign Relations paper is called “The 10 Best and 10 Worst U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions.”

Coretta Scott King fought to end the Vietnam War because of its outsized impact on the Black community. Matthew L. Demont, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College, joins guest host John McCaa to discuss how the lives of King and a Medal of Honor recipient intersected, the fight Black military personnel faced to gain civil rights at home, and what patriotism looked like for Black Americans fighting at home and abroad. His book is “Until the Last Gun is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America’s Soul.”

The benefits of maintaining a neighborhood garden go well beyond the dinner plate. Kate Brown is distinguished professor in the history of science at MIT, and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how community gardens often turned impoverished neighborhoods into thriving city centers, why they can yield sometimes more than professional farms and how they continue to build community even today. Her book is “Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City.”

A plan to end pedestrian deaths worked in Europe – why has it failed here? Rachel Weiner, local transportation reporter for The Washington Post, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why foot traffic on American streets is dangerous and why – despite an effort to curb that called Vision Zero – it’s gotten worse. Her article is “America’s plan to protect pedestrians failed. A young woman’s death reveals why.”

Big tech pretty much runs our lives; will these companies one day own power grids, too? Karen Weise, technology correspondent for The New York Times, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how tech is driving up electricity costs for everyone, why municipalities are scrambling to upgrade their grids, and the prospects for selling power to cities that need it most. Her article is “Big Tech’s A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone.”

Your doctor might take weeks to diagnose a complicated set of symptoms when A.I. can do it in seconds. Dhruv Khullar is a physician and contributing writer at The New Yorker, and he joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the use of A.I. in medicine, whether doctors will lose the skills to properly diagnose, and how accurate these new computer-aided diagnoses actually are. His article is “If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?”