The Audio File: Mija

I always found tales of immigrants to be fascinating. They offer a window into a world that I can only imagine. I often find myself pondering several questions. What would it be like to leave behind the land of my birth? What would it be like to try to assimilate into a totally different culture? What, if any, aspects of my own culture would I preserve and pass on. The audio drama we’re reviewing today deals with these questions, and a lot more. It is the tale of immigrants; their trials and tribulations, their triumphs and tragedies. We’re taking a look at Mija from Studio Ochenta. 

Mija is a story about families of immigrants. Those alive, those long gone, and those still dreaming. Each season is a self-contained story that follows a different family of immigrants. Season one follows a Colombian family in New York, season two follows a Chinese-Vietnamese family in Paris, and season three follows an Egyptian family in London. The story of each family is told by its own Mija, which means “my daughter” in Spanish.

As I said in the intro, stories of immigration have always fascinated me. The Italian part of my dad’s half of the family came to America via Ellis Island, and eventually found their way to New Orleans. We don’t know too much about the German and Irish parts. Meanwhile, my mom’s side of the family has been here since before the American Revolution. In fact, I had a few ancestors who were part of Jamestown. As is often repeated, all Americans, except for Indigenous people, have ancestors who came here from other lands. It was an interesting experience listening to Mija when I did. Immigration has become a hot-button issue as of late.

So, a bit of terminology before we got forwards. The narrators of season one and two are both called Mija. For the sake of convenience, we shall differentiate them as New York Mija and Paris Mija. Technically, the narrator of season three is also a Mija, but she’s more often referred to as Binty, which means roughly the same thing in Arabic. So, we shall call her Binty.

Season one is, in my opinion, the best of the three main Mija seasons. Season one is a very personal story for Studio Ochenta founder Lory Martinez. She drew upon her own experiences and the stories of her family, with some embellishments, to craft season one of Mija. Unsurprisingly, Lory also provides the voice of New York Mija. It was also from season one that I learned where Studio Ochenta got its name from. New York Mija grew up on Ochenta Street in Queens. I wasn’t familiar with that street. So, I looked it up, and realized that I actually did know it, because Ochenta means Eighty in Spanish. It was in that moment that I knew I had brought shame upon all of my Spanish teachers. And to my mom, who lived in the Panama Canal Zone for a few years during her childhood.

Getting back on topic, I could tell from the first episode that this was a very personal story for Lory Martinez. There was love and affection in every aspect of season one. The way she describes New York and Bogota paints such a vivid picture. I felt like I was there along with the characters. The story of season one is not only a tale about immigration, but also a tale about heritage and culture. We get the story of New York Mija’s parents, and how they made a new life in a new land. But we also get the story of her family members back in Colombia. In fact, even that ties into the theme of immigration. Several of Mija’s family members had to move from the Colombian countryside to Bogota as a result of violence from insurgency groups. It was scary, and hard at times, and certainly wasn’t what they planned for. And yet, they built new lives in a new home.

I often saw shades of my own family in New York Mija’s story. The scene where she reveals that she is part of a group text with several members of her extended family was super relatable. My aunt, uncle, and cousins all live in Temecula, which is a suburb of San Diego. So, naturally, we don’t get to see each other often. But we stay connected with the group text and phone calls. My parents are both from South Louisiana, but had to move to North Louisiana to find work as lawyers. For reference, North Louisiana and South Louisiana are basically two different states. My mom has talk about how hard it was for her to be away from her support network when I was first born. And yet, thirty years later, here we all still are. I also learned what a pollo chico is. It’s a chick that sticks very close to its mother hen. So, a mama’s boy, basically. Mija mentions that her dad and brother are both major pollo chicos. I guess I’m also a pollo chico.

Season one of Mija is a story of surviving and thriving, but there is also a strong undercurrent of melancholy throughout it all. For example, Mija’s maternal grandparents weren’t able to attend her parents’ wedding because the U.S. embassy rejected their visa applications. Then there’s also the reasons why the episodes tend to be ten minutes long. Mija’s father worked as a taxi driver, and often long hours at that. Oftentimes, Mija only had ten minutes each morning to really spend time with him. In the final episode, Mija talks about how her extended family doesn’t often get to be together because of how spread out everyone is, and how difficult travel can be. She also reiterates that many immigrant families face this problem as well.

But there is also hope. Throughout season one we are introduced to the concept of el cacumen. It’s kind of like good luck, but there’s more to it than just that. It's kind of like saying that things might be bad, but we’ll make it through somehow. Clearly, everyone who was part of season one of Mija had el cacumen on their side. The central question throughout Mija is, well, what is home? And where is home, for that matter? The answer that Mija goes with is that, where you have family and friends who love you, then that is your home.

I’m not the only person who thinks that season one of Mija is absolutely fantastic. Lory Martinez was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered. She discussed the origins of Mija, and various behind the scenes details. There is a slight irony that Lory Martinez has become an immigrant herself. She moved to Paris in 2015, and it is where Studio Ochenta is based. Apparently, her family didn’t take it well at first, but they came to terms with it once they got to listen to season one of Mija.

Mija is not just devoted to its global scope purely in terms of story. Mija is available in multiple languages. Currently, English and Spanish are the only languages that all four seasons are available in. Seasons one and two are available in French, season two is also available in Mandarin, and season three is available in Arabic. However, Studio Ochenta is working to translate all four seasons of Mija.

With the success of season one, there was the obvious question of what to do as a follow up. There could still be more stories from New York Mija, but that didn’t seem right. Though, Studio Ochenta did eventually release a series of short vignettes set in the life of New York Mija and her family. But no, everyone decided that the story of Mija wasn’t just limited to a Colombian family in New York. There are plenty of Mijas all over the world. The question, then, was where to go next?

Studio Ochenta teamed up with Melanie Hong to tell the story of a Chinese-Vietnamese family living in Paris. Season two had some good ideas, and it certainly meant well. However, it was also plagued by some serious growing pains. It was pretty clear that the Mija team were still trying to figure out exactly what the podcast would be going forward. One theme they wanted to emphasize was the common connections between the stories of immigrants. This is all well and good, but the execution left something to be desired. Several bits of Paris Mija’s dialog are copied almost word-for-word from New York Mjia. This is most apparent in the episode that focuses on Paris Mija herself, and in the final episode, especially the twist at the end. We also get an episode where Paris Mija takes us on a tour of Paris; much as New York Mija showed us around Queens. Good idea, but again, undercut by the self-plagiarized dialogue.

I also feel that season two bit off more than it could chew. In season one, there is certainly a feeling that there’s more to the story of New York Mija’s family than we see. However, with season two, it feels like the Mija team tried to squeeze too many ideas into only eight episodes. Paris Mija is unique in that she has a multiethnic background. However, given the limited scope of the season, I felt we didn’t get to explore the two sides of her heritage as much as we could have. Also, her parents are divorced and she has a stepfather, but this doesn’t factor into the plot as much as you might think. Now, as far as narration, Melanie Hong tried, she really did. Unfortunately, she just couldn’t compete with Lory Martinez’s performance in season one. Part of that was down to the lackluster script, but part of it was due to English not being Melanie‘s first language. There were a few times it was kind of hard to understand her, and I had to rewind the podcast a few times.

Now, I want to be clear here. I did not hate season two. It had it’s flaws, to be sure, but it also had plenty of moments where it shined, especially in the later episodes. That all being said, there was still a lot of room for improvement, and I consider it to be the weakest season of Mija.

It would seem that the Mija team were well aware of the need to iron our the kinks. I’m happy to report that season three saw a notable improvement in quality, and a welcome return to form. I’d also like to take a moment to say how grateful I am that the protagonist of season three had a name other than Mija. It makes writing this review that much easier. Season three is structurally inverted compared to its predecessors. The previous seasons start with Mija, then her brother, her parents, a cousin, her grandparents, and then a family reunion. In season three, we go in reverse order. Occasionally, I had trouble keeping track of who was who, but it didn’t take me long to get the hang of things. In other inversions, instead of a force of good fortune, like el cacumen in season one, we get the evil eye, the bringer of woe and misfortune. Binty’s family always tries to remain humble, and avoid boasting, for fear that they may attract the gaze of the evil eye.

The narration also saw a notable step-up compared to last season. Rana Abdelhamid overall does an excellent job with the narration. My only issues is that Binty has lived most of her life in London, but doesn’t have even the slightest trace of a British accent. It just seems a bit odd. Binty also differs in how her story came to be. Unlike the previous season, there’s not a single writer. Rana Abdelhamid and Mona Elboghdadi are the head writers, while Sadia Azmats and Alya Mooro acted as cultural consultants about the Arab/Egyptian-Londoner experience. So, I would assume that Binty contains elements of all four women, making her something of a Franken-Mija.

Binty and her brother move to New York towards the end of the season. I was wondering if New York Mija was going to make an appearance, but no, this never happens. I suppose that was for the best. Season three is supposed to be Binty’s story; there’s no reason to tie it into the stories of the other Mijas. On that topic, season three did a much better job of showing the common connection among the experiences of Mijas and their families. I felt that it did so in a far more organic way than season two did. There’s no repeated dialog to be found. The episodes are also slightly longer than in the first two seasons. This gives season three a bit more breathing room to tell its story.

Another difference I noticed is that we don’t get an episode where Binty takes us around London. In fact, Binty, and to a lesser extent her family, seems to have something of a disdain for London. We get plenty of loving descriptions of life in Alexandria, but not really any of London. In previous seasons, the Mijas and their families took great pride in their new homelands. The previous Mijas also embraced themselves as the blending of multiple cultures. Binty, by contrast, considers herself to be Egyptian first, and everything else second. Binty mentions that, when she was younger, she tried really hard to assimilate. Then, later in life, she really threw herself into her Egyptian heritage. Though, the impression I got was that she simply swung from one extreme to the other. Compared to the other Mijas, Binty seems to still be struggling to come to terms with her identity, and isn’t totally comfortable in her own skin.

Season three puts more of an emphasis on the bigotry and prejudice that Binty and her family had to overcome. We do get hints of this with the other Mijas, but its more of a background detail. This does add to season three having a more distinct tone compared to its predecessors. That said, I felt that it got laid on a bit thick at times, and occasionally things got a tad preachy. I would argue that season one worked in part because it took a somewhat understated approach when it tackled serious issues. I also have to ding one scene in the episode about Binty’s mom. She grew up in Alexandria, but moved to London to work in the egyptology department at the British Museum. One of the things that strikes her when she moves to London is that she see Muslim women wearing hijab outside of mosque and prayers. Uh, do what now? I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t have seen that plenty of times in Egypt.

Honestly, though, those two points are really my only critiques of season three. It was a noticeable step up from season two. Season three didn’t quite reach the same heights as season one, but it got very close, and proved to be a worthy successor.

There’s also a spin-off miniseries called Mija Música. It is something of an unofficial fourth season of Mija. It is a notable departure from the main series in terms of style. It follows a young man named Gavilán. He lives in New York, but he is originally from Monterey, Mexico. He has found himself back in Monterey due to his grandfather’s Lolo’s funeral. Lolo was a musician who had a passion for Colombian vallenato music. Gavilán is determined to investigate his grandfather’s music career. Along the way, he’ll explore the history of vallenato, and discover some secrets about his grandfather.

Like I said, it's different, but that’s not a bad thing. I wasn’t familiar with vallenato music, but I had fun learning about it. The episodes are a bit shorter than in the main Mija seasons. Speaking of music, I also wanted to take a moment to discuss the use of music in the main Mija seasons. Each season uses music from its respective immigrant culture to help set the mood. It was one of those little touches I appreciated, and it helped give each season its own feeling. And that is most certainly true of Mija Música as well. You’ll be well acquainted with the many styles of vallenato by the time the miniseries is over.

We’ve had three seasons, and one miniseries, of Mija so far. I certainly hope that this is not the last we’ve heard from Mija. It tells the stories of families of immigrants. Those who leave the land of the birth to seek a better life, those who stay behind, and those with feet in both worlds. It is a celebration of community, culture, and the places we call home. It is absolutely fantastic, and I can’t recommend it enough. Give it a listen today.

Well, I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.

The Audio File: Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature

The new year is here once again, and that means plenty more audio dramas to review. And I know precisely where to start. I’ve been wanting to review this one since last year. Without further delay, let’s get right into it. We’re taking a look at Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature. 

Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature is presented as a series of recordings from a second year Literature and Classics class at Harbridge University. Anterra is a civilization discovered only six or seven years prior to the recordings. It dates back to over 60,000 years ago. This makes Anterra significantly older than any previous known civilizations. It was discovered when rescue drones were sent to recover a sunken Chinese submarine. The Chinese government has been rather secretive about archeological finds from the ruins of Anterra. However, some discoveries have made their way to the West. In particular, quite a few discoveries relating to the mythology and literature of Anterra. These finds offer a tantalizing glimpse into a civilization unlike anything that came after it.

We follow the class as they explore the fascinating mythology and archeology of Anterra. However, there’s something sinister lurking in the background. Many strange occurrences happen throughout the course. Could these mysterious happenings have something to do with Anterra?

One day, for no particular reason, I found myself scrolling through the Realm Media website. I came across a show called Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature. It was made in association with Wolf at the Door Studios. They’ve been involved in several audio drama productions, such as season three of the DUST podcast and Batman Unburied.

The title sounded intriguing, and so did the premise. At first, I thought it would be like a fictional college course about xenoarcheology. That is, archeology applied to the past civilizations of alien planets. I assumed that Anterran referred to the Antares star system. But no, that wasn’t quite the case. Oh, it takes the form of a fictional college lecture, but Anterra is a purely terrestrial human civilization. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly disappointed by that initially. However, what I got instead was just as good, if not better. 

The sound-design is phenomenal. I loved the use of ambient background noise. Sometimes, whenever I’d hear a car driving by, or an ambulance siren, I’d pause the podcast to see if it was real or not. The audio is done in such a way as to give the impression that it is a recording. We can hear the professor fairly well, but sometimes he’ll move around and get fainter until he comes back. We also don’t always fully hear the students, depending on where they are seated. Thankfully, we can get the gist thanks to the professor’s responses. Though, some students are heard clearly if they’re close to the recording device. That, and if they happen to be an important character to the plot. The episode where a music professor comes and plays some recreations of Anterran music was a nice touch. It's one thing to talk about how unusual Anterran music was, but it is far more effective to actually hear how unusual it sounds.

Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature also has an amazing sense of atmosphere. Things start off normal, but there’s a sense that something is lurking in that background. That’s there something just a little off about everything. At first, it just seems like the usual incidental mishaps that might occur in a college classroom. A bit of water spilled on the floor, the lights going out, the professor having a sudden headache. But it all starts to add up after a while, and can’t just be dismissed as coincidence. There’s something going on, but what could it be? And what connection does it have to Anterra?

I have stated on a few previous occasions that I am a history major. As such, I can attest that the dialogue, and the general presentation of the class, is very true to real life. I was frequently reminded of my own time in college. Granted, nothing mysterious or supernatural ever happened during any of my history courses. The professor reminded me of several professors I had over the years. This is the first time I’ve encountered an audio drama that takes the form of a college lecture course. It certainly makes from a very fun change of pace, and I hope to see more show that use this format.

There’s a debate amongst the students of the class as to whether or not the professor is telling the truth, or if he made Anterra up. It was pretty clear to me that the professor was telling the truth. Still, even if he had been crazy, I’d probably have still signed up for his course if I could. Everything about Anterra and its culture is utterly fascinating. Everyone on the Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature team clearly put a lot of thought and dedication into crafting Anterran culture. In fact, they’ve included a small list of real world inspirations on the series website.

The general culture of Anterra appears to be vaguely Polynesian. The names all have a vaguely Polynesian feel to them. This does make sense, given where the ruins of Anterra are located. Anterran Mythology has a number of unusual features. For example, it was humanity who created the gods, not the other way around, in Anterra. The Anterran creation myth says that the first human was a woman named Teotia. She helped to shape the Earth, but her creation would reset itself if someone wasn’t observing it. She had children, the number nine is very important to Anterran culture, and they slept in shifts. But then Teotia decided they needed a more permeant solution. So, she created the 1000 eyed-god Ikopaa to always watch over the world. Thus, the world was preserved, and humanity could grow and multiply.

The first parallel that comes to mind is Argus Panoptes from Greek Mythology. Argus, much like Ikopaa, was covered in hundreds of eyes. Though, Argus was a fairly minor character, rather than a major world-preserving deity like Ikopaa. Very unusual that it was a human who created the gods. Gods are on a much higher power scale than humans. Some mythologies speak of humans who ascended to godhood, and ever gods who temporarily become human. But I can’t think of a single mythology that has humans creating the gods.

But you can also tell a lot about a civilization based on the monsters it imagines. This is true of Anterra as well. One Anterran myth tells of how a goddess of beauty fell in love with a mortal woman. They had five daughters together, but this angered the other gods. So, they drugged the goddess and ripped apart her children. The goddess decided to defy the other gods and bring her children back to life. She stitched them together into a Frankenstein-style monster, with nine arms and ten legs. Unfortunately, the monster still felt the pain and suffering of the daughters, and killed the goddess.

Apparently, this legend came from a time when Anterrans were placing a lot of emphasis on loyalty to the collective. That is, they expect everyone to be loyal to society as a whole above all else. Even loyalty to one’s family was discouraged in favor of loyalty to the collective. So, you can see that in the myth. The goddess defied the other gods in the name of her daughters, and she paid dearly for her transgression. There have been plenty of societies that prioritize the collective good, but few who do so at the expense of family units, especially in pre-industrial society.

But there’s more to Anterra than just myths and legends. There’s plenty of archeology and history to discover. One cultural institute of note was that of the Idiot King. Anterra culture has a reverence for darkness and the unknown. So, in the early days of Anterra, a child would be selected to be taken to an elaborate underground palace complex. The child would be fed and treated well, but it would never be taught anything. There was a group of diviners whose job it was to interpret the will of the Idiot King. Whenever there was a major problem, especially involving the unknown, the diviners got advice from the Idiot King.

This is very obviously a reference to Ursula K. Le Guin’s famous short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” It’s a little strange that none of the characters ever brought this up. “Omelas'' is frequently taught in philosophy and ethics courses. If nothing else, the professor should have been familiar with it. You can also see parallels to ancient oracles, such as the famous Oracle of Delphi. The general consensus is that such oracles would deliberately word their prophecies in ways that could have multiple meanings. That way, people saw what they wanted to see. And if the prophecy failed to come true, well, then you just picked the wrong interpretation. Perhaps the diviners of the Idiot King operated under a similar principle.

And yet the Anterrans were also strangely progressive in many ways. For example, everyone got to pick their own gender. Children were referred to with gender-neutral pronouns until their coming of age ceremony, which is when they got to pick their gender. Anterra did have a caste system, but this too was oddly progressive. The caste system was less of a tiered pyramid, and more of a pie chart. No one caste was necessarily better or worse than the other, and there was some degree of relative mobility within castes.

I could keep going, but I’ll leave some of the myths and culture of Anterra for you to discover on your own. Suffice it to say, the worldbuilding of Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature is top-of-the-line.

I liked the way that the professor handles the stranger aspects of Anterran culture. He presents them in a very matter-of-fact sort of way. It isn’t totally non-judgmental, but that’s understandable. We’re all human, and we all have our biases. Still, the way he approaches it is from a perspective of “What does this tell us about Anterran culture?” That is an excellent perspective, and probably the best to strive for. When you study ancient civilizations and/or non-Western cultures, you’ll often encounter things that don’t mesh well with modern sensibilities. However, the question to ask is not “How well does this jive with modern Western sensibilities?” but rather “What does this tell me about this civilization that I’m studying?”

My only real point of criticism would be that the Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature website hasn’t been very good about keeping up to date with the transcripts. Only transcripts for the first three episodes are available. It would have been nice to know how to spell the names of various Anterran gods and people for this review. Realm is usually pretty good about keeping up to date with the transcripts for it’s shows. As I have often reiterated in the past, transcripts are very important for listeners with hearing difficulties.

Now, it is time for some speculations. I’ve got a few theories about the mysterious happenings. One of the characters is Hai Rong, a foreign exchange student from Canada. Though, her parents were originally university professors in China. She makes a couple statements that suggest she’s quite familiar with Anterra. Almost on a personal level. Could it be that Anterra isn’t so dead after all? Could Anterran society have continued, somehow, in the shadows. Alternatively, Anterra is indeed gone, but what if the myths and legends of Anterra are more than just stories? Or here’s a thought, what if, somehow, Anterra discovered the secret to immortality, and Hai Rong is an Anterran? And on an unrelated note, is Harbridge is a fictional university, or did Harvard and Cambridge merge, and the series takes place in the near future?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. And I certainly can’t wait to find out. I listened to several shows from Realm, but none of them really knocked my socks off. I’m pleased to say that Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature finally broke the streak. It has a great sense of atmosphere, amazing worldbuilding, and I love how it took the form of a college lecture. I strongly recommend giving it a listen as soon as possible.

Well, I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.