Community-Engaged Podcasting with Hidden Heroes in a Small Town

This article shares a unique form of public humanities created with an ethical community partnership between a university team, a community nonprofit organization, and a museum. Our podcast focuses on the stories of the staff of an organization that is affiliated with the International Rescue Committee and that resettles refugees, asylees, and immigrants. Most of the staff were immigrants themselves and shared their experiences as both outsiders and insiders in the communities that they serve. Given this historical moment of intense anti-immigrant sentiment, we aim for this podcast to serve for conversation and education about immigration not only in our local area but also in similar small cities and towns. Our podcast takes place in an upstate region of New York, approximately 200 miles outside of the city. We share our experience of putting into practice the methods and concepts drawn from public humanities, critical community engagement, ethnic studies, digital humanities, and podcast studies.