Series Two, Episode One: How to ask questions

Thanks for being with us here on season two of The Download!

This is a very special episode with a brilliant journalist – a kid journalist, what’s more – named Ameya Desai. Ameya is the creator of a beautiful three-part podcast called Far From Home. Her first two stories for the show both won prizes in NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge. Ameya’s stories are about forced migration, and in this episode of our show Ameya takes producer Yasmeen Khan behind the scenes of how she crafted the story of her neighbour Ms Horikawa, ‘Shikata Ga Nai’.

Thank you to Yasmeen Khan for her work on this episode. You can find more of Yasmeen for kids on Yoto Daily. 

Yasmeen Khan is a journalist in Brooklyn, New York. She loves learning about the world by interviewing people and asking lots of questions. She also loves to cook and bake, and is famous -- at least among her husband and two daughters -- for her homemade ice cream cakes.

Check out this episode from Yasmeen about beavers or this one about boredom.

Thanks also to Jack Beattie for sound production and Tom McCarthy for our great music.

If you’ve got feedback on this episode or the podcast in general, you can fill out this form!

Photo: Berry tree, in honour of Ms Horikawa, taken by Pema.

P.S. I’ve included the script for this episode below.

Episode Transcript

Intro

Pema, voice-over (VO): Hello, welcome to Season 2 of The Download! I’m Pema and you’re listening to The Download. Episode one, ‘How To Ask Questions’. 

Coming up, a special interview with a young journalist, how kids ask the best questions, and on ‘Teatimers’, John the Bear learns to fish.

The Download is an audio magazine, so feel free to pause after listening to a feature, and come back to pick things up later on. Let’s turn the page.

Tell Me More! What do journalists do? ft Ameya Desai and Yasmeen Khan

Pema VO: Hey! So you’re about to hear a story that has some difficult themes. You might wish to listen alongside an adult, in case you have any questions.

Pema: Hi Yasmeen!

Yasmeen: Hi Pema

Pema VO: Pema here, speaking directly to you, listener. So, the purpose of ‘Tell Me More!’, that’s the name of the upcoming segment, is to learn interesting things by asking people questions. And something I’ve learnt in my work is that absolutely everyone has stories and things to tell. And why not think about that for an episode, why not spend time thinking about why asking questions and listening to the answers is so important. So I thought, let’s go to an expert. You might know of my friend and colleague Yasmeen Khan…

P: Yasmeen, thank you for joining us on The Download today. Now, you are a reporter, a journalist, and we usually work together on Yoto Daily, where you produce reported pieces. Dispatches, we call them. So, I have a question for you. What is journalism, really?

Y: Ah, that’s a big question. There are a lot of different forms and styles of journalism. But I think in short we can say that journalism is the practice of getting news and information out to the public. There’s a lot that goes into that. But when you’re a journalist, you’re someone who is really curious about the world around you, who asks thoughtful questions, and who listens a lot. So… one type of journalist might ask a lot of questions of someone in government. Like: Hey, elected official: why’d you make that decision? Why’d you spend money on that new building instead of fixing up this park? That kind of thing. And then there’s lots of stories to tell from our own communities, and listening to our neighbors. 

P: Okay, wow, well now I have a million follow-up questions. Why is journalism important, why do we have it? And who is the public? 

Y: That’s a lot of questions! Let’s take them one at a time. So first: who’s the public? That’s all of us! You, me, everyone. And we all need information. So you asked… why is journalism important? Well, to me, it’s crucial to get trustworthy information out to the public. Things like: there’s a big storm coming, here’s how to be safe. Or, some astronauts just landed on the moon. Or scientists made a new important discovery! So that’s reporting the news – journalists will gather up info from different sources, figure out what’s what, and then communicate this to the public. Journalists also report out stories that help us better understand the world, and our place in it. There’s a saying I like, that journalism is a mirror and window. 

P: What does that mean, ‘a mirror or a window’?

Y: It’s a mirror because it’s important to reflect society back to itself. It’s important to report on the issues that affect people’s lives. Then then it’s a window… because journalism can take you different places. You can learn about another person’s experience, that is very different from yours, or your way of thinking. And I like to think that in both cases, journalism can help people feel connected to others. 

P: Okay, so if someone listening now is thinking, ‘I’d like to do that.’ How do you know if you’ve got what it takes to be a journalist? How do they begin? 

Y: Well, as I said, I think you’ve got what it takes if you are curious and like to learn new things. You need to be able to talk to people and hear what they have to say, gather new perspectives. And then, as a journalist, you are communicating what you’ve learned to others. You’re telling them a story. 

…

P: And Yasmeen, is being a reporter only for adults? Is this something kids can do? 

Y: Yes, kids can be reporters! Pema, I’d love to introduce you to someone I met recently, who is already an accomplished journalist. She is someone who has followed her interest in learning about people and what makes them who they are.

Ameya:  Hi, my name is Amaya Desai and I'm 11 years old and I'm in fifth grade.

Ameya lives in San Jose, California with her mom, dad, younger brother, and her dog. 

I learned about Ameya from reading the news. She won a contest–twice, actually. It was a student podcast contest for National Public Radio. She was the first person to win this contest two times. 

P: That’s amazing!

Y: I want to introduce you to her work, and I thought we could talk about how she put together a pretty incredible story about a difficult time in someone’s life. But let me tell you a bit more about her first. She of course is someone with a lot of interests. I spoke to her on a busy Saturday:

Ameya:  After this I have Lego robotics…

She also likes to draw and read. And she told me how she loves writing her own stories

Ameya:  I'm like a fiction person, so I go onto my computer and I open a Word document and I just write onto that.

She loves listening to a good story too. She calls herself “story obsessed.”

P: Well, if she’s a fan of stories, I can see why she’d be interested in making podcasts. Where does she do her podcasting from?

Y: She does it from home, with the help of her parents. 

Ameya:  upstairs, the dining room next to our kitchen is where my dad loves all the heavy stuff and brings upstairs for me to podcast. So yeah.

YK: So your podcast studio is the dining table.

Ameya: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I just like to stare at the microphone and I kinda wanna tap it a bit. It's like, uh, I like that. Sound like it's boom,

So, the thing about Ameya is that she’s not afraid to jump in and talk about hard topics. She tells the stories of people who’ve been forced to leave their homes – just because of their race or ethnicity. 

P: That’s a big, complicated topic. 

Y: It is. So let me take you through one of her stories, because she’s taking on this big topic by focusing on one person’s experience – one story – at a time.

 Podcast: Hi, I'm Amaya Desai and you are listening to Far From Home [a story of forced migration]... 

“Far From Home,” that’s the name of her podcast. She’s done a few episodes so far. And in the first one, she explains how she became interested in the topic. 

Podcast:  Recently in my school, a fight broke out between two kids in fourth grade. In a discussion about the war in the Middle East, a small group of my classmates think that what is outside of the world is none of our business, but almost All of us are from different countries, and we believe that the world is our home. 

She says she has friends at school with roots from many different countries – Ukraine, Ethiopia, Afghanistan – places where people sadly had to leave their homes, maybe because of war. Sometimes because the government forced them to. 

And she learned that something similar happened… many years ago… right in California, where she lives. She heard this story from a woman named Linda Horikawa. Ms. Horikawa is the grandmother of Ameya’s neighbor. That’s how Ameya met her. 

Ameya:  When I first came into Miss Ava's house, she welcomed us in with open arms, and // She was also very open and um, very descriptive and, uh, it like we talked like we were old friends, kind of.

Ms. Horikawa:  My mom and dad had a Berry ranch. We had seven acres and uh, a home there…

Ms. Horikawa told Ameya about living on a berry ranch when she was a very little girl – this was back during World War II. So, around 1940. 

… We had boysenberries, blackberries, strawberries. We were very happy there.

P: Ms Horikawa’s ranch sounds lovely.

Y: It does. But Ms. Horikawa and her family had to leave that ranch. The US government forced them to, because her parents were from Japan. Pema, have you heard of something called the Japanese Internment?

P: I know it happened in the USA during WW2. Can you explain more about it for us?

Y: The Japanese Internment is part of a shameful period of American history*. During World War II, the U.S. was at war with Japan (along with Germany and Italy). And the American government had a fear that Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans would help Japan. 

[* Reagan issued formal apology in 1988, saying it was a ‘mistake’. Biden issued more forceful statement in 2023 calling it shameful.]

Ameya:  people were forced out of their homes and they were put into these places where the United States treat them very badly.  

Families were sent to these camps. It was like going to prison. 

And a lot of them sadly, kind of passed away during that time 

This happened when Ms. Horikawa was a little girl. And Ameya wanted to hear more about this. She wanted to interview Ms. Horikawa about her experience. 

Ameya:  the moment I heard that Ms. Horikawa said yes to the interview, I immediately dived right into research. 

P: What did Ameya’s research look like? 

Y: Pema, Ameya did something very smart. She went to a museum. 

Ameya:  there was this, uh, Japanese American museum dedicated to the Japanese and tournament camps, //  And so we went there and, um, like the more I walked around, the more I learned and it was very tragic. Um. But at the same time, it was very, um, I learned, I got a, a lot of knowledge from that, and with that knowledge I was able to prepare for my interview.

And I love how Ameya was thinking up questions as she went along.

Ameya:  I normally carry like a notepad with me while I'm doing the research. And so I'll just like scribble these questions down and I'll take that question and I'll, uh, like take it and I'll like, uh, squeeze it down into something that's like, um, interview worthy.

P: How did Ameya know which questions were ‘interview-worthy?

Y: Well, Ameya was doing two things here. She was informing herself about this period of history. And then she was using that information to come up with questions that would help her understand Ms. Horikawa’s personal experience. And of course it’s one thing to come up with thoughtful questions, right? That takes work. But then sitting down and talking with someone, and asking those important questions, that takes a bit of courage. That’s what doing an interview is. 

So the day comes that Ameya and Ms. Horikawa meet. Ameya’s family came with her:

Ameya:  We were both very nervous, like you could feel it. Um, I think everyone in the room was nervous except my brother. He was just sitting and like watching. But,

YK: Why? Why do you think you were nervous and that she was nervous? 

Ameya: uh, for me personally, it was my first time interviewing someone in person. And, uh, also someone who was not my family member. So I was kind of like, how do I put this, how do I phrase that? Um, and even if I did prepare, sometimes you feel like you're not really ready. Ready. Um, Ms. Horikawa, on the other hand, I feel like she was nervous 'cause she hadn't shared her story with many people.

Being nervous sounds really normal! But Ameya clearly made Ms. Horikawa feel very comfortable, because she started opening up about her life during that time. And Ms. Horikawa brought something to show Ameya… a small black trunk – like a suitcase – that had memorabilia in it.  

Ameya:  It was this, uh, box and it was black and it had like these, uh, kind of like. These handles where you would like clip it up and you could like push it open. Um, and when Ms. Awa did that, like you could feel like the dust lifting off  the rim. She hadn't opened this box in 25 years, 

P: Oh, wow

Y: This trunk had the family’s identification cards from that time. It had old documents and newspaper articles. Ameya and Ms. Horikawa were able to look through these things together. 

Ameya:  in my mind I was instantly thinking like these documents are like part of history, like literal pieces of history. Um, and so, um. When she showed them to me, my immediate reaction was, wow. Um, I was very honored that she chose to show them with me. She hadn't even shared them with her family members yet.

+

YK:  Did you get to hold these things in your hand?

Ameya: Yeah. Actually I did, um. It was like, for a moment I'm like, are you sure you wanna trust me with this? 

Ms. Horikawa opened up to Ameya about how in 1942, the government ordered her family and other Japanese families to pack up and leave their homes. It was very sudden, and it sounds really scary – especially since Ms. Horikawa and her sister were really young. Ms. Horikawa was only two years old. 

I want to play you a clip of Ameya’s podcast, because I think Ameya does a really great job, weaving some of Ms. Horikawa’s interview with Ameya’s own summary of what happened. 

Ms. Horikawa:  you can take only the things you could carry. We couldn't carry anything. Junie and I were little, and so mom carried the suitcases. Dad carried the cribs, and then off we went. 

Ameya: As the camps were still undergoing construction, many Japanese Americans were first moved to temporary facilities for a few months Before being sent to their final destination, Ms. AKA's family was sent to the Santa Anita racehorse track in Arcadia, California 

Ms. Horikawa: when they first, uh, took us all to the Santa Anita race track. Every family. Got one horse stall and here we were living in a home with our own property and, and, uh, having a nice home. And we had to stay in a horse stall until for, I think we were there for three or four months. 

P: Ms Horikawa’s whole family had to live in a horse stall? 

Y: Yes, as Ameya said - this was a tragedy. Ms. Horikawa’s family moved from the horse stall at the racetrack in California, to an internment camp in another state - wyoming. The family couldn’t return home for three years. 

P: These sound like very difficult memories for Ms Horikawa to share. But they also sound like very hard things for Ameya to hear and learn about. 

Y: They were. Ameya learned a lot from the museum, and the research she did. That helped prepare her for talking about these things. AND Ameya had her own family around her. I think that probably helped her feel more supported too. But sitting down and talking to someone who experienced that history… and seeing the suitcase and all of the documents inside – that’s what made the history feel personal and real.

I felt like instantly really, really empathetic for the Japanese Americans. But I also felt very angry that someone would make them do that and like upset that this diverse community I call my home. Uh. Like it basically took all these people and it like put them into groups and they kind of kicked them out of their society.

P: It sounds like sometimes asking questions, being a reporter, can take you to some places that might be challenging, or uncomfortable. How can we handle that? Is it still a worthwhile thing to do, even if it stirs up difficult memories or experiences?

Y: Yeah, this was a hard topic. And at one point, Ms. Horikawa was very emotional speaking about it and about the bravery of her father during this horrible time. But Ameya learned that people often want to share these stories. They want to talk about their experiences. And I think what makes Ameya such a wonderful journalist, is that she really wants to listen. She’s interested, and curious. 

Ameya:  it's important for us to share those stories because a story is part of a person and you do not, if you forget a story, you're forgetting part of a person

P: Wow.

Y: And Ameya finds that asking questions has a big impact on herself, too.

Ameya: every answer I get, it helps me see the world in a different way. It forms my perspective of who I am.

P: Ah, that reminds me of that quote you told me about. Journalism is a mirror and a window. 

Y: That’s exactly right. 

Yoto Matters - Kids ask the best questions

Jake: Is it hot in here? What’s for dinner? What’s the weather like tomorrow? Where does the sun go at night? Questions, questions, questions… we are constantly asking questions. We might ask other people around us a question, or we might ask the question inside our own heads. Either way, all day, every day we are asking questions. Constantly. Whether we are aware of it or not. I might check what the weather is going to be like on my phone, without even acknowledging that I have asked myself the question - hmmm, I wonder what the weather is going to be like? 

Questions like this, about the weather, about dinner, or where the remote control is… these are all practical questions, questions that help us get through the day, help us prepare for things, help us to be comfortable in our day to day lives. But there are other types of questions, BIG questions, more profound questions - why do stars come out at night? How do bees make honey? How am I feeling at the moment? These questions can help us understand the world around us, how things work, why things do what they do - or they can help us understand ourselves better, how we are, why we do what we do…

It’s great to ask questions, it’s great to stay curious. And you know what? You guys - kids - are much much much better at it than us old folk. You ask the best questions, questions about the world that we often stop asking the older we get. Questions that stop us and make us think. When my boy, Leo was younger, he asked so so so many questions. So many that I noted some down. These are some questions he asked when he was 4:

Why can't you see the air?

How do aeroplanes turn around?

How does a book come from the Internet to our house?

Why do lions like meat?

Why are bananas yellow?

Why do tortoises move slowly?

What do giraffes eat?

Some interesting questions there, no? Questions that grown ups probably don’t stop to ask themselves, but questions that help us understand the world around us and maybe lead us to interesting places - let’s take a couple of them and see if we can have a go at answering them shall we?

Why are bananas yellow?

Fruit is usually brightly coloured to attract animals and people to eat it. When animals eat the fruit, they spread the seeds to new places, helping the plant grow more trees or plants. Bright colours like red, yellow, and orange stand out in nature and send a signal that the fruit is ripe, tasty, and ready to eat. This is nature’s way of helping plants and animals work together so both can survive and grow.

Why do tortoises move slowly?

Tortoises move slowly because their bodies are built for steady, careful movement rather than speed. They have heavy shells that protect them, but this extra weight makes it harder to move quickly. Tortoises also don’t need to rush—they spend most of their time eating plants and staying safe in their shells. Moving slowly helps them save energy, which is important because they live long lives and don’t need to hurry!

Asking questions helps us to stay curious, to learn more and to be more connected with the wide and wonderful world we all live in

They can also help us to reflect on ourselves, on our lives, on how we are feeling

There are often Important questions we should ask but don’t. 

What am I grateful for? 

How am I feeling today?

Have I done anything to help anyone recently? 

What am I looking forward to? 

Can asking questions ever be a negative thing? Hmmm, I had a think about this and in general I would say no - but I also think that sometimes it is good to rely on our instincts, to trust our judgement sometimes rather than overthinking things

And sometimes questions can get in the way of that.

Should I go out today? But what if it rains? What if it makes me too tired? How will I get there? How will I feel when I get there? 

Once in a while, I’d say we have to ignore that little voice in our heads and just go for it. See where things take us

Teatimers Ep 4 - Pema

Pema VO: Hey, we're almost finished with this episode of the Download. But first we're going to slow down, take a breath, and get cozy to listen to today's instalment of our fiction serial, Teatimers. If you're ready to listen to the story, play on. If you need to come back later, no worries, hit pause and come back when you're ready.

Pema: John the Bear was not feeling his best. He was experiencing creative frustration.

Next week, his school was hosting a Battle of the Bands. John had eagerly signed up his one-bear-band, Stuffed, determined to perform something utterly new and original.

Now, for days, John had been trying to write a truly excellent song. It needed to be slowish, but with a strong and funky bass line underneath, keeping the river of the song flowing. The song needed to be wacky, strange, but not too wacky. It needed a surprising percussion moment; John had been experimenting with marimba, but that really wasn’t working out. His experiments were sounding like a mess, or otherwise like something he’d heard a million times before.

Last night, John had tried listening to some of his favourite songs by his favourite bands, which usually inspired him. But he’d stayed up way later than his bedtime doing this, and this morning he’d woken up with no new ideas, and a fuzzy head due to a bad sleep.

John was playing some dire, dark chords on his keyboard when Papa Bear put his fuzzy head round the door, a smear of blue paint across his paw.

‘John, Alb’s here.’ Alb was a friend of John’s, a tortoise with a passion for fishing. ‘Why don’t you take a break, love?’

Reluctantly, John pulled on a jacket and left his chamber of musical doom to join Alb.

John has never been fishing before. So, Alb led him behind the shop, through a bush and together they jumped into a permanent puddle. The tortoise and the stuffed bear slipped through the puddle, and landed in the Gateways to the Glimmering Riverworlds.

Little creeks and streams spread like veins from the river mouth at the base of the roaring waterfall. A few other people could be seen in the distance, hopping from one river world to the next. John and Alb picked their way across streams to the mouth, a lovely, deep pool, edged with rocks and shrubs, stooping long-limbed gum trees bending over the water, almost like they would stretch out a branch, and scoop up a drink.

John noticed none of this beauty. He thought only of his song. He should, he thought, be working. He did not have time to fish!

Er… does fishing take a long time? John asks. Can do, can do, says Alb. Alb never said much.

Alb plonked his fishing gear down on the bank of the pool. He found a nice big rock and sat on it. He held out a little rod, tortoise sized, to John. He also handed over a small, shiny object.

Thanks, what is it? John said, turning over the strange black rectangle in his hand. ‘Lure’, said Alb, and hooked a similar item onto his own rod.

Cast it like this, said Alb, demonstrating. John copied him. Alb settled in to his rock in a very permanent way, his own fishing line clamped between his sharp tortoise beak.

‘Um, what are we fishing for?’

‘Gotta see what’s there’, said Alb. ‘There’s always a bunch to clean up in the glimmering rivers.’

John jiggled his leg. He looked about himself, distracted. He whistled. He glanced at Alb. Alb looked like he’d become part rock himself, he was so still, and at ease.

But eventually, John too, settled. His breathing slowed down. He gazed at the shimmer on the water, he listened to the galahs and the magpies in the trees. He smelled the eucalyptus, enlivened by the warm sun. He noticed an ant, carrying a whole cinnamon donut by itself.

And, after what felt like a long time, but also like no time at all, John felt something tug on his fishing line. His paws jerked up into the air as he clambered to keep hold of the fishing rod.

Woah! that’s a big one! Said Alb. Reel it in!

Alb clamped his beak down on the line and helped John pull in something heavy and cumbersome.

Hmm, said John, when they’d finally got the catch on the shore of the pond. It’s an old computer. What’s an old computer doing in the glimmering rivers?

Alb said, Well, all sorts of stuff gets caught in the rivers. That’s why I’m out here fishing once a week, we gotta keep things tidy.

Huh, said John, as they both settled back down to continue fishing, the old computer safely in a little trolley Alb had brought along for the purpose.

Other things caught on their lines throughout the day. Gradually, the two fisherpeople amassed:

a toy keyboard

a compass, rusted

a candy cane, but the yellow and purple kind - yuck

an old toy bucket, for sandcastles

a mug, with a photo of a smiling family on it

a painting of a regal frog wearing a tiara

several used magic spells

and many, many old bottles

The sun moved through the sky. Shadows grew and changed. Golden light saturated the Gateways to the Glimmering Worlds, and played off the waterfall. The day was drawing in.

John and Alb decided to call it a day. They began to pack up the fishing rods. As they did, John found he was humming a tune. It was something new. The two friends next made sure all of the old things they’d collected from the pool were tucked into the trolley. John noticed a phrase or two swimming around his head. That might make a good lyric, he thought to himself.

Alb and he took different riverways on their ways home, as Alb was taking the trolley to the recycling depot.

Gotta make sure all this stuff gets to the right place - said Alb. I reckon it can all be used again. Ah, except maybe this candy cane.

John waved goodbye, and soon found himself emerging from the puddle out the back of his house. Mama and Papa gave him hugs, and asked him about his day.

Yeah, said John. It was nice. Do I have time before dinner to work on my song?

Up in his attic room, John wrote down the phrase he thought might make a good lyric. It led to a few more phrases, which he jotted down to. Next, John experimentally played out the melody that he’d been humming. There was definitely something there.

When he came down for dinner, an hour later, ideas were buzzing, hopping, putting their hands in the air and clamouring for attention. Things were working, his song had finally started to come together.

Over spaghetti Bolognese, he told his parents about the peaceful day at the pool.

It was strange! He said, I didn’t really think much all day long, but when we got up to leave, it was like the ideas for my music started bubbling up, and things that had seemed like problems began to make sense.

Well, it doesn’t seem so strange to me, said Papa. I get like that with my paintings. Sometimes I just need to take a break - let my mind float, kind of, and allow things to settle. Then, often, it’s like the idea has just had time to grow into something more mature.

Me too! Mama bear agreed.. When I run out of ideas for my baking, it’s like I just need to refill the well. I spend some time doing other things, and then I can be creative again. Sometimes all it takes is a little rest.

The next week, John performed his song in the Battle of the Bands. He came second. But he loved the song he’d made. And his friends loved it too. You rocked up there, they told him.

Outro

Pema VO: You’ve been listening to the Download, written and hosted by me, Pema, and Jake. Thank you to guest producer Yasmeen Khan. The Download is produced by Yoto, with sound design by Jack Beattie and original music by Tom McCarthy.