Alexandra Lloyd’s life was about to change dramatically. She’s French-Canadian and grew up in Montreal. While on vacation in the Cayman Islands, she hit it off with a guy who happened to be from Alabama. She said all she knew about the state before that encounter was the song “Sweet Home Alabama.”
The next thing she learned about Alabama was “Roll Tide.”
Fast forward a few years – she moved to Birmingham and married that man in 2017. Then the culture shock set in and the feeling of being pulled between two places.
“Do I continue to act and be the person that I used to be in that other life?” Lloyd said. “Or do I adjust to what the expectation is of people living in that environment because that's what they know and that's how they, in a way, expect you to navigate through this world.”
A few years ago, those feelings of being split between two cultures sparked an idea for a podcast.
“I wanted to call it ‘how to survive as an expat’ and the visual of it was showing dead palm trees,” Lloyd said. “That shows you a little bit kind of on the inside how I was feeling at first.”
But her thoughts evolved and became From Where to Here, a podcast dissecting identity, language and cultural exchange.
‘A safe space’
Lloyd’s podcast, which she hosts, features lengthy conversations with immigrants and a particular focus on their personal and geographic journeys.
“I like to think of this is a place, a safe space, that people can bring their stories around cultures and languages,” Lloyd said. “My mission with the podcast is to bring more understanding and appreciation of other people's cultures and language.”
She said she tries to lead with curiosity and ask questions that facilitate understanding to break down stereotypes. Guests have come from many countries including Ukraine, Columbia, Syria and Ivory Coast. One episode looked at the language barriers posed by those who know American Sign Language.
A recent series on the podcast is called “Immigrants’ Table.” It involves conversations with immigrant restaurateurs around Birmingham.
Besides discussing the interplay of culture and food and how that shows up in their restaurants, Lloyd wanted to know this: why Birmingham?
“I might think, me personally, of New York or other much bigger cities,” she said. “It's not the first city that comes to mind. So I want to understand, why did you pick Birmingham?”
During her time in Alabama, Lloyd has not eaten one Southern stable – barbecue – because she doesn’t eat red meat. But she was taken with fried tomatoes. A neighbor brought some over.
“She made them fresh for us,” Lloyd said. “I thought that was the cutest, genuine, most genuine acts of service and gift and they were delicious.”
Reflecting on a decade in Birmingham
Lloyd experienced many challenges creating a new life in Alabama. The language barrier showed up in a subtle way.
“One of the things that I struggled with was to express my emotions in a language that I'm not comfortable,” she said. “Early on in our marriage, my husband and I, just me being able to express how I feel in the way that he can fully understand me was really hard because all I wanted was to speak in French. But he doesn't know French.”
She added it takes courage to move far away from family and loved ones and start over. While she said she’s found community and life is more settled, some days are still hard. The podcast though, with its personal stories and cross-cultural connections, “fills my cup in a way that I didn’t think it would.”
“I'm hoping that if it can change one person's perception about a certain culture or something that they thought, they assume, wow, then that's exactly what I'm trying to do,” she said.
