Virginia Voices is a monthly podcast where you will hear first-person stories from people most affected by current politics, policy and economic trends.  Host and Richmond journalist, Leah Small, gives Virginians outside the news a full stage to explore their thoughts and experiences, beyond a few soundbites or paragraphs in a daily news story.  Virginia Voices is a project of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO.

Special thanks to Virginia Humanities for their generous support of Virginia Voices.

episode 11

Christmas has always been a meaningful time for Rev. Kristie Askew, a pastor in the United Methodist Church living in Mathews County. She gave birth to her oldest daughter, Brianna Nicole Sulc, on December 23, 1997, and brought her home on Christmas.

 The season also marks a time of great sorrow. On Christmas Day 2016, a reckless driver crashed into Brianna's car as she was driving to a family dinner. She suffered severe injuries, and died several days later in the hospital. Brianna had chosen to be an organ donor. Her choice gave new life to a man suffering from liver failure and helped two other organ recipients. 

“I've learned over the years that the grief that I experienced from her loss really drives me in my ministry with people,” said Askew, who grew up in Gloucester. “Not that they have to have the same kind of loss, but they've just experienced loss in a lot of different ways, whether it's the loss of a child or a parent, loss of a job, and a loss of a relationship.“ 

Click to read the story.

Episode 10

The 250-acre Mattaponi reservation sits high above the Mattaponi River, granting a prized view of a wide river bend with wooded shores. It’s quiet, peaceful and among the oldest reservation lands in the U.S. By mid-November, the leaves had turned, and the native hunters took to the woods.

Days before Thanksgiving, the tribe honored a nearly 350-year-old treaty with the state of Virginia. A symbolic tax tribute of deer hunted by the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes was placed at the feet of the governor, which granted Native hunting and fishing rights during the colonial era. The tribute signifies the protections and rights the state owes the Mattaponi.  

As  the tribe celebrated its past, it also took steps this month to secure a better future.  

On November 7th, the Mattaponi submitted a petition for federal recognition to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The designation grants more sovereignty in tribal government, more access to social services and funding for cultural programs for its 380 members. Another Virginia tribe, the Nottoway, also announced its bid for federal recognition on November 25th.  

 But the tribe’s relationship with the state has also been marred by many historic wrongs against the Mattaponi and other native tribes. In 1924, the Racial Integrity Act, which required babies born in Virginian to be classified as either white or colored, erased the ethnic identity of indigenous people in Virginia. The law and a lack of funding made documenting the Mattaponi’s history long and hard, which impacted the tribe’s application for federal recognition. 

 Gov. Glenn Youngkin has written a letter of support to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. 

Mattaponi Chief Mark Falling Star Custalow and Lois Morning Glory Custalow Carter, who coordinated the tribe’s petition efforts, spoke about the federal petition and the complicated history between the tribe, state and federal governments.

Click to read the story.

Episode 9

Sajia Afzali remembers the chaos in the streets of Kabul on August 15, 2021, the day the Taliban regained and seized authority in Afghanistan following two decades of U.S. control. People streamed out of workplaces and schools in the capital city in response to the news, making plans to flee to safety. 

Afzali was studying economics at a university in Kabul and was living with her husband and two children. The family fled from their home with the clothes on their backs and documents showing her husband had worked for the U.S. government, proof that was a golden ticket out of Afghanistan.  

The young family came to the U.S. as refugees and settled in Henrico County with her father-in-law, who also worked for the U.S. government. Other family members were also living in the area.  

In the year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, 195,000 Afghan immigrants lived in the U.S.  Between 2018 and 2022, roughly 19,400 Afghan immigrants settled in Virginia; only California received more Afghan transplants. Washington, D.C. and its suburbs have the largest population of recent Afghan immigrants of any metropolitan region in the U.S., according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.

The adjustment to life in the U.S. has been hard, emotionally and financially. Afzali, 28, is pained when she speaks with family members who have been left behind, her aunts in particular.

The Taliban have enforced brutal laws against women, banning them from most jobs and attending school after age 12. In September, Afghan’s religious police banned women from raising their voices in public and looking at men other than their husbands or relatives.  

Afzali was a child at the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001, the U.S. response to the September 11th attacks by Al Qaeda, the terrorist group harbored by the Taliban. As part of its counterterrorism efforts, the U.S. helped Afghans establish a representative democracy, giving more stability to Afghans like Afzali’s family and new opportunities for girls and women.

In Virginia, Afzali is continuing her education at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is taking prerequisites to study dentistry at the university. Afzali is grateful for the freedom to pursue education she and her daughter have in the U.S.

Click here to read the story.

Episode 8

Yehudit Shamir raised her son as a single mother in New York City. She struggled to find a supportive community. 

Shamir grew up in Queens, the daughter of Jewish parents of Eastern European descent. She began to explore her faith and its spiritual connection to Israel.  Shamir learned about the concept of Kibbutzim — small, communal towns, often supported by collective farming.  

She and her ten-year-old son immigrated to Israel in 1982 and settled in Kissufim, a tranquil Kibbutz near the border of the Gaza Strip. She married her husband, Shmuel, under the white cloth of a traditional chuppah. 

She learned Hebrew and during bike rides, stopped to pick figs ripened by the desert sun. The family later moved to Vienna, Va. but always visited Israel — the last time on October 6th.  

A day later, Hamas militants from Palestine waged a deadly assault targeting Kissufim and other communities in southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people. Militants took more than 200 Israeli hostages. And retaliatory strikes by Israel have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.   

The Israeli-Hamas War is the bloodiest conflict in the multi-generational fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. Last month, VCIJ at WHRO profiled a Palestinian-American.

Shamir, now 74, lost family and friends in the attacks.

Click here to read the story.

episode 7

Zeina Azzam, a Palestinian American who is poet laureate of Alexandria, writes longingly about her ancestral home in Palestine while celebrating her American identity, often peppering her English poetry with Arabic. Azzam, 68, came to the U.S. at the age of 10 after living in Homs, Syria and Beirut. 

 Her parents fled their home in Haifa in 1948 when Zionist paramilitary forces drove more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes to establish the Israeli state. The Zionists were largely European Jews who themselves suffered through centuries of displacement, antisemitism, and genocide. 

 This mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians is called Al Nakba, or The Catastrophe, and ignited a refugee crisis that’s lasted decades. Today, Israeli settlements continue to displace Palestinians in the West Bank. This history has fueled both Israel and Hamas to conduct violent strikes and retaliations. 

 Next month, VCIJ at WHRO will profile an Israeli-American.

Azzam has made a colorful and happy home in Alexandria, decorated with cultural emblems from the Arab World, fig trees and jasmine plants.

 Her poem, “Write My Name,” has gone viral with its vivid description of children surviving in war-torn Gaza. Azzam read the poem before the United Nations Palestinian Rights Committee, and the verse has been translated into multiple languages.

 Speaking independently, not as the Poet Laureate of Alexandria, she shared stories about her life as a child of refugees in America, Al Nakba, the Israeli-Hamas War and her hope for the future. 

Click here to read her story.

episode 6

Jammie Hale, 51, has lived in Giles County in Southwest Virginia his entire life, as did generations of his family before him since 1779. Giles County, which borders West Virginia, is known for its scenery – mountain vistas, covered bridges, tranquil deep woods. 

But for six years, noise and disruption from start and stop construction on the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline and dogged opposition of the project by environmentalists and area residents like Hale, has cut through the county’s rural quiet. The Mountain Valley Pipeline spans just over 300 miles between West Virginia and Southwest Virginia, crossing hundreds of streams and wetlands and under private property. Five years behind its original schedule – and billions over budget – the pipeline is expected to be operational by June.  

Although the pipeline does not run through Hale’s property, the project has upended his life. 

Hale, with his wife, Linda, purchased a secluded, hilltop property in 2008. They started a farm and raised livestock after buying the property in 2008. Hale plans to eventually deed the property to his son. Hale, who had worked mostly low wage jobs before farming, including custodial work at Virginia Tech, saved for decades to purchase the property.

 Since pipeline construction got underway in Giles County a little over six years ago, Hale’s drinking water has been clouded by sediment. A natural spring that he used to water his animals stopped flowing, so he no longer keeps livestock. It’s unclear what caused Hale’s water issues. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has not investigated the water contamination on Hale’s property. The Roanoke Times has reported other incidents of drinking water being contaminated by erosion caused by pipeline construction. 

 The changes have crippled Hale’s livelihood.

 “It’s broken me in many forms physically, mentally and emotionally,” Hale said.  

Since he can’t farm, Hale has been “on the front lines of fighting this thing every day for pretty much a little over six years,” Hale said. “That's what my life has been."  

 He has protested the pipeline by documenting possible environmental violations, growing food to feed tree sitters blocking access to the pipeline, painting signs  and more. Hale faces a civil  injunction that bars him from disrupting pipeline operations. He was arrested in Montgomery County in 2019 and pled guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct for actions related to the protests.

Hale isn’t alone in his objections. Appeals by property owners and environmentalists continue in the federal courts. Area residents also have safety concerns and fear the pipeline could rupture, releasing flammable gas that could contaminate the area. A section of the pipeline failed a pressure test in May.

But supporters say the Mountain Valley pipeline is crucial for energy security and reliability.The company says natural gas pipelines have the best safety record of any energy delivery system in the country, and the new fuel pipe will be monitored constantly by a sophisticated, high-tech system.

Significant pipeline construction delays were caused by challenges from environmental groups, including a failed Supreme Court case to prevent project construction within the Thomas Jefferson National Forest. The project has been hit with hundreds of environmental citations, including a $2.1 million civil penalty for allowing sediment to enter waterways in Giles and other counties. 

Pipeline construction company EQT said it paid the $2.1 million fine and other penalties without dispute, and has worked quickly to resolve environmental violations identified by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. 

In May, DEQ issued a $31,000 fine against EQT for the company’s failure to install erosion controls, which resulted in sediment contaminating creeks in Franklin County.  EQT said it has put infrastructure in place to correct the problem.

The battle to stop the pipeline from coming to Appalachia was lost, but Hale wants to continue the fight to stop the pipeline from being used.

Click here to read the story.

Episode 5

Georgia Allen, 70, remembers growing up during segregation in Pleasant Ridge, a sleepy, agricultural community in southern Virginia Beach. Her family bought groceries at the local country store, where her parents suffered the indignities of white customers always being served ahead of them. 

But as a young girl, Allen wasn’t aware of it because her mother would find ways to distract her during shopping trips. Before Allen walked to the counter with her chosen toy or candy, her mother would say, “Come here a minute, are you sure you want that?”

“She would keep us busy, I ultimately realized later in life that you know, my mom was creative,” Allen said. “She was making sure we weren’t experiencing it (racism) as much as other people.”

Allen is now a civil rights activist and long time member of the Virginia Beach branch of the NAACP, having served as branch president from 2001 to 2012.

In 2021, she was a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that successfully changed the local election system in Virginia Beach after decades of underrepresentation for the city’s Black residents. In most cities, people living within voting districts elect city council members from within their districts to represent them in local office. But Virginia Beach had a system in which council members must win elections citywide, instead of solely within their districts. 

This voting system prevented the election of candidates preferred by voters of color, plaintiffs argued. The city of Virginia Beach, created in 1963 by a merger between Princess Anne County and Virginia Beach, did not have its first Black city councilmember until 1986. Before the lawsuit, it had had only five Black city councilmembers in its history. 

A federal district court barred the city from at-large voting, except for mayor, and approved ten new voting districts. The result was the election of the most diverse city council in Virginia Beach history in 2022.

Following a series of legal challenges to the ruling, the Virginia General Assembly voted this year to keep in place changes to the city’s election system. 

Allen recently applied to fill a vacant seat on the Virginia Beach School Board, but was not selected. She still plans to be active.

The way her mother chose to stand against racism inspired her activism.

“My mother was very tactical, and that’s the difference in seniors of that age group; they watched everything that was going on around them,” Allen said. “They maneuvered through this horrible system in a manner that kept their dignity.”

Click here to read the interview.

Episode 4

Tatiana, a Ukrainian artist in her forties, has left the safety of her Central Virginia home to travel to her native country three times to volunteer humanitarian aid during the Russian invasion. 

Tatiana has lived in the U.S. since her early twenties. Most of her family remains in Ukraine, and her heart remains connected to her home. Working with the U.S.-based nonprofit Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, Tatiana has returned to her homeland to coordinate fundraising and provide aid for war victims such as hospitalized children, amputees and soldiers on the frontline. In one instance, she secured medical treatment in bordering Poland for a young soldier badly burned during battle.

A professional artist, Tatiana has raised upwards of $15,000 for Ukrainian aid from selling her paintings, and has partnered with Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other organizations to raise relief funds. Influenced by the war, her paintings evoke the trauma of refugees and loss of life. Black, blood red, and grim expressions are the main features of her most recent works; a departure from pre-war pieces that captured natural and idyllic scenes. 

“When I express my emotions [in paintings], it’s not blue and yellow colors, patriotic,” Tatiana said. “It’s red because this war [is] about blood. It’s about losing people, about losing generations.”

The conflict has killed more than 26,000 Ukrainian civilians as of early August, and has displaced more than 11 million people, about a quarter of Ukraine’s population. 

As Ukraine endures Russian attacks on  civilians and other war crimes, Tatiana is haunted by constant loss.“There’s a funeral everyday” she said, “and the friends of friends dying everyday.”

Tatiana has received online threats for her support of her homeland, and is being identified only by her first name for her security. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Click here to read the interview.

Episode 3

Stephen Baek, a native of South Korea, took an oath of loyalty to the United States on the Fourth of July at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

Baek joined more than 50 immigrants for the 61st annual naturalization ceremony held on the mountain-top estate of the author of the Declaration of Independence. Under the bright morning sun, an audience of friends, family and welcoming citizens wearing red, white and blue celebrated the new Americans. 

Before the ceremony’s close, those gathered listened to a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Baek sat silently with head and eyes lowered, as he read along from a pamphlet. It was the first time, Baek said, he had read the declaration in its entirety. He was struck by how the founding document speaks to America’s history as a nation of immigrants. 

“America has such a diverse society. Immigrants from all backgrounds gathered, worked hard, and achieved this shared goal of building a society where individuals can pursue their happiness, their dreams,” Baek said.

Baek, a scientist and engineer, pursued his dreams when he came with his wife to the U.S. in 2015 on a work visa to teach at the University of Iowa. Their daughter was born shortly after they arrived. The family moved to Virginia in 2021. Six months ago, Baek began the process of applying for citizenship, which first requires five years of permanent residency. 

Baek, 37,  is an associate professor of data science at the University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson. Living in the U.S. has broadened the possibilities for his work, he said, and his. research is wide-ranging. He has analyzed body shape to determine, to the dollar amount, how much weight and height impact annual salaries, and has shed light on how tumor shape correlates with cancer metastasis. 

Baek’s interest in the U.S. was first sparked by his father’s love of Hollywood movies.  Now in America, he copes with homesickness and navigates cultural differences, but feels his family’s choice to leave Korea has brought both promise and opportunity.

Click here to read the interview.

Episode 2

Teaching Black history in Virginia classrooms today means sprinting through a political minefield. One misstep brings the ire of parents and conservative leaders who say teaching how race has shaped American history is harmful and divisive.

Virginia is one of 18 states that limits how teachers can discuss racism in the classroom. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin made the issue a cornerstone of his election campaign, and his first executive order banned teaching “inherently divisive concepts” in the state's public schools. The order says K through 12 curriculum are subject to a compliance review by top education officials in Virginia. Youngkin even established a short-lived hotline for parents to complain about teachers and lesson plans involving race. 

Matthan Wilson, who teaches government and African American history at a high school in Newport News, aims to objectively teach the painful parts of American history, while dodging a political firefight. A 56-year-old Black man, Wilson, was raised in Portsmouth and was bussed to a predominantly white elementary school.  As a young student, he began to distrust the history he was being taught, leading him to read independently and question narratives that favored white American exceptionalism.

Today, Wilson teaches the African-American history elective. The course was developed in 2020 under former Governor Ralph Northam, following the racial reckoning brought by the Black Lives Matter movement. He helps his students think critically about complexities such as Blacks passing as white during segregation, and the contradiction of the founding fathers owning slaves and advocating for equality under the law. 

In his classroom, only two students stand for the pledge. Most feel the U.S. government has failed them, having spent their formative years in a society where systemic racism persists, as evidenced by many metrics of inequality.  

But Wilson sees  hope. He’s inspired by his student’s motivation to learn outside of the classroom, and desire to bring Americans of all races closer in both fellowship and equity. He encourages students to seek balanced perspectives and to challenge the mythos of American history. It’s his way of making sure that some of the darker chapters of history are not repeated.

Click here to read the interview.

episode 1

Deborah Skeldon met her husband, Patrick, on a blind date in Hawaii in 1980. She was a civilian, recently divorced. He was a Marine Corps fighter pilot, a Vietnam veteran based at Kaneohe Air Station.

The two forged an immediate bond – one that would remain unbroken for decades through the devastating diagnosis of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, attributed to his military service.

Skeldon flew more than 280 combat missions during two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 23 years of service, including training dozens of Marine and Navy pilots. 

Years later, after a career as a commercial pilot, Sheldon was diagnosed with ALS. The deadly neurological condition attacks neurons needed for muscle movement, leading to severe paralysis and usually death within 2 to 3 years. 

For unknown reasons, military veterans are twice as likely to develop ALS than the general population. In 2008, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that all veterans with ALS, who served for at least 90 days, were eligible for full disability benefits. 

Debrah Skeldon, 71, lives in Springfield, Va. and is a member of Gold Star Spouses of the United States. She remembered her Marine and the life they shared.

Click here to read the interview.