The Anna Jinja Show is a creative, must-listen for all Bobcats, featuring Anna Jinja Mather, director of academic communications and marketing at Ohio University. The podcast traverses the world of adoption and foster care through the creative lens of art.
After running a podcast in her home state of Iowa, Mather hoped to continue her passion on the WOUB network at Ohio University where the Anna Jinjas Show was started in June 2022. Though the podcast started out as a way to tell the stories of individuals with disabilities, she decided to change the focus toward foster care and adoption.
An adoptee herself, Mather wanted to express the complicated emotions of adoptees and children who lived in foster care through an artistic lens by collaborating with musicians and artists from around Athens County.
“It wasn't until I got to Iowa in 2018 that I really thought more in-depth about my adoption story,” Mather said. “More and more adoption stories came to me (about) doing the show, (and) the show has evolved into what it is today.”
Mather said her main goal was to create community and connection through the podcast because, “Everyone experiences adoption,” and understanding how people can view it in so many different ways. Mather was adopted as an infant through the Seoul Korea International Holt Adoption Agency and grew up as the oldest of three children with two siblings who were biologically related.
“We'd like to come into a new community and figure out: who are the people that we connect with?” she said. “Who are our family members, whether we choose them or we are given those family members, and how do we create community? That's the goal of the show.”
When she was growing up, Mather said people would often ridicule her for her middle name, Jinja, which was the name she was assigned by the adoption agency. She never wanted to say it, but by exploring her own story she saw naming the show as a way to take ownership of her name.
Mather has interviewed other OU staff about their relations to adoption and foster care, including adoptive parents and adopted children. She also had the chance to interview members of the Athens community whose lives had experienced foster care and adoption through the lens of music and art.
She found those mediums to be a beautiful way for people to express how they feel while featuring local Athens residents on the podcast. Each episode, guests will listen to songs or study art that centers around the main themes of the podcast and then discuss how it contributes to the overall ideas and beliefs surrounding adoption and foster care.
Adoption and foster care can be complex, but Mather has seen how open communication and honest dialogue bring a voice to those affected. With her podcast, she hopes to help at least one person going through their own journey. Mather encouraged anyone interested in listening or being a guest to visit her website at www.annajinja.com.
“I think the goal of the show is to really create community and connection,” Mather said. “In the setup, I talked about how everybody experiences adoption. We all experienced difficulties with questions related to identity, belonging, home and family. All of those questions are central to who we are as humans.”
