The California Report Magazine

After a momentous election this week, Californians are trying to make sense of what a second Trump presidency could mean for the Golden State. Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic Party leaders are fighting to protect the state’s progressive values on immigration, climate change and reproductive rights ahead of Trump’s inauguration. Host Sasha Khokha spoke with KQED’s political correspondent Marisa Lagos to discuss California’s future in a second Trump term. Plus, in times of monumental political change, artists can sometimes help us make sense of the world, express big feelings and connect to one another. Oakland’s Kev Choice’s boundary-breaking work is doing just that. Choice is a classically trained pianist and accomplished hip-hop artist who has worked for decades to bridge the gap between those two distinct worlds. His diverse body of work includes songs about Oakland, racial injustice, activism and politics. KQED Arts and Culture editor Nastia Voynovskaya spent time with Choice to discuss his musical evolution, and his impact on the future of music in Oakland and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Latinos make up the second largest voting group in the upcoming 2024 election, totaling 32 million eligible voters nationwide. But Latinos are not a monolith, and both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have been courting Latino voters on the campaign trail. Andrés Cediel is a filmmaker and a journalism professor at UC Berkeley. He’s also a producer of VOCES: Latino Vote 2024, a new PBS documentary project that explores the vast interests and priorities of Latino voters across the country. The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha spoke with Cediel about how California’s Latino voters could tip the balance. And a new documentary film takes a peek behind the curtain of a San Francisco opera about Black and Latina women during the California Gold Rush. In conversation with The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha, the film’s director, John Else shares the true story of a mob-fueled lynching of a Mexican-American woman, and the lessons for our current political moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six-year-old Sumaya Kaur Sidibe beamed with pride when she watched Kamala Harris become Vice President in 2021. She identified with Harris in a big way: she is also mixed race – Indian and Black – and she’s from Oakland. We produced a story about the family preparing for Kamala Harris to take office back in 2021. But four years later, Sumaya has complicated feelings about the vice president’s politics and the way she talks about her own biracial identity. Host Sasha Khokha checks back in with the Sidibe-Singh family about how they are feeling about this upcoming presidential election, and the questions they have for Kamala Harris. And Incarcerated people can’t vote in this upcoming election, but their lives may be directly impacted by the results. Our friends at KALW’s Uncuffed podcast bring you a conversation between currently and formerly incarcerated journalists at San Quentin: Ryan Pagan, Will Harris, Anthony Gomez and Thanh Tran. They discuss statewide ballot measures propositions 6 and 36. If passed, Proposition 6 would end involuntary servitude in prison, and Proposition 36 would increase penalties for certain theft and drug crimes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California has grand plans to turn a stretch of abandoned railroad tracks into 300 miles of walking and biking trails, connecting the rolling hills of Marin County with the redwood forests near Eureka in Northern Humboldt. If completed, the Great Redwood Trail could become the longest rail-trail in the nation. But some Indigenous communities and other groups are not on board. Reporter Sam Anderson explores how this grand idea has resurfaced the painful and complicated history behind the original railroad tracks that were built more than a century ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moonlight Pulido is a mother and a caretaker for her own mom in Los Angeles. But she couldn’t have more children after a prison doctor gave her an involuntary hysterectomy while she was incarcerated in 2005. She’s one of hundreds of living survivors of state-sponsored sterilization.   Here in California, more than 20,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in state prisons, homes and hospitals under eugenics laws. People classified as “unfit to reproduce” were disproportionately poor women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Even though California’s  eugenics laws were repealed in 1979, people who were incarcerated were still forcibly sterilized as recently as 2013. In 2021, the state passed a historic reparations law to make amends for this shameful chapter in our history. For more than a year, reporter Cayla Mihalovich has been investigating how the law has been implemented. It was intended to compensate survivors for their suffering. But roughly 75% of applicants have been denied reparations. Plus. our friends at KPBS in San Diego have a new series highlighting volunteers who devote their time in unique and unexpected ways. Today, we meet Jillian Shea at the Mesa Rim Climbing Center. She’s an athlete who lost a hand at birth. Now she’s introducing newcomers to the sport of adaptive climbing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might think of Palm Springs as a wealthy town filled with luxury hotels and swimming pools. But it's also a place shaped by brutal racism. People who lived in Section 13, a once a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, were pushed off their land. Their homes were bulldozed and burned down. Now, The California Report’s Madi Bolanos. talked to some of the former residents who are now fighting for reparations. And we continue our Hidden Gems series with a visit to Mineral King. It's located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park. Mineral King's remote location means it gets fewer visitors than other parts of the park. But the campers and backpackers that make the trek are rewarded with a spectacular mountain range with rushing waterfalls. There are only a handful of buildings here, including some historic wooden cabins that belong to a few families who’ve been here long before this was a national park. One of those cabins belongs to Laile Di Silvestro’s family. Her connection to Mineral King goes back to the 1870s. Today, she’s an archeologist, and she’s looking for the stories she didn’t hear growing up. The California Report Magazine host Sasha Khokha hiked Mineral King with Di Silvestro to learn about some surprising trail blazers in the California gold rush. And the discrimination some people faced during those boom times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, it’s an unassuming beige building on a busy Berkeley street. But in the 1970s, the Rainbow Sign was a groundbreaking center for Black culture, politics, and art. It hosted dozens of high-profile Black thought leaders and performers, including James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, and Shirley Chisholm. Although it only existed for a few years, seeing these performances and speakers left a profound impression on one young member of the Rainbow Sign community: Kamala Harris. As Harris takes center stage as a presidential candidate, and tries to tell the nation her story, we revisit our story from January 2022 about the Rainbow Sign and its influence on her as a child growing up in Berkeley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In California, music and winemaking seem to go together. Visit any of the state’s countless wineries and you can hear all kinds of music, from jazz and folk, to classical and Americana. But one artist on the Central Coast takes that connection especially seriously: he spent years making an album full of sounds from a vineyard. Reporter Benjamin Purper takes us to San Luis Obispo to learn more about a sonic journey through a Central Coast wine harvest. And we'll meet one of California’s most celebrated cheese-makers, Soyoung Scanlan. But years ago, before she’d ever really eaten cheese, Soyoung had another love. Growing up in South Korea, she trained in classical piano. So every cheese she’s made over the last 25 years has a musical name and connection. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse visited the cheesemaker in the hills outside Petaluma. We end today with a story that comes to us from KPBS in San Diego. They recently launched a new series, sharing stories of volunteers. We’ll be bringing you some of those profiles, starting with Ron Peterson, a guide at the Tijuana River Estuary. After losing his sight, Ron now leads a very unique kind of tour.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this election year, the issue of immigration has become especially contentious. As one of the four states that share a border with Mexico, California has often tried to lead compassionately, especially when it comes to supporting immigrant children who come here alone. So far this year, nearly 10,000 immigrant youth have made new homes in California. Hundreds of them have benefitted from a unique program that provides legal help and guides them as they adjust to life in a new country. Reporter Lauren DeLaunay Miller brings us the story of one high school student whose life was transformed by the program, and tells us why he believes this program needs to stick around for good. Plus, we visit San Francisco's Buena Vista Horace Mann school. By day, it's a Spanish immersion school for students from kindergarten to 8th grade. But by night, it transforms into something completely unique in the city: a homeless shelter for families with children enrolled in the school district. The shelter provides a hot meal, shower and a place to sleep in the gym or auditorium. To boost their morale, parents at the shelter are able to cook a meal together twice a month. KQED’s Daisy Nguyen takes us into the kitchen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, as wildfires continue to burn across our state, we’re re-airing a story from Erin Baldassari, KQED’s Senior Editor for Housing Affordability. Erin’s reporting took her back to Nevada County, where she grew up.  She wanted to learn how people there are adapting to the rising risk of wildfires due to climate change. And she started by asking folks there the same question she’s been asking herself: What do you do if climate change makes the place you love an increasingly dangerous place to live?  Erin’s story comes to us from the KQED podcast, Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How the Black Panthers Helped Shape U.S. Schools Back in the 1960s, people were challenging the status quo in a lot of ways, including how schools should be run. At the same time, the Black Power movement was gaining traction, when the Black Panther Party formed in Oakland in 1966. The FBI considered them dangerous becuase of their belief in  Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense against police brutality. But the Black Panthers also changed schools in ways we can still see today. This week, we’re bringing you an episode from our friends at KQED’s Mindshift podcast about how one high school in Oakland is still continuing the legacy of community schools.   Taiko is Helping Keep Japanese American Culture Alive in the Central Valley The Central Valley town of Ballico sits in the middle of acres of almond orchards. It’s the kind of place you might miss as you’re driving past. But it’s got a rich history: some of the first farmers who settled here came from Japan. And these days, while the folks who live here come from many backgrounds, if you visit the local school, you can still hear the influence of Japanese American culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland Composer and Harpist Destiny Muhammad Has Always Charted Her Own Path Sitting on stage with her harp resting in her lap, Destiny Muhammad repeats this mantra: “Excellence, Beauty, and Success.” It’s part mic-check and part pump-up. When she first started learning to play the harp, the Oakland-based composer and musician used to suffer from stage fright. Now, more than 30 years later, she commands the stage with a presence fit for a woman who calls herself the “sound sculptress.” As part of our series on California composers, KQED’s Bianca Taylor brings us her story. The Pesky (But Lovable) Pine Native to the Northern CA Coast California is home to a lot of iconic trees, including giant sequoias, windswept Monterey cypresses, and Joshua trees. The bishop pine doesn’t have that kind of celebrity status. But if you live on the Point Reyes Peninsula in west Marin County you’re all too familiar with it. These indigenous trees are so well-suited to growing here, that to locals they’re notorious pests, not because of how easily they grow, but because of how they die. The California Report’s intern Lusen Mendel takes us to Tomales Bay State Park to meet someone who’s made it his mission to deal with the pesky and strangely loveable, pines. Meeting Monarch the Grizzly Bear If you spend much time in the Sierra, you’ve probably been warned to look out for black bears. But there’s another kind of bear that once roamed our state, one that’s got a much bigger – and fiercer – reputation: the California grizzly. It's been 100 years since the extinction of the grizzly, but you can see one of the last of its kind, a bear named Monarch, up close at a new exhibit at San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences. Host Sasha Khokha paid a visit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nine months into Satsuki Ina’s parents’ marriage, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Their life was totally upended when, along with 125,000 other Japanese Americans, they were sent to incarceration camps. After unsuccessfully fighting for their civil rights to be restored, they renounced their American citizenship. That meant the US government branded them as “enemy aliens.” Ina was born in a prison camp at Tule Lake, but didn’t know much about that difficult chapter in her parents’ life. Then she discovered a trove of letters that they sent to each other while they were separated in different camps. Now, at close to 80 years old, Ina – who spent most of her career as a trauma therapist — is publishing a memoir about how her parents’ relationship survived prison camps, resistance and separation. Using letters, diary entries, haikus written by her father, and photographs, The Poet and the Silk Girl is a rare first-person account of a generation-altering period in Japanese American history. Sasha Khokha sat down with Satsuki Ina to learn more about her parents’ story and how it shaped the course of Ina’s own life. This episode first aired in March 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a recent afternoon, a group of mechanics gathered at a lowrider show. This isn't Los Angeles – a city where lowrider culture has deep roots – it's more than a 1,000 miles away in Mexico City. For decades, Mexican immigrants have headed north and shaped the culture of California’s cities. But now, a growing number of their children and grandchildren are leaving California and moving to Mexico. Reporter Levi Bridges met up with some of them in Mexico City to learn why they made the move. Plus, in the Central Valley, you often see signs from the California Farm Water Coalition that say “Food grows where water flows." The system of canals and reservoirs that feeds farmland there is one of the biggest in the world. But irrigation canals are also places where people dump unwanted objects, like toilets, furniture or shopping carts. It's Big Valley Divers job to clean and maintain the canals and the dams that feeds farmland, For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse spent a day in Colusa County with Big Valley Divers  to learn all about the unusual job that keeps the water flowing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some composers picture colors or abstract shapes when they’re working on a new piece. Derrick Skye thinks about space. His fascination with the cosmos is threaded throughout his compositions, including the latest in his series "Prisms, Cycles, Leaps." For our series on California composers. reporter Clare Wiley sat down with the Los Angeles-based Skye to hear how he brings his otherworldly ideas to life and how living in multicultural LA has influenced him.   Plus, we go to the oldest 100-mile ultramarathon in the world: The Western States Endurance Run. This grueling race starts near Lake Tahoe and winds along old mining trails in the Sierra, drops into the canyons of the American River, and finishes outside Sacramento. Thousands of people are on the waitlist to attempt it, but just a fraction make it to the starting line. The runners who do compete are overwhelmingly white, even though the race is trying to include more BIPOC athletes. KQED’s Mark Nieto got to watch this year’s race at the end of June and he followed one competitor who’s inspiring other runners of color.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the presidential race now in uncharted territory, Kamala Harris’ candidacy is putting her under a microscope. Not just her political career but everything about her background, including her mixed race heritage.  Last year, we brought you a series inspired in part by Kamala Harris’s visibility as a mixed race person when she became Vice President. Mixed! Stories of Mixed Race Californians explored both the complexity, and the joy of growing up multiracial. And California is the place to tell these stories from because the state is home to one of the largest multi-racial populations in the U.S,  This week, we’re bringing back the first episode from that series, which features the voices and stories of listeners from across the state.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caregivers don’t get a lot of recognition despite doing hard and essential work. This week, stories about caregiving at all phases of life and how hard it can be for some families to provide that care themselves or even find professional help. Systemic Neglect: How Staffing Shortages In Nursing Homes Leave Patients Trapped in Hospitals When taking care of a loved one becomes too hard, families often look to nursing homes for help. But finding long term care in California s not easy right now. The industry took a big hit during the pandemic and many facilities are still recovering from staffing shortages. Some patients with complex diagnoses are waiting weeks, months and even years for a bed. KQED health correspondent Lesley McClurg has the story of one man in the Bay Area who has tried everything to find care for his wife. A Caregiving Son and a Mom with Alzheimer's Find a Musical Connection What happens when the parent-child role is reversed? In caregiving, this kind of role reversal is common. And it’s what happened to Rob Fordyce. After his 85-year-old mom, Susan, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease two years ago, Rob moved back into his childhood home to take care of her. And despite Susan’s advancing disease, Rob found a surprising way for the two of them to connect, through music. Cayla Mihalovich has their story. How An LA Child Care Influencer Became A Resource For Providers Across The Country Child care happens in a lot of different settings: a school, or a center, or a church. What you may not know is that more than a quarter of California’s child care facilities are actually in private homes. And for those providers, it can be a real challenge to juggle caregiving with running a small business. Tonya Mohammad knows this firsthand and understands the myriad of issues that child care providers face. So she's built a following via social media by sharing her three decades of experience taking care of infants and toddlers in Los Angeles. LAist's Mariana Dale brings us her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show: For the past 13 years, DJ Ramzi has been sharing his deep knowledge and passion for Arabic music with listeners all over the world through his radio show and podcast, “Arabology.” But Ramzi Salti is not just a deejay, he's also an advanced lecturer in the Arabic program at Stanford University. His goal is to expose people to the wide variety of Arabic music, and along the way, push back against the stereotypes and demonization of Arabs and Arab-Americans. KQED’s culture reporter Ariana Proehl visited him at Stanford and brings us this story. And we meet musician Hana Vu. She just released her second album and started a North American tour that will end in her hometown of Los Angeles in August. Critics have called her an “an indie-pop prodigy” who’s “old beyond her years.” That’s because the prolific musician, who started recording and playing shows in her teens, is just 24. Guest host Bianca Taylor talked with Hana Vu about her new album “Romanticism,” and why she chose touring over music school. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This holiday weekend, we're replaying stories from our Hidden Gems series about out-of-the-way secret spots in California - places you might want to visit on a road trip! How This Oakland Business Gives Mannequins New Life (Almost) You might not notice them, but mannequins can be found everywhere from the tiniest boutiques to Target. But what happens to these non-biodegradable figures when stores go out of business or styles change? In California, many of them end up at Mannequin Madness, an Oakland warehouse run by a woman whose mission is to keep mannequins out of the landfill. This Stretch of the Mojave Desert Plays the ‘Lone Ranger’ Theme There’s a road in the western Mojave Desert that’s supposed to sound like the "William Tell Overture" by Rossini. Honda built the road back in 2008 as part of a TV commercial for the Civic. But it's seen better days. Reporter Clare Wiley headed out to Lancaster to make some music with her tires. Fort Bragg’s Larry Spring Museum Preserves Creativity in California The tiny Larry Spring Museum is dedicated to a Mendocino County TV repairman who lived in Fort Bragg most of his life. He was an amateur physicist, a keen observer of nature and the items he left behind reveal his deep curiosity about the world. KQED’s Katrina Schwartz takes us to this whimsical museum to learn more about the man behind it. This episode originally aired in February 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we're sharing an episode from Inheriting, a new podcast from our friends at LAist Studios and the NPR Network. The show, hosted by Emily Kwong, is centered on the stories of Asian American and Pacific Islander families. It explores how one event in history can ripple through the generations of those families. In this episode, we hear from Leialani Wihongi-Santos. Leialani is CHamoru and lives in Southern California, but she was born and raised on the island of Guam. Growing up, Leialani was taught that the United States "saved” her island from occupation by Imperial Japan. But she later learned that framing is not entirely true. Emily sits down with Leialani and her grandfather, Joseph Aflleje-Santos, for answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elsie Saldaña is a living piece of queer history. The 79-year-old has been doing drag since the 1960’s, making her the oldest drag king still performing in the U.S. She’s known as El Daña, and she didn’t get her start in LA or San Francisco. She’s from Fresno, where she worked the fields as a child. This pride month, reporter Celeste Hamilton Dennis brings us this profile of El Daña and tells us why the king isn't ready to hang up her crown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Songs In the Key of Fatherhood Rightnowish host Pendarvis Harshaw's love of music was passed to him from his mom. He says her love of funk, R&B, new jack swing and hip-hop laid his musical foundation. Now that he's a dad, Pendarvis is now passing all of that musical knowledge down to his daughter, song by song. Santa Cruz Museum Celebrates Filipino Manongs In New Exhibit Fathers are at the heart of a new exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. Sowing Seeds: Filipino Americans in the Pajaro Valley highlights an archive of oral histories, photos, and stories from the first generation of Filipino men (or manongs) who came to California. KAZU’s Janelle Salanga visited with some of the families who contributed their dads’ stories to the archive. What Sounds Remind You of Your Father?  Five years ago, we opened up the phone lines for California Report Magazine listeners to call in and share stories about the sounds that remind them of their fathers and grandfathers. Here we explore their messages and listen to some of those sounds: foghorns, Giants baseball on TV, an impact wrench, and even Kai Ryssdal's voice. These touching memories are certain to get you thinking about the sounds that remind you of your father. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jens Ibsen is a dynamic young composer putting his spin on classical music, infusing it with prog rock, heavy metal and Japanese video game music. Isben's bold and non-traditional style is getting a lot of attention from major institutions like the San Francisco Symphony. But it hasn't been easy. He has had to confront racism as he found his unique place in classical music. He’s a lot of different things at once, and you can see that reflected not just in his music but also in who he is as a person. Reporter Jessica Kariisa's profile of Jens Ibsen is the first in our series celebrating California composers. Plus we visit Tio’s Tacos in Riverside. Just drive off the 91 freeway onto Mission Inn Avenue and stop when you see a huge orange butterfly hanging off the side of a building. You’ll see the airplane parked on the roof and two giants made from recycled aluminum cans taller than the building behind them. This Mexican restaurant/sculpture garden is an immigrant entrepreneur’s labor of love. For our series Hidden Gems, KQED’s Daniel Eduardo Hernandez takes a trip back to his hometown to meet the owner and creator of the Tio's Tacos wonderland. And we head South to Santa Cruz. The city has played a big role in surfing history – it’s where Hawaiian princes first introduced the sport to California back in 1885, and where surfers began using wetsuits in the 1950s. Since then, the city has been on the cutting edge of a lot of modern surf technology. A new company there is hoping to build on that history and help the sport become more environmentally friendly – by using a 3D printer to create surfboards made from recycled hospital trays. KAZU’s Erin Malsbury went to check out how these surfboards get made. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About a year ago, a conflict began in Manipur, a mountainous state in northeastern India. What set off the fighting was a dispute between a predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and a Christian minority called the Kuki. Aptos resident Niang Hangzo is originally from Manipur, but moved to California in the 1990s. Her family back home became refugees more than a year ago. And ever since, she’s transformed into an activist here in California fighting to draw attention to this crisis. KQED’s Lakshmi Sarah traveled to India to follow Niang’s family story.  And we visit a vinyl listening party at Oakland's couchdate. The event combines all the cozy comforts of home with the fun of going out: stimulating conversation, maybe eye contact with a cute stranger, all while the music vibrates around you. This unique social space, especially for creative people of color, is the brainchild of a mixed-race entrepreneur who wants to create an inclusive community for all. KQED’s Ariana Proehl has his story.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think about all the things you love about radio and podcasts: the suspense, the characters, the drama and humor — Back Pocket Media takes all of those elements and puts them live on stage.  On today’s episode, Back Pocket Media co-founders McArdle Hankin and Ellison Libiran guest host the California Report Magazine and play three of their favorite stories from their last San Francisco event. The theme of that event was Taste of Then: stories about food and memory.  What I’d Cook for Love Most people who’ve had a job at a workplace, which is to say almost all of us, have at some point developed an office crush. You see the person day in and day out. You know you can’t make a move but you secretly want to. Secretly you wait for some sort of signal or opening. Well, for storyteller JP Frary, that opening…. Is Dungeness crab. The Fruitarian  People have always come together around shared taste in food, but in contemporary culture it’s just as likely to see communities – and even identities – formed around the foods we don't eat. Storyteller Don Reed takes a specialized diet to a new extreme.   When the Forest Goes Quiet This story was told to the audience over the phone… That’s because the storyteller is currently incarcerated in San Quentin. Kelton O’Connor starts his story in the yard of a different prison. It's the middle of the day and he’s walking up to a tall barbed wire fence — a fence that is the only thing separating him from the outside world.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the early 1900s, the burgeoning city of Los Angeles needed water, and the Owens Valley—more than 200 miles northeast—had plenty of it. Today, about a third of LA’s water supply comes from the Owens Valley and other parts of the Eastern Sierra. But the city got that water at the expense of the Nüümü people, who have been working to get it back ever since. This week, reporter Teresa Cotsirilos from the Food and Environment Reporting Network brings us the story of one tribal elder's fight to reclaim these water rights for his community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California's Central Coast is the ancestral homeland of indigenous California tribes including the Chumash and Salinan peoples. For years, the Northern Chumash have been working to create a new marine sanctuary. If the federal government approves that designation this summer, California would be home to the first national marine sanctuary nominated by, and named after, an indigenous tribe. It’s the culmination of decades of tribal conservation work. And, as reporter Benjamin Purper tells us, it’s also the legacy of a father and daughter. Later, we talk to professional rock climber Beth Rodden who has conquered some of the most treacherous climbs in the world. She was the first woman to complete two routes up Yosemite's famous El Capitan, with no gear helping to pull her up. But despite her success, she’s battled raging self-doubt and multiple injuries. Rodden spoke to KQED's Bianca Taylor about her new memoir, A Light Through the Cracks: A Climber's Story.  Finally, we're revisiting a story from our Hidden Gems series about an old-school Los Angeles diner called Dinah’s, which closed its doors at the end of April. A developer bought the restaurant site and announced ambitious plans for new construction. Dinah’s is reopening as a new kind of restaurant in Culver City, but it’s the end of an era for the diner that’s been serving customers for more than six decades in the same location near the LA airport. Sasha Khokha takes us there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Famous for showcasing transgender performers for more than a quarter century, AsiaSF, the beloved San Francisco restaurant and club, closed its doors this week. Reporter Wilma Consul went to one of the final shows at AsiaSF, and tells us how the groundbreaking venue became a place where people from all over the world could find joy and authenticity. And, California has had a state flower and state animal for awhile now, but this year we finally got an official state mushroom. KQED's Danielle Venton takes us foraging to try to find the Golden Chanterelle. Finally, we head to Fresno County, where a group of farmworkers living in a mobile home park did something that might seem impossible in a time of rising housing costs: They bought the park from their corporate landlords. The California Report’s Madi Bolanos tells us how they did it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're in your feeds a little early this week, but for good reason: We're giving you a little peek behind the scenes! You'll be meeting some of the people who make The California Report Magazine, and we'll take you through the process of how a story gets made. If you like what you hear, please consider visiting donate.kqed.org/podcast and supporting the work we do at KQED. Thanks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Youth Takeover week here at KQED, a time when we hand the mics over to local high school students. This year, we hear from teens at Fremont High School in in East Oakland. They talk about the challenges they face right now and tell us why they feel so misunderstood. And we visit the San Fernando Valley, where high school seniors have taken over one of the most anticipated rights of passage: prom. LAist's Mariana Dale discovered a program at Sylmar Charter High School where students don’t just choose the theme and set up decorations: they actually grow and arrange the flowers for the big event.  Plus, why doesn't California have more school buses? How kids get to and from school is a big part of the school experience for many kids. But if you’ve been looking closely you may have noticed there aren’t as many school buses as there are in other states. Katrina Schwartz, who’s a producer with KQED’s Bay Curious podcast, set out to figure out why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After escaping genocide in Cambodia, Phoeun You’s family settled in Long Beach. But after being bullied as a teen, You joined a gang. He ended up shooting and killing a teenager. You served 25 years in California prisons and tried to turn his life around while he was behind bars. He thought he'd gotten that chance when he was granted parole, but upon release, he was deported to a country he had never really known. Producer Mateo Schimpf brings us his story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Within months of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, as more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were being sent to incarceration camps, other ethnic groups also became the target of new wartime security measures. Italian citizens living near California’s coastline and military sites — some 10,000 of them — were forced to leave their homes and find somewhere else to live.  It was just one of many government measures meant to protect the West Coast from an enemy invasion that never came. Reporter Pauline Bartolone brings us this story from the Bay Curious podcast. Plus, we look at the labor behind reality television. From blind dates to tiny homes, the genre has exploded in recent years But some workers say the success of the industry hasn't translated into stability for people behind the scenes. Guest host Bianca Taylor talks to KCRW's Megan Jamerson, who's talked to some reality TV workers who say they’re being overworked and underpaid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As journalists, we don’t often tell our own stories. We separate ourselves from the issues we cover. But sometimes, the story hits close to home. This week, we’re featuring a story from Erin Baldassari, KQED’s Senior Editor for Housing Affordability. Growing up in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, wildfire has always been part of her consciousness. Her earliest memory is fleeing a fire as it bore down on her childhood home. As she and her family consider moving back, she wanted to learn how people there are adapting to the rising risk of wildfires due to climate change. Erin’s story comes to us from the KQED podcast, Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Proposition 8 's Lessons for One Queer Journalist In November 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, taking away the right to marry from same-sex couples. But two years later, two same-sex couples sued the State of California in federal court. Prop 8 was eventually overturned. That landmark trial was videotaped, but the recordings were never released to the public. Until a few years ago, when KQED sued for access to the tapes and won. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed them to be unsealed in October 2022. KQED’s community engagement reporter Carlos Cabrera Lomeli, spent hours watching those tapes. As a queer journalist covering California’s gay marriage journey, Carlos says he learned a lot about himself in the process. Plus, we head to Santa Cruz where Judi Oyama first learned to ride a skateboard in the 1970s. Today, 50 years into a groundbreaking career, she's considered of the best skateboarders in the nation. In fact, Judi recently qualified to race at the World Skate Games in Rome this fall. At 64, she says she’s the fastest she’s ever been. KAZU’s Erin Malsbury brings us her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today Palm Springs is known for mid-century modern architecture and queer-friendly culture. But a new documentary on PBS's Independent Lens explores the history of racist housing practices in the city that effectively hid a black neigborhood behind a wall of trees. “Racist Trees” covers the fight to remove those trees decades after they were planted, and asks the question: 'Who takes responsibility for the wrongdoing of the past?' Directors Sara Newens and Mina T. Son join Sasha Khokha to talk about the film. Plus we visit San Francisco's Prelinger Library, a treasure trove of ephemera from books of soil samples to zines. In the 1990s, libraries started to become digital and began clearing out their catalogs. A network of like-minded librarians brought the “discards” to Rick and Megan Prelinger’s attention. The husband and wife, already collectors of print and text items, opened their library in 2004 and say 'it's available to any and everyone who believes our past can pave a path to a better future.'  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nine months into Satsuki Ina’s parents’ marriage, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Their life was totally upended when, along with 125,000 other Japanese-Americans, they were sent to incarceration camps. After unsuccessfully fighting for their civil rights to be restored, they renounced their American citizenship. That meant the US government branded them as “enemy aliens.” Ina was born in a prison camp at Tule Lake, but didn’t know much about that difficult chapter in her parents’ life. Then she discovered a trove of letters that they sent to each other while they were separated in different camps. Now, at close to 80 years old, Ina – who spent most of her career as a trauma therapist — is publishing a memoir about how her parents’ relationship survived prison camps, resistance and separation. Using letters, diary entries, haikus written by her father, and photographs, The Poet and the Silk Girl is a rare first-person account of a generation-altering period in Japanese-American history. Sasha Khokha sat down with Satsuki Ina to learn more about her parents’ story and how it shaped the course of Ina’s own life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Oscar season rolls around, everyone’s trying to catch up on the blockbuster films. But there’s rarely buzz about the short films, especially the short documentary category. This year, two joyful California films made the nominee list. Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó is a love letter from Fremont-raised filmmaker Sean Wang to his two grandmothers, 94 year old Nǎi Nai and 83 year old Wài Pó. They are in-laws turned best friends who spend their days together, even sharing a bed. The Last Repair Shop tells the remarkable stories of the people behind the scenes who fix instruments for students learning music in LA Unified School district. Sasha Khokha talks to Sean Wang as well as Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot, the co-directors behind The Last Repair Shop, about their films. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez first stepped behind prison walls, he wasn’t just starting a job, he was joining a brotherhood. What he didn’t know was that he was now bound by an unwritten code that would ultimately test his loyalty to his oath and his fellow officers. Valentino’s sudden death on October 21, 2020 would raise questions from the FBI, his family and his mentor in the elite investigative unit where they both worked. For more than two years, our colleagues with KQED’s investigative podcast On Our Watch have been looking into what happened to Valentino Rodriguez, because his story is part of something much bigger. He was a correctional officer at New Folsom prison, near Sacramento, where the reporting team has found use of force that’s off the charts, and a pattern of suspicious beatings. This week we bring you an excerpt from the first episode of the series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In many California cities, freeways and sprawl are just a fact of life. They’re baked into the design of much of the state. But how did we get here? Just how did freeways come to be such a big part of California life? This week, we’re featuring a story from our friends at the KPBS podcast Freeway Exit. Host and producer Andrew Bowen looks at how our relationship with the freeway has changed over time, and how it will have to change in the future.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How The Bay Area’s Biggest City Wants to Overcome Its Sprawl The cars and trucks we drive account for nearly half of California’s total carbon emissions. And bringing those emissions down is going to require more than just swapping out gas guzzling cars for electric ones. It’s going to mean redesigning our cities around people, not cars. KQED’s Adhiti Bandlamudi takes us to San Jose where local leaders are trying to rethink how residents live and how they get around. This story comes to us from KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America.  LA’s Bé Ù Puts a New Spin on Vietnamese Takeout, and Workers’ Rights Many chefs will tell you their cooking reflects the food they grew up eating. Food shared on holidays or at family parties. For our series Flavor Profile, The California Report’s Keith Mizuguchi introduces us to a chef cooking up Vietnamese comfort food inspired by her family’s recipes. She’s also a former union organizer trying to build a business where workers are paid a fair wage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we feature stories from our Hidden Gems series about out-of-the-way secret spots in California - places you might want to visit on a road trip! How This Oakland Business Gives Mannequins New Life (Almost) You might not notice them, but mannequins can be found everywhere from the tiniest boutiques to Target. But what happens to these non-biodegradable figures when stores go out of business or styles change? In California, many of them end up at Mannequin Madness, an Oakland warehouse run by a woman whose mission is to keep mannequins out of the landfill. This Stretch of the Mojave Desert Plays the ‘Lone Ranger’ Theme There’s a road in the western Mojave Desert that’s supposed to sound like the "William Tell Overture" by Rossini. Honda built the road back in 2008 as part of a TV commercial for the Civic. But it's seen better days. Reporter Clare Wiley headed out to Lancaster to make some music with her tires. Fort Bragg’s Larry Spring Museum Preserves Creativity in California The tiny Larry Spring Museum is dedicated to a Mendocino County TV repairman who lived in Fort Bragg most of his life. He was an amateur physicist, a keen observer of nature and the items he left behind reveal his deep curiosity about the world. KQED’s Katrina Schwartz takes us to this whimsical museum to learn more about the man behind it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roughly a quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from our buildings and the energy that powers them. And we need to cut those emissions down to next to nothing to avoid the scary effects of climate change. Making a home green is pretty easy if you start from scratch. But it gets a whole lot harder when it comes to converting the millions of homes in California that already exist. The ones where most of us live. Climate reporter Laura Klivans takes us to East Oakland, where one city block is taking a revolutionary approach to reducing their emissions: by electrifying together, all at once. This story comes to us from KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing In America. And it's been just over a year since the mass shooting at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay killed seven farmworkers, all of whom were immigrants from China and Mexico. One nonprofit has been providing survivors and the farmworker community with mental health support including a music therapy class. KQED’s Blanca Torres brings us this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the northern end of Stockton, you'll find Angel Cruz Park. Most weekends it's lined with food vendors, many of them Hmong and Cambodian immigrants. For more than 30 years, this has been a destination for made-to-order dishes, where locals argue over who has the best beef sticks or papaya salad. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse spent a day at the park, learning about the people behind the food. Next we got to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The area is known for farming, boating and fishing. And it’s got some new migrants: Artists from cities. Reporter Jon Kalish wondered how these urban newcomers are fitting into life in the rural Delta and what an influx of creatives has meant for the community. He talked to transplants who were challenged when they became part of the community.   And finally, more than half of people in the US choose to be cremated when they die, in part because of the high cost and the environmental toll of conventional burials. In the next few years, Californians will have another option when it comes to a loved one's remains: human composting, which turns the bodies of people who've died into fertilizer for forests and home gardens. KQED’s health correspondent April Dembosky brings us the story of one man from San Francisco who didn’t want to wait for the law in California to change.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California’s oldest prison, San Quentin, has a new name. It's now the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. It was already known for its college classes and arts programs. But Governor Newsom is hoping a major overhaul of the prison and new programs for everything from therapy to education and job training will be a model for prisons across the state. This week, Uncuffed, a podcast produced by incarcerated journalists at San Quentin, shares a moment when the wall between correctional officers and incarcerated men broke down just a little bit over something new...a game of Pickleball. And KQED's Lesley McClurg brings us the story of Dr. Alfredo Quiñones Hinojosa or "Dr. Q" as he's better known. The 56-year-old attended UC Berkeley and Harvard and is a leading neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic. But he started out as Freddy, a fifteen-year-old migrant worker from Mexico who picked tomatoes in the San Joaquin Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether it’s severe heat, cold, fires, or floods, people experiencing homelessness are on the bleeding edge of the climate emergency. Reporting for the KQED podcast, Sold Out: Rethinking Housing In America, Vanessa Rancaño follows the story of one woman who is trying to keep herself and her adult son alive on the streets of Fresno, California. She talks to advocates pushing lawmakers to find solutions, and creating their own in the meantime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're featuring stories from our ongoing series Flavor Profile, featuring folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic. Gas Station Filipino Dessert Shop Is Among NorCal’s Most Delicious Secrets Inside a nondescript National gas station off the 205 in Tracy, is Ellis Creamery. Marie Rabut and her husband Khristian got the idea to open the shop in 2020 as a way to supplement their income after Khristian lost his tech job in San Jose. Tired of long commutes for work, they wanted to stay local and saw the shop as an opportunity to bring Filipino flavors to their community. KQED's Katrina Schwartz went to find out how they're adding their own unique spin to traditional Filipino desserts.  How SF's Rize Up Sourdough Puts Black Bakers on the Map Like many others, San Francisco's Azikiwee Anderson took up making sourdough during the pandemic. Once he mastered the basics, he started experimenting with ingredients no one had ever put into sourdough: gojuchang, paella and ube. Those flavors transformed his hobby into a successful business that wholesales to bakeries and restaurants across the Bay Area. All this success has made Azikiwee rethink how the food industry brings equity into the workplace, and how to elevate cultural appreciation, not appropriation, through ingredients. KQED's Adhiti Bandlamudi tells us how Anderson wants to give a chance to more Black and Brown bakers, because of his own experience feeling like an outsider as a Black man interested in commercial baking. This Spicy, Crunchy Chili Topping Is the Essence of Balinese Flavors  Celene and Tara Cerrara had successful careers, one a doula and the other a make-up artist, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Then, they both lost their jobs and moved home where they rediscovered a passion for cooking their native Balinese food. They started a successful pop up, Bungkus Bagus, and are now transitioning towards packaged products. Clare Wiley brings us their story from Glendale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're revisiting a story from our series Mixed: Stories of Mixed-Race Californians. It originally aired in March 2023. Even if he’s not always recognized as part of the Asian American community, Oakland-born rapper Guap is fiercely proud of his Filipino roots. On the last track of his 2021 album, 1176, he tells an origin story spanning decades and continents. His grandfather, a Black merchant marine stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, ripped the pocket of his uniform. He knew he'd be in big trouble if he didn't fix it, so he found a young Filipina seamstress to repair the pocket — and fell in love. When his time in Subic Bay came to an end, the two married and moved to a one-story house in West Oakland, where they would eventually raise their grandchild Guap, the first-born child of their youngest daughter. Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos spoke to Guap about growing up Black and Filipino, the cultural impact his lola had on him, and how his mixed identity shows up in his music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re sharing a story from August 2023. It’s the little known history of Japanese Americans who were living in Japan during World War II. Reporter Kori Suzuki found out that his own grandmother, who he’d always thought was born in Japan, is a Kibei Nisei, a second generation American who returned after living through World War II in Japan. He explores his grandmother’s memories and discovers new aspects of himself along the way. This story was originally produced by our friends at Code Switch.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘I’m Pro-Humanity’: One Palestinian’s Call for Peace in the Face of Tragedy Like a lot of people, journalist Asal Ehsanipour has been in a state of despair since the latest war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7. One of the only times she’s found comfort was at a San Francisco Jewish Community Center event with Israeli and Palestinian speakers who’ve lost a loved one to the ongoing conflict. One of the speakers was a man who’d moved from Gaza and now lives in the Bay Area. Coming to California opened up his thinking about embracing our shared humanity – even during times of war.  'It is Possible to Love People and Disagree': For These Two Friends, Hard Conversations Are Key Right Now As the war continues, Californians are coming together and having tough interfaith conversations in groups like the Jewish-Muslim organization the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. It tries to build relationships between Muslim and Jewish women of all ages. The Palo Alto chapter is where Doctor Lama Rimawi and Rabbi Amy Eilberg met. KQED’s Brian Watt spoke with both of them recently about how they’ve stayed good friends in light of the ongoing conflict. This California Facility is Fully Devoted to the Search for Alien Life Many people like to speculate about the existence of extraterrestrial life, but does it really exist? For our Hidden Gems series, KQED’s Katherine Monahan headed to the Hat Creek Radio Observatory to meet some very serious scientists dedicated to finding out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katrina Turner lives in Fair Oaks, outside of Sacramento. She’s 43, nonverbal and developmentally disabled. Katrina lives in a special kind of group home for people who need a lot of support day to day. She has a history of self-injury, so the group home is required to monitor her 24/7. But Katrina’s family was alarmed when a staff member reported finding bruises and marks on her body. They suspected something was seriously wrong. This week, we’re bringing you the results of a year and a half long investigation into allegations of abuse at one of California’s most tightly regulated group homes, the “Illinois Home” in Sacramento County. Reporter Chris Egusa spent months collecting stories from parents, testimony from employees, and documentation from state agencies. And what he uncovered suggests that Sevita Health, a national health care company, may have allowed, and even contributed to the abuse of the very people it was supposed to protect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two Years After the Dixie Fire, Towns That Relied on Pacific Crest Trail Hikers Are Still Struggling Two years ago, the Dixie Fire nearly wiped the Pacific Crest Trail off the map. With a lot of work, the trail has mostly been repaired. But sections of the PCT remain inaccessible, and for the first time in history, doing a continuous hike of the trail from beginning to end is almost impossible. It's a huge blow to rural towns along the trail, which rely on the hikers and trail tourism to survive. Reporter Dana Cronin ventured out into a tiny town called Belden, to see how people are doing after the fire. Fresno’s New Gordita Shop is an Homage to Mom’s Cooking Americans may be more familiar with tacos, but in the northern regions of Mexico, gorditas are a more popular kind of street food. And for Lizett Lopez, a Fresno native who recently moved back to the Central Valley during the pandemic, gorditas are closely tied to her identity, her culture and heritage – and now, her mother. As part of our Flavor Profile series, Reporter Olivia Zhao brings us the bittersweet story behind Lucy's Gorditas, the latest addition to Fresno's Mexican food scene. The Coolest Place on Earth: The Public Library We're sharing an excerpt of the latest episode of KQED's Rightnowish featuring Fairfield’s Mychal Threets. Threets is a superstar librarian, who readily professes the importance of childhood literacy, library access, and mental health. Because of that, he’s amassed a social media following that rivals your favorite artists and entertainers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show we're revisiting two stories about family, food and farming. We start in the Central Valley where David “Mas” Masumoto says he farms with ghosts. On his family’s organic peach, nectarine and grape farm south of Fresno, California, Mas says the labor and lessons of his ancestors are in the soil and he’s passing these on to the next generations. Reporter Lisa Morehouse has visited Masumoto Farm for years, picking luscious peaches and nectarines in summer. For her series California Foodways, she returned to hear about a family secret at the center of Mas’ recent book, Secret Harvests. Next we meet chef Crystal Wahpepah. She says she wanted to be a chef since she was 7 years old. Like her grandfather and mother, Wahpepah is a registered member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma. She remembers learning to make fry bread with her aunty and grandmother — and picking berries with her grandfather on the Hoopa Reservation where she spent time as a child. But while growing up on Ohlone land in Oakland, Wahpepah was struck by the Bay Area’s lack of Native restaurants, despite the region’s large Indigenous population and palette for diverse cuisine. So she decided to change that. It wasn’t just a matter of culinary representation, it was a matter of reclaiming Native food sovereignty. KQED’s Bianca Taylor brrought us her story as part of our series Flavor Profile, which features folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a year since one of the biggest political scandals in its history rocked the Los Angeles City Council. In October 2022, a secret audio recording of three Latino council members and a labor leader was leaked to the public. Their conversation about redrawing council district maps included racist comments about fellow council members, their families, the Black community and indigenous Mexicans. Council president Nury Martinez’s comments were some of the most shocking and led to her resignation. Martinez seemed to have disappeared until recently, when she agreed to an exclusive interview with LAist's Antonia Cerejido. That interview, as well the perspectives of other Angelenos close to the scandal, are featured on the podcast Imperfect Paradise. The California Report Magazine’s Sasha Khokha sits down with Cerejido, the host of the series "Nury and the Secret Tapes," to find out what's changed a year after the scandal broke.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we’re featuring an episode from our friends at the KQED podcast SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing In America. This season they're focusing on how climate change is affecting where and how we live. Climate change is intensifying wet periods across California, turning waterways that humans corralled with dirt and concrete into wild torrents. When the river comes for your town, what do you do, how do you adapt? Is abandoning life in the floodplain the only real option? Ezra David Romero visits the Monterey County town of Parajo where he meets the Escutia family. He learns how a flood swallowed their hometown, and follows them for months afterward, as they searched for an affordable home on higher ground. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the winter of 1860, white settlers massacred dozens of Wiyot people as they slept. Most were women, children and elders. Settlers then stole the Wiyot people’s land, including an island the tribe considers the spiritual center of the universe. Cheryl Seidner’s great-grandfather was an infant during the attack and one of only a handful of survivors. Generations later, Seidner would lead her tribe to successfully get the island back. Reporter Izzy Bloom takes us to Tuluwat Island, off the coast of Eureka, where a land back effort succeeded long before the current movement began. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Halloween weekend, we enter the realm of the unknown, and bring you a ghost story produced in collaboration with the Bay Curious podcast. Jon Brooks is a reporter and former KQED science editor who lives in the world of evidence, facts and data. But many years ago, Jon witnessed something inexplicable, something that just couldn’t be squared with reality. A recent personal tragedy has prompted him to run that story over and over again in his mind. We join Jon on a journey to make sense of it all. This episode originally aired on Oct. 28, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Laos to California: The Remarkable Journey of Ia Moua  When the Vietnam War ended, thousands of Hmong people who had fought with American troops were no longer safe in their homelands. Many relocated to the U.S, like Ia Moua. She, along with her husband and her eight children, arrived in Fresno in 1993.  Unable to speak or read English when she arrived, Ia felt adrift in California at first. But she found some stability after finding a small plot of land where she could grow Hmong rice, a variety unlike anything found in grocery stores. Now, Ia’s field is much more than a livelihood – it’s become a gathering place for the Hmong community and a reminder of home.  California author Lisa Hamilton traces Ia’s journey from a tiny village in Laos to the Central Valley in her new book, The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love, and Survival. She joins guest host Lesley McClurg to share Ia’s story and talk about the surprising process of reporting the book, most of which took place while working alongside Ia in a rice field. Hidden Gem: One of San José’s Last Working Orchards Has Been Family Run Since 1945 Before San Jose became synonymous with tech companies, it was known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight because of the luscious fruit orchards that proliferated there. Many of those orchards have been paved over to make room for homes and tech campuses, leaving only 5% of Santa Clara County’s original farmland.  For our Hidden Gems series, Reporter Daphne Young takes us to one of the last working orchards in San Jose. It’s been run by the same family for almost 80 years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act was meant to protect transgender people, reducing the trauma of physical and sexual assault experienced by many transgender women in particular when housed in men’s prison. But the culture at state prisons and rising anti-trans fervor throughout the country have exposed some transgender women to new traumas. Like Syiaah Skylit, who is currently in solitary confinement at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She’s experienced harassment, taunting, and attacks from other incarcerated women because of her gender identity. Reporter Lee Romney, who covered criminal justice at the LA Times, and Jenny Johnson, a former public defender, spent a year interviewing Syiaah and other transgender incarcerated people  to gauge how the law – meant to protect gender-expansive people in prison–  may not actually be working out the way it was intended. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This All-Women Mariachi Group From Sacramento Is Redefining the Genre One hundred years ago, all-female mariachi bands didn’t exist. Even 50 years ago, women playing mariachi was rare. Today, though, women like Dinorah Klingler are rewriting the story of mariachi culture. Her band, Mariachi Bonitas, is an all-female, woman-led, multi-generational mariachi band based in Sacramento that’s carving out a new space for women in the traditionally male-dominated genre. Bianca Taylor explores the history of women in mariachi and what makes this the right time to innovate the art form.  Welcome to Bumpass Hell, a Bubbling, Stinky Sliver of 'California's Yellowstone' At Lassen Volcanic National Park, sometimes called “California’s Yellowstone,” there’s a hike that takes visitors to a place that looks like Mars. It’s called Bumpass Hell, known for its bubbling mud pots and steaming vents. Katherine Monahan brings us this story as part of our Hidden Gems series, where we take you to out-of-the-way spots in the Golden State.  Beyond Bánh Mì: This San José Pop-Up Plays With Classics of Vietnamese Cuisine Hieu Le and DuyAn are Vietnamese immigrants who grew up eating the food of the Mekong Delta, the “rice basket of Vietnam.” With their San Jose-based pop up, Hết Sẩy, Hieu and DuyAn are representing their moms’ cooking, but also refreshing the traditions to reflect their California palates. Rachael Myrow brings us this story as part of our ongoing series Flavor Profile, which features folks who pivoted to start successful food businesses during the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flavor Profile: Rize Up Gives Visibility to Black Bakers Like many others, Azikiwee Anderson took up making sourdough during the pandemic. Once he mastered the basics, he started experimenting with ingredients no one had ever put into sourdough: gojuchang, paella and ube. Those flavors transformed his hobby into a successful business that wholesales to bakeries and restaurants across the Bay Area. All this success has made Azikiwee rethink how the food industry brings equity into the workplace, and how to elevate cultural appreciation, not appropriation, through ingredients. He wants to give a chance to more Black and Brown bakers, because of his own experience feeling like an outsider as a Black man interested in commercial baking. Adhiti Bandlamudi brings us this story as part of our ongoing series Flavor Profile, which features folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic. 'We Belong Together': How Ritchie Valens' Music Inspired a New Book of Poetry Growing up, poet J. Michael Martinez loved the “La Bamba,” a movie about the life and music of Ritchie Valens. Valens was a rising rock n’ roll star who died, tragically, in a 1959 plane crash at the age of 17. He was from the San Fernando Valley and had begun his recording career less than a year before his death. Yet, his legacy was already cemented through his timeless hits including, “We Belong Together,” “Donna” and his widely beloved interpretation of the Mexican folk song, “La Bamba.” Sasha Khokha talks to San José State professor J. Michael Martinez, who has created a new, poetic ode to Valens. Tarta Americana (Spanish for ‘American Pie’) uses the life and music of Valens to better understand issues around race, culture and politics as they show up in Martinez’s own life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Non-Verbal Teen to 'Take On the World' With a Symphony Written in His Head Jacob Rock is a non-verbal, autistic teenager from Los Angeles who wasn’t able to speak until 2020. That’s when he began to vividly type out his thoughts and feelings on an iPad. His parents were flabbergasted to realize that he could read and write and convey his emotions and creativity through text. Six months later, he told them he had a 70-minute symphony in his head. Unforgettable Sunrise is the result of a months-long collaboration between Jacob and Rob Laufer, a musician and composer who translated Jacob’s painstaking notes into a musical score. The symphony, which will be played Sept. 30 by an orchestra from USC’s Thornton School of Music, chronicles Jacob’s journey with physical pain, his inability to speak for most of his life and his joy in finally translating his voice to the world. Sasha Khokha visited Jacob and Rob to learn more about their collaboration. ‘Days Like This’ In Oakland Is a Party For the People, by the People This free/donation-based party happens every Friday by Lake Merritt, in Oakland. It’s all about community joy through great DJs and dancing. Created by two friends who started it as a socially distanced dance hangout during the early days of the pandemic, the party has become a weekly ritual for many. Reporter Ariana Praehl takes us to the dance floor. Alameda's Pacific Pinball Museum Used To Operate Like 'a Little Speakeasy' The Pacific Pinball Museum on the island of Alameda has nine rooms that take visitors through the evolution of pinball. But this isn't one of those museums where you can't touch the art — here visitors are encouraged to play! For our Hidden Gems series, reporter Olivia Zhao takes us to play pinball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cambodian Americans Work to Heal Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma More than 40 years after a genocide that killed two million people in Cambodia, the refugees who survived are still struggling to move past the trauma of the Khmer Rouge regime. From 1975 to 1979, soldiers under communist leader Pol Pot, murdered, tortured and starved people in an attempt to rebuild a society free of Western influences. Though many survivors have created a new life in the U.S., their children often bear the scars of the past. KVPR’s Soreath Hok explores the ways in which intergenerational trauma has affected Cambodian Americans in Fresno and how mental health care is evolving to meet their needs. This Spicy, Crunchy Chili Topping Is the Essence of Balinese Flavors Celene and Tara Cerrara had successful careers, one a doula and the other a make-up artist, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Then, they both lost their jobs and moved home, where they rediscovered a passion for cooking their native Balinese food. They started a successful pop up, Bungkus Bagus, and are now transitioning towards packaged products. Clare Wiley brings us their story as part of our ongoing series Flavor Profile, which features folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're revisiting one of our favorite interviews from our Mixed! series. W. Kamau Bell has centered conversations about race in much of his work as a comedian, author and TV host. But when Kamau, who's black, and his wife Melissa, who's white, had kids, they knew their experiences around race would be much different than their daughters. So The Bells set out to make a film that centers the lives of other mixed-race kids like them. In a conversation with hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos, the Bells open up about how about they talk about race in their own family and the conversations they hope this film sparks in living rooms across the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

LA Food Bank Welcomes Striking Writers and Actors Actors and writers are still on strike and a lot of folks behind the scenes from screenwriters to stunt doubles – are struggling. To help strikers, some businesses are offering discounts to union members. Actor and comedian Kristina Wong is trying to make sure that while strikers are out on the picket lines, they can get enough to eat. She's become a self-proclaimed 'food bank influencer' encouraging fellow union members to use the World Harvest Food bank in Los Angeles. How a Hollywood Food Stylist Makes Food a Character While much of the media attention is focused on the Hollywood writers and actors strike, thousands of other movie industry workers are impacted by the work stoppage. People like food stylist Melissa McSorley, whose work is often invisible. For the series, California Foodways, reporter Lisa Morehouse spent the day with McSorley to see what it takes to create the dishes you see onscreen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oakland’s Wahpepah's Kitchen Reclaims Native Dishes Crystal Wahpepah wanted to be a chef since she was 7 years old. Like her grandfather and mother, Wahpepah is a registered member of the Kickapoo tribe of Oklahoma. She remembers learning to make fry bread with her aunty and grandmother — and picking berries with her grandfather on the Hoopa Reservation where she spent time as a child. But while growing up on Ohlone land in Oakland, Wahpepah was struck by the Bay Area’s lack of Native restaurants, despite the region’s large Indigenous population and palette for diverse cuisine. So she decided to change that. It wasn’t just a matter of culinary representation, it was a matter of reclaiming Native food sovereignty. KQED’s Bianca Taylor brings us her story as part of our ongoing series Flavor Profile, which features folks who started successful food businesses during the pandemic. Round Valley Residents Hope Pedestrian Path Saves Lives Round Valley is located in one of the farthest reaches of Eastern Mendocino County. At its center sits the small town of Covelo, a remote community way up in the hills, with Highway 162 running through the middle of town. There’s no public transportation here, so locals, many of them members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, have to walk on the highway, which has almost no shoulder. Residents have been hit and killed over the years, so the community has been pushing authorities for more than a decade to build a pedestrian path. Reporter Eileen Russell lives near Covalo and tells us what’s held the project up for so long. Coast Miwok Group Buys Marin Property, a Piece of Their Ancestral Land When Joe Sanchez was 8 years old, his grandmother asked him to make a promise to never forget his California Indian heritage. He’s spent his life living up to that charge, studying the history of his people and volunteering in the community. In July, he and the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin purchased a 26-acre piece of land in the rural Marin County community of Nicasio, once Coast Miwok territory. It’s believed to be the first modern “Land Back” effort in Marin County, part of a growing movement across California to get land back to the original indigenous people who lived on it. KQED's Vanessa Rancaño reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the Castle Fire started burning in August of 2020, it ripped through Sequoia National Park, burning for months and with an intensity that has become increasingly normal during wildfire season. Just one year later, the KNP Complex fire devastated this same region. Together, these two massive fires burned grove after grove of giant sequoias, thousands of the largest trees on earth. Trees found only in California. Sequoias are adapted to fire, but decades of fire suppression and hotter, drier conditions from human-caused climate change have led to infernos that even these magnificent trees can’t weather. Since 2020, up to one fifth of the state’s sequoias have died from severe fire. Sometimes, the cones that hold their seeds have been incinerated too. Some scientists are worried there will be no sequoias in Sequoia National Park in the future. Now, national park scientists are proposing a plan to harvest surviving sequoia seeds, nurture them into seedlings in a protected environment, and then replant them in the wilderness. But critics say that proposal goes against the very definition of wilderness. At the heart of this debate are some big questions: What is natural? And how much should humans intervene? KALW reporter Marissa Ortega-Welch explores both sides of the issue while hiking out to see the damage done to a sequoia grove in the middle of a wilderness area in the national parks. This story was brought to us by KALW Public Radio, and made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Latinos helped build the city of San Jose, though its a history largely forgotten or ignored. This week, we’re highlighting the impact Mexican-Americans have had on the Bay Area's biggest city, through the lens of one Chicana trailblazer. And we'll hear how this activism is helping guide those hoping to keep a fixture of the city's immigrant communities alive, as vendors at the Berryessa Flea Market fight for its future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re featuring a story from our friends at Code Switch. It’s the little known history of Japanese Americans who were living in Japan during World War II. Recently, reporter Kori Suzuki found out that his own grandmother, who he’d always thought was born in Japan, is a Kibei Nisei, a second generation American who returned after living through the war in Japan. In this story, he explores his grandmother’s memories and discovers new aspects of himself along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re featuring the Los Angeles Times’ podcast, “Foretold.” It’s the story of a young mother, Paulina Stevens, who was raised in a Romani American family on the Central Coast. Paulina shared her story with reporter Faith Pinho as she sought to leave the sometimes stifling culture she’d grown up in and the life of fortune telling prescribed for her in her teens.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the biggest stories in hip-hop right now is set to play out in a courtroom later this year, when Atlanta rapper Young Thug goes on trial for gang-related activities. One of the key pieces of evidence cited in the indictment are his lyrics. The phenomenon of rap songs being played in court dates back to the early ’90s, with an early example happening in the Bay Area during the trial of one of the region’s most famous rappers, Vallejo’s own Mac Dre. There’s a lot of lore around Mac Dre’s trial, so as part of That’s My Word, KQED’s yearlong project on Bay Area hip-hop history, reporter Jessica Kariisa set out to discover what really happened. Plus, there’s all kinds of slang that comes out of hip hop, but that doesn’t mean we’re always using it the right way. Pendarvis Harshaw, host of the KQED podcast Rightnowish, has some opinions about how to use “slap.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2018, the Woolsey Fire burned nearly 97,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It was one of the most destructive fires in Southern California history. Among the stories that emerged from the fire was one that seemed made for Hollywood: a group of Malibu surfers who stayed behind and helped save their town from the flames. In the new podcast Sandcastles, host and producer Adriana Cargill explores their story and tells us what we can learn from them about living safely in wildfire country. Plus, there were many things Julie Menter loved about her Oakland home when she first moved there in 2017. Chief among them were the three towering redwood trees in her backyard. Last year, one of the trees started to look sick. It had lost almost all of its leaves and, despite Menter watering it, it wasn’t bouncing back. She’s noticed, not just in her backyard but all around Oakland, redwood trees are looking dry and scraggly. So our friends at the Bay Curious went to find out what was going on with these iconic coast redwoods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re bringing you one of our favorite stories from 2022. You’ve probably heard of Bobby Seale and The Black Panthers. Or Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement. But what about Kartar Singh Sarabha and the Ghadar Movement? Or Kala Bagai and the fight against redlining? This week we dive deep into the hidden history of early South Asian activism in our state. How Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and other South Asian immigrants and their children laid the groundwork for social movements that still resonate today in California. Host Sasha Khokha teams up with KQED politics correspondent Marisa Lagos, and they meet a couple who created the Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Communities in LA County, like the city of Glendale, are home to the world’s largest Armenian population outside of Armenia. Starting more than a century ago, Armenians fled their homeland during the Armenian Genocide and many of them ended up in California. But now, some LA Armenians are moving in the other direction, back to Armenia. Reporter Levi Bridges traveled to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to meet some of the Angelenos who’ve made the move. And this week we kick off our new series “Flavor Profile,” about folks who opened successful food businesses during the pandemic. Some of them had little or no experience, like Rhea Patel Michel and Marcel Michel in Los Angeles. They took flavors from their Indian and Mexican heritages to start Saucy Chick Rotisserie. Sasha Khokha brings us their story from Los Angeles. Plus, our Hidden Gems series continues with a visit to Petaluma. The Sonoma County city has a lot of beautiful historic architecture, in part because many of its buildings were spared the devastation of the 1906 earthquake. One building dates back to 1904, and though its name has changed, it’s been a theater for over 100 years. The group that is keeping it alive is not a historic society, but rather teenagers. Reporter Jessica Kariisa brings us the story of the Phoenix Theater.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're featuring an excerpt from the Kitchen Sisters' special, House/Full of Black Women. For eight years now 34 Black women have gathered monthly around a big dining room table in Oakland, California. They meet, cook, dance, and strategize — grappling with the issues of eviction, erasure, gentrification, inadequate health care, and the sex trafficking of Black women and girls that overwhelm their community. Spearheaded by dancer/choreographer Amara Tabor-Smith and theater director Ellen Sebastian Chang, these women have come together to creatively address and bring their mission and visions to the streets. Over the years they have created performances, rituals, pop-up processions in the storefronts, galleries, warehouses, museums and streets of Oakland. You can hear the full version of House/Full of Black Women and more stories on the Kitchen Sisters Present podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At This Library, You Check Out a Human, Not a Book — and Sit Down to Talk California prides itself on being a diverse state that welcomes folks from all kinds of backgrounds. But actually connecting people who have radically different life experiences — that can be a challenge. The Santa Monica Public Library is hosting events to encourage deep one-on-one conversations between people from different backgrounds. Reporter Clare Wiley tells us about “The Human Library.”   ‘It’s All I’ve Wanted’: How an Innovative Bay Area Training Program Is Helping This Fire Victim Become a Firefighter In the fall of 2017, Lupe Duran was overwhelmed with feelings of loss and uncertainty. The Tubbs Fire had just killed 22 people and decimated thousands of homes in Santa Rosa, including his own. A welding student at the time, it occurred to him he should become a firefighter, like the professionals he’d seen save people’s homes. Through an ad, he found the FIRE Foundry, a nonprofit collaboration of the Marin County Fire Department, local organizations and universities. The organization offers free educational services and support aimed at propelling women and people of color into sustainable careers in the fire service. KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero reports. How the Oceano Dunes Became a Refuge for Artists and Writers in the 1920s Just south of Pismo Beach, along California’s Central Coast, the Oceano Dunes are a popular recreation spot for locals and tourists alike. It’s one of the few state parks where people can drive motorized vehicles on the sand. But those dunes also hold some little known history. For two decades, starting in the 1920s, the dunes were home to a colony of artists, writers and intellectuals called “Dunites.” KCBX’s Benjamin Purper reports it was a place where they could live freely and make art without much money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California music legend Chris Strachwitz passed away last month in San Rafael at the age of 91. He was the founder of Arhoolie Records, which championed traditional roots music like zydeco, blues, Norteño and Tejano. Starting in 1960, Strachwitz recorded hundreds of albums documenting this music, traveling to far flung corners of the country to find improbable stars. In 2019, his longtime friends and collaborators the Kitchen Sisters produced a documentary called “The Passion of Chris Strachwitz,” which we bring you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, California declared itself an abortion haven, an abortion sanctuary. The governor invited women from around the country to come here for safe, accessible abortions. He even set aside taxpayer dollars to help pay for their travel expenses. But for many people who live here and need abortion care, the state is anything but a sanctuary. Despite having some of the strongest abortion protections in the country, there are corners of California’s healthcare system where state laws can’t reach. One-on-one, in the exam room, what a doctor says - and doesn’t say - can affect the care patients receive. KQED’s health correspondent April Dembosky brings us the story of one woman who struggled to get straight answers from three different doctors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When John F. Kennedy High School opened in 1967, it was a model of innovation. The Richmond school was designed for flexible scheduling, team-teaching and empowered students to take responsibility for their own learning. It also had award-winning extracurriculars and powerful vocational pathways. All this made it a destination school and one of the few examples of successful integration by race and class. Families from all over the district chose Kennedy High for their kids, some even participating in a voluntary bussing program to get there. Reporter Richard Gonzales describes Kennedy’s hopeful beginning and traces the factors that led to harder times through the eyes of one teacher who has been there since day one. Mike Peritz was on the founding faculty of the school and fell in love with the mission, students and school community. More than 50 years later you can still find him there volunteering several days a week. And Jackie Orchard from the LAist brings us the story of a community college in Los Angeles that has built a reputation as one of the strongest culinary training programs in the state. In 2021, Los Angeles Trade Technical College opened a 70,000 square-foot facility for the culinary arts. Orchard stopped by to make bread with one of their baking classes, and find out what it takes to become a chef in L.A. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

KQED's Erin Baldassari has spent months reporting on what was once the largest settlement of unhoused people in Northern California. The city of Oakland has recently evicted some 300 people who were living in tents and trailers along Wood Street, some of whom had been there for a decade. Now, as residents scatter, many are mourning the loss of the community they had built. Baldassari follows two residents as they navigate the last year at the settlement, weathering eviction notices, sweeps and ultimately being forced to move on. It’s a nuanced story about why local and state policies towards encampments like Wood Street often fail to get people into permanent housing. Plus, what could officials across the state learn from the community at Wood Street about the kind of resources and services unhoused people need to successfully move on from encampments? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the early 1900s, the town of Allensworth became the first California town founded, financed and governed by Black Americans. The fertile Tulare Lake region should’ve been a utopia for the Black doctors, professors and farmers who settled there. But historic power dynamics left them, and the Allensworth community today, on the losing side of many water and land use questions. Now, as the Sierra snowpack melts and floods the Tulare Lake Basin, communities like Allensworth are uniquely vulnerable to flooding. Reporter Teresa Cotsirilos visited Allensworth earlier this spring to learn how residents are coping. Plus, when you think of California rockers from the 1970s, bands like the Eagles or Journey might come to mind. You probably don’t picture an interracial band of women — some of them Filipina-American and queer — from places like Sacramento and Folsom. Fanny was the first all-female rock band to release an album on a major label, breaking ground for women musicians like the Go Gos, the B52s, and Bonnie Rait. In fact, Fanny released five albums by 1974, but today, a lot of people haven’t heard of them. A new documentary film screening at CAAMFest in San Francisco follows band members nearly 50 years later as they record a reunion album. Sasha Khokha spoke with June Millington, Fanny’s lead guitarist, and film director, Bobbi Jo Hart, about the band’s legacy, the film and why age is just a number. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David 'Mas' Masumoto says he farms with ghosts. On his family's organic peach, nectarine and grape farm south of Fresno, California, Mas says the labor and lessons of his ancestors are in the soil and he's passing these on to the next generations. Mas is an author, too, who has delved into the stories of his farm and family in more than 10 books. In his latest, Secret Harvests, Mas writes about the shock of a newly uncovered family secret.  Reporter Lisa Morehouse has visited the Masumoto farm for years, picking luscious peaches and nectarines in summer. For her series California Foodways, she returned to hear what Mas learned about this hidden story, and how he rediscovered just how resilient his farming family is. Plus, Christopher Beale tells us about the flight over San Francisco's iconic Castro Theatre. Historically a movie palace, the building’s new managers want to remove seats to renovate the space for other live events like concerts. But the plans have raised tensions, with some pointing to the theater’s historical significance in San Francisco’s gay community as a reason to restore the space rather than renovate it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

W. Kamau Bell has centered conversations about race in much of his work as a comedian, author and TV host. But when Kamau, who's black, and his wife Melissa, who's white, had kids, they knew their experiences around race would be much different than their daughters. So The Bells set out to make a film that centers the lives of other mixed-race kids like them. In a conversation with hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos, the Bells open up about how about they talk about race in their own family and the conversations they hope this film sparks in living rooms across the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parenting is already a challenge, but it can be even more complicated when you’re raising a kid with a different racial identity than yours or your partner’s. Mixed!: Stories from Mixed Race Californians continues as co-hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos talk to Dr. Jenn Noble, a clinical psychologist who often works with multiracial families and Rahul Yates, a high school senior and host of the podcast Mixed by Gen Z, who's spent a lot of time thinking about his identity and creating ways for young people to find community and connection. They share about what parents can do to support their mixed race kids, the importance of talking about race early, and how the conversation about being mixed is changing with a younger generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Half-and-half. Cream and coffee. Almost every mixed-race family develops their own, sometimes bizarre, metaphors to explain their kids to the outside world. Chicana feminist, playwright, poet and author Cherríe Moraga prefers the term “mixed blood.” Her recent memoir, Native Country of the Heart, is a tribute to her powerful and complicated Mexican mother, Elvira Moraga. It’s a more seasoned reflection on the concepts she first explored when she co-edited the groundbreaking anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color in 1981. Her essay “La Güera” focuses on straddling identities as a mixed-race queer woman who’s light-skinned — or güera in Spanish. Moraga says people sometimes perceive her as white, despite her deep ties to her Mexican culture and heritage. In the essay, she explores the privilege she experiences in the world because of her phenotype, but also her vulnerability as a working-class woman and as a lesbian. California Report Magazine host Sasha Khokha and KQED correspondent Marisa Lagos spoke to her at her home for the series “Mixed: Stories of Mixed-Race Californians.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bay Area Teacher on Growing Up 'Multiracial Japanese American' — and Why Ethnic Studies Matters “Woman. Daughter. Adoptee. AIDS Orphan. Hapa. Japanese-American. Asian. Asian-American. Queer Musician. Writer. Martial Artist. Alive.” Those are the words a 21-year-old Joemy Ito-Gates wrote below a photograph of her taken by artist Kip Fulbeck. Some 20 years later, she’s also now a mother, an ethnic studies teacher and an advocate against cultural appropriation in fashion. And she’s changed the words she uses to describe her racial background to “multiracial Japanese American.” Our series “Mixed: Stories of Mixed-Race Californians,” continues with hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos in conversation with Ito-Gates about growing up as a multiracial adoptee, the loss of her parents to AIDS, and the ways she’s reclaiming Japanese heritage garments.  Thrifting and Bio-Art: Two Different Approaches to the Fast-Fashion Problem You might not realize it when trying on a new pair of jeans, but some estimates put the greenhouse gas emissions from clothing and shoe manufacturing at eight-percent of the global total. And thousands of tons of textiles end up in landfills each year. While fast fashion has many Americans buying more and more new cheap clothes, others are wondering what they can do to help. From KCBX in San Luis Obispo, Gabriela Fernandez profiles two California women who are championing more sustainable ways to shop. 'Stud Country': Queer Line Dancing Finds Home in Los Angeles  We’re heading to a night of boot scootin’ boogie in Los Angeles, at a spot that’s a little more than your usual honky tonk. Stud Country is a weekly dance party, a safe space for folks of all genders, sexualities and dancing abilities. KCRW’s Danielle Chiriguayo recently hit the dance floor.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our series MIXED!: Stories of Mixed Race Californians, continues with a wide ranging conversation with the late UCSB professor Reginald Daniel. He passed away suddenly in November 2022, just a few weeks after speaking with co-hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos. Before his death Professor Daniel taught the longest running college course on multiracial identity in the nation.  Daniel's family identified as Black, but he had big questions about his family's ancestry. Questions that his family never wanted to address. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olympic figure skater Tai Babilonia and her skating partner Randy Gardner rapidly ascended figure skating’s ranks to become World Champions in 1979. They were favorites at the 1980 Olympics, but an injury ended their dream of a medal. For our series Mixed! Stories of Mixed Race Californians, co-hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos spoke to Babilonia about growing up in a mixed race family in the 1960s and the racism and exotification she faced as an athlete and public figure. And we have an update on a family we've been following. In 2019, José Luis Ruiz Arévalos left his wife and kids in the Central Valley to apply for his green card in Mexico, but he ended up separated from them for almost four years. He got caught up in changes the Trump administration made to the questions consulate officials ask people trying to become legal residents. Last month, José was finally able to return home, but as Edsource Reporter Zaidee Stavely tells us, his forced absence changed the course of his children’s lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even if he’s not always recognized as part of the Asian-American community, Oakland-born rapper Guap is fiercely proud of his Filipino roots. On the last track of his 2021 album, 1176, he tells an origin story spanning decades and continents. His grandfather, a Black merchant marine, stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, found himself with a rip in the pocket of his uniform. He found a young Filipina seamstress to repair the pocket and fell in love. When his time in Subic Bay came to an end, the two married and moved to a one-story house in West Oakland, where they would eventually raise their grandchild Guap, the first born child of their youngest daughter. 1176, created in collaboration with Filipino-American producer !llmind, is Guap’s most personal work to date. It’s the culmination of a circuitous path into the music industry, from first getting recognition as a scam rapper to being featured on a Marvel movie soundtrack. For the series Mixed: Stories of Mixed Race Californians, hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos spoke to Guap about growing up Black and Filipino, the cultural impact his Lola had on him, and how his mixed identity shows up in his music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Identity is always complicated, and for multiracial folks who straddle many identities, it can be isolating. It can also be invigorating and rich to belong to multiple communities and celebrate that complexity. The latest census shows it's demographic to pay attention to: 2020 data reflect a 276% increase in people who identify as multiracial compared to 2010. Sasha Khokha is joined by special guest host Marisa Lagos as they delve into the mixed race experience, grounded in their own backgrounds. We're kicking off our new series, Mixed! with a conversation with pioneering artist Kip Fulbeck, whose hapa project allowed mixed-race folks to answer the question "What Are You?" Plus, two listeners who share a similar Black/Filipina background, but straddle different generations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever heard someone calling your name, but then you look around and no one’s there? Or you feel your phone vibrate, but actually, it didn’t. Then you’ve technically experienced psychosis. For most of us, it will never go further. But for people who later develop schizophrenia, it often starts like this. On this week's show, KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky takes you inside the minds of three young people experiencing psychosis. They describe how it crept up on them, how it took hold, and how new treatments helped them rewire their thoughts. But also, how insurance companies won’t pay for the full package of care.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As California looks for ways to alleviate drought, the federal government is considering raising Shasta Dam by 18-and-a-half feet in order to store more water in wet years. Behind it, three rivers backup creating Shasta Lake, the largest reservoir in the state. If the dam enlargement proceeds, areas up river from the dam that aren’t currently underwater will flood. The Winnemem Wintu people have opposed the dam enlargement project. Much of their ancestral land has already been taken from them and the proposal would flood many of the group’s remaining sacred sites. This week, host and reporter Judy Silber takes us on a journey "around the world," a Winnemem Wintu phrase for visiting the sacred sites, to understand what these places mean to their original inhabitants. This episode is part of a series from KALW's The Spiritual Edge podcast called A Prayer For Salmon.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year marks the 75th anniversary of one of the worst plane crashes in California history. In 1948, 32 people died when a plane heading from Oakland to the Mexican border landed nose-first into a canyon near the Central Valley town of Coalinga. The passengers were 28 Mexican Braceros who were being deported from California to the border. While the bodies of the white pilot, flight attendants, and immigration agent on board were sent home to their loved ones, the deportees remained unnamed, buried in a mass grave in Fresno. Poet and author Tim Z Hernandez has spent more than a decade trying to piece together what happened in that devastating plane crash. Host Sasha Khokha joined him as he continues to connect with people touched by that 1948 crash. California’s changed a lot since that plane wreck back in 1948. But the challenges some immigrants face here can still be overwhelming. And when tragedy strikes, folks who are undocumented can be especially vulnerable. During heavy rainstorms earlier this winter, the streets in the Merced County town of Planada became rivers, hundreds of homes flooded. The whole town was evacuated. Now people in this rural, unincorporated community in the Central Valley are trying to put their lives back together. KQED’s Vanessa Rancaño visited Planada and brings us two stories of how residents are struggling to recover after the storm.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chumash Tribes 'Reunite' Sacred Rock in Morro Bay Ceremony The nearly 600-ft. volcanic rock poking out of Morro Bay is a Central Coast landmark, known to most as Morro Rock. But two Native American tribes indigenous to this area call it something else: Le’samo by the Salinan, and Lisamu’ by the Chumash. For 80 years, starting in 1889, the Army Corps of Engineers quarried the rock and used it to build infrastructure throughout San Luis Obispo County. The desecration of their sacred site has long been a wound for the Salinan and Chumash peoples. After more than a hundred years, the Corps is returning pieces of the sacred rock to the tribes. KCBX’s Benjamin Purper takes us to a ‘Reunite the Rock’ ceremony, where Chumash members returned stones to their source, one step towards healing. Stitching for Change: Inside the Bay Area's Social Justice Sewing Academy Amanda Stupi profiles Sara Trail, the founder of the Social Justice Sewing Academy. As a kid Trail was a quilting marvel. She started sewing at age four and published a book on sewing when she was 14. Her work mostly focused on mastering traditional and difficult quilting techniques until Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012. Moved by his murder, she started to view quilting and textiles as an avenue of emotional expression, social change and community building. But others in the sewing world haven’t always been welcoming to her ideas. ‘Light the Beam’: Sacramento’s City-Wide Rallying Cry In Sacramento, a beam of light is bringing people together. It all has to do with long suffering basketball fans who feel like they finally have a reason to celebrate. Bianca Taylor has the story of how the Sacramento Kings are exceeding expectations this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yoga isn't just an ancient practice. It can also be a lucrative business, especially in fitness-conscious California. What’s more, yoga teachers can often have a lot of influence over their followers, making suggestions about their diet, sleep and sometimes, even politics. But as the Coronavirus pandemic dragged on, many people started noticing a surprising overlap between some of the alternative theories circulating in the wellness community and the conspiracy theories espoused by followers of Q-Anon — that the world is controlled by "the Deep State." Producer Emily Guerin from LAist Studios spent months looking into this connection. This week, we feature part one of her series, "Imperfect Paradise: Yoga's Queen of Conspiracy Theories." Guerin focuses on one LA-based yogi who went by the name Guru Jagat. She had a studio in Venice and was beloved as a charismatic, down-to-earth practitioner of Kundalini yoga. She had a book deal, a fashion line, celebrity clients like Alicia Keys and Kate Hudson and tens of thousands of Instagram followers. But within months of the first lockdown orders Guru Jagat had started questioning vaccines, holding in-person classes in defiance of lockdown orders, and wondering out loud whether the virus had something to do with alien invasions and secret space programs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sandra Castaneda was 20 when she was given a life sentence for a murder she didn’t commit. After she’d spent 19 years in prison, a judge overturned her conviction and ordered her release. But instead of walking free, she found herself behind bars again, in a holding cell in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. That’s because California prisons notify ICE whenever they release a person who wasn’t born in the U.S. – even someone like Sandra who’s a legal permanent resident who’s lived here since she was a child. What happened next is a window into an all-too-common story for immigrants who get funneled from the criminal justice system into the deportation system. Even when states like California have overturned their convictions. KQED’s Senior Immigration editor Tyche Hendricks has been following Sandra’s case for months, and brings us her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're featuring work from our colleagues at the Bay Curious podcast this week. Reporter Ariana Proehl digs into the history of Parchester Village, a neighborhood in the Bay Area town of Richmond. After World War II, Black ministers there made a deal with local politicians to build some of the state’s first housing intended to be racially integrated. Parchester Village soon became a hub for Black political power, excellence and community. Residents remember the powerful sense of belonging they felt growing up there. And host Sasha Khokha talks to Nikki High, owner of Octavia's Bookshelf, a new bookstore in Pasadena. When High’s grandmother died last year, she started reevaluating her life. She’d always wanted to open a bookstore and decided it was time to finally chase that dream. The store, named after science fiction writer Octavia Butler, will open in February. High tells us about the type of community she hopes to foster in the space and why Butler’s writing was so important to her growing up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Sasha Khokha sits down with Sam Anderson, host and reporter of the new podcast, Crooked City: The Emerald Triangle. In 2016, after finding out that a high school friend was wanted for a murder on an illegal pot farm, Anderson began a five-year journey to investigate the crime. He had to earn the trust of people close to the victim and the accused, all while living and working out of a tent, which became his “office.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poet Lee Herrick has taught at Fresno City College since the late 1990s, and is now our state’s first Asian American poet laureate. His work has touched on some of the unique experiences Californians share, including our diverse culture and questions of identity. Host Sasha Khokha chats with Herrick as he shares some of his poems as well as his plans to spread the of poetry across the state. And when it comes to instantly recognizable structures, San Francisco suffers no shortage. But if asked to pick their favorite, many people might go for a classic: the Transamerica Pyramid, which opened in 1972. In a story produced by Carly Severn for Bay Curious, we learn about its surprising origins, and why something that is now an architectural icon was once quite controversial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, as we say goodbye to 2022, we share some of our favorite conversations with California authors this year. ‘All My Rage’: A Story of Love, Loss and Forgiveness in the Mojave Desert Author Sabaa Tahir based her new young adult novel “All My Rage” on her experiences growing up in her family's 18-room motel in the Mojave Desert. As the child of Pakistani immigrants, and one of the few South Asians in her rural town, Tahir faced racism, Islamophobia, and taunting from other kids. She's an award-winning young adult author, and her earlier series “An Ember in the Ashes” – which had a woman of color hero – hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Tahir joins host Sasha Khokha to talk about her new book. Jaime Cortez’s World of Humor, Queerness and Tenderness, in a Farmworker Labor Camp “Gordo” is the new book of short stories from visual artist and author Jaime Cortez. It’s set in the Central Coast farmworker camps he grew up in near Watsonville and San Juan Bautista. By the time he was 10, Cortez was a veteran of the annual garlic and potato harvests. The collection, which he says is “semi-autobiographical,” is a journey of queer self-discovery and complex identities that don’t fit the usual stereotypes of Steinbeck country. Jaime Cortez talks to host Sasha Khokha about “Gordo,” and shares some passages from the book. Wajahat Ali on His New Memoir and the Merits of Investing in Joy “Go back to where you came from.” It’s an insult that unfortunately, many of us have heard. For writer Wajahat Ali, it’s also the title of his new book. It traces his childhood in Fremont, CA, his activism as a UC Berkeley student after 9/11, and the challenges he’s faced as a son, a father, and a writer. It chronicles him almost dying from a heart condition, his young daughter getting cancer, and other family tragedies. But the book is funny. Host Sasha Khokha talks to Ali about why he’s decided to actively invest in joy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices