The California Report Magazine

Last year, California’s Foster Farms became the site of one of the nation’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks at a meat or poultry plant. The California Report’s Central Valley reporter, Alex Hall, spent a year and a half talking to spouses and family members of workers who spent decades at the company’s chicken-processing plants. She found that hundreds of Foster Farms workers tested positive for the virus in 2020. 16 people died and at least 20 others were hospitalized.  Hall’s investigation shows that as plants stayed open to maintain the food supply, and workers got sick from COVID-19, or even died, Foster Farms didn’t always give a complete picture of the problem to health officials, state regulators and their own employees. We meet two families who lost loved ones who worked at Foster Farms, and are grieving, struggling financially, and trying to make sense of what happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Loka 202131min

California was likely named for a character in an early 16th century Spanish novel. Queen Calafia was a mythical Black warrior who ruled an island of Amazon women, and commanded an army of griffins. She is said to have worn armor made of fish bones, and used weapons made of gold. Most Californians don’t know this origin story, but a Bay Area theater company hopes to change that. Plus remembering Eureka's lost Chinatown. And Latin Grammy-nominated composer Gabriela Ortiz has a new concerto for flute and orchestra inspired by El Camino Real...and the California fast food chain Taco Bell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Loka 202129min

We look at an epidemic that has been raging during COVID: In California alone, more than 10,000 people died of a drug overdose just this past year. Some California doctors and caregivers are using two new models of treatment for those struggling with addiction. Health Reporters Lesley McClurg and April Dembosky take you inside hospitals and clinics to meet people struggling with addiction who are getting help in new ways. For the first time, doctors and caregivers are asking: what do you need from us? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Loka 202129min

Over Labor Day weekend 2020, the historic, fast-moving Creek Fire tore through remote wilderness in the Sierra Nevada northeast of Fresno, trapping hundreds of campers at a Mammoth Pool Reservoir. A new podcast from KVPR explores what it takes, in the era of climate change, to launch a successful, large-scale rescue from a massive forest fire. "Escape from Mammoth Pool" gives us an intimate look at the people involved in the rescue effort — survivors who helped save strangers, and National Guard members who said this was scarier than war. We're devoting our whole show this week to sharing parts of the podcast and talking with reporter Kerry Klein. She spent a year interviewing survivors and rescuers, listening to 911 tape, and pouring over government documents and data to piece together what happened.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Loka 202129min

Every year we highlight some of our favorite secret spots in California — places tourists and longtime residents alike might not know about. This week, we’re taking you all over the state of California, from a coveted food truck in the Central Valley to remote corners of Humboldt County.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Syys 202129min

This week on The California Report Magazine, we talk with Oakland-based musician Fantastic Negrito about his new song, "Rolling Through California," that explores the dissonance between the California Dream and the reality of living in the Golden State today. Plus, the story of one father and the family awaiting him in the Central Valley city of Los Banos. He followed the rules and went back to Mexico for the final step to apply for his green card: an interview at the U.S. Consulate. His wife and kids expected him back in a week or two. But it's been more than two years. Plus, 20 years ago, host Sasha Khokha wrote an article about then 17-year-old Fatima Shah, a Pakistani-American who was one of many South Asian students that experienced racist backlash after 9/11. They met again on the steps of Fatima's old high school. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Syys 202129min

Reporter Lee Romney brings us a documentary about a longtime couple from rural Northern California, near the Oregon border. They’ve each faced a domestic violence charge in state court, and they have a lot to share about their journey to wellness. The key: understanding where generational violence comes from by talking openly about the trauma of things like boarding schools, the Indian Slave Act, and massacres. Colonization intentionally and forcibly severed indigenous people from their land, traditions, and language here in California. That history created patterns of generational trauma and abuse. Now some leaders from tribes like the Yurok are trying to help both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence reconnect with the cultural practices that were taken away.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Syys 202129min

California is in the grip of another round of devastating wildfires, including history-making blazes that have jumped from one side of the Sierra to the other, fueled by overgrown forests thick with dry brush. But it hasn’t always been that way. For thousands of years before contact with Europeans, the Karuk people, like many other indigenous people, tended their land with fire. The Karuk tribe is one of the largest in California, spanning parts of Humboldt and Siskiyou counties along the Klamath River. When the federal government took over managing the forest in the mid-1800s, it stripped the Karuk people of their relationship with fire. Suppressing cultural burning and indigenous fire management techniques has had profound effects, contributing to the mammoth fires burning year after year across the state. In this half-hour documentary, KQED Science reporter Danielle Venton walks through the forest with tribal leaders and witnesses a controlled burn firsthand. She looks at the relationship between the Karuk and cultural burning, and the tribe’s negotiations with the state of California to get that control back Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Syys 202131min