Home Baked: How Pot Brownies Brought Some Relief During the AIDS Epidemic

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

5 Apr 202430min

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

29 Mars 202430min

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

22 Mars 202430min

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

15 Mars 202430min

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

9 Mars 202430min

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

2 Mars 202429min

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

24 Feb 202429min

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

17 Feb 202429min