California Stories: Three of Our Favorite Author Interviews from 2022

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

27 Sep 202429min

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

20 Sep 202430min

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

13 Sep 202429min

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

6 Sep 202430min

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

30 Aug 202430min

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

23 Aug 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. This episode first aired in March 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Aug 202430min

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

9 Aug 202430min