Crosscurrents

Today, we visit a special space where conservatives and liberals connected. The Anderson Valley Grange Hall. Then, how a collection of posters in San Francisco’s Mission district captures over four decades of community organizing.

Grange halls have been around for more than 150 years — the Grange began as a fraternal organization for farmers. Many rural towns still rely on Grange halls as community centers. In the Anderson Valley, many people credit this place for bringing together groups of people that were once really divided.

Located a block away from the 24th street BART station, the Mission Grafica print studio and archive has empowered public art in the Bay Area since 1982. KALW is now hosting a gallery of some of their prints at our space in downtown San Francisco at 220 Montgommery, it is called ‘Mission Grafica: The Public’s Voice.’ The posters on display offer a living timeline of how artists have aligned beauty...

What happens in kids' brains… when they’re improvising? Today, we learn how brains work in childhood, and how that's linked to creativity. Then, a woman in prison discovers her inner beauty. And, a new series captures San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. We hear a conversation with the host of “When We All Get To Heaven.” 

A lot of adults feel they’ve lost touch with the ability to get messy… and also just mess up. Scientists call that childlike, everyday experimentation, “prosaic creativity.” And it's more accessible—even as adults—than many tend to think.

Now, it’s a new story from Uncuffed, our podcast that empowers people in prison to tell their own stories. This one comes to us from the California Institution for Women.  This is a piece that was scheduled to air a few weeks ago, but it was only after our show was broadcast that we realized we had aired the wrong story. So today we bring this piece from Uncuffed producer Haena Worthing. When she...

All month, KALW’s Queer Power Hour will be airing a special series called ‘ When We All Get To Heaven.’ With archival tape it tells the story of one of the first gay-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s. The series brings to life a community facing personal, social, and political trials, including the deaths o...

A round-up of what's happening in transportation news around the Bay Area for a segment called “Getting Around the Bay.”

Sometimes your chosen family isn’t your biological family. And sometimes we choose houses of worship other than our own because they feel safer for us. Today, we meet a woman who’s leading her church to be a refuge — not just for Christians, but for all people.

Today, an update on Bay Area bike paths and walkways. We bring you the latest on ‘Getting around the Bay’ from our transit reporter. Then, an adopted son needs to decide which family to call home. And, how an Oakland pastor turns the tables on homophobia in the Church.

When Uncuffed producer Fonuamana Fuahala unexpectedly meets his biological family, he's confronted with one of the most difficult decisions of his life.

Today, we’re in the Sierra Peaks to hear how snowmelt may contribute tiny bits of plastic to Bay Area drinking water. Then, the backstory behind a seasonal San Francisco show.

The Bay Area gets much of it's drinking water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Back in 2023, we saw record snow fall in the Sierras. And that was followed by record snow melt. And with that melt came… microplastics.  At the time, reporter Joshua Sirotiak went up to the mountains to find out what researchers are looking for in our drinking water.

While the Bay Area doesn’t see much snow, one place you CAN find some right now is.. Southeast San Francisco! An annual tradition is taking place these days in a transformed arena off Geneva Street. In a space once reserved for livestock and cowboys, the streets of Victorian England come alive. It’s the Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace!

Every week, locals are showing up outside San Francisco’s immigration courthouse to protest. Today, how some neighbors have come together to try and stop deportations. Then, we’ll hear from people who provided vital care during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco.

It seems like every day we see another headline about an ICE mass deportation. While legal advocates are doing everything in their power to support immigrants, some locals have taken matters into their hands. One group in San Francisco is providing support for people attending immigration court.

December is HIV/AIDS Awareness Month. So we’re going to go back in time to 1988. It was the height of the AIDS crisis. Marcy Fraser and Michelle Francis worked together in hospice care in San Francisco. In this StoryCorps episode from 2015, they look back on the moment their friendship was cemented for life.  Then, Karen Van Dine was a prayer counselor in a healing circle at a gay ministry in the...

Today, a new episode of Sidewalk Stories about how it's getting harder to live in a vehicle in the Bay Area. Plus, signing up for summer camp, monarch migrations, and a poem.

We’re quickly approaching the Winter Solstice. But today, we wanted to bring you a little slice of summer. Camp Mather, San Francisco’s oldest summer camp, opens its 2026 lottery registration today ! In 2024, KALW’s Molly Blair Salyer went away to camp, to capture a moment of Camp Mather’s 100th summer.

Every year, the western monarch butterfly migrates from the coast between Santa Cruz and San Diego to spend the summer along rivers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Then, in winter, they do the whole thing again, in reverse. When one musician heard about the plight of the monarchs, he decided to take a radical step to help them along their journey… by taking the trip with them. This morning we bri...

In this segment of Sidewalk Stories, we hear from people who live in RVs as Bay Area cities are increasingly cracking down on vehicle homes. 

Today we hear about how residents are preparing to pass a tougher version of the naturalization civics test. Then, a grandmother writes a children’s book with her grandson, and he has an idea for the main characters. Plus, preserving memories when family comes together.

For lawful residents yearning to become naturalized citizenships, learning U.S. history and civics is one of the barriers to passing a ten question exam and it just got harder. 

Here’s Al Robles reading an excerpt from his poem, “Cold Mountain in Chinatown,” which he performed at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State on November 10th, 1976. 

Author Stephanie Wildman’s children's books have centered around three characters Flor, Roberto and Luis who are adventurous siblings. But her latest book Story Power is different- she  co-wrote it with her nine-year-old grandson Simon Wildman Chung.