The California Report Magazine

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 t...

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 Cotsiril...

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 th...

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...

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...

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: p...

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 ne...

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...

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 b...

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, wh...

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 responsibilit...

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 a...

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-law...

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 e...

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 t...

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 le...

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 busine...

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 w...

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...

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 incarc...

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 solut...

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 supp...

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 mer...

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 disco...

‘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 confli...