The Last Days of Duroville: Farmworker Housing, Mobile Home Parks and the Eastern Coachella Valley

Aired on the California Report Magazine on May 3, 2013.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201305031630/d

And on NPR's Latino USA on May 10, 2013.

http://www.futuromediagroup.org/lusa/2013/05/10/last-days-of-duroville/

In the eastern Coachella Valley, an agricultural region east of Palm Springs, the land is rich, but most of the people are not.  Mobile home parks make up a significant amount of housing for the area's workers, and conditions vary widely.  I went down to look into the closing of a notorious park, Duroville, but found it was the tip of the iceberg.

Money Diaries

In the fall of 2012, I got to work with young adults at Game Theory Academy, a non-profit that teaches financial literacy to youth in Oakland.  They recorded their lives, and in collaboration I produced their radio diaries about their relationship with money.  KALW's Crosscurrents aired some of the results. 

Dillon: The Cost of a Breakup:

http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-cost-breakup

Josh: Unemployed and on Food Stamps

http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-unemployed-and-food-stamps-0

Keva: Living at Home While Finishing School

http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-living-home-while-finishing-school

Caelin: Next Year Will Be Better

http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-next-year-will-be-better

Zakiya: Confessions of a Shop-aholic

http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-confessions-shop-aholic

Jabari: When Money Comes at a Cost
http://www.kalw.org/post/money-diaries-when-money-comes-cost

Salinas Hospital Trains Interpreters to Serve Immigrant Population

Aired on The California Report Magazine on February 8, 2013.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201302081630/b

and on NPR's Latino USA on February 22, 2013.

http://www.futuromediagroup.org/lusa/2013/02/22/the-languages-of-natividad/

In the Salinas Valley, small farm towns like Soledad and Greenfield dot highway 101. Most farmworkers here are from Mexico, and an increasing number are indigenous people from Oaxaca and other Mexican states. In fact, almost one quarter of all indigenous Mexicans in California live in this region. They speak languages like Mixteco, Zapoteco, and Triqui. If they speak Spanish at all it's as a second language. That can create complex language barriers in work, school, and healthcare.  In Salinas, one hospital is trying to serve them.

From Soldier to Activist

Aired on The California Report Magazine on December 28, 2012.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201212281630/b

A lot of us are multitasking these days. But Emily Yates takes it to a new level. The 30-year-old U.C. Berkeley student is also a musician, a writer, a photographer and an activist. All of these parts of her identity developed out of the intense experiences she had after answering a fateful phone call when she was just 19.

A Traci Des Jardins Thanksgiving

Aired on The California Report Magazine, November 16, 2012.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201211161630/a

And on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, November 17, 2012.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/17/165345521/for-calif-family-its-not-thanksgiving-without-rice

I asked two-time James Beard Award-winner Traci Des Jardins to demonstrate one favorite Thanksgiving dish for this story, but when I walk into her home kitchen in San Francisco she's making four. One of those dishes is her grandmother's rice. Des Jardins was raised in a family of rice farmers in California's Central Valley and, every day as a child, she ate this short grain white rice they grew.

Violins for Vets

Aired on The California Report Magazine November 9th, 2012.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201211091630/c

For this Veteran's Day piece I got to team up with the The Kitchen Sisters as part of the KQED Radio series "The Making Of..." -- stories about what people make and why. Ninety-two-year-old Remo del Tredici donates his hand-carved violins to veterans in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Siskiyou County pre-election road trip

Aired on The California Report Magazine on October 26, 2012.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201210260850/a

Up in Siskiyou County, on the Oregon border, people say anyone who calls San Francisco "Northern California" has it wrong. They live in the real Northern California. This sprawling county, home to the Klamath River and Mt. Shasta, has barely 45,000 residents. So the answer to the question "What's Government For?" comes back to people's relationship with the land.