The California Report Magazine

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'Amazing Grace' and Seeing Myself in Kamala: Inauguration Strikes a Hopeful Note Jan 23, 2021

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In his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden called for bringing unity to what we all know is a deeply hurt, deeply divided country. Right after the president spoke, country music star Garth Brooks sang “Amazing Grace.” KQED’s Arts and Culture Reporter Chloe Veltman spoke to a number of California artists with strong ties to the song about its enduring power. Plus, we drop in on a family excitedly watching the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris with their two young daughters who see themselves in her. And we visit a school in Watts — Locke College Preparatory Academy — that has been looking for ways to empower students in the aftermath of the violence in Washington.

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'Kamala is My Fairy Godmother', Bridging a Language Divide, Remembering CA's Food Pioneers Jan 16, 2021

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The whole world will be watching next week as Kamala Harris is sworn in as our next Vice President. But there’s one person who will be tuning in who says he owes his life to her. Plus, the pandemic has been making things more challenging for schools that serve some of the newest Californians: Guatemalan immigrants who speak a Mayan language called Mam. And reporter Lisa Morehouse joins us to memorialize three Californians who passed away last year, each with a connection to agriculture.

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After a Week of Chaos, Hanging on to the Promise of Renewal Jan 09, 2021

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This week we bring you four stories; about hope, stewardship, compassion, and community.

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The Health Care Workers, Teachers, Firefighters and Activists Who Inspired Us in 2020 Jan 01, 2021

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2020 will forever be the year of COVID-19 – and wildfires, police shootings, school over Zoom. So much heartbreak. But all year long, there were people who stepped up, sacrificed so much and kept going. As we ring in a new year, we revisit some of our favorite stories about the people who inspired us in 2020.

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From Jewish Mambo to 'Nimble' the Elf, Our Favorite Holiday Stories Dec 25, 2020

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The California Report is celebrating our 25th year on the air, so this holiday weekend, we’re digging into our archives to bring you some of our favorite stories from the season.

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A Fresh Look at the Donner Party Dec 18, 2020

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As we officially head into winter – and hopefully snowy weather in the Sierra Nevada – we bring you the tale of the Donner Party; the version you may not have heard before. You might be familiar with the ghoulish CliffsNotes version of this story: about a band of people traveling over the Sierra in covered wagons, trapped in the snow and forced to turn to cannibalism to survive. But behind the Donner Party legend, there’s another story: one about prejudice, injustice and murder. KQED reporter Carly Severn tells us what happened when those 81 people were stuck in the mountains back in 1846, and how this disaster came to represent everything California wanted to forget.

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Home Baked: How Pot Brownies Brought Some Relief During the AIDS Epidemic Dec 12, 2020

Show notes

We’re all bracing ourselves for a surge in hospitalizations, for more people lost to COVID-19, for more closures and lockdowns. So we’re reprising one of our documentaries about another time we all faced a public health crisis. A time when the federal government was slow to respond, so the community had to step in to take care of each other. Lisa Morehouse brings us the story of a woman who became an unexpected source of comfort to people suffering from AIDS in the early 1980s. Her baking business, Sticky Fingers Brownies, provided gooey marijuana-filled brownies to people dying from the disease in San Francisco. Pot brownies weren’t going to save anyone’s life over the long term, but Meridy Volz says they brought some relief, and there wasn’t a lot of relief in those days.

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‘A Butterfly With My Wings Cut Off’: A Transgender Asylum Seeker’s Quest to Come to California Dec 04, 2020

Show notes

When she turned 15, Luna Guzmán, like many girls in Guatemala, celebrated with a quinceañera. But it was a secret party, with a borrowed dress, because her family couldn't fathom her as a transgender girl. So she put her soccer jerseys back on and tried to pass as the boy she knew she wasn’t inside. Even as she dealt with brutal violence, she decided to take a terrible risk and leave everything behind in Guatemala, to try to find a life in California: the one place in the world where she could imagine being safe. Being herself. Host Sasha Khokha has followed Luna Guzmán over the last two years, reporting from a migrant shelter in Tijuana, an ICE detention center in San Diego, and a tiny drag bar in Modesto. Her story says a lot about how U.S. immigration policy fails when it comes to recognizing people who live outside the gender binary, how the epic backlog of asylum cases in the U.S. can add to their trauma, and how transgender migrants at the border are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.

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In a Year of Isolation, Remembering Thanksgiving Togetherness Nov 28, 2020

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This weekend, when so many of us have had to make the difficult choice to spend the holiday away from our loved ones, we’re inviting you to a virtual family gathering, with some of our favorite stories from Thanksgiving 2017.

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Fighting Isolation During COVID, and Capturing the Heart of a Neighborhood in Song Nov 21, 2020

Show notes

KQED Science reporter Lesley McClurg brings us two stories of populations struggling with isolation during the pandemic. First, the story of two older women successfully navigating this tumultuous time with limited resources. Then, youth therapists are hearing about depression, anxiety and even suicide ideation a lot more than usual among kids who haven’t attended school in person since March. Hear one Oakland family’s story. Plus, a new project called Sounds of California commissioned 10 original songs from local artists about Boyle Heights, a longtime immigrant neighborhood East of Downtown Los Angeles that’s been gentrifying. Host Sasha Khokha talks with musician Quetzal Flores, who’s been helping to curate the project.

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