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 ove…

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 up…

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…

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 consciousn…

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…

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 plante…

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 …

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 o…

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 question…

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 ou…

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 Adh…

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-…

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 …

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 …

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.…

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 …

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 …

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 de…

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…

‘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 spea…

Katrina Turner lives in Fair Oaks, outside of Sacramento. She’s 43, nonverbal and developmentally disabled. Katrina lives in a special kind of group home for people who need a lot of support day to day. She has a history of self-injury, so the group home is required to monitor her 24/7. But Katrina’s family was alarmed when a staff member reported …

Two Years After the Dixie Fire, Towns That Relied on Pacific Crest Trail Hikers Are Still Struggling Two years ago, the Dixie Fire nearly wiped the Pacific Crest Trail off the map. With a lot of work, the trail has mostly been repaired. But sections of the PCT remain inaccessible, and for the first time in history, doing a continuous hike of the tr…

On this week's show we're revisiting two stories about family, food and farming. We start in the Central Valley where David “Mas” Masumoto says he farms with ghosts. On his family’s organic peach, nectarine and grape farm south of Fresno, California, Mas says the labor and lessons of his ancestors are in the soil and he’s passing these on to the ne…

It’s been a year since one of the biggest political scandals in its history rocked the Los Angeles City Council. In October 2022, a secret audio recording of three Latino council members and a labor leader was leaked to the public. Their conversation about redrawing council district maps included racist comments about fellow council members, their …

This week, we’re featuring an episode from our friends at the KQED podcast SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing In America. This season they're focusing on how climate change is affecting where and how we live. Climate change is intensifying wet periods across California, turning waterways that humans corralled with dirt and concrete into wild torrents. Wh…