Manjula Varghese

Manjula Varghese

Digital Producer/Editor

Manjula Varghese is the Digital Producer/Editor for KQED Arts & Culture. Before KQED, she produced videos for the San Francisco Chronicle, exploring issues of race, gun violence and immigration. As a D.C. native, she managed to escape the East Coast, run her own production company Mirrorlake Films based in Utah, and graduate from Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism unscathed. Believing in the power of community, she is active in the local Asian American Journalists Association, Brown Girls Doc Mafia and, on occasion, teaches at UC Berkeley's school of journalism. Her free time is filled with day trips around the Bay, live music, befriending stranger’s dogs and attempting her mom’s South Indian cooking.

By Manjula Varghese
Host of Beyond the Menu, Cecilia Philips is holding a giant paper mache pretzel pretending to eat it. The text on the image reads 'Who Invented Pretzels?'

How Pretzels Went From Human Sacrifice To Beer Gardens

A young light-skinned black woman stands in the foreground holding a bottle of chamoy. In the background, a large bottle of chamoy sauce is squeezed onto half an orange.

It’s Mexican, Asian, a Candy, a Sauce…It’s Chamoy

A plate with a piece of fried chicken sitting on top of a waffle next to the show's host, Cecilia Phillips

Chicken and Waffles: from Amish Country to Harlem

Samosas aren’t from India…Wait, what?

Mini-Documentary: What Could Reparations Look Like?

How Black Californians Had Their Land Stolen

Watch: ‘What’s Pimpin’?’ Tells Survivor Stories from Bay Area Pimp Culture

Watch: 'What's Pimpin'?' Dives Into Masculinity, Dating with Dregs One, Ian Kelly

Watch: ‘What’s Pimpin’?’ Takes on Misogynoir in Bay Area Hip-Hop

Inspired by Black Leaders, Japanese Americans Got Reparations After WWII

Mini-Documentary: California’s Reparations Task Force on the Foundation for Lasting Reparative Justice

The Reasons for Reparations — and Why They're Necessary to Achieve Equity

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