West Sacramento’s Indigenous Urban Farms Grow Fresh Food and Community
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Oakland Comedian Jackie Keliiaa on Pain, Punchlines and Her ‘Good Medicine’
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story is part of \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cb>\u003ci>How We Get By\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">full series here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just across the river from California’s state Capitol, a vacant corner lot in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/yolo-county\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">West Sacramento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has been turned into something else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cars pass by rows of lettuce, chard and broccoli and nearby, a group of young people moves between beds of soil, snipping stems, stacking crates and checking the day’s harvest. By the end of the day, all of it will be packed into bags and given away for free.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The space is part of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.3sistersgardens.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Three Sisters Gardens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a network of urban farms started by Alfred Melbourne. What began as guerrilla gardening — planting flowers and vegetables in neglected lots — has grown into a nonprofit with four sites across West Sacramento. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At its core, the work is about turning unused land into something productive: teaching young people to grow food and getting it into the hands of people who need it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in this part of Yolo County, that need is significant — nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sacregcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Yolo-Food-Access-Survey-Report.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one in three households \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">experiences food insecurity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073468\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alfred Melbourne, founder and director of Three Sisters Garden, at the garden in West Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How do we still live in a food desert?” Melbourne said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A West Sacramento native, this is a question Melbourne has grappled with his entire life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an attempt to mitigate this, he gives away most of the produce grown on the land, with a goal to distribute 50, 000 pounds of free food this year, and having distributed 42,000 pounds of free food the year before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He draws on his Indigenous roots to shape the gardens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The hawk, they always seem to fly right above us,” Melbourne said, gesturing toward the sky. He takes it as a good sign.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes and named the farms after the native “Three Sisters” method of planting corn, beans and squash together — each crop supporting the others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That approach, he said, reflects a broader way of thinking about community — the heart of the farms he runs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From incarceration to intervention\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne grew up one street away from the 5th and C Street garden where he stood.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“For the youth growing up here, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity,” he said. “There was a gang \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://yoloda.org/appellate-court-upholds-gang-injunction/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">injunction \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in place for almost 10 years, over-criminalizing our youth.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073467\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dominitt Henderson waters newly planted lettuce at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 19, he was arrested for the first time and eventually spent 18 years in prison for assault with a firearm and assault with a deadly weapon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“As a youngster, I kind of just fell in with the bad crowd and made some poor choices, and I ended up incarcerated,” said Melbourne. “Incarceration is not something that I would wish upon my worst enemy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For much of that time, he said, he resisted the system and his circumstances. But eventually, something shifted.[aside postID=news_12082596 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/KQED_RURALMATERNALHEALTH_HIRES_02-KQED.jpg']\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I just sat there, and I closed my eyes, and I listened,” he said. “I saw what it was they were doing as a system to try to break us down, to kidnap us off the streets and profit off of us.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne spent time getting educated in prison and learned that it costs California nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$128,000 annually\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to incarcerate a person. That realization stayed with him. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I couldn’t allow that to happen,” he said. “Not to me any longer, or to anybody I knew or anybody in my community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Melbourne was released, he returned to West Sacramento with a different sense of purpose — thinking about how to intervene with young people, before they ended up where he had.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We know that if you feed a kid better, they’ll perform better,” he said. “Test scores go up, behavior problems go down.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2018, he has built the nonprofit Three Sisters Gardens, spanning four farms across West Sacramento. But, not without some challenges.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The model remains susceptible to fluctuations in federal funding priorities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny McDowell plants microgreen onions at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne had set his sights on a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://iratracker.org/actions/epa-pushes-climate-groups-to-close-community-change-grant-program-grants/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$21 million grant\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the US Environmental Protection Agency, a program that was discontinued by the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Currently, the organization depends on a mix of local and state funding, with land leased from the city at a subsidized rate of $1 per month.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It took a lot of learning to know that I can transform what used to be an illegal business into a legal business,” said Melbourne. “And use our hustle mentality to support our youth and ourselves into a future that’s brighter for everyone.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne sees access to food as one entry point. But the work extends beyond nutrition — into job training, workforce development and life skills.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I want to use the lived experience that I have for all the pain and suffering that I went through to be able to change these youngsters, to divert them,” he said about being a mentor, educator and a resource for the young people in West Sacramento.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cultivating community\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nancy Long, 18, found the Three Sisters Gardens nearly two years ago, at a time when she felt unmoored. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, between packing produce for distribution and tending the soil, she said she has found a sense of purpose — in both the work itself and in giving food away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073461\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073461\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I grew up very poor, and I feel like this is actually helping a lot of people because not a lot of people get food,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Long, who is Cambodian American, now brings produce home for her family, who use it in soups. Before joining the garden, she said she struggled in school and often kept to herself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I was really in a bad place in my life,” she said. “When I got this job, I changed a lot, and it also helped me with my mental health issues.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Working at the garden, she said, has changed how she sees herself and how she interacts with others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I feel like this garden has made me a better person,” she said. “I really am glad, and I appreciate that I have Alfred in this.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the young people who come through the gardens are looking for stability — a steady job, guidance, a place where they feel seen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne’s role often extends beyond supervision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He checks in on the young people working with him and, at times, helps them navigate challenges outside of work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073465\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny McDowell plants onion microgreens at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For 21-year-old Dominitt Henderson, that meant straightforward advice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“He will tell you the truth straight up to your face,” Henderson said. “He won’t hide nothing from you — that’s what I like.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other youth described more tangible forms of support.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“He helps me a lot,” Amari Sullivan said. “He gives me jackets — whatever I need.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kenny McDowell said that support has made a difference during difficult moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’ll be times where I miss a couple of car payments,” McDowell said. “He’ll help me out. Little things like that, it counts.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over time, the work begins to take root in other ways. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">McDowell said being part of the garden gave him a sense of direction and something to build toward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073462\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073462\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Interns Damia Zhang and Leilania Tian inspect seed containers at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This was a purpose,” he said. “I want to see a brighter future.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne described the work as reciprocal — something built alongside the young people, not just for them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s them coming to me and us just feeding off of each other,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What I really, truthfully, in the end want to build is community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story is part of \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003cb>\u003ci>How We Get By\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">full series here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just across the river from California’s state Capitol, a vacant corner lot in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/yolo-county\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">West Sacramento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has been turned into something else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cars pass by rows of lettuce, chard and broccoli and nearby, a group of young people moves between beds of soil, snipping stems, stacking crates and checking the day’s harvest. By the end of the day, all of it will be packed into bags and given away for free.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The space is part of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.3sistersgardens.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Three Sisters Gardens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a network of urban farms started by Alfred Melbourne. What began as guerrilla gardening — planting flowers and vegetables in neglected lots — has grown into a nonprofit with four sites across West Sacramento. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At its core, the work is about turning unused land into something productive: teaching young people to grow food and getting it into the hands of people who need it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in this part of Yolo County, that need is significant — nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sacregcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Yolo-Food-Access-Survey-Report.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one in three households \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">experiences food insecurity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073468\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-192-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alfred Melbourne, founder and director of Three Sisters Garden, at the garden in West Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How do we still live in a food desert?” Melbourne said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A West Sacramento native, this is a question Melbourne has grappled with his entire life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an attempt to mitigate this, he gives away most of the produce grown on the land, with a goal to distribute 50, 000 pounds of free food this year, and having distributed 42,000 pounds of free food the year before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He draws on his Indigenous roots to shape the gardens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The hawk, they always seem to fly right above us,” Melbourne said, gesturing toward the sky. He takes it as a good sign.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes and named the farms after the native “Three Sisters” method of planting corn, beans and squash together — each crop supporting the others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That approach, he said, reflects a broader way of thinking about community — the heart of the farms he runs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From incarceration to intervention\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne grew up one street away from the 5th and C Street garden where he stood.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“For the youth growing up here, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity,” he said. “There was a gang \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://yoloda.org/appellate-court-upholds-gang-injunction/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">injunction \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in place for almost 10 years, over-criminalizing our youth.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073467\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-150-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dominitt Henderson waters newly planted lettuce at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 19, he was arrested for the first time and eventually spent 18 years in prison for assault with a firearm and assault with a deadly weapon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“As a youngster, I kind of just fell in with the bad crowd and made some poor choices, and I ended up incarcerated,” said Melbourne. “Incarceration is not something that I would wish upon my worst enemy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For much of that time, he said, he resisted the system and his circumstances. But eventually, something shifted.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I just sat there, and I closed my eyes, and I listened,” he said. “I saw what it was they were doing as a system to try to break us down, to kidnap us off the streets and profit off of us.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne spent time getting educated in prison and learned that it costs California nearly \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$128,000 annually\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to incarcerate a person. That realization stayed with him. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I couldn’t allow that to happen,” he said. “Not to me any longer, or to anybody I knew or anybody in my community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Melbourne was released, he returned to West Sacramento with a different sense of purpose — thinking about how to intervene with young people, before they ended up where he had.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We know that if you feed a kid better, they’ll perform better,” he said. “Test scores go up, behavior problems go down.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2018, he has built the nonprofit Three Sisters Gardens, spanning four farms across West Sacramento. But, not without some challenges.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The model remains susceptible to fluctuations in federal funding priorities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-74-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny McDowell plants microgreen onions at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne had set his sights on a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://iratracker.org/actions/epa-pushes-climate-groups-to-close-community-change-grant-program-grants/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$21 million grant\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from the US Environmental Protection Agency, a program that was discontinued by the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Currently, the organization depends on a mix of local and state funding, with land leased from the city at a subsidized rate of $1 per month.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It took a lot of learning to know that I can transform what used to be an illegal business into a legal business,” said Melbourne. “And use our hustle mentality to support our youth and ourselves into a future that’s brighter for everyone.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne sees access to food as one entry point. But the work extends beyond nutrition — into job training, workforce development and life skills.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I want to use the lived experience that I have for all the pain and suffering that I went through to be able to change these youngsters, to divert them,” he said about being a mentor, educator and a resource for the young people in West Sacramento.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cultivating community\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nancy Long, 18, found the Three Sisters Gardens nearly two years ago, at a time when she felt unmoored. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, between packing produce for distribution and tending the soil, she said she has found a sense of purpose — in both the work itself and in giving food away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073461\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073461\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-36-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I grew up very poor, and I feel like this is actually helping a lot of people because not a lot of people get food,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Long, who is Cambodian American, now brings produce home for her family, who use it in soups. Before joining the garden, she said she struggled in school and often kept to herself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I was really in a bad place in my life,” she said. “When I got this job, I changed a lot, and it also helped me with my mental health issues.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Working at the garden, she said, has changed how she sees herself and how she interacts with others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I feel like this garden has made me a better person,” she said. “I really am glad, and I appreciate that I have Alfred in this.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the young people who come through the gardens are looking for stability — a steady job, guidance, a place where they feel seen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne’s role often extends beyond supervision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He checks in on the young people working with him and, at times, helps them navigate challenges outside of work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073465\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-113-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenny McDowell plants onion microgreens at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For 21-year-old Dominitt Henderson, that meant straightforward advice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“He will tell you the truth straight up to your face,” Henderson said. “He won’t hide nothing from you — that’s what I like.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other youth described more tangible forms of support.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“He helps me a lot,” Amari Sullivan said. “He gives me jackets — whatever I need.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kenny McDowell said that support has made a difference during difficult moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’ll be times where I miss a couple of car payments,” McDowell said. “He’ll help me out. Little things like that, it counts.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over time, the work begins to take root in other ways. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">McDowell said being part of the garden gave him a sense of direction and something to build toward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12073462\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12073462\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/02122026_LBR3_3SISGDN-57-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Interns Damia Zhang and Leilania Tian inspect seed containers at Three Sisters Garden in West Sacramento on Feb. 12, 2026. \u003ccite>(Louis Bryant III for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This was a purpose,” he said. “I want to see a brighter future.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Melbourne described the work as reciprocal — something built alongside the young people, not just for them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s them coming to me and us just feeding off of each other,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What I really, truthfully, in the end want to build is community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "californias-governors-race-remains-wide-open-heres-what-to-know-before-the-primary",
"title": "California's Governor’s Race Remains Wide Open. Here’s What to Know Before the Primary",
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"headTitle": "California’s Governor’s Race Remains Wide Open. Here’s What to Know Before the Primary | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Ballots are already landing in mailboxes across California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/california/governor\">the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> is entering its final stretch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first open race in almost 30 years, the gap between candidates widened further after former Rep. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079583/eric-swalwell-ends-california-governor-campaign-after-sexual-assault-allegations\">Eric Swalwell dropped out\u003c/a>. With no clear frontrunner, voters are left navigating a crowded, unsettled field still taking shape just weeks before the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">Marisa Lagos\u003c/a>, host of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/politicalbreakdown\">\u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and KQED politics correspondent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/gmarzorati\">Guy Marzorati\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to break down the race and key players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both have hosted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pressroom/12710/gubernatorial-candidate-tom-steyer-added-to-kqeds-town-hall-series\">KQED’s Gubernatorial town hall series\u003c/a>, set to continue through the month with Sheriff Chad Bianco on May 18, and Tom Steyer on May 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how to understand the race\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> Democrats are a little confused because there’s no blockbuster candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, but being a rock star is not a prerequisite to being governor. You do have a number of very experienced, smart Democrats in this race, along with some serious Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the frontrunners of a crowded field\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>We’re still in a position where, no matter what poll you’re looking at, none of these candidates are breaking 20% — so it’s all very muddled. But we have seen the emergence of a top five in most polling: two Republicans — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078793/trump-endorses-steve-hilton-for-california-governor-giving-gop-a-front-runner\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a>, a former Fox News commentator, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> — and on the Democratic side, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082059/xavier-becerra-backpedals-on-single-payer-as-he-woos-powerful-doctors-lobby\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080843/rivals-target-steyer-becerra-in-debate-as-california-governor-race-tightens\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082254/porter-focuses-on-california-housing-costs-ai-plans-at-kqed-town-hall\">Katie Porter\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072282\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee stand on the stage during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are more candidates on the Democratic side we could talk about, but this top five has started to take shape in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most notable shift has been Eric Swalwell dropping out — he had been seen as a frontrunner — and since then, Becerra has gained ground in just the past few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how Democratic candidates are positioning themselves\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Xavier Becerra really relying on his experience. He was a former attorney general. He was in Congress for several decades before that, representing Los Angeles and then he was in the Biden administration as Health and Human Service Secretary, and we’re both hearing him talk about that, and a lot of people attack him on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Tom Steyer spent more than $160 million of his own money on this campaign so far that has smashed every self-funding record in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What makes it so fascinating to me is you have this billionaire in a time where a lot of Democrats are kind of looking sideways at billionaires. You have this billionaire in Tom Steyer who is running as the most progressive candidate in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, left, and Tom Steyer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, fist bump prior to a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. Photographer: Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s getting supported by Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders group. He’s supporting single payer healthcare. He’s pushing to raise corporate taxes to bring in money for schools. So it’s like this dichotomy of this personality, this investor, this billionaire, and this progressive platform that he talked to us about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Katie Porter struggled at times to find lane in this race. She was pretty progressive. One of her mentors is Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who did endorse her recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall, she got hit by some videos, including one from five years ago snapping at a staff member. She’s had to apologize for that. But you do have to wonder if it sort of created a ceiling for her and you can’t disentangle her gender. So fair or not, that has really dogged her in this race.[aside label=\"From the 2026 Voter Guide\" link1='https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/governor,Learn about the California Governor Election' hero=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2026/04/Aside-California-Governor-2026-Primary-Election-1200x1200@2x.png]\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> We also have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a>, the mayor of San José, who’s running. He got into this race somewhat late. He’s trying to run as a centrist Democrat, trying to maybe have some crossover appeal to independence and even Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077747/antonio-villaraigosas-second-act-can-a-pragmatist-lead-california\">Antonio Villaraigosa\u003c/a> who was mayor of Los Angeles over a decade ago, is more of a centrist candidate as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077118/tony-thurmond-carves-out-a-progressive-path-in-the-race-for-california-governor\">Tony Thurmond\u003c/a>, the state superintendent of public instruction, has held statewide office, but has kind of struggled to break through at all in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how the primaries work\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>In most states, Republicans face off in a primary and Democrats face off [in a primary]. The winner of each face each other in the fall. But in California, it could be anybody in the race. And so we have seen that really set up the system where all these Democrats are splitting the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the Republican side\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Both of them call the one-party rule for the last decade a failure. They say that Democrats own all of the problems in this state — the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis — and that they would be a new chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco is a Riverside County sheriff. He’s definitely further to the right than Hilton. Bianco made some waves earlier this year when he seized tens of thousands of ballots from last November’s election, kind of echoing some of these claims we’ve heard from the president around election security. And he has really tried to pitch himself as an outsider.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steve Hilton is trying to run as a more traditional Republican, yet he is associated with Trump and the kind of MAGA movement. He has made an effort to both appeal to more hardcore conservatives and moderate Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hilton and Bianco, if you look at their platforms, are very much running on a sort of traditional conservative anti-tax, pro-growth and pro-business.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what voters are weighing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I honestly hear from voters wrestling with this idea of, “Okay, do I want someone who I know is going to kind of shake things up and bring change or do I want someone I know who is going to fight Trump well?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what to watch in the final stretch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> How the candidates, especially on the Democratic side, continue to interact with one another will be worth watching. Are they throwing bombs or are they just really trying to push a positive message about themselves to break through and get voters to come out and vote by June 2?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> If you look at California as kind of a laboratory for democratic politics, like what would the future leader of the state kind of put forward for the rest of the country? Because a lot of these issues, you know, housing affordability, the energy transition, we’re kind of the canary in the coal mine in a lot of ways for what the country is going to be going through. So I think there are a lot of differences you see between Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Ballots are already landing in mailboxes across California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide/california/governor\">the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> is entering its final stretch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first open race in almost 30 years, the gap between candidates widened further after former Rep. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079583/eric-swalwell-ends-california-governor-campaign-after-sexual-assault-allegations\">Eric Swalwell dropped out\u003c/a>. With no clear frontrunner, voters are left navigating a crowded, unsettled field still taking shape just weeks before the primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">Marisa Lagos\u003c/a>, host of KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/politicalbreakdown\">\u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and KQED politics correspondent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/gmarzorati\">Guy Marzorati\u003c/a> spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to break down the race and key players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both have hosted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pressroom/12710/gubernatorial-candidate-tom-steyer-added-to-kqeds-town-hall-series\">KQED’s Gubernatorial town hall series\u003c/a>, set to continue through the month with Sheriff Chad Bianco on May 18, and Tom Steyer on May 26.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how to understand the race\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> Democrats are a little confused because there’s no blockbuster candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, but being a rock star is not a prerequisite to being governor. You do have a number of very experienced, smart Democrats in this race, along with some serious Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the frontrunners of a crowded field\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>We’re still in a position where, no matter what poll you’re looking at, none of these candidates are breaking 20% — so it’s all very muddled. But we have seen the emergence of a top five in most polling: two Republicans — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078793/trump-endorses-steve-hilton-for-california-governor-giving-gop-a-front-runner\">Steve Hilton\u003c/a>, a former Fox News commentator, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081096/riverside-county-sheriff-chad-bianco-on-his-faith-cutting-taxes-and-ballot-seizure\">Chad Bianco\u003c/a> — and on the Democratic side, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082059/xavier-becerra-backpedals-on-single-payer-as-he-woos-powerful-doctors-lobby\">Xavier Becerra\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12080843/rivals-target-steyer-becerra-in-debate-as-california-governor-race-tightens\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12082254/porter-focuses-on-california-housing-costs-ai-plans-at-kqed-town-hall\">Katie Porter\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12072282\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12072282\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/CAGovDebateAP1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee stand on the stage during the California gubernatorial candidate debate on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Laure Andrillon/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are more candidates on the Democratic side we could talk about, but this top five has started to take shape in recent weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most notable shift has been Eric Swalwell dropping out — he had been seen as a frontrunner — and since then, Becerra has gained ground in just the past few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how Democratic candidates are positioning themselves\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Xavier Becerra really relying on his experience. He was a former attorney general. He was in Congress for several decades before that, representing Los Angeles and then he was in the Biden administration as Health and Human Service Secretary, and we’re both hearing him talk about that, and a lot of people attack him on that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Tom Steyer spent more than $160 million of his own money on this campaign so far that has smashed every self-funding record in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What makes it so fascinating to me is you have this billionaire in a time where a lot of Democrats are kind of looking sideways at billionaires. You have this billionaire in Tom Steyer who is running as the most progressive candidate in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3287_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steve Hilton, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, left, and Tom Steyer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for California, fist bump prior to a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. Photographer: Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s getting supported by Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders group. He’s supporting single payer healthcare. He’s pushing to raise corporate taxes to bring in money for schools. So it’s like this dichotomy of this personality, this investor, this billionaire, and this progressive platform that he talked to us about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Katie Porter struggled at times to find lane in this race. She was pretty progressive. One of her mentors is Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who did endorse her recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall, she got hit by some videos, including one from five years ago snapping at a staff member. She’s had to apologize for that. But you do have to wonder if it sort of created a ceiling for her and you can’t disentangle her gender. So fair or not, that has really dogged her in this race.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> We also have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075490/san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-positions-himself-as-a-change-candidate-in-governors-race\">Matt Mahan\u003c/a>, the mayor of San José, who’s running. He got into this race somewhat late. He’s trying to run as a centrist Democrat, trying to maybe have some crossover appeal to independence and even Republicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077747/antonio-villaraigosas-second-act-can-a-pragmatist-lead-california\">Antonio Villaraigosa\u003c/a> who was mayor of Los Angeles over a decade ago, is more of a centrist candidate as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077118/tony-thurmond-carves-out-a-progressive-path-in-the-race-for-california-governor\">Tony Thurmond\u003c/a>, the state superintendent of public instruction, has held statewide office, but has kind of struggled to break through at all in this race.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On how the primaries work\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>In most states, Republicans face off in a primary and Democrats face off [in a primary]. The winner of each face each other in the fall. But in California, it could be anybody in the race. And so we have seen that really set up the system where all these Democrats are splitting the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the Republican side\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos: \u003c/strong>Both of them call the one-party rule for the last decade a failure. They say that Democrats own all of the problems in this state — the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis — and that they would be a new chapter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianco is a Riverside County sheriff. He’s definitely further to the right than Hilton. Bianco made some waves earlier this year when he seized tens of thousands of ballots from last November’s election, kind of echoing some of these claims we’ve heard from the president around election security. And he has really tried to pitch himself as an outsider.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12081062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12081062\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/FTP_9P3A3852_1_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chad Bianco, Republican gubernatorial candidate for California, speaks during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. California will hold its primary election on June 2, where the top two finishers advance to the general election in November regardless of party affiliation. \u003ccite>(Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Steve Hilton is trying to run as a more traditional Republican, yet he is associated with Trump and the kind of MAGA movement. He has made an effort to both appeal to more hardcore conservatives and moderate Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hilton and Bianco, if you look at their platforms, are very much running on a sort of traditional conservative anti-tax, pro-growth and pro-business.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what voters are weighing\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati: \u003c/strong>I honestly hear from voters wrestling with this idea of, “Okay, do I want someone who I know is going to kind of shake things up and bring change or do I want someone I know who is going to fight Trump well?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what to watch in the final stretch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lagos:\u003c/strong> How the candidates, especially on the Democratic side, continue to interact with one another will be worth watching. Are they throwing bombs or are they just really trying to push a positive message about themselves to break through and get voters to come out and vote by June 2?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzorati:\u003c/strong> If you look at California as kind of a laboratory for democratic politics, like what would the future leader of the state kind of put forward for the rest of the country? Because a lot of these issues, you know, housing affordability, the energy transition, we’re kind of the canary in the coal mine in a lot of ways for what the country is going to be going through. So I think there are a lot of differences you see between Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "in-east-oakland-a-store-where-1-item-is-always-free",
"title": "In East Oakland, a Store Where 1 Item Is Always Free",
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"headTitle": "In East Oakland, a Store Where 1 Item Is Always Free | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">How We Get By\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">full series here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent Saturday afternoon, people moved shoulder to shoulder through a small shop in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/east-oakland\">East Oakland\u003c/a>, pausing at tables, lifting objects, and deciding what to take with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space resembled a grandmother’s attic, crowded with mismatched objects: glassware stacked beside old electronics, knitted hats next to typewriters and rotary phones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One elementary school-aged girl gripped a lock-and-key set, turning it over in her hands as if testing its purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess I could put it on my suitcase,” she said. When asked who wouldn’t be allowed to open it, she didn’t hesitate: “Anybody!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moments later, she walked out of the store without paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how it works here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071057\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes filled with donated art supplies line the sidewalk outside Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026 \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a city grappling with rising costs and displacement, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/freeoaklandup/\">Free Oakland UP\u003c/a> offers a hybrid model of mutual aid and art: a storefront where goods circulate freely, customers pay what they can and community interaction is as central as the items themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ‘UP’ stands for Utopian Project,” said Jocelyn Meggait, an artist and the founder of Free Oakland UP. “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was free — your housing, your medical, everything?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From art experiment to Oakland storefront\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The store reflects Meggait’s background as a social practice artist — someone who builds experiences rather than physical art pieces. The idea first took shape nearly 15 years ago, when she was pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at Mills College in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did start it out as a response to the economy,” she said. “After the crash in 2008, everyone was freaking out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071058\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071058\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jocelyn Meggait, the creator of Free Oakland UP, poses inside the store where donated items are sorted and future art projects are developed in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For her master’s thesis, she created a “free pile” inside the school’s art museum — a curated installation where visitors could take one item, no more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liked the idea of it being in a gallery or museum where you’re not allowed to touch anything,” she said, “let alone take something for free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That one-item limit was intentional. It forced visitors to weigh their choices and needs — whether they wanted to walk away with a piece of art or a mug. For Meggait, the project extends beyond that single choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071055\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An ongoing project by artist Jocelyn Meggait, the creator of Free Oakland UP, hangs inside the space in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s about the economy, and it’s about the environment — keeping stuff out of the landfill, reusing, upcycling, the whole circular economy of it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduate school, Meggait expanded the concept into pop-ups across California, bringing the free-store model to places like Lake Tahoe and Venice Beach. In 2014, she settled on a permanent storefront in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I found it, I was so excited,” she said. “The neighborhood is great because [this area] needs something to get the community out and get people talking to each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A third space in a city under pressure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Free Oakland UP sits in a quiet strip mall near an ice cream shop, an auto repair shop and a bodega. Meggait’s operation runs on small donations from customers, arts grants and plant sales, but she said it’s been hard to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The business model has changed just because I’ve had to adapt to paying rent and my rent has just been raised,” she said, adding that now the shop is open an extra day in order to afford the rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071056\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071056\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacques Lafontant, a frequent patron of Free Oakland UP and Oakland resident, holds a copy of his favorite book, “The Story of the Exposition,” inside the store in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland has faced a deepening affordability crisis for years, with its unhoused population \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/Community/The-Unhoused-Community/Homelessness-and-Encampment-Response/Oaklands-Response-to-Homelessness#:~:text=@oaklandca.gov.-,Our%20Response,more%20people%20in%20their%20homes.\">doubling over the past decade\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://ccrl.stanford.edu/publications/residential-and-neighborhood-instability-in-oakland\">2021 Stanford report\u003c/a> found that East Oakland experiences some of the highest levels of financial instability and disinvestment in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, Free Oakland UP stands out — a quirky, kooky, joyful space where people can find objects and community.[aside postID=news_12041474 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-RISEEASTDEEPDOWN-43-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg']“It’s like an intersection between three or four different neighborhoods,” said Jacques Lafontant, a longtime Oakland resident. “People from different communities and socioeconomic environments come here and mix.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What draws people in may be the objects, but what lingers is something less tangible — the conversations that form around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I asked] someone last week …‘what are you going to do with those 20 Pez dispensers?’” said Angie Fryer, who lives two blocks away. “That’s not a conversation you’re going to strike up at the grocery store line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what keeps the space alive isn’t just money — it’s movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deborah Campbell regularly donates items to the store and picks up materials to bring to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.creativegrowth.org/\">Creative Growth Art Center\u003c/a>, where adults with developmental disabilities make and sell artwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wish there was more of this going on,” she said. “I think this activates a community spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others come with no specific purpose at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For window shopping,” said Niem Nguyen, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. “Just for fun and for a happy day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071059\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071059\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A repurposed filing cabinet holds old circuit boards at Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over time, Meggait has become a central figure within that ecosystem — a shopkeeper, a therapist, a confidant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you come in here, you realize she knows everybody,” Fryer said. “And if it’s their first visit, she knows that too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meggait sees that role a little differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hear people’s stories and their secrets,” she said. “I’m like somebody’s grandma. You can tell Grandma anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A customer places a doll into a box of vintage handmade dolls inside Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than a decade after opening the storefront, Meggait said the concept still surprises people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I first opened, my customers thought I was insane,” she said. “My family up in Canada thinks I’m insane.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she said, “I’m still here, so it seems to be working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a city where scarcity can define daily choices, Free Oakland UP offers a different framework — one rooted in a free exchange of goods and the added bonus of community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Free Oakland UP in East Oakland is a free store and community space where shoppers can take one item at no cost, blending mutual aid, affordability and sustainable reuse in a city facing displacement and rising living costs.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of \u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">How We Get By\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/affordability\">full series here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent Saturday afternoon, people moved shoulder to shoulder through a small shop in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/east-oakland\">East Oakland\u003c/a>, pausing at tables, lifting objects, and deciding what to take with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space resembled a grandmother’s attic, crowded with mismatched objects: glassware stacked beside old electronics, knitted hats next to typewriters and rotary phones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One elementary school-aged girl gripped a lock-and-key set, turning it over in her hands as if testing its purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess I could put it on my suitcase,” she said. When asked who wouldn’t be allowed to open it, she didn’t hesitate: “Anybody!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moments later, she walked out of the store without paying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how it works here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071057\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_005-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boxes filled with donated art supplies line the sidewalk outside Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026 \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a city grappling with rising costs and displacement, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/freeoaklandup/\">Free Oakland UP\u003c/a> offers a hybrid model of mutual aid and art: a storefront where goods circulate freely, customers pay what they can and community interaction is as central as the items themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The ‘UP’ stands for Utopian Project,” said Jocelyn Meggait, an artist and the founder of Free Oakland UP. “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was free — your housing, your medical, everything?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From art experiment to Oakland storefront\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The store reflects Meggait’s background as a social practice artist — someone who builds experiences rather than physical art pieces. The idea first took shape nearly 15 years ago, when she was pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at Mills College in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did start it out as a response to the economy,” she said. “After the crash in 2008, everyone was freaking out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071058\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071058\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_007-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jocelyn Meggait, the creator of Free Oakland UP, poses inside the store where donated items are sorted and future art projects are developed in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For her master’s thesis, she created a “free pile” inside the school’s art museum — a curated installation where visitors could take one item, no more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liked the idea of it being in a gallery or museum where you’re not allowed to touch anything,” she said, “let alone take something for free.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That one-item limit was intentional. It forced visitors to weigh their choices and needs — whether they wanted to walk away with a piece of art or a mug. For Meggait, the project extends beyond that single choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071055\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An ongoing project by artist Jocelyn Meggait, the creator of Free Oakland UP, hangs inside the space in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s about the economy, and it’s about the environment — keeping stuff out of the landfill, reusing, upcycling, the whole circular economy of it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduate school, Meggait expanded the concept into pop-ups across California, bringing the free-store model to places like Lake Tahoe and Venice Beach. In 2014, she settled on a permanent storefront in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I found it, I was so excited,” she said. “The neighborhood is great because [this area] needs something to get the community out and get people talking to each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A third space in a city under pressure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Free Oakland UP sits in a quiet strip mall near an ice cream shop, an auto repair shop and a bodega. Meggait’s operation runs on small donations from customers, arts grants and plant sales, but she said it’s been hard to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The business model has changed just because I’ve had to adapt to paying rent and my rent has just been raised,” she said, adding that now the shop is open an extra day in order to afford the rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071056\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071056\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_004-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jacques Lafontant, a frequent patron of Free Oakland UP and Oakland resident, holds a copy of his favorite book, “The Story of the Exposition,” inside the store in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland has faced a deepening affordability crisis for years, with its unhoused population \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/Community/The-Unhoused-Community/Homelessness-and-Encampment-Response/Oaklands-Response-to-Homelessness#:~:text=@oaklandca.gov.-,Our%20Response,more%20people%20in%20their%20homes.\">doubling over the past decade\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://ccrl.stanford.edu/publications/residential-and-neighborhood-instability-in-oakland\">2021 Stanford report\u003c/a> found that East Oakland experiences some of the highest levels of financial instability and disinvestment in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, Free Oakland UP stands out — a quirky, kooky, joyful space where people can find objects and community.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s like an intersection between three or four different neighborhoods,” said Jacques Lafontant, a longtime Oakland resident. “People from different communities and socioeconomic environments come here and mix.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What draws people in may be the objects, but what lingers is something less tangible — the conversations that form around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I asked] someone last week …‘what are you going to do with those 20 Pez dispensers?’” said Angie Fryer, who lives two blocks away. “That’s not a conversation you’re going to strike up at the grocery store line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what keeps the space alive isn’t just money — it’s movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deborah Campbell regularly donates items to the store and picks up materials to bring to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.creativegrowth.org/\">Creative Growth Art Center\u003c/a>, where adults with developmental disabilities make and sell artwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wish there was more of this going on,” she said. “I think this activates a community spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others come with no specific purpose at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For window shopping,” said Niem Nguyen, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. “Just for fun and for a happy day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071059\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071059\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_008-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A repurposed filing cabinet holds old circuit boards at Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over time, Meggait has become a central figure within that ecosystem — a shopkeeper, a therapist, a confidant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you come in here, you realize she knows everybody,” Fryer said. “And if it’s their first visit, she knows that too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meggait sees that role a little differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hear people’s stories and their secrets,” she said. “I’m like somebody’s grandma. You can tell Grandma anything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012426_FREEOAKLANDUP_GH_012-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A customer places a doll into a box of vintage handmade dolls inside Free Oakland UP in Oakland on Jan. 24, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than a decade after opening the storefront, Meggait said the concept still surprises people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I first opened, my customers thought I was insane,” she said. “My family up in Canada thinks I’m insane.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she said, “I’m still here, so it seems to be working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a city where scarcity can define daily choices, Free Oakland UP offers a different framework — one rooted in a free exchange of goods and the added bonus of community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last summer, 28 Indigenous teenagers became the first in a century to kayak the full length of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/klamath-river\"> Klamath River\u003c/a> — traveling\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12048228/native-american-teens-kayak-major-us-river-to-celebrate-removal-of-dams-and-return-of-salmon\"> more than 300 miles\u003c/a> from the river’s headwaters in southern Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their journey follows decades of advocacy by Klamath River tribes to remove a series of dams that had reshaped the river since the early 1900s, disrupting salmon runs, water quality and cultural practices tied to the river. In 2024, four of those dams were removed in what is considered the largest\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046844/klamath-river-bounces-back-following-dam-removal\"> dam removal project in U.S. history\u003c/a>, allowing the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002229/salmon-will-swim-freely-as-nations-largest-dam-removal-project-nears-end\"> river to flow freely\u003c/a> for the first time in generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before I came on this trip, my uncle was saying bye to me, and he said, ‘Go be historic,’” said 16-year-old paddler and Karuk tribe member Tasia Linwood. “This moment has been prayed for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teens — ages 13-20 — embarked on a month-long expedition documented by producer and Karuk tribe member Jessie Sears in the Oregon Public Broadcast film \u003ca href=\"https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/13/first-descent-klamath-documentary/\">\u003cem>First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sears and paddler Tasia Linwood spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about what it took to make the journey — and what it means to move through a river that is still finding its way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12002231\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12002231\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a river, trees and mountains.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Klamath River winds run along Highway 96 on June 7, 2021, near Siskiyou County’s Happy Camp. With dams removed from the Klamath River, a group of Indigenous youth descended the full length, through Oregon and California. \u003ccite>(Nathan Howard/Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On finding the story \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> I had heard of the first descent when I was actually on the Klamath filming the removal of the dams. I had heard through the grapevine that kids were training to kayak the Klamath, and I just thought that was going to be so cool. I hope that actually happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On paddling the river\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I wanted to do this because of my family, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and, of course, everyone who didn’t get to see the river undammed and everyone who fought for the river to be undammed, and for my younger siblings to have someone to look up to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I trained for about two years from 2023 to 2025. Part of the preparation for this was a semester-long academy program. For six weeks, I was in Chile kayaking and going to school down there and I did that twice, once my 8th grade year and then once my freshman year. I think I was as prepared and as ready as I could have been.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On reconnecting with the river\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I grew up having ceremonies along the Klamath River … and dipping my feet in every once in a while. The river runs through my cousin’s backyard and now runs through my backyard. So, it was closely tied into my childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12074674 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_011-KQED.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Klamath was so dirty when I was a kid … and it wasn’t somewhere that we really swam in all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> I was born and raised in Portland, and so I felt really disconnected from the river for most of my life until I had heard that the dams were being removed. I was able to, as a filmmaker, film the dams, the deconstruction of them and then to come back later and film the first descent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was really remarkable to see the difference and how the river was already starting to heal. With that, I felt like I was also beginning to heal in a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On what the journey demanded\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> The 19.2-mile day was definitely physically challenging. It was hard. It was painful. It was long and tiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> The most difficult day to film was actually also that same day because we were actually in a canoe and … canoes are not as fast as kayaks, so keeping up on a 19.2-mile day in a canoe is very, very difficult. And then when we got to the lake, it felt like an ocean. I thought I was prepared. We were not prepared. There was water coming over the sides of the canoe, splashing on the camera gear. It was really rough.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On moving through a changed landscape\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood: \u003c/strong>There’s definitely some places where you could see exactly where [the dam] was. I think that’s just so powerful. It’s like, wow, there was this giant, giant structure right here that would have been blocking my path, and I just get to go through it like it never existed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> You can kind of tell that the dam was once there; you had to really look. And it was cool to see because I was standing on top of that dam not too long ago, and to just be going through [the river] like, oh my gosh, you almost can’t even tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-2000x1328.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-2048x1360.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Paddle Tribal Waters instructor Jaren Roberson, who is Hopi and Navajo, unloads boats on the banks of the Klamath River with participant Tasia Linwood, who has Karuk, Okanagan, Ojibwe, and Wampanoag ancestry, June 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Anna Lueck/OPB)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On reaching the ocean\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> It’s so hard to put words to emotions. It was amazing and there were so many people there to support us, and we had done it, and it was so powerful and emotional, coming to an end of that journey, and an end to everything we had prepared for. It was definitely a little bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On what they carry forward\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I learned so much from so many different people, and I met so many people from a lot of different places and a lot different backgrounds, and so I got to hear a lot of different people’s perspectives on how other people see the world. I think it’s so important to continue to listen, even to people who are younger than you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> Most of what I learned was actually from the kayakers who are doing something greater than themselves. And it just made me recognize that making films that center Indigenous communities is definitely what I need to be doing. And I hope that audiences can watch this and recognize indigenous success while also understanding what it takes to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last summer, 28 Indigenous teenagers became the first in a century to kayak the full length of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/klamath-river\"> Klamath River\u003c/a> — traveling\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12048228/native-american-teens-kayak-major-us-river-to-celebrate-removal-of-dams-and-return-of-salmon\"> more than 300 miles\u003c/a> from the river’s headwaters in southern Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their journey follows decades of advocacy by Klamath River tribes to remove a series of dams that had reshaped the river since the early 1900s, disrupting salmon runs, water quality and cultural practices tied to the river. In 2024, four of those dams were removed in what is considered the largest\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046844/klamath-river-bounces-back-following-dam-removal\"> dam removal project in U.S. history\u003c/a>, allowing the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002229/salmon-will-swim-freely-as-nations-largest-dam-removal-project-nears-end\"> river to flow freely\u003c/a> for the first time in generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Before I came on this trip, my uncle was saying bye to me, and he said, ‘Go be historic,’” said 16-year-old paddler and Karuk tribe member Tasia Linwood. “This moment has been prayed for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teens — ages 13-20 — embarked on a month-long expedition documented by producer and Karuk tribe member Jessie Sears in the Oregon Public Broadcast film \u003ca href=\"https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/13/first-descent-klamath-documentary/\">\u003cem>First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sears and paddler Tasia Linwood spoke with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californiareportmagazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about what it took to make the journey — and what it means to move through a river that is still finding its way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12002231\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12002231\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a river, trees and mountains.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/AP24240704731912-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Klamath River winds run along Highway 96 on June 7, 2021, near Siskiyou County’s Happy Camp. With dams removed from the Klamath River, a group of Indigenous youth descended the full length, through Oregon and California. \u003ccite>(Nathan Howard/Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On finding the story \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> I had heard of the first descent when I was actually on the Klamath filming the removal of the dams. I had heard through the grapevine that kids were training to kayak the Klamath, and I just thought that was going to be so cool. I hope that actually happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On paddling the river\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I wanted to do this because of my family, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and, of course, everyone who didn’t get to see the river undammed and everyone who fought for the river to be undammed, and for my younger siblings to have someone to look up to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I trained for about two years from 2023 to 2025. Part of the preparation for this was a semester-long academy program. For six weeks, I was in Chile kayaking and going to school down there and I did that twice, once my 8th grade year and then once my freshman year. I think I was as prepared and as ready as I could have been.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On reconnecting with the river\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I grew up having ceremonies along the Klamath River … and dipping my feet in every once in a while. The river runs through my cousin’s backyard and now runs through my backyard. So, it was closely tied into my childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Klamath was so dirty when I was a kid … and it wasn’t somewhere that we really swam in all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> I was born and raised in Portland, and so I felt really disconnected from the river for most of my life until I had heard that the dams were being removed. I was able to, as a filmmaker, film the dams, the deconstruction of them and then to come back later and film the first descent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was really remarkable to see the difference and how the river was already starting to heal. With that, I felt like I was also beginning to heal in a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On what the journey demanded\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> The 19.2-mile day was definitely physically challenging. It was hard. It was painful. It was long and tiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> The most difficult day to film was actually also that same day because we were actually in a canoe and … canoes are not as fast as kayaks, so keeping up on a 19.2-mile day in a canoe is very, very difficult. And then when we got to the lake, it felt like an ocean. I thought I was prepared. We were not prepared. There was water coming over the sides of the canoe, splashing on the camera gear. It was really rough.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On moving through a changed landscape\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood: \u003c/strong>There’s definitely some places where you could see exactly where [the dam] was. I think that’s just so powerful. It’s like, wow, there was this giant, giant structure right here that would have been blocking my path, and I just get to go through it like it never existed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> You can kind of tell that the dam was once there; you had to really look. And it was cool to see because I was standing on top of that dam not too long ago, and to just be going through [the river] like, oh my gosh, you almost can’t even tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12078247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12078247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-2000x1328.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/FirstDescent_Kayaks_CreditAnnaLueck-OPB-2048x1360.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Paddle Tribal Waters instructor Jaren Roberson, who is Hopi and Navajo, unloads boats on the banks of the Klamath River with participant Tasia Linwood, who has Karuk, Okanagan, Ojibwe, and Wampanoag ancestry, June 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Anna Lueck/OPB)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On reaching the ocean\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> It’s so hard to put words to emotions. It was amazing and there were so many people there to support us, and we had done it, and it was so powerful and emotional, coming to an end of that journey, and an end to everything we had prepared for. It was definitely a little bittersweet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>On what they carry forward\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Linwood:\u003c/strong> I learned so much from so many different people, and I met so many people from a lot of different places and a lot different backgrounds, and so I got to hear a lot of different people’s perspectives on how other people see the world. I think it’s so important to continue to listen, even to people who are younger than you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sears:\u003c/strong> Most of what I learned was actually from the kayakers who are doing something greater than themselves. And it just made me recognize that making films that center Indigenous communities is definitely what I need to be doing. And I hope that audiences can watch this and recognize indigenous success while also understanding what it takes to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a recent weekday afternoon, about 15 people sat in a circle in a light-filled room above the Sutter Health emergency room in San Francisco. Facing one another, they each held a packet containing music and lyrics of songs from the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, they began singing the Beatles classic, “Here Comes the Sun.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, they paused. Some needed help turning the page or finding the lyrics. Others hummed while waiting to rejoin the group. No one rushed them. After a moment, they began again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a month at Sutter Health’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sutterhealth.org/giving/giving-opportunities/neuroscience/ray-dolby-brain-health-center\">Brain Health Center\u003c/a> in San Francisco, people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of cognitive decline gather alongside their caregivers, spouses and friends to sing together — part of a growing effort to support patients living with memory loss beyond medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the Alzheimer’s Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.alz.org/getmedia/4e2d7fc8-0a5e-4e03-858b-0c106f07d8f0/california-cog-brfss-fact-sheet.pdf\">reports\u003c/a> that one in 10 adults age 45 and older experiences confusion or memory loss. Research shows\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9796133/\"> music can help\u003c/a> people with conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia as a complement to medical care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071051\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071051\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe Debellis passes a tambourine to Pat Ronzone during a Music Mends Minds group singing event hosted by Sutter’s Ray Dolby Brain Health Center at CPMC’s Davies Campus in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:21dea527-cdcd-4f55-8ee5-ea73036142bc\">“Music Mends Minds” sessions at Sutter Health\u003c/a>, which are free to join, are led by Pat Ronzone and Joe Debellis, a married musical duo who have performed together since 2009. Ronzone now lives with cognitive decline, and Debellis has watched participants, including his wife, benefit from the singing circles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Music is a different circuit from memory,” said Debellis. “People who don’t remember my name are able to take to music, and it seems to be incorporated not just in the speech side of the brain but throughout the whole being.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He notices something else happen when the group sings together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trying to decide who was memory-impaired and a caregiver, when singing, it’s just not obvious,” said Debellis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This program that uses music to supplement medical care was the brainchild of cognitive neurologist Dr. Armen Moughamian. With Alzheimer’s, where brain function is lost over time, medications can slow progression of the disease, explained Moughamian, but primarily in early stages. By the time Alzheimer’s reaches its later stages, many patients no longer qualify for medical treatments, making music an approach that can offer relief at any stage of the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of literature supporting non-medication ways to help patients manage the disease,” Moughamian explained. “And one aspect of that is building community, bringing patients together and using music.”[aside postID=news_12058091 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250831-CREATIVEMUTUALAID00140_TV-KQED.jpg']The goal, he said, is not restoring memory, but rather improving quality of life for people in all stages of cognitive decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When language gets affected, people struggle to communicate, but music can transcend language,” said Moughamian, “It becomes a way of communicating and it calms people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And music can help surface memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group was singing “King of the Road” when Lauri Musumeche, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago, became overcome with emotion. The melody reminded her of her 98-year-old father, who used to play the harmonica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He did play [this song] for me one time, so it makes me want to cry,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her friend Kandy Jones drove her from Livermore to attend, and has witnessed music prompting recall outside these sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll say a phrase from a song and she immediately starts singing it,” Jones said. “It’s a real trigger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Musumeche, the benefit is emotional as much as cognitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It helps me feel good,” she said. “When you have Alzheimer’s, you’re always kind of sad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071048\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071048\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Main, support services coordinator at Sutter’s Ray Dolby Brain Health Center, holds up a song list during a Music Mends Minds group singing event themed “Songs of the ’60s” at CPMC’s Davies Campus in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026 \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Jim Hayden, the group helps preserve part of his wife Sandy Noltimier’s identity. She studied vocal performance, sang in a symphony chorus and performed as part of an A capella trio called PMS for decades before developing Alzheimer’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s doing what she loves. It’s something she’s still good at,” said Hayden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noltimier said she values the absence of judgment and being less self-critical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a place where I don’t have to feel like someone’s listening too closely or saying I did it wrong,” she explained. “Everybody here has something they’re working through, and that makes it easier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noltimier and Hayden attend together not as caregiver and patient but as partners. The hour gives them a shared activity that Alzheimer’s has not taken away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re always trying to drown each other out,” laughed Hayden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time the session came to an end, the participants had run through nearly ten songs, clapping and tapping their feet to “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And next month, they’ll come back and sing a repertoire of songs reflective of Spring, dust the cobwebs off of another set of lyrics from their youth, and perhaps, unlock significant memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once a month at Sutter Health’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sutterhealth.org/giving/giving-opportunities/neuroscience/ray-dolby-brain-health-center\">Brain Health Center\u003c/a> in San Francisco, people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of cognitive decline gather alongside their caregivers, spouses and friends to sing together — part of a growing effort to support patients living with memory loss beyond medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the Alzheimer’s Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.alz.org/getmedia/4e2d7fc8-0a5e-4e03-858b-0c106f07d8f0/california-cog-brfss-fact-sheet.pdf\">reports\u003c/a> that one in 10 adults age 45 and older experiences confusion or memory loss. Research shows\u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9796133/\"> music can help\u003c/a> people with conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia as a complement to medical care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071051\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071051\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_012-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe Debellis passes a tambourine to Pat Ronzone during a Music Mends Minds group singing event hosted by Sutter’s Ray Dolby Brain Health Center at CPMC’s Davies Campus in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:21dea527-cdcd-4f55-8ee5-ea73036142bc\">“Music Mends Minds” sessions at Sutter Health\u003c/a>, which are free to join, are led by Pat Ronzone and Joe Debellis, a married musical duo who have performed together since 2009. Ronzone now lives with cognitive decline, and Debellis has watched participants, including his wife, benefit from the singing circles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Music is a different circuit from memory,” said Debellis. “People who don’t remember my name are able to take to music, and it seems to be incorporated not just in the speech side of the brain but throughout the whole being.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He notices something else happen when the group sings together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trying to decide who was memory-impaired and a caregiver, when singing, it’s just not obvious,” said Debellis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This program that uses music to supplement medical care was the brainchild of cognitive neurologist Dr. Armen Moughamian. With Alzheimer’s, where brain function is lost over time, medications can slow progression of the disease, explained Moughamian, but primarily in early stages. By the time Alzheimer’s reaches its later stages, many patients no longer qualify for medical treatments, making music an approach that can offer relief at any stage of the disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of literature supporting non-medication ways to help patients manage the disease,” Moughamian explained. “And one aspect of that is building community, bringing patients together and using music.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The goal, he said, is not restoring memory, but rather improving quality of life for people in all stages of cognitive decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When language gets affected, people struggle to communicate, but music can transcend language,” said Moughamian, “It becomes a way of communicating and it calms people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And music can help surface memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group was singing “King of the Road” when Lauri Musumeche, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago, became overcome with emotion. The melody reminded her of her 98-year-old father, who used to play the harmonica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He did play [this song] for me one time, so it makes me want to cry,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her friend Kandy Jones drove her from Livermore to attend, and has witnessed music prompting recall outside these sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll say a phrase from a song and she immediately starts singing it,” Jones said. “It’s a real trigger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Musumeche, the benefit is emotional as much as cognitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It helps me feel good,” she said. “When you have Alzheimer’s, you’re always kind of sad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12071048\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12071048\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/012326_SINGINGHEALTH_GH_002-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Main, support services coordinator at Sutter’s Ray Dolby Brain Health Center, holds up a song list during a Music Mends Minds group singing event themed “Songs of the ’60s” at CPMC’s Davies Campus in San Francisco on Jan. 23, 2026 \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Jim Hayden, the group helps preserve part of his wife Sandy Noltimier’s identity. She studied vocal performance, sang in a symphony chorus and performed as part of an A capella trio called PMS for decades before developing Alzheimer’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s doing what she loves. It’s something she’s still good at,” said Hayden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noltimier said she values the absence of judgment and being less self-critical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a place where I don’t have to feel like someone’s listening too closely or saying I did it wrong,” she explained. “Everybody here has something they’re working through, and that makes it easier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noltimier and Hayden attend together not as caregiver and patient but as partners. The hour gives them a shared activity that Alzheimer’s has not taken away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re always trying to drown each other out,” laughed Hayden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time the session came to an end, the participants had run through nearly ten songs, clapping and tapping their feet to “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And next month, they’ll come back and sing a repertoire of songs reflective of Spring, dust the cobwebs off of another set of lyrics from their youth, and perhaps, unlock significant memories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-joses-batman-fighting-for-the-unhoused-is-the-real-life-superhero-we-need",
"title": "San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’",
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"headTitle": "San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Downtown \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> residents aren’t startled by the daunting figure in a billowing black-and-purple cape beneath the streetlights. They know what comes next: the gravelly rattle of a rolling cart stocked with water bottles and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hey, Batman! Do what you do best,” one passerby shouted on a warm August night last year — an enthusiastic acknowledgement of Batman, and the superhero’s mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some nights, Batman meets new people. On others, he reconnects with familiar faces — like Miguel, who walked over when he saw Batman wheeling his cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good man,” Miguel said, as Batman kneeled to pour water for Miguel’s dog Lorio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re only using Miguel’s first name to protect his privacy as someone who is unhoused and part of a vulnerable population. Miguel speaks with certainty: “He’s my friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monica, whom we’re referring to by her first name for the same reason, spotted Batman across St. James Park and ran up to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053072\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel reaches out to shake hands with the Batman of San José after receiving water and snacks at St. James Park in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’ve known him a long time,” she said excitedly, receiving the water Batman was handing out. “That’s my super[hero].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the Batman of San José — a masked volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Disguise as a form of protest\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, whimsical costumes — inflatable frogs, unicorns, oversized creatures — have become a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-94724/trump-inflatable-animals-frog-no-kings-protest-portland\">national protest language\u003c/a>, mitigating tension between demonstrators and law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tradition goes deeper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, California’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-17-me-3053-story.html\">Captain Sticky\u003c/a> became the first widely documented \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/RLSH_Map\">“real-life superhero,”\u003c/a> testifying before the Federal Trade Commission about health insurance fraud while dressed in a peanut-butter-and-jelly-themed cape. \u003cem>CBS San Diego\u003c/em>’s cameras \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf8Ibh1Y5JE\">captured\u003c/a> the contradiction at the heart of Captain Sticky: a quirky, outsized persona paired with a deadly serious mission — confronting “evil” by leading investigations into convalescent hospitals he said were defrauding consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others followed: \u003ca href=\"https://www.lametrochurches.org/dangerman-warns-la-is-not-safe-be-careful\">Danger Man\u003c/a> in Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/Shadarko\">Shadarko\u003c/a> in San Francisco — every day people donning costumes to protect their neighbors, deter violence, or simply show up when institutions didn’t. Batman of San José joined their ranks in 2018, when he was a high school junior.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An origin story that starts with one act of discrimination\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s story began on an ordinary drive home from school. He was 17 when he spotted an unhoused single mother stranded on the side of the road with a broken-down car. A nearby mechanic refused to help her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman asked the mechanic for the same assistance on her behalf later, the mechanic agreed.[aside postID=news_12051236 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250626-GRANTSPASSDECISIONANNI-03-BL-KQED.jpg']“She tried to do exactly what I did,” he remembered. “But for some reason, I was allowed to do that and not her. That very clear sense of discrimination stuck with me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went home unsettled — and then decided not to let the moment pass. Within days, he began figuring out how to help people like the single mother he’d seen on the roadside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the effort was modest. His costume was bare-bones — just a sweatshirt with a Batman logo — and the supplies he handed out came from money saved from summer jobs. He stashed pieces of the outfit in his backpack or under his clothes, slipping into his Batman persona after class to check on people downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His choice of Batman was deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate that the character is human,” he said. “[He] wants to do the right thing despite having no superpowers [and] turns personal struggle into something that helps others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his own struggles with a learning disability propelled him to become Batman. Now, helping others is a way to heal some of the pain he felt as a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he grinned: “And the character looks cool. I won’t deny it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He embodied the character, not sharing his identity with even his parents. For Batman, anonymity is part of the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means I can keep myself out of this,” he said. “And it helps people recognize me from a distance.” He added that it also makes him more approachable, using levity to connect with the unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman of San José walked beneath the Highway 87 underpass in 2020, the familiarity of the costume drew immediate attention — especially from a 3-year-old child living there with his mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053070\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053070\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With bottles of water in hand, the Batman of San José prepares to distribute supplies in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The kid was absolutely fascinated,” Batman recalled. “He was grabbing at the ears of the mask and the cape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tender moment caught him off guard, and he found he was grateful to be wearing a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it almost immediately,” he said, recalling the sadness of seeing a child so young without shelter. “The mask helped hide that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family was trying to get the child into school, he explained, but life on the street made regular attendance nearly impossible. Over the next several years, Batman worked alongside case managers, providing groceries, financial assistance and a steady presence as the family navigated housing instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about two years, when the family received more permanent housing, the child finally started attending school. Batman was there for his kindergarten graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t high school or college,” he said. “But to that family, it meant everything, [and] that mom is my personal hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Batman of San Jose films the clearing of the homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San Jose on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother told him her child now runs around clutching a piece of black fabric, pretending it’s Batman — something that keeps him safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never thought I’d have that kind of impact,” Batman said. “It taught me I don’t have to do everything — to that kid, that was everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he has designed the costume with intention: gloves for scrambling up riverbanks, shin guards for kneeling beside tents, a belt filled with first-aid supplies, tools and tape. And the dramatic cape? It doubles as an emergency blanket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give it to someone if I run out of everything else,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The weight of friendship and loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman has become a quiet keeper of stories and routes — able to trace who’s still around, who’s disappeared, and how lives on the margins shift over time. He has forged authentic relationships with the people he encounters, and each person leaves a mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider a lot of the people I meet out here to be my friends,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared the story of Susie, an unhoused woman he checked on often, until police cleared the area where she was living.[aside postID=news_12058091 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250831-CREATIVEMUTUALAID00140_TV-KQED.jpg']“She passed away recently,” he said. “She was swept [by police] and then got hit by a car [in the street] — that should have never happened to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His grievance is with a system that he feels repeatedly casts unhoused people aside — clearing encampments without permanent housing solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials have said that the cost and pace of building permanent housing have led the city to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026437/san-jose-mayor-proposes-permanent-shift-homeless-funding-from-housing-shelter\">prioritize temporary shelter\u003c/a>. In an emailed statement, Mayor Matt Mahan’s office told KQED: “We’ve expanded temporary housing so that we can get people off the streets faster while continuing to invest in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office pointed to city data showing that more than 800 affordable housing units were permitted last year and that funding fromMeasure E — a San José tax on property sales of $2 million or more passed by voters in 2020 — helped prevent more than 1,200 families from falling into homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Batman, those metrics don’t capture what he has watched unfold on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People should be alive that aren’t anymore, “ he said, holding back tears. “My friends are dying, and I’m losing people I care about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he keeps walking — beneath freeway ramps, through parks and along light rail stations — checking on people he hasn’t seen in days. Sometimes, he runs into someone he feared he’d lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this night, he spotted KC approaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a minute,” Batman said. “I’ve been worried about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been locked up for like 13 months,” KC replied. Their longstanding friendship bridges any discomfort over asking for resources — what Batman can bring next time: underwear, flashlights and a sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked how it feels to see Batman, “I feel happy,” KC said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beyond the cape: advocacy, policy and mutual aid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s work does not end on the sidewalk. He has spoken at \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfuMC9Y97E\">City Hall\u003c/a>, intervened during police sweeps and shown up at demonstrations. At a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoE1fkZyIjI&t=58s\">San José protest\u003c/a> last summer over human rights violations under the Trump administration, he addressed the crowd with his own understanding of resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I look at people across the country standing up to authoritarianism, I see heroes,” he said. “And that’s the scariest thing — to be a hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Batman walks through the former homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San José on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For him, that fear translated into urgency. He wanted the people he knew on the streets to live longer lives — not just endure them. He pushed back against the assumption that unhoused people were not trying hard enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People think, ‘Why don’t they have to work for it?’” he said. “Quite a few [unhoused] people work — it’s that it can be impossible to fit everything into one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many, he explained, survival became a full-time job: finding food and water, staying clean, protecting belongings, getting to work — while also trying to secure housing. From what he has seen, the most common paths into being unhoused are job loss and medical debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why ‘Housing First’ is always the best way to go,” he said. “Research shows it’s the quickest way to stabilize someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/housing-healthy-california-program-evaluation-2024.pdf\">evaluation \u003c/a>by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research echoes that view. Researchers found that California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/funding/archive/hhc\">Housing for a Healthy California\u003c/a> program — which follows a housing-first model that places people into stable housing before requiring medical treatment, employment or other conditions — improved long-term stability and health outcomes when paired with intensive case management and support services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman advocates for housing, medical support and is vocal about how San José has carried out encampment abatements like the one in Columbus Park in August of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are we not waiting for 1,000 beds to be open before sweeping people?” he asked.[aside postID=news_12058952 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20250616_UNHOUSEDCREEKRESTORATION_GC-37-KQED.jpg']Mayor Matt Mahan’s office said that temporary shelter was being rolled out in phases and maintained that there were sufficient beds for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">displaced from Columbus Park\u003c/a>, one of San José’s largest encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were 370 people living there, and over a 70-day period of outreach before the abatement began, every single person was offered housing,” said Tasha Dean, a spokesperson for the mayor, in an email. “ About two-thirds of encampment residents accepted the city’s offer of housing, and no one who accepted housing was abated until their bed was ready for them to move in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">KQED’s reporting back in August\u003c/a> found there were people who were moved without consent — and some advocates felt the outreach period fell short in informing residents of the park about their possible outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman adds that clearing encampments before offering housing erodes trust, making people less likely to seek help: “The people who are trying to help them are also the people in their minds who are hurting them — they’re both wearing the city of San José logo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials frame the problem differently. They point to the cost of permanent housing — at about $1 million per unit — and the scale of unsheltered homelessness — around 5000 people — in San José, which they say makes a build-first approach untenable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t build a permanent unit for the lucky few, while leaving the vast majority of people to suffer and far too often, die, on our streets,” Dean said. “We’ve chosen to get people indoors faster with a solution that is cheaper and faster to build, so they don’t have to wait on the streets indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As that debate continues, Batman’s work has grown beyond a one-person effort. What began as solo nighttime rounds has become a small mutual-aid collective called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bayareasuperheroes/?hl=en\">Bay Area Superheroes\u003c/a>. He has joined forces with the Crimson Fist, Black Phoenix and KaiKai Bee, expanding their reach to San Francisco and Oakland. But, for Batman, San José has remained his anchor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fabric of San José is people who are from all different walks of life and they still come together and form a community, and I think the unhoused community is just that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Fenton (left), a friend and former high school classmate of the Batman of San José, crosses paths with him during a routine outreach day on Aug. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He pointed to moments that rarely made headlines: people sharing clothes and stepping in to protect neighbors during raids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ICE shows up, they hide people,” he said. “They stand up for each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman is woven into that fabric. In full costume, he cannot walk more than a few feet without running into someone he knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s Batman!” one man called out. “Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman smiled, waved, and disappeared into the dark with his cart of snacks and supplies, the shimmer of purple and black satin trailing behind him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "With a homemade costume and a cart full of water bottles and supplies, the anonymous Bay Area resident advocates for housing and compassion for his neighbors. ",
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"title": "San José’s Batman, Fighting for the Unhoused, Is the Real Life Superhero ‘We Need’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Downtown \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> residents aren’t startled by the daunting figure in a billowing black-and-purple cape beneath the streetlights. They know what comes next: the gravelly rattle of a rolling cart stocked with water bottles and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hey, Batman! Do what you do best,” one passerby shouted on a warm August night last year — an enthusiastic acknowledgement of Batman, and the superhero’s mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some nights, Batman meets new people. On others, he reconnects with familiar faces — like Miguel, who walked over when he saw Batman wheeling his cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a good man,” Miguel said, as Batman kneeled to pour water for Miguel’s dog Lorio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re only using Miguel’s first name to protect his privacy as someone who is unhoused and part of a vulnerable population. Miguel speaks with certainty: “He’s my friend.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monica, whom we’re referring to by her first name for the same reason, spotted Batman across St. James Park and ran up to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053072\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel reaches out to shake hands with the Batman of San José after receiving water and snacks at St. James Park in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’ve known him a long time,” she said excitedly, receiving the water Batman was handing out. “That’s my super[hero].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the Batman of San José — a masked volunteer who has spent nearly eight years walking the city at night to help unhoused residents. He’s a far cry from the vigilantes of comic books. He isn’t swooping from rooftops, seeking revenge or delivering justice through fists. His superpower is noticing people who feel ignored and offering them food, first aid supplies, and sometimes, being someone they can confide in.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Disguise as a form of protest\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In recent years, whimsical costumes — inflatable frogs, unicorns, oversized creatures — have become a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-94724/trump-inflatable-animals-frog-no-kings-protest-portland\">national protest language\u003c/a>, mitigating tension between demonstrators and law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the tradition goes deeper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1974, California’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-17-me-3053-story.html\">Captain Sticky\u003c/a> became the first widely documented \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/RLSH_Map\">“real-life superhero,”\u003c/a> testifying before the Federal Trade Commission about health insurance fraud while dressed in a peanut-butter-and-jelly-themed cape. \u003cem>CBS San Diego\u003c/em>’s cameras \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf8Ibh1Y5JE\">captured\u003c/a> the contradiction at the heart of Captain Sticky: a quirky, outsized persona paired with a deadly serious mission — confronting “evil” by leading investigations into convalescent hospitals he said were defrauding consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others followed: \u003ca href=\"https://www.lametrochurches.org/dangerman-warns-la-is-not-safe-be-careful\">Danger Man\u003c/a> in Los Angeles, \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.rlsh.net/wiki/Shadarko\">Shadarko\u003c/a> in San Francisco — every day people donning costumes to protect their neighbors, deter violence, or simply show up when institutions didn’t. Batman of San José joined their ranks in 2018, when he was a high school junior.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An origin story that starts with one act of discrimination\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s story began on an ordinary drive home from school. He was 17 when he spotted an unhoused single mother stranded on the side of the road with a broken-down car. A nearby mechanic refused to help her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman asked the mechanic for the same assistance on her behalf later, the mechanic agreed.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She tried to do exactly what I did,” he remembered. “But for some reason, I was allowed to do that and not her. That very clear sense of discrimination stuck with me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went home unsettled — and then decided not to let the moment pass. Within days, he began figuring out how to help people like the single mother he’d seen on the roadside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the effort was modest. His costume was bare-bones — just a sweatshirt with a Batman logo — and the supplies he handed out came from money saved from summer jobs. He stashed pieces of the outfit in his backpack or under his clothes, slipping into his Batman persona after class to check on people downtown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His choice of Batman was deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I appreciate that the character is human,” he said. “[He] wants to do the right thing despite having no superpowers [and] turns personal struggle into something that helps others.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his own struggles with a learning disability propelled him to become Batman. Now, helping others is a way to heal some of the pain he felt as a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he grinned: “And the character looks cool. I won’t deny it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He embodied the character, not sharing his identity with even his parents. For Batman, anonymity is part of the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It means I can keep myself out of this,” he said. “And it helps people recognize me from a distance.” He added that it also makes him more approachable, using levity to connect with the unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Batman of San José walked beneath the Highway 87 underpass in 2020, the familiarity of the costume drew immediate attention — especially from a 3-year-old child living there with his mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053070\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053070\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With bottles of water in hand, the Batman of San José prepares to distribute supplies in San José on Aug. 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The kid was absolutely fascinated,” Batman recalled. “He was grabbing at the ears of the mask and the cape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tender moment caught him off guard, and he found he was grateful to be wearing a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it almost immediately,” he said, recalling the sadness of seeing a child so young without shelter. “The mask helped hide that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family was trying to get the child into school, he explained, but life on the street made regular attendance nearly impossible. Over the next several years, Batman worked alongside case managers, providing groceries, financial assistance and a steady presence as the family navigated housing instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about two years, when the family received more permanent housing, the child finally started attending school. Batman was there for his kindergarten graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t high school or college,” he said. “But to that family, it meant everything, [and] that mom is my personal hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Batman of San Jose films the clearing of the homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San Jose on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother told him her child now runs around clutching a piece of black fabric, pretending it’s Batman — something that keeps him safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never thought I’d have that kind of impact,” Batman said. “It taught me I don’t have to do everything — to that kid, that was everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he has designed the costume with intention: gloves for scrambling up riverbanks, shin guards for kneeling beside tents, a belt filled with first-aid supplies, tools and tape. And the dramatic cape? It doubles as an emergency blanket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give it to someone if I run out of everything else,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The weight of friendship and loss\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman has become a quiet keeper of stories and routes — able to trace who’s still around, who’s disappeared, and how lives on the margins shift over time. He has forged authentic relationships with the people he encounters, and each person leaves a mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider a lot of the people I meet out here to be my friends,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He shared the story of Susie, an unhoused woman he checked on often, until police cleared the area where she was living.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She passed away recently,” he said. “She was swept [by police] and then got hit by a car [in the street] — that should have never happened to her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His grievance is with a system that he feels repeatedly casts unhoused people aside — clearing encampments without permanent housing solutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City officials have said that the cost and pace of building permanent housing have led the city to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026437/san-jose-mayor-proposes-permanent-shift-homeless-funding-from-housing-shelter\">prioritize temporary shelter\u003c/a>. In an emailed statement, Mayor Matt Mahan’s office told KQED: “We’ve expanded temporary housing so that we can get people off the streets faster while continuing to invest in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office pointed to city data showing that more than 800 affordable housing units were permitted last year and that funding fromMeasure E — a San José tax on property sales of $2 million or more passed by voters in 2020 — helped prevent more than 1,200 families from falling into homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Batman, those metrics don’t capture what he has watched unfold on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People should be alive that aren’t anymore, “ he said, holding back tears. “My friends are dying, and I’m losing people I care about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he keeps walking — beneath freeway ramps, through parks and along light rail stations — checking on people he hasn’t seen in days. Sometimes, he runs into someone he feared he’d lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this night, he spotted KC approaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a minute,” Batman said. “I’ve been worried about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been locked up for like 13 months,” KC replied. Their longstanding friendship bridges any discomfort over asking for resources — what Batman can bring next time: underwear, flashlights and a sleeping bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked how it feels to see Batman, “I feel happy,” KC said, smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Beyond the cape: advocacy, policy and mutual aid\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Batman’s work does not end on the sidewalk. He has spoken at \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfuMC9Y97E\">City Hall\u003c/a>, intervened during police sweeps and shown up at demonstrations. At a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoE1fkZyIjI&t=58s\">San José protest\u003c/a> last summer over human rights violations under the Trump administration, he addressed the crowd with his own understanding of resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I look at people across the country standing up to authoritarianism, I see heroes,” he said. “And that’s the scariest thing — to be a hero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053075\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250820-BATMAN-OF-SAN-JOSE-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Batman walks through the former homeless encampment at Columbus Park in San José on Aug. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For him, that fear translated into urgency. He wanted the people he knew on the streets to live longer lives — not just endure them. He pushed back against the assumption that unhoused people were not trying hard enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People think, ‘Why don’t they have to work for it?’” he said. “Quite a few [unhoused] people work — it’s that it can be impossible to fit everything into one day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many, he explained, survival became a full-time job: finding food and water, staying clean, protecting belongings, getting to work — while also trying to secure housing. From what he has seen, the most common paths into being unhoused are job loss and medical debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why ‘Housing First’ is always the best way to go,” he said. “Research shows it’s the quickest way to stabilize someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/housing-healthy-california-program-evaluation-2024.pdf\">evaluation \u003c/a>by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research echoes that view. Researchers found that California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/funding/archive/hhc\">Housing for a Healthy California\u003c/a> program — which follows a housing-first model that places people into stable housing before requiring medical treatment, employment or other conditions — improved long-term stability and health outcomes when paired with intensive case management and support services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman advocates for housing, medical support and is vocal about how San José has carried out encampment abatements like the one in Columbus Park in August of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are we not waiting for 1,000 beds to be open before sweeping people?” he asked.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan’s office said that temporary shelter was being rolled out in phases and maintained that there were sufficient beds for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">displaced from Columbus Park\u003c/a>, one of San José’s largest encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were 370 people living there, and over a 70-day period of outreach before the abatement began, every single person was offered housing,” said Tasha Dean, a spokesperson for the mayor, in an email. “ About two-thirds of encampment residents accepted the city’s offer of housing, and no one who accepted housing was abated until their bed was ready for them to move in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052645/san-jose-begins-clearing-columbus-park-the-citys-biggest-homeless-encampment\">KQED’s reporting back in August\u003c/a> found there were people who were moved without consent — and some advocates felt the outreach period fell short in informing residents of the park about their possible outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman adds that clearing encampments before offering housing erodes trust, making people less likely to seek help: “The people who are trying to help them are also the people in their minds who are hurting them — they’re both wearing the city of San José logo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials frame the problem differently. They point to the cost of permanent housing — at about $1 million per unit — and the scale of unsheltered homelessness — around 5000 people — in San José, which they say makes a build-first approach untenable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t build a permanent unit for the lucky few, while leaving the vast majority of people to suffer and far too often, die, on our streets,” Dean said. “We’ve chosen to get people indoors faster with a solution that is cheaper and faster to build, so they don’t have to wait on the streets indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As that debate continues, Batman’s work has grown beyond a one-person effort. What began as solo nighttime rounds has become a small mutual-aid collective called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bayareasuperheroes/?hl=en\">Bay Area Superheroes\u003c/a>. He has joined forces with the Crimson Fist, Black Phoenix and KaiKai Bee, expanding their reach to San Francisco and Oakland. But, for Batman, San José has remained his anchor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fabric of San José is people who are from all different walks of life and they still come together and form a community, and I think the unhoused community is just that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12053069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12053069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250813_THEBATMANOFSANJOSES_GH-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Fenton (left), a friend and former high school classmate of the Batman of San José, crosses paths with him during a routine outreach day on Aug. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He pointed to moments that rarely made headlines: people sharing clothes and stepping in to protect neighbors during raids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ICE shows up, they hide people,” he said. “They stand up for each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman is woven into that fabric. In full costume, he cannot walk more than a few feet without running into someone he knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s Batman!” one man called out. “Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batman smiled, waved, and disappeared into the dark with his cart of snacks and supplies, the shimmer of purple and black satin trailing behind him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "ice-deportations-create-fear-and-isolation-in-californias-sikh-community",
"title": "ICE Deportations Create Fear and Isolation in California’s Sikh Community",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atop the rolling hills of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">East San José\u003c/a> sits the largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjose.org/listings/sikh-gurdwara-sahib\">Sikh temple\u003c/a> in the United States, its white domes visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, on an October Sunday, music drifted through the prayer hall and congregants made their way to\u003cem> langar\u003c/em>, the community kitchen where free meals are served each day. For decades, this gurdwara has been both a spiritual anchor and a lifeline for tens of thousands of worshippers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past year, a quiet, growing fear has settled into the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>South Asians are rarely included in conversations about undocumented communities, yet 35,000 people from India were \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters\">apprehended\u003c/a> at the U.S. border this year — many of them Punjabi Sikhs. Some arrive seeking political refuge; others come on temporary visas and take low-wage jobs that leave them especially exposed when immigration policy shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following a January \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/01/21/statement-dhs-spokesperson-directives-expanding-law-enforcement-and-ending-abuse\">memo\u003c/a> from the Department of Homeland Security, expanding where officers can operate, federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at formerly protected “sensitive locations” — hospitals, clinics, schools and places of worship. The intensification of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053380/as-ice-arrests-surge-a-journalist-in-southern-california-covers-raids-in-her-own-backyard\">ICE enforcement across California\u003c/a> has left many Sikh immigrants wondering whether even their gurdwaras are still safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066899\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066899\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tanay Gokhale, a journalist covering how immigration enforcement affects Punjabi Sikh residents across California, stands in front of Gurdwara Sahib Hayward, a Sikh temple established in 1993, in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras act as a touchstone for medical care, social services and community support for Sikh Punjabi immigrants and their families. With Punjabi being the \u003ca href=\"https://mesa.ucdavis.edu/punjabi#:~:text=Why%20Learn%20Punjabi?,that%20started%20in%20the%201890s.\">third\u003c/a> most-spoken language in several California counties, many find solace in the in-language information the space offers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Journalist Tanay Gokhale spent the past year with this community, reporting for \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">India Currents\u003c/a>, a San José–based nonprofit magazine serving South Asian immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to explain how rising ICE activity is reshaping daily life for Sikh immigrants in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Only why he turned his attention to Sikh Punjabi immigrants\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the administration’s immigration crackdown started, I was thinking of how this might impact the Indian diaspora. And generally, when you think of the Indian diaspora, you think of an affluent group of well-educated people who are accomplished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But few people know that Indians are actually the fifth-largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/#:~:text=After%20Mexico%2C%20the%20countries%20with%20the%20largest,(850%2C000)%20*%20Honduras%20(775%2C000)%20*%20India%20(680%2C000)\">undocumented\u003c/a> group in the country. And this community is largely underreported and a lot of these people are Sikhs coming from [the state of] Punjab to settle in California. They’re working \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11849926/why-farmers-drove-a-tractor-to-protest-at-the-indian-consulate-in-san-francisco\">blue-collar jobs like agricultural labor\u003c/a> or in the trucking industry. I also thought about how the immigration crackdown is also impacting immigrants’ health outcomes because people are more afraid to go out and seek health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what changed after President Donald Trump took office in January of 2025\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The DHS issued the memo on Jan. 21, right after the Trump administration took charge. It basically allowed ICE officers to conduct operations inside places of worship, which in the past was a big no-no unless it was absolutely necessary.[aside postID=news_12053380 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/75ACE4D9-068E-4167-9BD3-CFF3A0BE597B-2000x1335.jpg']Right after the memo came out, there were also some false rumors about ICE raids in gurdwaras across the country, and that further fueled the paranoia and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, Sikhs around the country were thinking, “Hold on, if I go to the gurdwara every Sunday, but this time when I step out, is there a chance that I’m gonna get picked up by ICE?” And that led to a lot of fear among the community and gurdwaras were reporting a drop in attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Narenda Singh Thandi, a former Amtrak bus driver who’s now serving as the president of \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">the West Sacramento gurdwara\u003c/a>. And he was talking about how he’s concerned that immigration activity would go against the decorum that gurdwaras need to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want ICE in the temple,” Thandi said. “We don’t want people to go with the shoes on, with guns on, which is against our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sikhs go to the gurdwara, their heads are supposed to be covered at all times, and there’s absolutely no weapons allowed inside. You’re also supposed to take your shoes off before you enter the prayer hall. If an ICE operation or a homeland security operation is happening, chances are that officers aren’t necessarily gonna follow that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why gurdwaras are essential support hubs — and the cost of staying away\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras are a house of worship, but they’re also kind of like resource hubs for new immigrants, especially those who do not speak English and only speak Punjabi. These are spaces where you pray, but you also seek out fellowship: you meet a familiar-looking face from your city back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gurdwara offers all of these wonderful services like you mentioned. So, when you’re seeing a drop in attendance in gurdwaras because of fear of immigration activity, it also means that congregants are not accessing these services, and that can lead to some pretty serious outcomes for their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066902\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066902\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers prepare food in the langar kitchen at Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. The Sikh tradition of langar emphasizes community service and equality through shared meals. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Dr. Harpreet Singh Pannu. He’s a Kaiser doctor, but on Sundays, he runs a \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/language-barriers-cripple-sikh-immigrants-access-to-healthcare/\">free medical clinic\u003c/a> at the San José gurdwara. By training, he’s an internal medicine specialist, but at this gurdwara, he is a physician, he’s a mental health counselor, he’s a health advocate, he’s a health educator — all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially among older congregants, someone who speaks in Punjabi offers a level of comfort and familiarity that they often cannot find in a hospital, which can seem foreign and sterile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t make a difference in terms of whether they are documented or undocumented,” Pannu said. “But there is reluctance because they are worried if they come here, they could end up in trouble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By ‘ending up in trouble,’ he’s talking about getting picked up by ICE in a raid, and this is especially problematic for some of the older congregants who have this as their only point of contact with any sort of health practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On one man’s quiet support for Sikh detainees\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, driven purely by his own curiosity, Simran Singh made the 20-minute trip [from his home] to the \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/for-sikhs-in-ice-detention-centers-faith-represents-hope/\">Mesa Verde detention center\u003c/a>. He didn’t expect there to be any [South Asian detainees], but was actually surprised to see that there were three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detention centers can be really isolating places for detainees.[aside postID=news_12066314 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251203-SJPRIESTIMMIGRATION00043_TV-KQED.jpg']You’ve just had a months-long journey from India to the U.S. border, and suddenly you find yourself in this place where you have very little personal space and there’s also nobody to talk to because you’re often speaking different languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A phone call — an international phone call back home — costs 85 cents a minute. You can work an entire day, and you can barely scrape together enough money to speak for one minute to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh completed a four-hour volunteer course that the detention center offers. And once he completed that, he had access to the detainees. He found that none of the detainees had access to gutke — a holy prayer book that Sikhs usually have on their person — and it is a really important part of prayer and Sikhism and of their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of them weren’t fluent in English,” Singh said, “It was just heartwarming to see them have something that connects them to the outside world so they’re not just isolated in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He visited every week with some langar food, gutke, turban cloths and Punjabi newspapers to keep them updated on what was happening back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the battle to protect articles of faith behind bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Detainees did not have access to articles of faith — no gutke, no prayer beads, no turban cloths. There’s a lack of awareness and lack of resources on the ICE detention centers part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067105\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle-160x90.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simran Singh (middle) during a group tour of the Bakersfield Detention Center that he organized to raise awareness about Sikh detainees among the Sikh diaspora. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Simran Singh.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For example, in detention centers, detainees cannot keep hardbound books on their person. But the gutke are almost always hardbound because they’re holy and they’re supposed to be kept protected at all times, and they shouldn’t have any damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Singh found out, he found an importer in India, a manufacturer who makes softbound gutke and he added a layer of zip-close bag protection as security. And then it was okay to distribute them among the detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another contentious article of faith is the turban. Sikh men are required to wear a turban to cover the head at all times. It’s very important to them. It’s a representation of their faith. And taking off one’s turban, especially in public, represents great dishonor among practicing Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2022, there were dozens of cases in which Sikh detainees were \u003ca href=\"https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/2022/10/03/a-call-for-accountability-u-s-border-patrol-officers-confiscate-and-discard-sikh-turbans/\">forced\u003c/a> to take off their turbans at the border by immigration officers. In some cases, the turbans were thrown into the trash right in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On shared suffering and solidarity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the detainees are all in the same boat with respect to some common struggles. They’re all away from home, they’re all anxious about their future, their families, their finances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, there’s a language barrier that prevents them from connecting, except sometimes through faith. In that kind of a situation, faith becomes a really powerful thing to hang on to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066900\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066900\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worshippers sit on the floor and eat langar, a free communal meal, inside Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. Sikh temples serve langar to all visitors, regardless of background or religion. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singh also found that prayer beads — malas —that he was bringing to Sikh detainees are actually used by multiple faiths. They’re used in Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths as well. And that became a point of connection inside the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The South Asian detainees would also take back extra \u003cem>malas\u003c/em> to give out to people and so kind of build this relationship with someone from El Salvador or Mexico,” said Singh. “Neither of you are speaking English well, but now you have something to give to them, and that gesture goes a long way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why this community needs greater attention and support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Singh visited the detention facility for the first time in 2016, he saw three South Asian detainees. Now he’s seeing 65, of which half are Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still not enough advocacy and enough support for this population, even within the Indian diaspora. It is heartening to see people like Singh stepping in, doing everything that they can and filling in that gap, but I do think there needs to be more advocacy and support and just general awareness about this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The intensification of ICE enforcement has left many Sikh immigrants in cities like San José wondering whether even their gurdwaras, sacred places of worship, are safe.\r\n",
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"title": "ICE Deportations Create Fear and Isolation in California’s Sikh Community | KQED",
"description": "The intensification of ICE enforcement has left many Sikh immigrants in cities like San José wondering whether even their gurdwaras, sacred places of worship, are safe.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atop the rolling hills of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">East San José\u003c/a> sits the largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjose.org/listings/sikh-gurdwara-sahib\">Sikh temple\u003c/a> in the United States, its white domes visible for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, on an October Sunday, music drifted through the prayer hall and congregants made their way to\u003cem> langar\u003c/em>, the community kitchen where free meals are served each day. For decades, this gurdwara has been both a spiritual anchor and a lifeline for tens of thousands of worshippers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the past year, a quiet, growing fear has settled into the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>South Asians are rarely included in conversations about undocumented communities, yet 35,000 people from India were \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters\">apprehended\u003c/a> at the U.S. border this year — many of them Punjabi Sikhs. Some arrive seeking political refuge; others come on temporary visas and take low-wage jobs that leave them especially exposed when immigration policy shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following a January \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/01/21/statement-dhs-spokesperson-directives-expanding-law-enforcement-and-ending-abuse\">memo\u003c/a> from the Department of Homeland Security, expanding where officers can operate, federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at formerly protected “sensitive locations” — hospitals, clinics, schools and places of worship. The intensification of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053380/as-ice-arrests-surge-a-journalist-in-southern-california-covers-raids-in-her-own-backyard\">ICE enforcement across California\u003c/a> has left many Sikh immigrants wondering whether even their gurdwaras are still safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066899\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066899\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tanay Gokhale, a journalist covering how immigration enforcement affects Punjabi Sikh residents across California, stands in front of Gurdwara Sahib Hayward, a Sikh temple established in 1993, in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras act as a touchstone for medical care, social services and community support for Sikh Punjabi immigrants and their families. With Punjabi being the \u003ca href=\"https://mesa.ucdavis.edu/punjabi#:~:text=Why%20Learn%20Punjabi?,that%20started%20in%20the%201890s.\">third\u003c/a> most-spoken language in several California counties, many find solace in the in-language information the space offers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Journalist Tanay Gokhale spent the past year with this community, reporting for \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">India Currents\u003c/a>, a San José–based nonprofit magazine serving South Asian immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/program/the-california-report-magazine\">\u003cem>The California Report Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/a> host Sasha Khokha to explain how rising ICE activity is reshaping daily life for Sikh immigrants in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Only why he turned his attention to Sikh Punjabi immigrants\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the administration’s immigration crackdown started, I was thinking of how this might impact the Indian diaspora. And generally, when you think of the Indian diaspora, you think of an affluent group of well-educated people who are accomplished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But few people know that Indians are actually the fifth-largest \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/#:~:text=After%20Mexico%2C%20the%20countries%20with%20the%20largest,(850%2C000)%20*%20Honduras%20(775%2C000)%20*%20India%20(680%2C000)\">undocumented\u003c/a> group in the country. And this community is largely underreported and a lot of these people are Sikhs coming from [the state of] Punjab to settle in California. They’re working \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11849926/why-farmers-drove-a-tractor-to-protest-at-the-indian-consulate-in-san-francisco\">blue-collar jobs like agricultural labor\u003c/a> or in the trucking industry. I also thought about how the immigration crackdown is also impacting immigrants’ health outcomes because people are more afraid to go out and seek health care.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On what changed after President Donald Trump took office in January of 2025\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The DHS issued the memo on Jan. 21, right after the Trump administration took charge. It basically allowed ICE officers to conduct operations inside places of worship, which in the past was a big no-no unless it was absolutely necessary.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Right after the memo came out, there were also some false rumors about ICE raids in gurdwaras across the country, and that further fueled the paranoia and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, Sikhs around the country were thinking, “Hold on, if I go to the gurdwara every Sunday, but this time when I step out, is there a chance that I’m gonna get picked up by ICE?” And that led to a lot of fear among the community and gurdwaras were reporting a drop in attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Narenda Singh Thandi, a former Amtrak bus driver who’s now serving as the president of \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-to-keep-ice-out-of-gurdwaras/\">the West Sacramento gurdwara\u003c/a>. And he was talking about how he’s concerned that immigration activity would go against the decorum that gurdwaras need to maintain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want ICE in the temple,” Thandi said. “We don’t want people to go with the shoes on, with guns on, which is against our system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sikhs go to the gurdwara, their heads are supposed to be covered at all times, and there’s absolutely no weapons allowed inside. You’re also supposed to take your shoes off before you enter the prayer hall. If an ICE operation or a homeland security operation is happening, chances are that officers aren’t necessarily gonna follow that.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why gurdwaras are essential support hubs — and the cost of staying away\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Gurdwaras are a house of worship, but they’re also kind of like resource hubs for new immigrants, especially those who do not speak English and only speak Punjabi. These are spaces where you pray, but you also seek out fellowship: you meet a familiar-looking face from your city back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gurdwara offers all of these wonderful services like you mentioned. So, when you’re seeing a drop in attendance in gurdwaras because of fear of immigration activity, it also means that congregants are not accessing these services, and that can lead to some pretty serious outcomes for their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066902\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066902\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-8-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers prepare food in the langar kitchen at Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. The Sikh tradition of langar emphasizes community service and equality through shared meals. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I spoke to Dr. Harpreet Singh Pannu. He’s a Kaiser doctor, but on Sundays, he runs a \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/language-barriers-cripple-sikh-immigrants-access-to-healthcare/\">free medical clinic\u003c/a> at the San José gurdwara. By training, he’s an internal medicine specialist, but at this gurdwara, he is a physician, he’s a mental health counselor, he’s a health advocate, he’s a health educator — all rolled into one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially among older congregants, someone who speaks in Punjabi offers a level of comfort and familiarity that they often cannot find in a hospital, which can seem foreign and sterile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t make a difference in terms of whether they are documented or undocumented,” Pannu said. “But there is reluctance because they are worried if they come here, they could end up in trouble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By ‘ending up in trouble,’ he’s talking about getting picked up by ICE in a raid, and this is especially problematic for some of the older congregants who have this as their only point of contact with any sort of health practitioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On one man’s quiet support for Sikh detainees\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2016, driven purely by his own curiosity, Simran Singh made the 20-minute trip [from his home] to the \u003ca href=\"https://indiacurrents.com/for-sikhs-in-ice-detention-centers-faith-represents-hope/\">Mesa Verde detention center\u003c/a>. He didn’t expect there to be any [South Asian detainees], but was actually surprised to see that there were three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detention centers can be really isolating places for detainees.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>You’ve just had a months-long journey from India to the U.S. border, and suddenly you find yourself in this place where you have very little personal space and there’s also nobody to talk to because you’re often speaking different languages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A phone call — an international phone call back home — costs 85 cents a minute. You can work an entire day, and you can barely scrape together enough money to speak for one minute to your family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh completed a four-hour volunteer course that the detention center offers. And once he completed that, he had access to the detainees. He found that none of the detainees had access to gutke — a holy prayer book that Sikhs usually have on their person — and it is a really important part of prayer and Sikhism and of their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of them weren’t fluent in English,” Singh said, “It was just heartwarming to see them have something that connects them to the outside world so they’re not just isolated in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He visited every week with some langar food, gutke, turban cloths and Punjabi newspapers to keep them updated on what was happening back home in India.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On the battle to protect articles of faith behind bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Detainees did not have access to articles of faith — no gutke, no prayer beads, no turban cloths. There’s a lack of awareness and lack of resources on the ICE detention centers part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12067105\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12067105\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/simran-middle-160x90.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simran Singh (middle) during a group tour of the Bakersfield Detention Center that he organized to raise awareness about Sikh detainees among the Sikh diaspora. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Simran Singh.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For example, in detention centers, detainees cannot keep hardbound books on their person. But the gutke are almost always hardbound because they’re holy and they’re supposed to be kept protected at all times, and they shouldn’t have any damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Singh found out, he found an importer in India, a manufacturer who makes softbound gutke and he added a layer of zip-close bag protection as security. And then it was okay to distribute them among the detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another contentious article of faith is the turban. Sikh men are required to wear a turban to cover the head at all times. It’s very important to them. It’s a representation of their faith. And taking off one’s turban, especially in public, represents great dishonor among practicing Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2022, there were dozens of cases in which Sikh detainees were \u003ca href=\"https://arizonastatelawjournal.org/2022/10/03/a-call-for-accountability-u-s-border-patrol-officers-confiscate-and-discard-sikh-turbans/\">forced\u003c/a> to take off their turbans at the border by immigration officers. In some cases, the turbans were thrown into the trash right in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On shared suffering and solidarity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the detainees are all in the same boat with respect to some common struggles. They’re all away from home, they’re all anxious about their future, their families, their finances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, there’s a language barrier that prevents them from connecting, except sometimes through faith. In that kind of a situation, faith becomes a really powerful thing to hang on to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066900\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066900\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251211_ICEGURUDWARA_DECEMBER_GH-7-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worshippers sit on the floor and eat langar, a free communal meal, inside Gurdwara Sahib Hayward in Hayward on Dec. 11, 2025. Sikh temples serve langar to all visitors, regardless of background or religion. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Singh also found that prayer beads — malas —that he was bringing to Sikh detainees are actually used by multiple faiths. They’re used in Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths as well. And that became a point of connection inside the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The South Asian detainees would also take back extra \u003cem>malas\u003c/em> to give out to people and so kind of build this relationship with someone from El Salvador or Mexico,” said Singh. “Neither of you are speaking English well, but now you have something to give to them, and that gesture goes a long way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On why this community needs greater attention and support\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When Singh visited the detention facility for the first time in 2016, he saw three South Asian detainees. Now he’s seeing 65, of which half are Sikhs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still not enough advocacy and enough support for this population, even within the Indian diaspora. It is heartening to see people like Singh stepping in, doing everything that they can and filling in that gap, but I do think there needs to be more advocacy and support and just general awareness about this population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a recent weekend, a Morgan Hill home’s two-car garage was transformed into something dazzling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fingers grazed sequined saris and embroidered chaniya cholis lining the walls, and reached for the gold and silver jewelry that shimmered from the center table. Shoppers chattered in Hindi and Gujarati.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aunty, you are sparkling,” one woman called across the room to an elderly woman trying on a patterned salwar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is Nivy’s Nook, the homegrown boutique Nimisha Jadav runs out of her garage. In between hangers and clothing racks, she pulled options for shoppers and peeled away packaging, excitedly showing Rakhee Mohanty what she brought back for Mohanty’s daughter from India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like I was shopping for my daughter,” laughed Jadav, holding up a multicolored sharara with a sequined crop top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056082\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056082\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nimisha Jadav measures a top for a customer at her home-based business Nivy’s Nook in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s so beautiful,” replies Mohanty. “Perfect for Diwali.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the festival of lights and new beginnings approaches, Nivy’s Nook stands as a cultural anchor in the South Bay: a gathering place, and a touchstone of culture, memory and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking in a mirror, Pooja Sharma held an earring up to her ear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you move out of India, you really want to embrace the roots more,” she explained. “The fact that [Jadav] is even conducting this [pop-up shop] close to the festival shows that we all want to be connected. I think the importance is there’s a sense of belongingness where you feel like you have your people here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Every thread carries a memory\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jadav started the business nearly a decade ago, despite the many warnings from her friends, she said. At first she kept her job as an accountant, but last year she devoted herself to the boutique full time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think of it as my passion,” she said. “I have the opportunity to turn [it] into something that is out there to help people.”[aside postID=news_12058091 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250831-CREATIVEMUTUALAID00140_TV-KQED.jpg']Each year Jadav returns to her home country of India, gathering textiles and jewelry to bring back to the Bay Area. But the shop is more than a marketplace — every thread carries a memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s my tradition,” she said. “It’s something I’ve seen our mothers wear, our grandmothers wear and I feel like when I wear a sari, it takes me back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sense of belonging is what Jadav craved when she first immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult in 1986. She lived in Washington and Texas before moving to the Bay Area. She recalled being ridiculed for her skin color, food and clothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was picked upon because I was brown-skinned. I was picked upon because I was eating this weird food that the normal American people don’t eat,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when she moved to San José in 1999, she said she felt welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way I dressed was not an issue, putting a bindi on was not an issue and wearing Indian clothes and going to the grocery store is not a weird thing,” she said. “So that is where you feel like you belong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056085\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056085\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alpa Nagarsheth (left) shops with the help of Nimisha Jadav (right) at Jadav’s home-based clothing business, Nivy’s Nook, in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her experience is part of a much longer history of South Asians making a home in California. The first documented Indian immigrants \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/echoes-of-freedom\">arrived as early as 1857\u003c/a>, possibly working in the gold fields. But it wasn’t until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — which removed quotas on Asian immigrants — that South Asians increasingly made their way to California, drawn by educational opportunities and high-tech jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many settled in Silicon Valley, helping make California one of the \u003ca href=\"https://saalt.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SAALT-Demographic-Snapshot-2019.pdf\">top three\u003c/a> states for South Asian immigrants. By 1993, Indians made up \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/report/R_699ASR.pdf\">23%\u003c/a> of the Bay Area’s foreign-born engineers. Today, Asians account for \u003ca href=\"https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/people/talent-flows-diversity/racial-and-ethnic-composition/population-share-by-race-ethnicity/\">37%\u003c/a> of the population in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, with a large share of that growth driven by Chinese and Indian communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A business that became a lifeline\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The connections forged at Nivy’s Nook rarely end with a sale. For Vidya Srinivas of Los Banos, a sari she bought from Jadav ten years ago marked the beginning of a relationship that still endures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a family,” Srinivas said. “I’ve seen her kids grow up, she knows my kids [and] they know Nimisha Aunty.”[aside postID=news_12056999 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250806-HOLOCAUSTREPARATIONS-06-KQED.jpg']When Srinivas lost a cousin suddenly, she said Jadav was there to comfort her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was crying and she just called and said, ‘what’s happening?’ and we shared that bond,” said Srinivas. “She knew what to do, just being there, just to listen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jadav, too, has leaned on this community. After losing her mother, brother and sister in quick succession, she said the Nivy’s Nook circle carried her through grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of unknown people that didn’t know me, they all came together,” she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers dropped off food and texted her messages of support, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Hope you’re okay today. You’ll get through this,’” she recalled. “It made me realize that I’m not alone and I have somebody who’s got my back and I wanna be that for someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A multi-generational gathering place\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many shoppers, Jadav’s garage feels like stepping into India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harbans Chhabra, an elderly woman living in Morgan Hill, explained in Hindi: “Even in India, I have to look for places to go. Here, you can easily get clothes — Especially at my age, it’s nice to be able to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056083\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harbans Chabra shops at Nivy’s Nook, a home-based business run by Nimisha Jadav, in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Younger visitors see the space as a bridge to their heritage. Ritika Kumar, who grew up in San José, said Jadav — who she also affectionately calls “Aunty” — holds generational knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s all these different prints that come from different parts of India, and Nimisha Aunty, whether or not she carries it directly, has access to getting those, which as a first generation, I could have never dreamt of having access to,” Kumar said. “I want to stay connected to my roots and it matters to me because it is my identity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Srinivas adds that Jadav has to be well-versed in the diverse traditions of India to source the right materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She knows for [the Hindu festival] Sankranti, usually for South Indians, that’s the only time we wear black,” Srinivas described. “So she will have a range of black with different prints.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deepali Khullar, who recently visited for the first time, said she was struck by the energy in the room.[aside postID=news_12055649 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250905-JackieKeliiaa-01-BL_qed.jpg']“People are chit-chatting, catching up with each other. Some know each other, some don’t,” Khullar said. “I really appreciate somebody like Nimisha who’s taking that commitment to really converting her home into a place where community members can come and find good things and feel pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharma stressed the role Jadav plays in local festivals. Sharma, who helps organize South Bay Diwali events, said: “[Nivy’s Nook] was one of the sponsors [of our annual festival] and they supported the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nimisha Jadav is building community piece by piece, showing up for her friends, and sometimes precious moments are just facilitated by her space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jadav brushes off the idea that her work is unusual. “I think somewhere in our Desi culture … there is always willingness to help and step up and be there for someone in time of need,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nivy’s Nook is a place for refuge, a mirror of cultural pride and sometimes even a shoulder to cry on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many times, as her friend Srinivas put it: “It starts with one sari.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is Nivy’s Nook, the homegrown boutique Nimisha Jadav runs out of her garage. In between hangers and clothing racks, she pulled options for shoppers and peeled away packaging, excitedly showing Rakhee Mohanty what she brought back for Mohanty’s daughter from India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like I was shopping for my daughter,” laughed Jadav, holding up a multicolored sharara with a sequined crop top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056082\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056082\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00237_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nimisha Jadav measures a top for a customer at her home-based business Nivy’s Nook in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s so beautiful,” replies Mohanty. “Perfect for Diwali.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the festival of lights and new beginnings approaches, Nivy’s Nook stands as a cultural anchor in the South Bay: a gathering place, and a touchstone of culture, memory and belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking in a mirror, Pooja Sharma held an earring up to her ear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you move out of India, you really want to embrace the roots more,” she explained. “The fact that [Jadav] is even conducting this [pop-up shop] close to the festival shows that we all want to be connected. I think the importance is there’s a sense of belongingness where you feel like you have your people here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Every thread carries a memory\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jadav started the business nearly a decade ago, despite the many warnings from her friends, she said. At first she kept her job as an accountant, but last year she devoted herself to the boutique full time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think of it as my passion,” she said. “I have the opportunity to turn [it] into something that is out there to help people.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Each year Jadav returns to her home country of India, gathering textiles and jewelry to bring back to the Bay Area. But the shop is more than a marketplace — every thread carries a memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s my tradition,” she said. “It’s something I’ve seen our mothers wear, our grandmothers wear and I feel like when I wear a sari, it takes me back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sense of belonging is what Jadav craved when she first immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult in 1986. She lived in Washington and Texas before moving to the Bay Area. She recalled being ridiculed for her skin color, food and clothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was picked upon because I was brown-skinned. I was picked upon because I was eating this weird food that the normal American people don’t eat,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when she moved to San José in 1999, she said she felt welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way I dressed was not an issue, putting a bindi on was not an issue and wearing Indian clothes and going to the grocery store is not a weird thing,” she said. “So that is where you feel like you belong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056085\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056085\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00487_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alpa Nagarsheth (left) shops with the help of Nimisha Jadav (right) at Jadav’s home-based clothing business, Nivy’s Nook, in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her experience is part of a much longer history of South Asians making a home in California. The first documented Indian immigrants \u003ca href=\"https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/echoes-of-freedom\">arrived as early as 1857\u003c/a>, possibly working in the gold fields. But it wasn’t until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — which removed quotas on Asian immigrants — that South Asians increasingly made their way to California, drawn by educational opportunities and high-tech jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many settled in Silicon Valley, helping make California one of the \u003ca href=\"https://saalt.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SAALT-Demographic-Snapshot-2019.pdf\">top three\u003c/a> states for South Asian immigrants. By 1993, Indians made up \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/report/R_699ASR.pdf\">23%\u003c/a> of the Bay Area’s foreign-born engineers. Today, Asians account for \u003ca href=\"https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/people/talent-flows-diversity/racial-and-ethnic-composition/population-share-by-race-ethnicity/\">37%\u003c/a> of the population in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, with a large share of that growth driven by Chinese and Indian communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A business that became a lifeline\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The connections forged at Nivy’s Nook rarely end with a sale. For Vidya Srinivas of Los Banos, a sari she bought from Jadav ten years ago marked the beginning of a relationship that still endures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a family,” Srinivas said. “I’ve seen her kids grow up, she knows my kids [and] they know Nimisha Aunty.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When Srinivas lost a cousin suddenly, she said Jadav was there to comfort her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was crying and she just called and said, ‘what’s happening?’ and we shared that bond,” said Srinivas. “She knew what to do, just being there, just to listen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jadav, too, has leaned on this community. After losing her mother, brother and sister in quick succession, she said the Nivy’s Nook circle carried her through grief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of unknown people that didn’t know me, they all came together,” she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers dropped off food and texted her messages of support, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Hope you’re okay today. You’ll get through this,’” she recalled. “It made me realize that I’m not alone and I have somebody who’s got my back and I wanna be that for someone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A multi-generational gathering place\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many shoppers, Jadav’s garage feels like stepping into India.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harbans Chhabra, an elderly woman living in Morgan Hill, explained in Hindi: “Even in India, I have to look for places to go. Here, you can easily get clothes — Especially at my age, it’s nice to be able to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12056083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12056083\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250913-NIMISHAAUNTY00373_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harbans Chabra shops at Nivy’s Nook, a home-based business run by Nimisha Jadav, in Morgan Hill on September 13, 2025. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Younger visitors see the space as a bridge to their heritage. Ritika Kumar, who grew up in San José, said Jadav — who she also affectionately calls “Aunty” — holds generational knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s all these different prints that come from different parts of India, and Nimisha Aunty, whether or not she carries it directly, has access to getting those, which as a first generation, I could have never dreamt of having access to,” Kumar said. “I want to stay connected to my roots and it matters to me because it is my identity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Srinivas adds that Jadav has to be well-versed in the diverse traditions of India to source the right materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She knows for [the Hindu festival] Sankranti, usually for South Indians, that’s the only time we wear black,” Srinivas described. “So she will have a range of black with different prints.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deepali Khullar, who recently visited for the first time, said she was struck by the energy in the room.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“People are chit-chatting, catching up with each other. Some know each other, some don’t,” Khullar said. “I really appreciate somebody like Nimisha who’s taking that commitment to really converting her home into a place where community members can come and find good things and feel pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sharma stressed the role Jadav plays in local festivals. Sharma, who helps organize South Bay Diwali events, said: “[Nivy’s Nook] was one of the sponsors [of our annual festival] and they supported the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nimisha Jadav is building community piece by piece, showing up for her friends, and sometimes precious moments are just facilitated by her space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jadav brushes off the idea that her work is unusual. “I think somewhere in our Desi culture … there is always willingness to help and step up and be there for someone in time of need,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nivy’s Nook is a place for refuge, a mirror of cultural pride and sometimes even a shoulder to cry on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And many times, as her friend Srinivas put it: “It starts with one sari.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "oakland-comedian-jackie-keliiaa-on-pain-punchlines-and-her-good-medicine",
"title": "Oakland Comedian Jackie Keliiaa on Pain, Punchlines and Her ‘Good Medicine’",
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"headTitle": "Oakland Comedian Jackie Keliiaa on Pain, Punchlines and Her ‘Good Medicine’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of The California Report Magazine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/resilience\">series about resilient Californians\u003c/a>, and what lessons they may have for the rest of us.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland-based\u003c/a> comedian \u003ca href=\"https://jackiecomedy.com/index.html\">Jackie Keliiaa\u003c/a> has built a career turning identity and grief into humor that heals as much as it provokes. Raised in Hayward, Keliiaa draws inspiration — and material for her stand-up routines — from her Native American, Native Hawaiian, Portuguese and Italian heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has been featured in the book ‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Had-a-Little-Real-Estate-Problem/Kliph-Nesteroff/9781982103033\">We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native American Comedy\u003c/a>’, appeared on \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1AYIBGAgU4\">Team Coco\u003c/a>, voiced the character Bubble in Netflix’s Native animated series \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81098500\">Spirit Rangers\u003c/a> and co-created the all-Native comedy tour \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otDl3urzaNU\">Good Medicine\u003c/a>. The tour’s next show is Oct. 18 in \u003ca href=\"https://jackiecomedy.com/good-medicine.html\">San Francisco\u003c/a> at the Strand Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keliiaa joined The California Report Magazine host \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/sasha-khokha\">Sasha Khokha\u003c/a> for a conversation on indigeneity, loss and the transformative power of laughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On fitting into a box\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Everyone was confused [about my ethnic background]. A lot of people, especially when I was younger, thought I was Asian. When I got into middle school, a lot of people thought I was Latina because a lot of my friends were Mexican.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I always felt like I fit in, but it was usually because I fit into whatever box people thought I was, as opposed to me really feeling like all of my pieces were acknowledged and understood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K78A_d1QwPA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My family came over from Portugal, and they landed in Hayward, and they started an orchard. A lot of people don’t know this, but [some] Azorean-Portuguese — from the Azores islands — came to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, I would do a lot of Portuguese traditions. I was a part of the Holy Ghost Festival, but then I would show up to the event and they wouldn’t assume that I was Portuguese — that question mark, I’ve always seen it on people’s faces. So those jokes are important to me because people have always tried to put me into a box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think when I was younger, I just remember being like, “God, I wish I was just one thing.” Now I’ve come to understand that my background is a superpower and it’s also something that I’m very proud of. I love being Portuguese. I love being Native. And now, I don’t feel like I have to choose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what her Native ancestors passed down\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My grandparents are from Nevada, and they met at Stewart Indian Boarding School. Washoe and Paiute were the two main tribes that were at Stewart. I knew that it wasn’t great — the administration was trying to change who they were as Native people.[aside postID=news_12051769 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250806-SHANICEROBINSONRESILIENCE_00065_TV-KQED.jpg']But my grandfather would say, “We had a roof over our head and we had three squares a day. For a kid growing up in Nevada during the Depression, that was more than anyone could ask for.” He talked about Stewart as this place that helped him survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But also, we didn’t get into the other things. As a kid, I knew, I’m not gonna ask beyond what they’re willing to tell me because\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11883520/examining-the-painful-legacy-of-native-american-boarding-schools-in-the-u-s\"> there was a darkness to it\u003c/a>. In boarding school, they’re tough on people, and that was passed on to us, too. So it has reverberated \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/education/535528/the-lasting-impact-of-native-american-residential-schools\">through all the generations.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crazy thing people don’t understand about the boarding schools is that all the food was cooked by the kids, all the laundry was done by the kids, all the mowing, all the like yard work done by kids. It was this whole sort of environment that was built on the labor of young native children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a complicated relationship, and I do honor that my grandparents were very proud to have gone to Stewart. And then I also understand there were many things that I was not informed of.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On being Native and finding humor\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Native people — we’re just inherently hilarious. Teasing is a way that we show our love and affection. It’s part of our culture, part of our community. It’s very much part of [our] DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though all these dark things may have happened, there’s a lot of levity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak_ebn1uMn0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went to Cal, did Native American studies and minored in city and regional planning. Then I went on to get my master’s in urban planning from Columbia. I always thought I’m gonna go work for the government because that’s what my family does. I didn’t even think of comedy as a life you can make a living off of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of my core memories that sort of helped me get to where I am in comedy is in 2005, when I was a student at UC Berkeley. It was Native American Heritage Month, and the graduate student program hosted a comedy night — \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSoWpYjkzc\">Charlie Hill\u003c/a> was the headliner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill is the godfather of Native comedy. He was the first-ever Native comic to get a late-night set on \u003cem>The Richard Pryor Show\u003c/em>. I got a chance to see him live. And it was so cool, it opened me up in a way that I was like, “I wanna do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The joke [I wrote] about skiing in Tahoe and desecrating the sacred lands was a hard one because it really bums people out. But simultaneously, I think it needs to be said, because I’m the only person who can say this and have you think in a different perspective about, “I guess all land here is Native land, and there was a community here that this was important to, and now it’s my playground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, as a comic, I do want people to think differently when they leave the show, and also know that there are modern Native people out here in this world. I feel every day I’m trying to combat this Hollywood spaghetti Western view of what Indian Country is.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On grief and getting on stage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When my mom passed, I was just kind of feeling like a husk. [That’s when] comedy found me. The worst possible thing that could happen to me happened, and all the fear of going up and bombing just went away. And then I went to my first ever open mic and I did okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was 26 [that year, and] I had my first ever gig at the Native American Health Center [in San Francisco]. I performed for a crowd of like 250. I was only like a few months into stand-up, but to have the support from the Native community right from the jump was amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055719\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055719\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comedian and emcee Jackie Keliiaa speaks during the 3rd annual Indigenous Peoples Day Commemoration at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco on Oct. 11, 2021.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>On her tour, \u003cem>‘Good Medicine”\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sometimes I’ll be performing and I’ll just be drawn to one person in the audience. I’ll find myself kind of returning to them. And then after the show, they’ll come up to me and share some personal story about a loss, or they’ll be like, “This is the first time I’ve laughed in a while.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know that that’s part of what I’m doing, and especially in this cold, hard world that is getting harder and scarier by the minute. It is so important to have comedy in our lives.[aside postID=news_12051236 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250626-GRANTSPASSDECISIONANNI-03-BL-KQED.jpg']To be sitting with your loved ones and knocking your head back because you’re laughing so hard, that is a gift and not everybody gets that. I do understand that sometimes my role out there is to make people laugh, but also to give someone a moment, a break from it all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a two-way street because when I’m on stage, I am processing the world around me … I have learned how to give power back in moments that I may have not had it. It is the way that I can retell a story with perspective, agency, and power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a woman, as a person of color, as someone who’s experiencing this world from a Native perspective as well, and a city person, all these different intersections of my identity, there are so many times that the world wants to tell me no. And I use the stage to go, “Watch, I’m gonna do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On critiquing the term resilience\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I have to share a quote from one of my favorite authors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563403/there-there-by-tommy-orange/\">Tommy Orange\u003c/a>: “And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived is no badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t like resilient being used as a frame to discuss Native experience. I understand that resilience as a feature has been [there] throughout my entire life. So many of the losses or the failures have catapulted me into success. It’s so important to use those moments that didn’t work out the way you wanted to, to find something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of comics have found comedy in really dark times. Comedy finds people, and they take these really gnarly moments in their lives and turn them into something that gives back not only to themselves but to the community around them. That in itself is an exercise in resilience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of The California Report Magazine’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/resilience\">series about resilient Californians\u003c/a>, and what lessons they may have for the rest of us.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland\">Oakland-based\u003c/a> comedian \u003ca href=\"https://jackiecomedy.com/index.html\">Jackie Keliiaa\u003c/a> has built a career turning identity and grief into humor that heals as much as it provokes. Raised in Hayward, Keliiaa draws inspiration — and material for her stand-up routines — from her Native American, Native Hawaiian, Portuguese and Italian heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has been featured in the book ‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Had-a-Little-Real-Estate-Problem/Kliph-Nesteroff/9781982103033\">We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native American Comedy\u003c/a>’, appeared on \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1AYIBGAgU4\">Team Coco\u003c/a>, voiced the character Bubble in Netflix’s Native animated series \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81098500\">Spirit Rangers\u003c/a> and co-created the all-Native comedy tour \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otDl3urzaNU\">Good Medicine\u003c/a>. The tour’s next show is Oct. 18 in \u003ca href=\"https://jackiecomedy.com/good-medicine.html\">San Francisco\u003c/a> at the Strand Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keliiaa joined The California Report Magazine host \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/sasha-khokha\">Sasha Khokha\u003c/a> for a conversation on indigeneity, loss and the transformative power of laughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for brevity and clarity. For the full interview, listen to the audio linked at the top of this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On fitting into a box\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Everyone was confused [about my ethnic background]. A lot of people, especially when I was younger, thought I was Asian. When I got into middle school, a lot of people thought I was Latina because a lot of my friends were Mexican.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I always felt like I fit in, but it was usually because I fit into whatever box people thought I was, as opposed to me really feeling like all of my pieces were acknowledged and understood.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/K78A_d1QwPA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/K78A_d1QwPA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>My family came over from Portugal, and they landed in Hayward, and they started an orchard. A lot of people don’t know this, but [some] Azorean-Portuguese — from the Azores islands — came to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up, I would do a lot of Portuguese traditions. I was a part of the Holy Ghost Festival, but then I would show up to the event and they wouldn’t assume that I was Portuguese — that question mark, I’ve always seen it on people’s faces. So those jokes are important to me because people have always tried to put me into a box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think when I was younger, I just remember being like, “God, I wish I was just one thing.” Now I’ve come to understand that my background is a superpower and it’s also something that I’m very proud of. I love being Portuguese. I love being Native. And now, I don’t feel like I have to choose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what her Native ancestors passed down\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My grandparents are from Nevada, and they met at Stewart Indian Boarding School. Washoe and Paiute were the two main tribes that were at Stewart. I knew that it wasn’t great — the administration was trying to change who they were as Native people.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But my grandfather would say, “We had a roof over our head and we had three squares a day. For a kid growing up in Nevada during the Depression, that was more than anyone could ask for.” He talked about Stewart as this place that helped him survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But also, we didn’t get into the other things. As a kid, I knew, I’m not gonna ask beyond what they’re willing to tell me because\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11883520/examining-the-painful-legacy-of-native-american-boarding-schools-in-the-u-s\"> there was a darkness to it\u003c/a>. In boarding school, they’re tough on people, and that was passed on to us, too. So it has reverberated \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/education/535528/the-lasting-impact-of-native-american-residential-schools\">through all the generations.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crazy thing people don’t understand about the boarding schools is that all the food was cooked by the kids, all the laundry was done by the kids, all the mowing, all the like yard work done by kids. It was this whole sort of environment that was built on the labor of young native children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a complicated relationship, and I do honor that my grandparents were very proud to have gone to Stewart. And then I also understand there were many things that I was not informed of.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On being Native and finding humor\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Native people — we’re just inherently hilarious. Teasing is a way that we show our love and affection. It’s part of our culture, part of our community. It’s very much part of [our] DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though all these dark things may have happened, there’s a lot of levity.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ak_ebn1uMn0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ak_ebn1uMn0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>I went to Cal, did Native American studies and minored in city and regional planning. Then I went on to get my master’s in urban planning from Columbia. I always thought I’m gonna go work for the government because that’s what my family does. I didn’t even think of comedy as a life you can make a living off of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of my core memories that sort of helped me get to where I am in comedy is in 2005, when I was a student at UC Berkeley. It was Native American Heritage Month, and the graduate student program hosted a comedy night — \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSoWpYjkzc\">Charlie Hill\u003c/a> was the headliner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hill is the godfather of Native comedy. He was the first-ever Native comic to get a late-night set on \u003cem>The Richard Pryor Show\u003c/em>. I got a chance to see him live. And it was so cool, it opened me up in a way that I was like, “I wanna do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The joke [I wrote] about skiing in Tahoe and desecrating the sacred lands was a hard one because it really bums people out. But simultaneously, I think it needs to be said, because I’m the only person who can say this and have you think in a different perspective about, “I guess all land here is Native land, and there was a community here that this was important to, and now it’s my playground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, as a comic, I do want people to think differently when they leave the show, and also know that there are modern Native people out here in this world. I feel every day I’m trying to combat this Hollywood spaghetti Western view of what Indian Country is.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On grief and getting on stage\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When my mom passed, I was just kind of feeling like a husk. [That’s when] comedy found me. The worst possible thing that could happen to me happened, and all the fear of going up and bombing just went away. And then I went to my first ever open mic and I did okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was 26 [that year, and] I had my first ever gig at the Native American Health Center [in San Francisco]. I performed for a crowd of like 250. I was only like a few months into stand-up, but to have the support from the Native community right from the jump was amazing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055719\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055719\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/002_SanFrancisco_IndigenousPeoplesDay_10112021_qed-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comedian and emcee Jackie Keliiaa speaks during the 3rd annual Indigenous Peoples Day Commemoration at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco on Oct. 11, 2021.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>On her tour, \u003cem>‘Good Medicine”\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sometimes I’ll be performing and I’ll just be drawn to one person in the audience. I’ll find myself kind of returning to them. And then after the show, they’ll come up to me and share some personal story about a loss, or they’ll be like, “This is the first time I’ve laughed in a while.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I know that that’s part of what I’m doing, and especially in this cold, hard world that is getting harder and scarier by the minute. It is so important to have comedy in our lives.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>To be sitting with your loved ones and knocking your head back because you’re laughing so hard, that is a gift and not everybody gets that. I do understand that sometimes my role out there is to make people laugh, but also to give someone a moment, a break from it all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a two-way street because when I’m on stage, I am processing the world around me … I have learned how to give power back in moments that I may have not had it. It is the way that I can retell a story with perspective, agency, and power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a woman, as a person of color, as someone who’s experiencing this world from a Native perspective as well, and a city person, all these different intersections of my identity, there are so many times that the world wants to tell me no. And I use the stage to go, “Watch, I’m gonna do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>On critiquing the term resilience\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I have to share a quote from one of my favorite authors, \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563403/there-there-by-tommy-orange/\">Tommy Orange\u003c/a>: “And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived is no badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t like resilient being used as a frame to discuss Native experience. I understand that resilience as a feature has been [there] throughout my entire life. So many of the losses or the failures have catapulted me into success. It’s so important to use those moments that didn’t work out the way you wanted to, to find something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of comics have found comedy in really dark times. Comedy finds people, and they take these really gnarly moments in their lives and turn them into something that gives back not only to themselves but to the community around them. That in itself is an exercise in resilience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
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"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
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},
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},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"order": 10
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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