How High School Students Launched Their Own #MeToo Movement During the Pandemic
When most schools across California shut down last year, teenagers were stuck at home. For some, that meant months alone to reflect on experiences of trauma in high school. But they didn’t all keep that pain to themselves. Instead, hundreds of young people turned to social media to share their stories. KQED Reporter Holly J. McDede talked to students in Los Gatos and San Diego County about what it's been like to push for change on campus during distance learning.
‘I’m Living My Dream’: Transgender Asylum Seeker Finally Makes It to the U.S.
Last December, we brought you a documentary about Luna Guzmán, a young transgender woman from Guatemala. She lived through years of brutal abuse and discrimination in her hometown, contracted HIV as a teenager, and dreamed of seeking asylum in California. Host Sasha Khokha followed Guzmán for more than two years – from a migrant shelter in Tijuana – to an ICE detention center near San Diego, even tracking her down when she was sick with COVID, fighting for her life in an ICU. Guzmán was able to cross into San Diego on a humanitarian parole visa last month, with the help of the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center. She's starting her new life not in California, but in New York City, which guarantees free housing for individuals living with HIV.
Lost My Lover to AIDS. Then My Father to COVID
We’ve been bringing you tributes to Californians we’ve lost to COVID-19. This week, we hear from Vince Crisostomo, whose father Francisco died from COVID the day before his 87th birthday. Francisco was a retired Air Force veteran, and caught the virus inside his nursing home in Alameda County. Vince was devastated. He had already lost a partner, the love of his life, to AIDS in San Francisco in 1991. KQED Health Reporter Lesley McClurg recorded Vince as he shared memories of his father’s last year, and described what it’s like to mourn loved ones during two pandemics.