Fantastic Negrito: Rolling Through California
Oakland-based artist Fantastic Negrito tells us about his new single featuring Miko Marks, "Rolling Through California," a song that explores the dissonance between the California dream and the reality of living in our state today. The lyrics came to him a year ago, on the day that wildfire smoke turned skies red. “It felt apocalyptic and it felt like a message,” he says. “Looking at this blood-red sun, bloodshot sun in the sky, I wanted to tell the story of what was happening in the moment.”
How a Trump-Era Immigration Policy Has Kept a California Family Apart for Two Years
When you’ve been living in the U.S. undocumented, and you’re finally able to become a legal resident, it’s a huge relief. That’s what one father in the Central Valley city of Los Banos was hoping to feel. He followed the rules and went back to Mexico for the final step to apply for his green card: an interview at the U.S. Consulate. His wife and kids expected him back in a week or two, but he was stopped from returning by a restrictive Trump administration rule that blocked thousands of others too. Zaidee Stavely tells us how, two years later, his kids are still waiting to get their dad back.
How Standing Up to Racism After 9/11 Changed One Immigrant Teenager's Life
20 years ago, California Report host Sasha Khokha was a first year journalism student at Berkeley, and wanted to find out how the post 9/11 backlash against South Asians was affecting young people in my community. So she wrote a piece about an inspiring group of teenagers from Berkeley High for a publication called Asian Week. One of the young women she met and featured in the article was 17-year-old Fatima Shah. Sasha tracked her down 20 years later, to reflect on that time, and find out how it shaped her life today.