Kids Seeking Refuge Fill Oakland School Newcomer Programs
You might not have heard much about them lately, but children fleeing violence in Central America are still arriving in communities across California. In fact, the numbers of young people detained at the U.S.-Mexico border more than doubled this October and November, compared to a year ago. Those kids get released to family members or foster homes while they wait out the immigration process. But in the meantime, they're required to go to school. California school districts are trying to get a handle on where to put all those new students. As KQED's Zaidee Stavely reports from Oakland, teachers there are trying to figure out how to instruct non-English speaking kids who have been through extreme trauma.
New Project Looks to Archive Sounds of California
Immigrants and refugees who've come to call California home have long shaped the state's history with their cultural traditions and their music. Now, a new project is picking up on the idea of creating an archive of California music focusing on how the experience of immigration is reflected in the California soundscape. It's called “Sounds of California” and it's a joint effort between the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Radio Bilingue and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, whose director, Amy Kitchener talks to Sasha Khokha.
A Quest to 'Unite the Parks'
You might be heading up to the mountains over the holidays -- to play or ski in some long-awaited winter weather. Remember that stuff called snow? Besides ski resorts, some of the most popular spots for visitors in the Sierra are, of course, Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. Reporter Alice Daniel bring us the story of one woman on an ambitious quest to unite those parks -- by turning the vast stretch of forest between them into a new national monument. It would be twice as big as Yosemite.
CA Foodways: Sierra Cattlewomen Work Off-Ranch to Help Family Stay in Business
Plenty of folks take on side jobs to support themselves while they pursue their passions: actors waiting tables or novelists who walk dogs, but a cattle rancher? For the series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse visited a mother and daughter in Sierra County whose side gigs have helped keep the family in the beef business.
A Boat Washed up in California Bridges an Ocean
Some high school students in the Northern California town of Crescent City have built a special relationship with a small fishing village in Japan that was nearly flattened by the tsunami five years ago. As the California Report's intern Natalia Estrada explains, it all started with a call to the local County Sheriff's office.