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Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12066525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Castlemont High School in Oakland on Dec. 5, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OUSD did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED is a media partner of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/JaeOCADmygFBYBNWS8h99iGsuzS?domain=oaklandside.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a>, a news outlet serving Oakland published by the nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The organization Defending Education with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights filed the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Oakland-Complaint_Letterhead_Exhibits_Final_9.10.26.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools.\u003ccite class=\"wp-inline-image-credit\"> (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED is a media partner of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/JaeOCADmygFBYBNWS8h99iGsuzS?domain=oaklandside.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a>, a news outlet serving Oakland published by the nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED is a media partner of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/JaeOCADmygFBYBNWS8h99iGsuzS?domain=oaklandside.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a>, a news outlet serving Oakland published by the nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"excerpt": "The programs were designed to close academic achievement gaps. Conservative parent group Defending Education wants a federal investigation, claiming the programs constitute racial discrimination.",
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"title": "Oakland Unified Faces Civil Rights Complaint Over Programs for Latino Youth | KQED",
"description": "The programs were designed to close academic achievement gaps. Conservative parent group Defending Education wants a federal investigation, claiming the programs constitute racial discrimination.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>A conservative parents’ group known for targeting diversity and equity programs in schools has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Oakland Unified School District, claiming the district discriminates on the basis of race and sex by offering targeted programs for Latino boys and youth of color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The organization Defending Education with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights filed the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Oakland-Complaint_Letterhead_Exhibits_Final_9.10.26.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the nonprofit group cites the district’s Latino men and boys program, a Latinx mentoring and achievement program, professional development to help preschool teachers support the development of boys of color, and various other programs designed to support students of color. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group, founded in 2021 to fight what it sees a “political bias” in the nation’s public schools and backed by major conservative philanthropies, is asking the Department of Education to open a civil rights investigation into OUSD for violating Title VI, which prohibits racial discrimination; Title IX, prohibiting sex discrimination; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12066525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251205-OUSDVIOLENCEINTERRUPTER-37-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Castlemont High School in Oakland on Dec. 5, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In a ham-fisted attempt to guarantee student ‘equity’ outcomes, Oakland USD has sponsored a multitude of programs geared toward only one race or sex in violation of federal law,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president and senior legal fellow, said in a statement. “Cash stipends, tutoring assistance, wellness programs and food and housing benefits for only one group of students, to the exclusion of others, are just the tip of the iceberg in one of California’s largest school districts.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OUSD did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Oakland Unified, about 33% of students meet grade level standards in reading and 27% in math. For Latino students, that number is far lower — 22% are proficient in reading and 15% in math — as is it for Black students — at 21% and 13%, respectively, according to state standardized tests. In 2024, the graduation rate for OUSD’s Latino students was 68%, compared with 74% of students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The district contracts with the \u003ca href=\"https://unitycouncil.org/\">Unity Council\u003c/a>, a Fruitvale organization, to run the Latino men and boys program at four OUSD middle schools and two OUSD high schools; and the Latinx mentoring program at three OUSD high schools. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs are part of the district’s effort to increase the graduation rates for Latino youth and to support their mental and physical health, and their higher education and career planning. The Latinx mentoring program grew out of the Latino men and boys program, which expanded to include girls and nonbinary youth in 2019. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Unity Council declined to comment on the complaint.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those programs and others are hallmarks of \u003ca href=\"https://www.ousd.org/equity\">OUSD’s Office of Equity\u003c/a>, which was established in 2016 to address persistent racial inequities in academic achievement in Oakland schools. The office has programs supporting African American, Arab American, Pacific Islander and Latino students. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Race-neutral approaches are not sufficient to repair the damage that’s come as a result of a long history of race-based discrimination, exclusion and miseducation — in our nation as well as inside of Oakland Unified School District,” a \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756410916/ousdorg/fhzostizel2h0hkk1zcs/OUSD-Office-of-Equity-ImpactReport-WEB.pdf\">2025 report\u003c/a> from the Office of Equity found. “In order to heal past harms and close gaps in access and opportunity — which lead to gaps in academic outcomes — we must take intentional, tailored, targeted measures.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The programs have shown extraordinary impact. In January 2024, for example, 78% of students in OUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1736276490/ousdorg/nlioddpcvbcqtunukugr/OUSDOfficeofEquity-FactSheet-LSA.pdf\">Latino student achievement programs\u003c/a> had attendance rates of 95% or higher, compared with 39% of Latino students overall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12042892\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-026_qed-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. (Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not the first time the district has faced a backlash over its \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/09/15/ousd-oakland-chabot-diversity-equity-inclusion-pta-committees/\">diversity and inclusion programs\u003c/a>. In 2023, for example, after a notice for a playgroup for students of color at Chabot Elementary School was shared online, the playgroup’s organizers received racist emails and a \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2023/08/29/chabot-elementary-evacuated-school-canceled-due-to-bomb-threat/\">bomb threat was called into the school\u003c/a>, forcing classes to be canceled for the day. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Defending Education has also brought complaints against other East Bay districts and organizations. Last year, the group alleged that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028442/san-leandro-schools-tried-uplift-black-boys-now-they-face-discrimination-complaint\">San Leandro schools\u003c/a> had violated civil rights laws with programs supporting Black boys through partnerships with the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/23/kingmakers-oakland-artificial-intelligence-sankofa-kings/\">Kingmakers of Oakland organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The New York Times found that the Office of Civil Rights has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/us/politics/defending-education-smith-transgender.html\">opened nearly a dozen federal investigations\u003c/a> in response to complaints from Defending Education over school diversity programs and school policies protecting the rights of transgender students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Office of Civil Rights currently has an open investigation into OUSD over allegations that an unsanctioned pro-Palestinian teach-in held in December 2023 was tantamount to \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2024/01/25/palestine-teach-in-prompts-civil-rights-probe-of-oakland-schools/\">discrimination against Jewish students\u003c/a>. The California Department of Education also filed a lawsuit against OUSD earlier this year, alleging that the district failed to remedy \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/31/state-finds-oakland-unified-discriminated-against-jewish-students/\">discriminatory environments for Jewish students\u003c/a> in several incidents, including the teach-in, the distribution of a map of the Middle East that did not include Israel, and the decision by one high school to briefly fly the Palestinian flag from the school flagpole.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED is a media partner of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/JaeOCADmygFBYBNWS8h99iGsuzS?domain=oaklandside.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Oaklandside\u003c/a>, a news outlet serving Oakland published by the nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "at-250-americas-story-includes-california-long-before-it-was-american",
"title": "At 250, America’s Story Includes California Long Before It Was American",
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"headTitle": "At 250, America’s Story Includes California Long Before It Was American | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a hard time imagining \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> when it was founded 250 years ago. Few people inhabited the hilly, foggy landscape. Mission Dolores, officially Misión San Francisco de Asís, was a small chapel made of adobe — the only original intact building from that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Construction on the Presidio was just beginning. Most of the inhabitants were Indigenous people and some Spanish families who came this far north in Alta California because they had few options elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco was more of an undesirable, remote village than the bewitching metropolis it is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As our nation nears what’s being called our 250th birthday — the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a citizen of this nation now in the Bay Area, which was not even part of the United States in 1776. At the time, California was part of the Spanish colony that would later become Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking back 250 years is an opportunity to highlight the long legacy of Indigenous, Spanish and Mexican culture in the United States. We were here before there was a United States and, while that seems obvious, I find it worth repeating because we have been and continue to be treated as outsiders, as foreigners and as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I reached out to historian Steven W. Hackel, who teaches at UC Riverside and has written extensively about the Bay Area’s history before the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people would have asserted for many years that California’s history began with the Gold Rush and statehood,” he told me. “That’s sort of when all the lights came on at once, which really sweeps aside the early Spanish, Native American and Mexican history of California. So I spent much of my career trying to argue against that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason for the oversight, Hackel said, could be prejudice. The early history of Northern California is less interesting because most of the historical documents are in Spanish and the focus is on the original Indigenous inhabitants and Spanish settlers who brought Catholicism. Another reason is that it’s considered Mexican history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a very complex and significant colonial period in California. And the 1770s are when the Bay Area was really colonized richly. All the native groups that are in the immediate Bay Area region are either pulled into California missions or certainly engage with them at some level,” Hackel said.[aside postID=news_12079414 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/06/20150522-CynthiaWoodPhoto-DSC_7143.jpg']“Is the settlement of California a part of the settlement of Mexico? I mean, there’s no question. Our history is colonial Latin American history. It’s not British North American history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was growing up, my mother, who had been a schoolteacher in Mexico before she emigrated, was the first person to inform me that the United States had “stolen half of Mexico.” It was a history that was frankly brushed over in my AP American history class in high school and that I had to research on my own. For years, I was angry that one nation could steal another’s territory and gloss it over by calling it “Manifest Destiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have since realized that being angry about history doesn’t accomplish much — unless that anger is applied to understand the present and future in a different way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last September, the Supreme Court ruled that immigration agents can legally question people based on their apparent ethnicity, accent and place of work — in other words, making racial profiling legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These so-called “Kavanaugh stops” are one of many ways the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has disproportionately punished Latine communities across the country despite the fact that the majority of Latines were born in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I produced a Forum episode in April about the psychological and behavioral toll of immigration enforcement on Latinos that was partly inspired by \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> article titled, The Risk of Speaking Spanish in Public, which described young people’s fears of being targeted by ICE just because they “look Hispanic” or have a Spanish name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And by “looking Hispanic,” we know that means having dark skin even though people from Latin America come in every color and ethnicity. Still, it seems like a cruel irony that having brown skin, which connotes having more indigenous ancestry, makes you more “suspicious” to immigration agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the guests on the show, Stanford sociologist Tomás R. Jiménez, told me that the Trump administration’s policies are reshaping the idea of who qualifies as American by making it an official policy to question anyone who doesn’t fit the prototypical look of what people associate with “American.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Policies don’t just tell us what we can and can’t do; they tell us who we are,” Jiménez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I grew up not questioning if I was American enough. I didn’t have time for that. The question of belonging was not important given that I was on a mission, like many children of immigrants, to make my parents’ sacrifice worth it, to succeed, and “make it.” I didn’t question my Americanness because I was born and bred here. I was more concerned with not losing my Mexicanness in a society that looked down on people like me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the byproducts of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is to discredit and delegitimize people who don’t fit his vision of a true “American,” but of course that didn’t start with this administration. Sometimes historians choose to overlook history that doesn’t fit their worldview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are competing versions of what it means to be American, and those competing versions have always been there,” Jiménez said. “American identity is not one thing, and there are people who are trying to make it one thing, but we are a country that has welcomed immigrants from all over the world and, by global comparison, have created a country that has had lots of social mobility for immigrants and their descendants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that is what I’ll be thinking about when America turns 250 next month — that I, and my history, belong here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a hard time imagining \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> when it was founded 250 years ago. Few people inhabited the hilly, foggy landscape. Mission Dolores, officially Misión San Francisco de Asís, was a small chapel made of adobe — the only original intact building from that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Construction on the Presidio was just beginning. Most of the inhabitants were Indigenous people and some Spanish families who came this far north in Alta California because they had few options elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco was more of an undesirable, remote village than the bewitching metropolis it is now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As our nation nears what’s being called our 250th birthday — the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a citizen of this nation now in the Bay Area, which was not even part of the United States in 1776. At the time, California was part of the Spanish colony that would later become Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking back 250 years is an opportunity to highlight the long legacy of Indigenous, Spanish and Mexican culture in the United States. We were here before there was a United States and, while that seems obvious, I find it worth repeating because we have been and continue to be treated as outsiders, as foreigners and as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I reached out to historian Steven W. Hackel, who teaches at UC Riverside and has written extensively about the Bay Area’s history before the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people would have asserted for many years that California’s history began with the Gold Rush and statehood,” he told me. “That’s sort of when all the lights came on at once, which really sweeps aside the early Spanish, Native American and Mexican history of California. So I spent much of my career trying to argue against that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason for the oversight, Hackel said, could be prejudice. The early history of Northern California is less interesting because most of the historical documents are in Spanish and the focus is on the original Indigenous inhabitants and Spanish settlers who brought Catholicism. Another reason is that it’s considered Mexican history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a very complex and significant colonial period in California. And the 1770s are when the Bay Area was really colonized richly. All the native groups that are in the immediate Bay Area region are either pulled into California missions or certainly engage with them at some level,” Hackel said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Is the settlement of California a part of the settlement of Mexico? I mean, there’s no question. Our history is colonial Latin American history. It’s not British North American history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was growing up, my mother, who had been a schoolteacher in Mexico before she emigrated, was the first person to inform me that the United States had “stolen half of Mexico.” It was a history that was frankly brushed over in my AP American history class in high school and that I had to research on my own. For years, I was angry that one nation could steal another’s territory and gloss it over by calling it “Manifest Destiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have since realized that being angry about history doesn’t accomplish much — unless that anger is applied to understand the present and future in a different way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last September, the Supreme Court ruled that immigration agents can legally question people based on their apparent ethnicity, accent and place of work — in other words, making racial profiling legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These so-called “Kavanaugh stops” are one of many ways the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has disproportionately punished Latine communities across the country despite the fact that the majority of Latines were born in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I produced a Forum episode in April about the psychological and behavioral toll of immigration enforcement on Latinos that was partly inspired by \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> article titled, The Risk of Speaking Spanish in Public, which described young people’s fears of being targeted by ICE just because they “look Hispanic” or have a Spanish name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And by “looking Hispanic,” we know that means having dark skin even though people from Latin America come in every color and ethnicity. Still, it seems like a cruel irony that having brown skin, which connotes having more indigenous ancestry, makes you more “suspicious” to immigration agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the guests on the show, Stanford sociologist Tomás R. Jiménez, told me that the Trump administration’s policies are reshaping the idea of who qualifies as American by making it an official policy to question anyone who doesn’t fit the prototypical look of what people associate with “American.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Policies don’t just tell us what we can and can’t do; they tell us who we are,” Jiménez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I grew up not questioning if I was American enough. I didn’t have time for that. The question of belonging was not important given that I was on a mission, like many children of immigrants, to make my parents’ sacrifice worth it, to succeed, and “make it.” I didn’t question my Americanness because I was born and bred here. I was more concerned with not losing my Mexicanness in a society that looked down on people like me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the byproducts of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is to discredit and delegitimize people who don’t fit his vision of a true “American,” but of course that didn’t start with this administration. Sometimes historians choose to overlook history that doesn’t fit their worldview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are competing versions of what it means to be American, and those competing versions have always been there,” Jiménez said. “American identity is not one thing, and there are people who are trying to make it one thing, but we are a country that has welcomed immigrants from all over the world and, by global comparison, have created a country that has had lots of social mobility for immigrants and their descendants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that is what I’ll be thinking about when America turns 250 next month — that I, and my history, belong here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I think back on my childhood summers, a few activities stand out: reading lots of library books, watching \u003cem>The Price is Right\u003c/em>, and picking cherries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was about eight or nine years old the first time my dad woke my brother and me up at dawn and took us out to work in cherry orchards that surrounded my hometown in Eastern Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remember lying down in the backseat, trying to capture a few more minutes of sleep before we’d arrive and park among the rows and rows of trees, strap a metal bucket to our chests, and embark on a full day of filling that bucket over and over. My dad and brother, who is a year older than I am, often handled the higher branches that required using a ladder, while I excelled at the low-hanging fruit. We’d come home covered in dirt and exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, California lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077073/cesar-chavez-was-a-hero-to-farmworkers-now-they-confront-the-pain-of-alleged-abuse\">renamed a state holiday\u003c/a> on March 31 to Farmworkers Day after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html\">\u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> published allegations\u003c/a> that now-disgraced labor rights icon Cesar Chavez had abused young women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The renaming happened swiftly. Lawmakers called the change “long overdue” as if we are rectifying a wrong that should have been fixed years ago. But, to me, this incident reinforces how farmworkers have been marginalized, discriminated against, and overlooked for centuries in the United States since the time enslaved people did most farm work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-515109272-scaled-e1773940356467.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1443\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm labor leader Cesar Chavez pickets outside the San Diego-area headquarters of Safeway markets. It was in protest over the arrest of 29 persons at a Delano, California, Safeway. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My hope would be that this holiday becomes a substantive and longstanding tradition, but I’m skeptical. We have Mother’s Day, but research shows that moms are some of the most overworked, undercompensated and stretched-thin members of society. But, hey, we love our moms!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same type of hollow praise could happen to farmworkers. Farm labor is considered a category separate from all other types of jobs, hence that unartful term “nonfarm jobs” that makes up most jobs in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/july/nonfarm-payrolls-why-farmers-not-included\">explainer\u003c/a> from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “The answer may go back to early America. Highly seasonal, farming has always had a special place in our history — and our hearts.”[aside postID=news_12077073 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/Chavez-Statue-1.jpg']Farm labor is hard to count because workers include farmers, their family members and hired workers who are often seasonal employees. Oh, and a lot of them lack proper authorization to work in the country, so that makes them harder to account for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plenty of other industries hire seasonal workers and hire undocumented workers, and yet they are counted. Instead, separating farm work from other categories makes it easier for employers to exploit workers and for consumers to build up a protective wall of ignorance. Americans might balk at buying a sweater made by a child in India, but we’re okay eating produce \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101912263/investigation-lax-state-oversight-endangers-californias-child-farmworkers\">picked by children in our own communities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. diets and the economy depend on the food harvested here, but Americans, by and large, prefer to look away and not have to recognize farmworkers to the extent we should.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians take pride in being a state that feeds the rest of the nation with our produce. This state is home to more farmworkers than any other state, with about \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/blog/how-many-farmworkers-are-employed-in-the-united-states/\">800,000 seasonal and full-time workers\u003c/a> each year, representing about \u003ca href=\"https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announcements/california-thanks-its-agricultural-workforce-with-45th-annual-farmworkers-appreciation-breakfast/\">2.2 percent\u003c/a> of the state’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has not been a farmworker movement for decades,” said Miriam Pawel, a journalist who has written two books about the United Farm Workers on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913334/california-confronts-the-cesar-chavez-allegations\">episode of Forum\u003c/a> that aired days after the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> investigation was published. “Declaring something as Farmworker Day instead of Cesar Chavez Day doesn’t really do anything for the farmworkers in the fields who are working in very tough conditions right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farm work has been a job that we regard as something you do if you’re desperate and have no other options, instead of regarding it as a job worthy of dignity and respect because of how hard it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking away from farm work is another way that the labor and economic contributions of immigrants and Latinos are erased. But for many Mexican American families, farm work has served as an accessible stepping stone to achieve the American Dream. Despite the grueling hours and low pay, thousands of families, like my own, have had farmwork in our history.[aside postID=news_12077059 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260319-CESAR-CHAVEZ-STREET-MD-01-KQED.jpg']A few years ago, photos of graduates donning their cap and gowns surrounded by orchards went viral. The graduates in regalia, contrasting with the lush green of fruit trees, were both visually and emotionally striking because farm work and education come off as incompatible, as opposites. The images conveyed the message that leaving the fields equates to progress, but those images also conveyed gratitude for parents who taught their children what hard work looks like and that the returns can be worth so much more than a paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those weeks picking cherries were what we might now call a side hustle, but they were among the most formative experiences of my life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’d usually spend a few weeks doing this while my dad took vacation from his regular job at a potato processing plant. My parents were very explicit that the reason for taking us to the fields was to teach us the value of hard work and what adults had to do to make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lessons from those summers in the fields informed so much of my work ethic and the value of manual labor. I also had the privilege of knowing that my days picking cherries were numbered. I would eventually return to school, and if I earned good grades, my parents told me, I would have other career options. But I also knew there were many people who would spend their whole working lives in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever I buy cherries, I think about how each little bunch was probably picked by someone — a real person, like me — who deserves to be compensated for their hard work. And for that, we have to keep the fight alive and make sure state holidays and words of praise have substance. It means not looking away from farm work and giving that occupation the respect it deserves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I think back on my childhood summers, a few activities stand out: reading lots of library books, watching \u003cem>The Price is Right\u003c/em>, and picking cherries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was about eight or nine years old the first time my dad woke my brother and me up at dawn and took us out to work in cherry orchards that surrounded my hometown in Eastern Washington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remember lying down in the backseat, trying to capture a few more minutes of sleep before we’d arrive and park among the rows and rows of trees, strap a metal bucket to our chests, and embark on a full day of filling that bucket over and over. My dad and brother, who is a year older than I am, often handled the higher branches that required using a ladder, while I excelled at the low-hanging fruit. We’d come home covered in dirt and exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, California lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12077073/cesar-chavez-was-a-hero-to-farmworkers-now-they-confront-the-pain-of-alleged-abuse\">renamed a state holiday\u003c/a> on March 31 to Farmworkers Day after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html\">\u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> published allegations\u003c/a> that now-disgraced labor rights icon Cesar Chavez had abused young women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The renaming happened swiftly. Lawmakers called the change “long overdue” as if we are rectifying a wrong that should have been fixed years ago. But, to me, this incident reinforces how farmworkers have been marginalized, discriminated against, and overlooked for centuries in the United States since the time enslaved people did most farm work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077027\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077027\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-515109272-scaled-e1773940356467.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1443\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm labor leader Cesar Chavez pickets outside the San Diego-area headquarters of Safeway markets. It was in protest over the arrest of 29 persons at a Delano, California, Safeway. \u003ccite>(Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My hope would be that this holiday becomes a substantive and longstanding tradition, but I’m skeptical. We have Mother’s Day, but research shows that moms are some of the most overworked, undercompensated and stretched-thin members of society. But, hey, we love our moms!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same type of hollow praise could happen to farmworkers. Farm labor is considered a category separate from all other types of jobs, hence that unartful term “nonfarm jobs” that makes up most jobs in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/july/nonfarm-payrolls-why-farmers-not-included\">explainer\u003c/a> from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “The answer may go back to early America. Highly seasonal, farming has always had a special place in our history — and our hearts.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Farm labor is hard to count because workers include farmers, their family members and hired workers who are often seasonal employees. Oh, and a lot of them lack proper authorization to work in the country, so that makes them harder to account for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plenty of other industries hire seasonal workers and hire undocumented workers, and yet they are counted. Instead, separating farm work from other categories makes it easier for employers to exploit workers and for consumers to build up a protective wall of ignorance. Americans might balk at buying a sweater made by a child in India, but we’re okay eating produce \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101912263/investigation-lax-state-oversight-endangers-californias-child-farmworkers\">picked by children in our own communities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. diets and the economy depend on the food harvested here, but Americans, by and large, prefer to look away and not have to recognize farmworkers to the extent we should.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians take pride in being a state that feeds the rest of the nation with our produce. This state is home to more farmworkers than any other state, with about \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/blog/how-many-farmworkers-are-employed-in-the-united-states/\">800,000 seasonal and full-time workers\u003c/a> each year, representing about \u003ca href=\"https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announcements/california-thanks-its-agricultural-workforce-with-45th-annual-farmworkers-appreciation-breakfast/\">2.2 percent\u003c/a> of the state’s workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There has not been a farmworker movement for decades,” said Miriam Pawel, a journalist who has written two books about the United Farm Workers on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913334/california-confronts-the-cesar-chavez-allegations\">episode of Forum\u003c/a> that aired days after the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> investigation was published. “Declaring something as Farmworker Day instead of Cesar Chavez Day doesn’t really do anything for the farmworkers in the fields who are working in very tough conditions right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farm work has been a job that we regard as something you do if you’re desperate and have no other options, instead of regarding it as a job worthy of dignity and respect because of how hard it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking away from farm work is another way that the labor and economic contributions of immigrants and Latinos are erased. But for many Mexican American families, farm work has served as an accessible stepping stone to achieve the American Dream. Despite the grueling hours and low pay, thousands of families, like my own, have had farmwork in our history.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A few years ago, photos of graduates donning their cap and gowns surrounded by orchards went viral. The graduates in regalia, contrasting with the lush green of fruit trees, were both visually and emotionally striking because farm work and education come off as incompatible, as opposites. The images conveyed the message that leaving the fields equates to progress, but those images also conveyed gratitude for parents who taught their children what hard work looks like and that the returns can be worth so much more than a paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those weeks picking cherries were what we might now call a side hustle, but they were among the most formative experiences of my life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’d usually spend a few weeks doing this while my dad took vacation from his regular job at a potato processing plant. My parents were very explicit that the reason for taking us to the fields was to teach us the value of hard work and what adults had to do to make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lessons from those summers in the fields informed so much of my work ethic and the value of manual labor. I also had the privilege of knowing that my days picking cherries were numbered. I would eventually return to school, and if I earned good grades, my parents told me, I would have other career options. But I also knew there were many people who would spend their whole working lives in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever I buy cherries, I think about how each little bunch was probably picked by someone — a real person, like me — who deserves to be compensated for their hard work. And for that, we have to keep the fight alive and make sure state holidays and words of praise have substance. It means not looking away from farm work and giving that occupation the respect it deserves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "How Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús Help Reimagine ‘All My Sons’ at Berkeley Rep",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have to admit, meeting celebrities is an awkward part of my job as a journalist. Still, when actors Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús came to KQED’s studios recently for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913094/real-life-couple-jimmy-smits-and-wanda-de-jesus-play-husband-and-wife-in-berkeley-reps-all-my-sons\">an interview on Forum\u003c/a> about a production of \u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em> in which they are starring for Berkeley Rep, I wasn’t sure what to expect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smits became a household name in the 1980s thanks to his appearances on hit TV shows, including \u003cem>L.A. Law\u003c/em> and \u003cem>NYPD Blue\u003c/em>. I first noticed him in \u003cem>My Family\u003c/em>, a 1995 hit that is considered a seminal Latino film. De Jesús has starred in dozens of movies and television shows, including \u003cem>CSI: Miami\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Gentefied\u003c/em> and \u003cem>RoboCop 2.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeing Smits, De Jesús, his costar and real-life partner, and the play’s director, David Mendizábal, all hanging out before the interview, I experienced a moment of awe from being in the presence of three powerhouse Latine artists and realized this is what true representation looks like. Mendizábal was the behind-the-scenes mastermind who created a space for two brilliant actors to shine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em> tells the story of a father whose success in business allows him to attain the American Dream, but at a high cost to himself and everyone around him. Legendary playwright Arthur Miller wrote it in 1947 with all-white characters, but when Mendizábal studied it in high school, they imagined a different cast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a play that I always wanted to do since I first read it. I immediately saw my family in it, even though it wasn’t written for them,” they said. “I grew up in a time when I had to see myself in the stories of white people. You like this thing, but you can’t find yourself in it, so how can you imagine yourself in it?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVkmbG4DUUM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their role as associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, Mendizábal, now 41, is in a position to make their vision and version of a story into reality. They reimagined the main characters as Puerto Rican and brought in Black and Latino actors for other roles while keeping the script and characters’ names intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What really piqued my interest was David’s take on what he wanted to say with this particular piece,” Smits said during his interview on Forum. “And, how, on a cultural level, we can brushstroke in the importance of the piece itself in 1947 and add these other touches without changing the basic tenets of the play.”[aside postID=news_12073361 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/DULCETRICOLOR-22-JL-012526-KQED.jpg']Mendizábal grew up in Orlando, Fla., where they were raised by a father from Ecuador and a mother from Puerto Rico. They learned about the art of performing from watching their father, an immigration attorney, defend his clients in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like watching a play, like an actor telling people’s stories,” they said. “It showed me the power of performance and how the power of someone’s story could change lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal’s high school drama program set them on a trajectory to study theater at New York University. They stayed in New York working for various theater companies, including The Movement Theatre Company, where they worked for 15 years before joining Berkeley Rep in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While New York is the epicenter of American theater, Berkeley Rep offered Mendizábal an opportunity to stage larger, more ambitious projects. Their previous productions for Berkeley Rep include \u003cem>Mexodus\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Mother Road\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Sanctuary City\u003c/em>, all of which were written by playwrights of color and featured diverse casts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal’s goal is to produce great art that incorporates their values of promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and anti-racism. They recalled that their mother discouraged them from pursuing a career in theater, not because she didn’t believe in them, but because she couldn’t see a path forward for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075845\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075845\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1429\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02-1536x1097.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Mendizábal, associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, directed the theater company’s production of “All My Sons,” starring Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ben Krantz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal realized early that they didn’t want to be an actor or a writer. Instead, they wanted to focus on working behind the scenes to shape stories and bring productions to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reality in arts and entertainment is who are the ones making the decisions — it’s not the actors,” they said. “There’s real power in being the one who gets to invite people in the room to do the thing they love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it came time to cast \u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em>, Mendizábal immediately thought of Smits, even though it felt aspirational despite Berkeley Rep’s reputation for attracting big-name actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal had seen Smits in \u003cem>Anna in the Tropics\u003c/em> more than 20 years ago in a rare all-Latino cast in a Broadway play. It turned out Smits and De Jesús had costarred in the Berkeley Rep production of \u003cem>The Guys\u003c/em> in 2003, so they were interested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I saw the play with my mother, I was captivated by the entire cast and the storytelling. One of the plotlines involves two brothers who fought in World War II. One brother disappears, and the other returns home and wants to marry his brother’s former girlfriend, which felt very telenovela-like to my mom and me. The play’s themes are universal, Mendizábal said, which is why it makes sense to bring a new lens to the characters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experiencing live theater, especially when it includes actors like Smits and De Jesús, who you are used to seeing on a screen, was awe-inspiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as the entertainment industry continues to sideline Latino actors and stories, meeting Mendizábal, Smits and De Jesús reminded me of the amazing art our people produce and why it’s so important to support them, especially this close to home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s no small feat for Smits, 70, and De Jesús, 68, to have sustained decadeslong careers in acting, a notoriously challenging field, especially for Latine artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a demonization of all things Latino, the culture. Unfortunately, this (presidential) administration has made half of the country afraid of the other and what it represents,” De Jesús told me. “Our culture informs us, but we are creative human beings. And working with David, he comes from the same mindset. He is Latino and proud of it, but his imagination as a creator, he works with people that can think beyond the tropes and beyond the stereotypes and that’s what is so exciting. His future voice is very important in the theater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All My Sons at Berkeley Repertory Theatre runs through March 29 at Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets cost $25-$135.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have to admit, meeting celebrities is an awkward part of my job as a journalist. Still, when actors Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús came to KQED’s studios recently for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913094/real-life-couple-jimmy-smits-and-wanda-de-jesus-play-husband-and-wife-in-berkeley-reps-all-my-sons\">an interview on Forum\u003c/a> about a production of \u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em> in which they are starring for Berkeley Rep, I wasn’t sure what to expect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smits became a household name in the 1980s thanks to his appearances on hit TV shows, including \u003cem>L.A. Law\u003c/em> and \u003cem>NYPD Blue\u003c/em>. I first noticed him in \u003cem>My Family\u003c/em>, a 1995 hit that is considered a seminal Latino film. De Jesús has starred in dozens of movies and television shows, including \u003cem>CSI: Miami\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Gentefied\u003c/em> and \u003cem>RoboCop 2.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeing Smits, De Jesús, his costar and real-life partner, and the play’s director, David Mendizábal, all hanging out before the interview, I experienced a moment of awe from being in the presence of three powerhouse Latine artists and realized this is what true representation looks like. Mendizábal was the behind-the-scenes mastermind who created a space for two brilliant actors to shine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em> tells the story of a father whose success in business allows him to attain the American Dream, but at a high cost to himself and everyone around him. Legendary playwright Arthur Miller wrote it in 1947 with all-white characters, but when Mendizábal studied it in high school, they imagined a different cast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a play that I always wanted to do since I first read it. I immediately saw my family in it, even though it wasn’t written for them,” they said. “I grew up in a time when I had to see myself in the stories of white people. You like this thing, but you can’t find yourself in it, so how can you imagine yourself in it?”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In their role as associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, Mendizábal, now 41, is in a position to make their vision and version of a story into reality. They reimagined the main characters as Puerto Rican and brought in Black and Latino actors for other roles while keeping the script and characters’ names intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What really piqued my interest was David’s take on what he wanted to say with this particular piece,” Smits said during his interview on Forum. “And, how, on a cultural level, we can brushstroke in the importance of the piece itself in 1947 and add these other touches without changing the basic tenets of the play.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mendizábal grew up in Orlando, Fla., where they were raised by a father from Ecuador and a mother from Puerto Rico. They learned about the art of performing from watching their father, an immigration attorney, defend his clients in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like watching a play, like an actor telling people’s stories,” they said. “It showed me the power of performance and how the power of someone’s story could change lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal’s high school drama program set them on a trajectory to study theater at New York University. They stayed in New York working for various theater companies, including The Movement Theatre Company, where they worked for 15 years before joining Berkeley Rep in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While New York is the epicenter of American theater, Berkeley Rep offered Mendizábal an opportunity to stage larger, more ambitious projects. Their previous productions for Berkeley Rep include \u003cem>Mexodus\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Mother Road\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Sanctuary City\u003c/em>, all of which were written by playwrights of color and featured diverse casts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal’s goal is to produce great art that incorporates their values of promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and anti-racism. They recalled that their mother discouraged them from pursuing a career in theater, not because she didn’t believe in them, but because she couldn’t see a path forward for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12075845\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12075845\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1429\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/260309-K-ONDA-MARCH-02-1536x1097.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Mendizábal, associate artistic director at Berkeley Rep, directed the theater company’s production of “All My Sons,” starring Jimmy Smits and Wanda De Jesús. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ben Krantz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal realized early that they didn’t want to be an actor or a writer. Instead, they wanted to focus on working behind the scenes to shape stories and bring productions to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reality in arts and entertainment is who are the ones making the decisions — it’s not the actors,” they said. “There’s real power in being the one who gets to invite people in the room to do the thing they love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it came time to cast \u003cem>All My Sons\u003c/em>, Mendizábal immediately thought of Smits, even though it felt aspirational despite Berkeley Rep’s reputation for attracting big-name actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mendizábal had seen Smits in \u003cem>Anna in the Tropics\u003c/em> more than 20 years ago in a rare all-Latino cast in a Broadway play. It turned out Smits and De Jesús had costarred in the Berkeley Rep production of \u003cem>The Guys\u003c/em> in 2003, so they were interested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I saw the play with my mother, I was captivated by the entire cast and the storytelling. One of the plotlines involves two brothers who fought in World War II. One brother disappears, and the other returns home and wants to marry his brother’s former girlfriend, which felt very telenovela-like to my mom and me. The play’s themes are universal, Mendizábal said, which is why it makes sense to bring a new lens to the characters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experiencing live theater, especially when it includes actors like Smits and De Jesús, who you are used to seeing on a screen, was awe-inspiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as the entertainment industry continues to sideline Latino actors and stories, meeting Mendizábal, Smits and De Jesús reminded me of the amazing art our people produce and why it’s so important to support them, especially this close to home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s no small feat for Smits, 70, and De Jesús, 68, to have sustained decadeslong careers in acting, a notoriously challenging field, especially for Latine artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a demonization of all things Latino, the culture. Unfortunately, this (presidential) administration has made half of the country afraid of the other and what it represents,” De Jesús told me. “Our culture informs us, but we are creative human beings. And working with David, he comes from the same mindset. He is Latino and proud of it, but his imagination as a creator, he works with people that can think beyond the tropes and beyond the stereotypes and that’s what is so exciting. His future voice is very important in the theater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All My Sons at Berkeley Repertory Theatre runs through March 29 at Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets cost $25-$135.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "After Maduro’s Capture, Venezuela Faces Old US Shadows and Uncertain Future",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Stanford professor Alberto Díaz-Cayeros heard about the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, he knew it would \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068663/a-really-confusing-moment-bay-area-venezuelans-struggle-to-make-sense-of-us-attack\">strike a deep chord\u003c/a> in the Latin American psyche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That chord, he said, is rooted in recognition of the United States’ long history of intervening in Latin America, often destabilizing the governments and economies and leaving millions impoverished, exploited and desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with Díaz-Cayeros, a political scientist and former director of Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies, on Jan. 7 after he \u003ca href=\"https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/events/venezuela-after-maduro-democracy-authoritarian-rebalancing-or-chaos\">moderated a panel\u003c/a> titled, “Venezuela After Maduro: Democracy, Authoritarian Rebalancing, or Chaos.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What really struck me, at least about what happened on the night of [the Maduro raid], is less that something radical changed in Venezuela. It’s not obvious what will happen,” Díaz-Cayeros said. “But it’s more that the U.S. displayed this force and was able to say, ‘I can make things go one way or another if I so wish.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I heard the news about Maduro’s capture on KQED when I was driving to the gym. My first thought was: Have the Venezuelan people not suffered enough?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then I thought about bananas — specifically those imported by the United Fruit Company, the storied American corporation that, over the course of several decades and across multiple countries, extracted resources, oppressed workers and helped remove democratically elected leaders from office. As many scholars have documented, the result has been a pattern in which U.S. interests in Latin America have prioritized profits over people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Díaz-Cayeros said it may seem like a stretch to compare current to those of a century ago, but it’s not. President Donald Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine, an early 19th-century foreign policy, to justify U.S. actions in Venezuela.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“U.S. exploits in the Western Hemisphere have routinely caused devastating economic displacement, and that has, in turn, led to the northward migration of mostly poor, often Indigenous or mestizo (racially mixed) people from Latin America.,” wrote Laura E. Gomez, a legal scholar and author of \u003cem>Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism\u003c/em>, in a LinkedIn post. “In other words, we are here because the U.S. was there.”[aside postID=forum_2010101912502 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/NicolasMaduroAP.jpg']For a deeper history of the United Fruit and similar interventions, check out Gomez’s book, as well as \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bookshop.org/p/books/harvest-of-empire-a-history-of-latinos-in-america-second-revised-and-updated-edition-juan-gonzalez/6159d8f69124dfb2?ean=9780143137436&next=t\">Harvest of Empire\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Juan Gonzalez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gomez lays bare a dynamic U.S. officials often avoid acknowledging: When the United States asserts dominance in Latin America, the consequences reverberate at home. Yet instead of reckoning with that reality, we have built an immigration enforcement apparatus that dehumanizes migrants and routinely violates basic rights — including those of people who defend them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is notably different now is that in the past, U.S. companies and investors often led the push into Latin America and then lobbied Washington to intervene. Under the Trump administration, those roles appear reversed. The administration is using military force to secure American interests, said Miguel Tinker Salas, professor emeritus of Latin American History at Pomona College and author of \u003cem>Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know and The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure could take years, even a decade. The United States now produces more oil than it consumes and is a net exporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about power, this is about regime change, this is about access to oil, this about reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean and Central America,” Tinker Salas told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069390\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Government supporters wave a Venezuelan flag during a demonstration on Jan. 8 in Caracas, Venezuela, five days after the United States had launched a large-scale military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. \u003ccite>((Carlos Becerra/Getty Images))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It can be easy to dismiss what is happening in Latin America as something happening in a distant place with little personal relevance, especially for Americans without family ties there. But the connections are real — and consequential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question is not whether the U.S. will see an influx of Venezuelan migrants. Roughly one in four Venezuelans — about 8 million people — have left the country over the past decade, most settling in other Latin American countries, primarily Colombia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants lived in the United States in 2023, making up less than 2% of the nation’s 47.8 million immigrants, \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/venezuelan-immigrants-united-states\">according to the Migration Policy Institute\u003c/a>. An estimated 3% of Venezuelan immigrants lived in California. Trump had called for \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/2026/01/06/venezuelan-immigrants-tps-maduro-deportations\">deporting 600,000 Venezuelans\u003c/a> who lived in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger question is whether U.S. involvement will help create conditions that allow Venezuelans to return home to stability, prosperity and economic growth — or whether the country’s vast wealth will primarily benefit American corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Venezuela’s economy has been so severely damaged that even modest foreign investment could generate growth, making it attractive to investors, Díaz-Cayeros said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just about the oil. It’s about all the business opportunities that open up,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Stanford panel, Hector Fuentes, a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, said that Venezuela is not profiting off its oil reserves, raising the question of what the country stands to lose if the United States takes its oil, as Trump has promised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the Trump administration has framed its actions as benefiting the U.S., with little emphasis on ensuring Venezuela becomes a stable, prosperous democracy. The outcome appears more like a hoped-for byproduct than a central goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are celebrating because there’s a sense of relief. They think the page has been turned, but the page has not been turned,” Tinker Salas said. “I’m Venezuelan-American. I don’t see huge numbers of Venezuelans returning to Venezuela in the short run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hope Maduro’s exit marks a turning point that bucks history. It’s possible, but we won’t know for years or decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, I suggest reading up on U.S. political and economic interventions in Latin America. It’s a history that has shaped many of our lives and one that all Americans should understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Stanford professor Alberto Díaz-Cayeros heard about the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, he knew it would \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12068663/a-really-confusing-moment-bay-area-venezuelans-struggle-to-make-sense-of-us-attack\">strike a deep chord\u003c/a> in the Latin American psyche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That chord, he said, is rooted in recognition of the United States’ long history of intervening in Latin America, often destabilizing the governments and economies and leaving millions impoverished, exploited and desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with Díaz-Cayeros, a political scientist and former director of Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies, on Jan. 7 after he \u003ca href=\"https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/events/venezuela-after-maduro-democracy-authoritarian-rebalancing-or-chaos\">moderated a panel\u003c/a> titled, “Venezuela After Maduro: Democracy, Authoritarian Rebalancing, or Chaos.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What really struck me, at least about what happened on the night of [the Maduro raid], is less that something radical changed in Venezuela. It’s not obvious what will happen,” Díaz-Cayeros said. “But it’s more that the U.S. displayed this force and was able to say, ‘I can make things go one way or another if I so wish.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I heard the news about Maduro’s capture on KQED when I was driving to the gym. My first thought was: Have the Venezuelan people not suffered enough?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then I thought about bananas — specifically those imported by the United Fruit Company, the storied American corporation that, over the course of several decades and across multiple countries, extracted resources, oppressed workers and helped remove democratically elected leaders from office. As many scholars have documented, the result has been a pattern in which U.S. interests in Latin America have prioritized profits over people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Díaz-Cayeros said it may seem like a stretch to compare current to those of a century ago, but it’s not. President Donald Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine, an early 19th-century foreign policy, to justify U.S. actions in Venezuela.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“U.S. exploits in the Western Hemisphere have routinely caused devastating economic displacement, and that has, in turn, led to the northward migration of mostly poor, often Indigenous or mestizo (racially mixed) people from Latin America.,” wrote Laura E. Gomez, a legal scholar and author of \u003cem>Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism\u003c/em>, in a LinkedIn post. “In other words, we are here because the U.S. was there.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For a deeper history of the United Fruit and similar interventions, check out Gomez’s book, as well as \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://bookshop.org/p/books/harvest-of-empire-a-history-of-latinos-in-america-second-revised-and-updated-edition-juan-gonzalez/6159d8f69124dfb2?ean=9780143137436&next=t\">Harvest of Empire\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Juan Gonzalez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gomez lays bare a dynamic U.S. officials often avoid acknowledging: When the United States asserts dominance in Latin America, the consequences reverberate at home. Yet instead of reckoning with that reality, we have built an immigration enforcement apparatus that dehumanizes migrants and routinely violates basic rights — including those of people who defend them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is notably different now is that in the past, U.S. companies and investors often led the push into Latin America and then lobbied Washington to intervene. Under the Trump administration, those roles appear reversed. The administration is using military force to secure American interests, said Miguel Tinker Salas, professor emeritus of Latin American History at Pomona College and author of \u003cem>Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know and The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure could take years, even a decade. The United States now produces more oil than it consumes and is a net exporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about power, this is about regime change, this is about access to oil, this about reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean and Central America,” Tinker Salas told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069390\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2254673550-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Government supporters wave a Venezuelan flag during a demonstration on Jan. 8 in Caracas, Venezuela, five days after the United States had launched a large-scale military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. \u003ccite>((Carlos Becerra/Getty Images))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It can be easy to dismiss what is happening in Latin America as something happening in a distant place with little personal relevance, especially for Americans without family ties there. But the connections are real — and consequential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question is not whether the U.S. will see an influx of Venezuelan migrants. Roughly one in four Venezuelans — about 8 million people — have left the country over the past decade, most settling in other Latin American countries, primarily Colombia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants lived in the United States in 2023, making up less than 2% of the nation’s 47.8 million immigrants, \u003ca href=\"https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/venezuelan-immigrants-united-states\">according to the Migration Policy Institute\u003c/a>. An estimated 3% of Venezuelan immigrants lived in California. Trump had called for \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/2026/01/06/venezuelan-immigrants-tps-maduro-deportations\">deporting 600,000 Venezuelans\u003c/a> who lived in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The larger question is whether U.S. involvement will help create conditions that allow Venezuelans to return home to stability, prosperity and economic growth — or whether the country’s vast wealth will primarily benefit American corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Venezuela’s economy has been so severely damaged that even modest foreign investment could generate growth, making it attractive to investors, Díaz-Cayeros said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just about the oil. It’s about all the business opportunities that open up,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Stanford panel, Hector Fuentes, a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, said that Venezuela is not profiting off its oil reserves, raising the question of what the country stands to lose if the United States takes its oil, as Trump has promised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the Trump administration has framed its actions as benefiting the U.S., with little emphasis on ensuring Venezuela becomes a stable, prosperous democracy. The outcome appears more like a hoped-for byproduct than a central goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are celebrating because there’s a sense of relief. They think the page has been turned, but the page has not been turned,” Tinker Salas said. “I’m Venezuelan-American. I don’t see huge numbers of Venezuelans returning to Venezuela in the short run.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hope Maduro’s exit marks a turning point that bucks history. It’s possible, but we won’t know for years or decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, I suggest reading up on U.S. political and economic interventions in Latin America. It’s a history that has shaped many of our lives and one that all Americans should understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I catch up with Bay Area masa mogul Emmanuel Galvan, he is about to enter his busiest time of year: the December tamalada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tamales are available year-round, but they hold special meaning and significance during the holiday season for many Latine families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Galvan, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13933138/bolita-masa-berkeley-pop-up-farmers-market-tetelas-tamales\">founder of Berkeley-based Bolita Masa\u003c/a>, sells pre-mixed masa — dough for making tamales — and ready-made tamales in both savory and sweet varieties made with his company’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht1NVEHLgCs&list=TLGGjvIt_pyBuwsxMDEyMjAyNQ&index=7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signature heirloom corn masa from Mexico.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For December, Bolita expanded its workforce from three people, including Galvan, to nine workers who will make close to 6,000 tamales by hand. The term tamalada refers to making tamales as a group and turning it into a festive occasion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always found it so important to make food with your parents, your grandparents, your cousins,” Galvan said. “That’s how you kind of share information, and you retain kind of a familial culture. And it’s also how you develop family traditions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tortilla cooks on a comal at Bolita Masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The company tests masa texture and hydration throughout the day to ensure dough consistency. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the surface, tamales are rather simple: corn dough stuffed with a filling — or not — placed in a wrapper of some kind and then steamed. They date back thousands of years in Mesoamerica and appear in a multitude of varieties throughout Latin America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I searched for tamale vendors in the Bay Area, I found options from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador that vary in fillings, size and toppings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept may be simple, but the execution is not. As Galvan pointed out, tamales require a lot of work to prepare all the ingredients and assemble them, which is where the tamalada comes in.[aside postID=news_12062734 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-38.jpg']“The association with the holidays has to do with the fact that tamales require so much labor,” Galvan said. “You have your whole family together around the holidays or a big celebration, so you get everyone together and then you use as many people as possible to help you make all these tamales. You’re doing something that takes time and you’re chatting and catching up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have spent many Christmas Eves on masa duty, donning one of my mom’s plaid aprons, slathering a pre-soaked corn leaf in masa and handing it to the next person to fill and fold. Sometimes I’ve used a spoon or spatula, but my favorite hack involves lugging out my mom’s wooden tortilla press to spread a ball of masa into an even surface area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For several years, my older sister hosted a tamalada at her home in Seattle, where dozens of friends and family would join in assembling hundreds of tamales and then taking home their own stash, because it’s fair to expect some compensation for hard work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The party became my sister’s signature annual event, one that friends would plan for months in advance to attend. Many invitees weren’t of Mexican descent, but they loved partaking in the tradition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">J. Embry pours heirloom corn into a large pot for cooking before it is ground into masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. Bolita Masa prepares dough from scratch using traditional ingredients and methods. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most important thing about tamaladas, my sister told me recently, is to pass on recipes, techniques and knowledge to younger generations. Many young people balk at the amount of work it takes to make a pot of tamales, but the tias and abuelitas families rely on to make tamales and pozole won’t be around forever, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bolita starts taking orders for tamales the day before Thanksgiving and typically sells out within a week, Galvan said. Customers will pick up orders at various pop-up sales held at different locations throughout the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s menu includes savory options such as pork en salsa verde, turkey in mole negro, braised beef shoulder barbacoa with potato, and squash with black beans. The sweet versions — which Galvan says pair well with coffee on winter mornings — include chocolate and quince. Bolita sells a half dozen for $30 to $48, or about $5.50 to $8 each.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People get a little bit of a sticker shock initially,” Galvan said of his prices. “Our tamales are made of the best possible maize in the world. And I’m not saying that lightly. It’s always a little bit of a conversation when people ask how much they are, but then once they try them, you know they’re worth it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12066062 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Bolita Masa employee mixes freshly ground masa by hand on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The dough is made from heirloom corn and prepared daily during the December rush. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I recently saw a meme on social media that said, “Instead of Black Friday deals, could tamales be $10 a dozen again?” That price was normal about 20 years ago — and ignores the skyrocketing cost of ingredients and labor in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people expect tamales, like many other types of Mexican dishes or street food, to be cheap, Galvan said. But that’s not possible if you are paying your workers a living wage and using top-quality ingredients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of it is people’s internalized racism of what a thing should cost because they’ve seen it made cheaply before. But they should really be asking themselves, is that person able to pay themselves?” Galvan said. “I’m not trying to shame people into paying more or something, but it’s really thinking about the whole system — like the labor at every level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bolita’s mission is less about charging as much as possible and more about working with vendors and family farms in Mexico that are preserving heirloom varieties of corn that might otherwise disappear. Hosting your own tamalada offers a great — and more economical — alternative if you have the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dried chiles, labeled and stacked in clear bins, line a shelf at Bolita Masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The chiles are used to flavor tamales and masa-based dishes produced during the holiday season. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After talking with Galvan, I felt more inspired to embrace the comfort of tamales this holiday season, whether that means holding my own tamalada while my mother is in town or supporting local makers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Months of harsh immigration enforcement have taken an economic and psychological toll on many Latino businesses and community members this past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our indigenous ancestors created tamales millennia ago, leaving us a gift that encapsulates culture, tradition, love, family and connection. That’s what I — and I’m sure many others — am craving more than anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Here are some tips for hosting your own tamalada:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Consult experts:\u003c/strong> Sit down with the tamale maker in your family ahead of time and collect all the tips and information you can. You can also find countless tamale tutorials online.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Preparation is key:\u003c/strong> Assembling and prepping ingredients takes time. Stores sell many of the main ingredients ready for cooking, including pre-mixed dough.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Involve as much help as you can:\u003c/strong> The purpose of a tamalada is to build a connection with your family and community. The more hands available, the easier it will be to make tamales. Just make sure everyone has a clear task.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Galvan’s tips:\u003c/strong> Keep your masa cold while making tamales, or it won’t stick to the wrapper. Don’t overstuff each tamale — make sure the dough fully encloses the filling to avoid spills during cooking.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Make it fun:\u003c/strong> Enjoy holiday-inspired drinks like ponche, a Mexican-style punch made with fresh and dried fruits and cinnamon. Play music. Reminisce. Ask questions. Make the type of memories you’ll want to remember years from now.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I catch up with Bay Area masa mogul Emmanuel Galvan, he is about to enter his busiest time of year: the December tamalada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tamales are available year-round, but they hold special meaning and significance during the holiday season for many Latine families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Galvan, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13933138/bolita-masa-berkeley-pop-up-farmers-market-tetelas-tamales\">founder of Berkeley-based Bolita Masa\u003c/a>, sells pre-mixed masa — dough for making tamales — and ready-made tamales in both savory and sweet varieties made with his company’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht1NVEHLgCs&list=TLGGjvIt_pyBuwsxMDEyMjAyNQ&index=7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signature heirloom corn masa from Mexico.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For December, Bolita expanded its workforce from three people, including Galvan, to nine workers who will make close to 6,000 tamales by hand. The term tamalada refers to making tamales as a group and turning it into a festive occasion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always found it so important to make food with your parents, your grandparents, your cousins,” Galvan said. “That’s how you kind of share information, and you retain kind of a familial culture. And it’s also how you develop family traditions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-13-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tortilla cooks on a comal at Bolita Masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The company tests masa texture and hydration throughout the day to ensure dough consistency. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the surface, tamales are rather simple: corn dough stuffed with a filling — or not — placed in a wrapper of some kind and then steamed. They date back thousands of years in Mesoamerica and appear in a multitude of varieties throughout Latin America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I searched for tamale vendors in the Bay Area, I found options from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador that vary in fillings, size and toppings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept may be simple, but the execution is not. As Galvan pointed out, tamales require a lot of work to prepare all the ingredients and assemble them, which is where the tamalada comes in.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The association with the holidays has to do with the fact that tamales require so much labor,” Galvan said. “You have your whole family together around the holidays or a big celebration, so you get everyone together and then you use as many people as possible to help you make all these tamales. You’re doing something that takes time and you’re chatting and catching up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have spent many Christmas Eves on masa duty, donning one of my mom’s plaid aprons, slathering a pre-soaked corn leaf in masa and handing it to the next person to fill and fold. Sometimes I’ve used a spoon or spatula, but my favorite hack involves lugging out my mom’s wooden tortilla press to spread a ball of masa into an even surface area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For several years, my older sister hosted a tamalada at her home in Seattle, where dozens of friends and family would join in assembling hundreds of tamales and then taking home their own stash, because it’s fair to expect some compensation for hard work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The party became my sister’s signature annual event, one that friends would plan for months in advance to attend. Many invitees weren’t of Mexican descent, but they loved partaking in the tradition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066060\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-9-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">J. Embry pours heirloom corn into a large pot for cooking before it is ground into masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. Bolita Masa prepares dough from scratch using traditional ingredients and methods. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most important thing about tamaladas, my sister told me recently, is to pass on recipes, techniques and knowledge to younger generations. Many young people balk at the amount of work it takes to make a pot of tamales, but the tias and abuelitas families rely on to make tamales and pozole won’t be around forever, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bolita starts taking orders for tamales the day before Thanksgiving and typically sells out within a week, Galvan said. Customers will pick up orders at various pop-up sales held at different locations throughout the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s menu includes savory options such as pork en salsa verde, turkey in mole negro, braised beef shoulder barbacoa with potato, and squash with black beans. The sweet versions — which Galvan says pair well with coffee on winter mornings — include chocolate and quince. Bolita sells a half dozen for $30 to $48, or about $5.50 to $8 each.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People get a little bit of a sticker shock initially,” Galvan said of his prices. “Our tamales are made of the best possible maize in the world. And I’m not saying that lightly. It’s always a little bit of a conversation when people ask how much they are, but then once they try them, you know they’re worth it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066062\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12066062 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-12-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Bolita Masa employee mixes freshly ground masa by hand on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The dough is made from heirloom corn and prepared daily during the December rush. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I recently saw a meme on social media that said, “Instead of Black Friday deals, could tamales be $10 a dozen again?” That price was normal about 20 years ago — and ignores the skyrocketing cost of ingredients and labor in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people expect tamales, like many other types of Mexican dishes or street food, to be cheap, Galvan said. But that’s not possible if you are paying your workers a living wage and using top-quality ingredients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of it is people’s internalized racism of what a thing should cost because they’ve seen it made cheaply before. But they should really be asking themselves, is that person able to pay themselves?” Galvan said. “I’m not trying to shame people into paying more or something, but it’s really thinking about the whole system — like the labor at every level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bolita’s mission is less about charging as much as possible and more about working with vendors and family farms in Mexico that are preserving heirloom varieties of corn that might otherwise disappear. Hosting your own tamalada offers a great — and more economical — alternative if you have the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12066061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12066061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/20251203_K_ONDA_DECEMBER_GH-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dried chiles, labeled and stacked in clear bins, line a shelf at Bolita Masa on Dec. 3, 2025, in Berkeley. The chiles are used to flavor tamales and masa-based dishes produced during the holiday season. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After talking with Galvan, I felt more inspired to embrace the comfort of tamales this holiday season, whether that means holding my own tamalada while my mother is in town or supporting local makers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Months of harsh immigration enforcement have taken an economic and psychological toll on many Latino businesses and community members this past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our indigenous ancestors created tamales millennia ago, leaving us a gift that encapsulates culture, tradition, love, family and connection. That’s what I — and I’m sure many others — am craving more than anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Here are some tips for hosting your own tamalada:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Consult experts:\u003c/strong> Sit down with the tamale maker in your family ahead of time and collect all the tips and information you can. You can also find countless tamale tutorials online.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Preparation is key:\u003c/strong> Assembling and prepping ingredients takes time. Stores sell many of the main ingredients ready for cooking, including pre-mixed dough.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Involve as much help as you can:\u003c/strong> The purpose of a tamalada is to build a connection with your family and community. The more hands available, the easier it will be to make tamales. Just make sure everyone has a clear task.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Galvan’s tips:\u003c/strong> Keep your masa cold while making tamales, or it won’t stick to the wrapper. Don’t overstuff each tamale — make sure the dough fully encloses the filling to avoid spills during cooking.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Make it fun:\u003c/strong> Enjoy holiday-inspired drinks like ponche, a Mexican-style punch made with fresh and dried fruits and cinnamon. Play music. Reminisce. Ask questions. Make the type of memories you’ll want to remember years from now.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-californians-are-reclaiming-dia-de-los-muertos-as-an-act-of-cultural-resistance",
"title": "How Californians Are Reclaiming Día De Los Muertos as an Act of Cultural Resistance",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had planned to spend Nov. 1, a Saturday, cleaning and organizing my house. Then my friend Susie Sanchez-Young, owner of The Designing Chica, texted me to suggest I come to a Día de los Muertos event in Lafayette, a mere 15 minutes from my home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That afternoon, my kids and I drove up a windy hill to find parking in Oakmont Cemetery, which sits on a serene and picturesque hill offering amazing views of the north Interstate 680 corridor. We were there not to visit a particular departed loved one, but all of them — the dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event featured some elements I’ve come to expect from a Mexican-themed lineup: performances by a mariachi, a folkloric dance company and traditional Aztec dancers.\u003cbr>\nIt was lively without feeling overly cheery, which I appreciated because it provided a sense of community among everyone who wanted to soak in culture, tradition and sacred rituals of mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I did not grow up observing Día de los Muertos as anything more than the Mexican version of All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. I don’t build an elaborate altar. But this year, I found myself leaning into Día de los Muertos as an act of honoring loved ones as well as resisting assimilation, embracing artistic expression and reclaiming my Indigenous heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The practice of honoring the deceased stretches back thousands of years to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Yet the rituals and iconography associated with this observation have modern roots in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco artist and curator \u003ca href=\"https://rioyanez.com/\">Rio Yañez\u003c/a> grew up immersed in Día de los Muertos. His father, the late Rene Yañez, co-founded the altar exhibits and procession in San Francisco’s Mission District in the 1970s and ‘80s that are credited with starting the Día de los Muertos celebrations on the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063630\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yobani Nava Chavez made an altar for her son, Eduardo Yobani Nava Chavez, a former teacher, at the Oakland Día de los Muertos Festival in Fruitvale in 2023. The altar is decorated with masks that his former students made by hand. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The holiday became a touchstone for the Chicano movement as a way to assert cultural identity and resistance. Still, Rio Yañez said his father, who was born in Mexico, was called out for not being Chicano enough and for reimagining traditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I grew up with my dad being constantly reminded that he was failing a purity test for Day of the Dead,” he said during \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911846/how-dia-de-los-muertos-continues-to-evolve\">a show I produced for KQED’s Forum\u003c/a>. “As a Chicano, as a Mexican American, adaptation, reinvention, reinterpretation — that is always what (Día de los Muertos) has been about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yañez co-curated an exhibit at SOMArts called Día de Los Muertos 2025: We Love You that featured female and nonbinary artists presenting different interpretations of an altar. He noted that altars for public view often include political statements, call attention to issues and challenge the status quo.[aside postID=news_12059504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/20250930_HISPANICSERVINGINSTITUTIONS_GC-7-KQED.jpg']I’m now used to seeing jack-o’-lanterns next to Catrinas in many American homes, signaling the holiday’s place in mainstream America. The irony is that while many non-Latinos now embrace Día de los Muertos, they often focus more on the aesthetics and festive aspects instead of seeing it as a channel for grief, remembrance and connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can stop Mattel from making Catrina Barbies,” Yañez told me. “Where we can make a difference and have some control is in what we can do as a community and for each other and how we engage with each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Día de los Muertos has turned into a cultural phenomenon because it’s a rare opportunity to talk about the dead outside of a funeral context, said Luisa Navarro, a Texas native who runs a blog and gift shop in Brooklyn called \u003ca href=\"https://mexicoinmypocket.com/\">Mexico in My Pocket\u003c/a> and recently released a book titled Mexico’s Day of the Dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a very inviting culture. We have room at the table for everyone, but it’s important to educate yourself and understand the holiday,” she told me. “I try to avoid shaming people and policing people who don’t understand. Instead, I tell stories and educate people about the meaning and origin.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The essence of the holiday remains remembering deceased loved ones, but observing this practice has also served as an act of resistance and resilience since the time Spanish colonizers failed to stamp it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m on this mission to share our stories, to spread awareness because there’s so many misconceptions and stereotypes about our culture,” Navarro said. “It is so, so, so beautiful how the Chicano movement and how our community has continued to amplify our stories, to keep our traditions alive and to keep our duality alive. And I’m so so proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063326\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A demonstrator holds a sign reading “Santuario: Manteniendo Familias Unidas” (“Sanctuary: Keeping Families United”) during the Faith in Action “Walking Our Faith” vigil outside the San Francisco Immigration Court on Nov. 6, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This year has been a psychologically difficult year for immigrant communities that are under attack by the Trump administration, which has used brutal tactics to detain immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I reflected on this, I thought of how Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, founder and CEO of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, a nonprofit that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021877/california-nonprofit-empowers-half-moon-bay-farmworkers-healing-resources\">serves the immigrant community\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay, uses culture as a cure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been especially important during the last couple of years of COVID, where there was a lot of loss. And with our recent, two years ago, the mass shooting of our seven farm workers, the Día de los Muertos and the altar gave us a place to come together as a community to grieve and to remember and to not forget,” she said during the Forum show. “It’s a portal for mental health. It’s also a portal for well-being and resistance and community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at Oakmont Cemetery, I stood in a long line with my 6-year-old daughter, who waited patiently for close to an hour to have her face painted in the Catrina style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watched the Aztec dancers light copal, a tree resin that has been used for rituals for thousands of years, and perform a ceremonial dance. I explained that the Indigenous people have populated Mexico for centuries and started the very practice we took part in that day. I then explained that after the Spanish arrived, the cultures mixed, and continue evolving into the version we have today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later that evening, we lit a candle in front of a display of photographs of deceased loved ones and talked about who they were. Among the collection are \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2021/12/15/how-vicente-fernandez-earned-appreciation-for-rancheros-like-my-dad/\">photos of my dad\u003c/a>, the only grandparent my children have not met because he passed away before they were born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They asked me about his favorite foods and what he was like. It was a simple observation of Día de los Muertos, and one small way to keep his memory alive for the next generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had planned to spend Nov. 1, a Saturday, cleaning and organizing my house. Then my friend Susie Sanchez-Young, owner of The Designing Chica, texted me to suggest I come to a Día de los Muertos event in Lafayette, a mere 15 minutes from my home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That afternoon, my kids and I drove up a windy hill to find parking in Oakmont Cemetery, which sits on a serene and picturesque hill offering amazing views of the north Interstate 680 corridor. We were there not to visit a particular departed loved one, but all of them — the dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event featured some elements I’ve come to expect from a Mexican-themed lineup: performances by a mariachi, a folkloric dance company and traditional Aztec dancers.\u003cbr>\nIt was lively without feeling overly cheery, which I appreciated because it provided a sense of community among everyone who wanted to soak in culture, tradition and sacred rituals of mourning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I did not grow up observing Día de los Muertos as anything more than the Mexican version of All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. I don’t build an elaborate altar. But this year, I found myself leaning into Día de los Muertos as an act of honoring loved ones as well as resisting assimilation, embracing artistic expression and reclaiming my Indigenous heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The practice of honoring the deceased stretches back thousands of years to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Yet the rituals and iconography associated with this observation have modern roots in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco artist and curator \u003ca href=\"https://rioyanez.com/\">Rio Yañez\u003c/a> grew up immersed in Día de los Muertos. His father, the late Rene Yañez, co-founded the altar exhibits and procession in San Francisco’s Mission District in the 1970s and ‘80s that are credited with starting the Día de los Muertos celebrations on the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063630\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/231029_OAKDiadelosMuertosFestival_EG-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yobani Nava Chavez made an altar for her son, Eduardo Yobani Nava Chavez, a former teacher, at the Oakland Día de los Muertos Festival in Fruitvale in 2023. The altar is decorated with masks that his former students made by hand. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The holiday became a touchstone for the Chicano movement as a way to assert cultural identity and resistance. Still, Rio Yañez said his father, who was born in Mexico, was called out for not being Chicano enough and for reimagining traditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I grew up with my dad being constantly reminded that he was failing a purity test for Day of the Dead,” he said during \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911846/how-dia-de-los-muertos-continues-to-evolve\">a show I produced for KQED’s Forum\u003c/a>. “As a Chicano, as a Mexican American, adaptation, reinvention, reinterpretation — that is always what (Día de los Muertos) has been about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yañez co-curated an exhibit at SOMArts called Día de Los Muertos 2025: We Love You that featured female and nonbinary artists presenting different interpretations of an altar. He noted that altars for public view often include political statements, call attention to issues and challenge the status quo.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I’m now used to seeing jack-o’-lanterns next to Catrinas in many American homes, signaling the holiday’s place in mainstream America. The irony is that while many non-Latinos now embrace Día de los Muertos, they often focus more on the aesthetics and festive aspects instead of seeing it as a channel for grief, remembrance and connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can stop Mattel from making Catrina Barbies,” Yañez told me. “Where we can make a difference and have some control is in what we can do as a community and for each other and how we engage with each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Día de los Muertos has turned into a cultural phenomenon because it’s a rare opportunity to talk about the dead outside of a funeral context, said Luisa Navarro, a Texas native who runs a blog and gift shop in Brooklyn called \u003ca href=\"https://mexicoinmypocket.com/\">Mexico in My Pocket\u003c/a> and recently released a book titled Mexico’s Day of the Dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a very inviting culture. We have room at the table for everyone, but it’s important to educate yourself and understand the holiday,” she told me. “I try to avoid shaming people and policing people who don’t understand. Instead, I tell stories and educate people about the meaning and origin.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The essence of the holiday remains remembering deceased loved ones, but observing this practice has also served as an act of resistance and resilience since the time Spanish colonizers failed to stamp it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m on this mission to share our stories, to spread awareness because there’s so many misconceptions and stereotypes about our culture,” Navarro said. “It is so, so, so beautiful how the Chicano movement and how our community has continued to amplify our stories, to keep our traditions alive and to keep our duality alive. And I’m so so proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12063326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12063326\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/20251106_ICE-VIGIL_GH-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A demonstrator holds a sign reading “Santuario: Manteniendo Familias Unidas” (“Sanctuary: Keeping Families United”) during the Faith in Action “Walking Our Faith” vigil outside the San Francisco Immigration Court on Nov. 6, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This year has been a psychologically difficult year for immigrant communities that are under attack by the Trump administration, which has used brutal tactics to detain immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I reflected on this, I thought of how Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, founder and CEO of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, a nonprofit that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021877/california-nonprofit-empowers-half-moon-bay-farmworkers-healing-resources\">serves the immigrant community\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay, uses culture as a cure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been especially important during the last couple of years of COVID, where there was a lot of loss. And with our recent, two years ago, the mass shooting of our seven farm workers, the Día de los Muertos and the altar gave us a place to come together as a community to grieve and to remember and to not forget,” she said during the Forum show. “It’s a portal for mental health. It’s also a portal for well-being and resistance and community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at Oakmont Cemetery, I stood in a long line with my 6-year-old daughter, who waited patiently for close to an hour to have her face painted in the Catrina style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watched the Aztec dancers light copal, a tree resin that has been used for rituals for thousands of years, and perform a ceremonial dance. I explained that the Indigenous people have populated Mexico for centuries and started the very practice we took part in that day. I then explained that after the Spanish arrived, the cultures mixed, and continue evolving into the version we have today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later that evening, we lit a candle in front of a display of photographs of deceased loved ones and talked about who they were. Among the collection are \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2021/12/15/how-vicente-fernandez-earned-appreciation-for-rancheros-like-my-dad/\">photos of my dad\u003c/a>, the only grandparent my children have not met because he passed away before they were born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They asked me about his favorite foods and what he was like. It was a simple observation of Día de los Muertos, and one small way to keep his memory alive for the next generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Bay Area Empanada Makers Celebrate Chilean, Argentine Traditions",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">\u003cstrong>Click here to subscribe\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1995, Paula Tejeda left her native New York for San Francisco. She and her then-husband found themselves unemployed and scraping by selling sandwiches out of a basket in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she received a call that changed her life. An acquaintance told her she needed to buy Chile Lindo, a Chilean restaurant that had operated for decades at the corner of Capp and 16th Streets. Despite knowing nothing about the restaurant business or having any money, she negotiated a price of $10,000 and crossed her fingers she could secure a loan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing I knew from day one is that I wanted to build a brand, something that represented Chile, Chilean artists, the food and South America,” said Tejeda, whose parents had immigrated from Chile to New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to have a much broader menu, but what stuck were the empanadas,” Tejeda said. “The empanada became my brand. I became known as La Empanada, and then I became known as The Empanada Lady, and now as The Girl from Empanada.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chile Lindo has survived in different iterations for more than 40 years — remarkable for a Chilean eatery in the Mission, home to a robust Mexican and Central American community but not a sizable Chilean population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But empanadas have a universal appeal. I explored the history and cultural significance of empanadas while co-hosting an \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/v0rs6xy4rsU?si=5IJNYyQFbA6pXQF3\">event for KQED called Empanada Showdown\u003c/a>, which celebrated three Bay Area empanada makers: Tejeda; Grace Lontoc, owner of Harinas, a Livermore-based Filipino panaderya; and Joseph Ahearne, owner of El Porteño Empanadas, an Argentine-style eatery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides rice and beans, empanadas may be one of few dishes you’ll find in almost all of Latin America, in savory or sweet versions, baked or fried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055092\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paula Tejeda, center, owns Chile Lindo, a Mission District restaurant known for its Chilean-style empanadas. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The word empanada roughly translates to “covered in bread” in Spanish. The concept of a filled pastry or bread pocket shows up worldwide: turnovers in the United States, pasties in Ireland, samosas in India.[aside postID=news_12043304 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ049-KQED.jpg']The empanadas I grew up with were sweet, fruit-filled pastries common in Mexican panaderias — still my go-to pan dulce. I always ask panaderos if they have any de calabasa, or pumpkin, a flavor I can’t resist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Tejeda took over Chile Lindo, some Chileans told her, “Nobody even knows where Chile is, and nobody knows empanadas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her response: “They’re never going to know it unless we introduce it.” She also expanded her menu to reflect the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to have something that represented the Mexican community,” Tejeda said. “I had a cheese jalapeño, cheddar mozzarella jalapeño and a ham and cheese cheddar mozzarella jalapeño. You have to navigate where you stick with the culture, but you’re also part of the neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chile Lindo was recently named a San Francisco Legacy Business, a designation for businesses that have existed for more than 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been able to prove to the Chileans that Chile Lindo had a place in San Francisco,” Tejeda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055093\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055093\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joseph Ahearne owns El Porteño Empanadas, an Argentine-style eatery with locations in San Francisco and Napa. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ahearne grew up in Napa, where his mother, an immigrant from Argentina, ran a restaurant while raising five kids alone after her husband passed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My mom would make empanadas for any special occasion. It’s not an easy process. It takes a couple days,” Ahearne said. “When she would make them, she would never let us taste any of the fillings, taste them before whatever the occasion was. The anticipation was just torture. It was just waiting and waiting. So, I really associate empanadas with that big reward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-2000s, Ahearne and his wife, Teresa, were raising young children and thinking of starting a food business to have flexible schedules. They landed on empanadas, and El Porteño was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was in 2008, the financial crisis was a great time to leave everything and start a business — it was crazy,” he said. “The Twitter street food movement was happening. We kind of caught on a little bit because of that, and we kind of rode Paula’s coattails, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055090\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055090\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Argentine-style empanada from El Porteño Empanadas, which has locations in San Francisco and Napa. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>El Porteño — meaning someone from the port, a reference to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires — started at farmers markets and food festivals, promoted on Twitter when food vendors advertised their locations in real time. Then came wholesale orders from Whole Foods. In 2010, the team secured a spot in the Ferry Building. Now El Porteño has a second San Francisco location and one in Napa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The menu has expanded to more than a dozen varieties, including the traditional Argentine empanada, similar to the Chilean version with beef, onions, raisins, olives and hard-boiled egg. Other options include chicken, spinach, chard, ham and cheese and sweet varieties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empanadas sell well because they are self-contained, portable and easy to reheat, Ahearne said. They are best made in large batches, he said, because of the labor-intensive process: making the dough, preparing the fillings, assembling and baking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Running El Porteño “is about sustenance, but it’s also about a way of life,” Ahearne said. “It’s about family and celebration for me and definitely my mom’s heritage, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">\u003cstrong>Click here to subscribe\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1995, Paula Tejeda left her native New York for San Francisco. She and her then-husband found themselves unemployed and scraping by selling sandwiches out of a basket in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she received a call that changed her life. An acquaintance told her she needed to buy Chile Lindo, a Chilean restaurant that had operated for decades at the corner of Capp and 16th Streets. Despite knowing nothing about the restaurant business or having any money, she negotiated a price of $10,000 and crossed her fingers she could secure a loan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing I knew from day one is that I wanted to build a brand, something that represented Chile, Chilean artists, the food and South America,” said Tejeda, whose parents had immigrated from Chile to New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to have a much broader menu, but what stuck were the empanadas,” Tejeda said. “The empanada became my brand. I became known as La Empanada, and then I became known as The Empanada Lady, and now as The Girl from Empanada.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chile Lindo has survived in different iterations for more than 40 years — remarkable for a Chilean eatery in the Mission, home to a robust Mexican and Central American community but not a sizable Chilean population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But empanadas have a universal appeal. I explored the history and cultural significance of empanadas while co-hosting an \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/v0rs6xy4rsU?si=5IJNYyQFbA6pXQF3\">event for KQED called Empanada Showdown\u003c/a>, which celebrated three Bay Area empanada makers: Tejeda; Grace Lontoc, owner of Harinas, a Livermore-based Filipino panaderya; and Joseph Ahearne, owner of El Porteño Empanadas, an Argentine-style eatery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides rice and beans, empanadas may be one of few dishes you’ll find in almost all of Latin America, in savory or sweet versions, baked or fried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055092\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_046-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paula Tejeda, center, owns Chile Lindo, a Mission District restaurant known for its Chilean-style empanadas. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The word empanada roughly translates to “covered in bread” in Spanish. The concept of a filled pastry or bread pocket shows up worldwide: turnovers in the United States, pasties in Ireland, samosas in India.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The empanadas I grew up with were sweet, fruit-filled pastries common in Mexican panaderias — still my go-to pan dulce. I always ask panaderos if they have any de calabasa, or pumpkin, a flavor I can’t resist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Tejeda took over Chile Lindo, some Chileans told her, “Nobody even knows where Chile is, and nobody knows empanadas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her response: “They’re never going to know it unless we introduce it.” She also expanded her menu to reflect the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to have something that represented the Mexican community,” Tejeda said. “I had a cheese jalapeño, cheddar mozzarella jalapeño and a ham and cheese cheddar mozzarella jalapeño. You have to navigate where you stick with the culture, but you’re also part of the neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chile Lindo was recently named a San Francisco Legacy Business, a designation for businesses that have existed for more than 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been able to prove to the Chileans that Chile Lindo had a place in San Francisco,” Tejeda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055093\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055093\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_047-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joseph Ahearne owns El Porteño Empanadas, an Argentine-style eatery with locations in San Francisco and Napa. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ahearne grew up in Napa, where his mother, an immigrant from Argentina, ran a restaurant while raising five kids alone after her husband passed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My mom would make empanadas for any special occasion. It’s not an easy process. It takes a couple days,” Ahearne said. “When she would make them, she would never let us taste any of the fillings, taste them before whatever the occasion was. The anticipation was just torture. It was just waiting and waiting. So, I really associate empanadas with that big reward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-2000s, Ahearne and his wife, Teresa, were raising young children and thinking of starting a food business to have flexible schedules. They landed on empanadas, and El Porteño was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was in 2008, the financial crisis was a great time to leave everything and start a business — it was crazy,” he said. “The Twitter street food movement was happening. We kind of caught on a little bit because of that, and we kind of rode Paula’s coattails, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055090\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055090\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/EMPANADA-SHOWDOWN_EG_039-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An Argentine-style empanada from El Porteño Empanadas, which has locations in San Francisco and Napa. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>El Porteño — meaning someone from the port, a reference to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires — started at farmers markets and food festivals, promoted on Twitter when food vendors advertised their locations in real time. Then came wholesale orders from Whole Foods. In 2010, the team secured a spot in the Ferry Building. Now El Porteño has a second San Francisco location and one in Napa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The menu has expanded to more than a dozen varieties, including the traditional Argentine empanada, similar to the Chilean version with beef, onions, raisins, olives and hard-boiled egg. Other options include chicken, spinach, chard, ham and cheese and sweet varieties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Empanadas sell well because they are self-contained, portable and easy to reheat, Ahearne said. They are best made in large batches, he said, because of the labor-intensive process: making the dough, preparing the fillings, assembling and baking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Running El Porteño “is about sustenance, but it’s also about a way of life,” Ahearne said. “It’s about family and celebration for me and definitely my mom’s heritage, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara native Abril Dorado has loved mariachi music for as long as she can remember. Every time she saw a mariachi perform, she thought, “I want to do that, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19-year-old picked up the violin in middle school. Her parents steered her toward classical music, but her interest in mariachi didn’t wane. She proved her talent when she surprised her parents at her quinceñera by performing two songs: an instrumental track and a cover of Solamente una Vez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made them cry,” she said with a tone of satisfaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I met Dorado on a recent Friday morning when she \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910702/mariachi-san-jose-performs-live-in-studio\">performed live with Mariachi San José\u003c/a> on Forum at KQED, the show I work on as a producer. She was the first to arrive, wearing her elegant black charro outfit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I started with classical music, but I love my culture and I wanted to play mariachi music so bad,” she said. “I’m doing what I love most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorado, a student at De Anza College in Cupertino, is among a growing number of young people in the Bay Area pursuing mariachi music. More Northern California schools are adding academic programs in an effort to catch up to more established offerings in places such as Southern California and Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mariachi San José is based at San José State University, which last year hired ethnomusicologist Jose Torres-Ramos to establish a mariachi studies program in the School of Music. The ensemble appeared on Forum to \u003ca href=\"https://www.schoolofartsandculture.org/fiesta-del-mariachi\">promote Fiesta Del Mariachi\u003c/a> in San José on July 26. The perennial event draws local and nationally recognized mariachi groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“(Mariachi) is very infectious music because it has a lot of energy. It has a lot of sentiment,” Torres-Ramos said. “It sounds so cliche, but it’s very true that once you start playing mariachi, you fall in love with it and it becomes a passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12049747\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12049747\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Mariachi San José performed on Forum on July 25, 2025. From right to left: Jorge Dovalina, José R. Torres-Ramos, Thomas Hernández, Anthony Cera, Debra Barrera and Abril Dorado. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mariachi is considered Mexico’s most popular musical genre, with fans and devotees spanning the globe. It’s also an older style that originated in the 18th century in the western state of Jalisco — and yet it is constantly evolving, keeping it fresh and relevant to young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres-Ramos, a Texas native, is well-versed in the intensity of high school mariachi programs there, where regional and state competitions are just as competitive as football. This dynamic is beautifully captured in the 2024 Netflix documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81749914\">Going Varsity in Mariachi\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which you should definitely watch if you haven’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re Latino like I am, my father’s from Puerto Rico and my mother is of Mexican heritage, it’s a music that’s very much identified with Latino culture in general because its popularity spans throughout all of Latin America, not just in Mexico,” Torres-Ramos said. “When I started playing it, it was the one place where I could go and practice my culture. It made me feel like I could sing in Spanish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Dorado, I grew up hearing mariachi at special events or at home on the radio. I have a deep love for many of Mexico’s music genres — cumbia, nortena and banda — for dancing and parties, but when it comes to music that really encapsulates the emotionality of life, no other genre can match mariachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people associate mariachi with background music at a Mexican restaurant. In fact, one listener wrote into Forum to ask if mariachi was only happy and festive. “Are there any sad mariachi songs?” the listener wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mexican culture tends to prize stoicism, valiance and strength during hard times, but it’s perfectly acceptable to sob loudly during a mariachi song. The lyrics and melodies provide an outlet for complicated feelings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957045\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957045\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Women wearing ornate white outfits sing and play instruments in an outdoor setting as a child in a suit runs by.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The group Mariachi Bonitas performs during a wedding at Grand Island Mansion in Walnut Grove, Calif., on July 30, 2023. The group of all-women musicians performs throughout Northern California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My family has hired mariachi bands for weddings, funerals and milestone birthdays. In 2020, we had planned a big party for my mother’s 80th birthday, but had to cancel those plans because of the pandemic. Instead, we surprised her with a private mariachi concert in our backyard with just immediate family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hearing one of my favorite ranchera songs in the car, such as \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/11/749901083/juan-gabriels-amor-eterno-takes-on-new-meaning-after-el-paso-shooting\">Amor Eterno (Eternal Love)\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a standard about losing a loved one, can bring me to tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides its emotional resonance, “there is so much pride in listening to and singing mariachi,” Dorado told me. This kind of music isn’t just an artistic and cultural import; it also affirms cultural identity and combats the erasure of Mexican heritage in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mariachi education is especially important when the current presidential administration has attacked diversity programs, and California is walking back its plan to require high school students to take one ethnic studies class before graduation.[aside postID=news_11963416 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67515_230726-MariachiBonitasDinorahKlingler-07-BL-KQED.jpg']In the Bay Area, school districts in Castro Valley, Pleasanton and Alum Rock in San José offer mariachi instruction. \u003ca href=\"https://www.loscenzontles.com/\">Los Cenzontles\u003c/a> in San Pablo, \u003ca href=\"http://www.mariachiacademy.org/\">Mariachi Academy of Music\u003c/a> in San José and Gilroy and \u003ca href=\"https://lutherburbankcenter.org/education/for-community/mariachi-ensemble/\">Luther Burbank Center for the Arts\u003c/a> in Santa Rosa offer private programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group from Sonoma County recently placed third in the \u003ca href=\"https://castatefair.com/viva-el-mariachi-2025-youth-mariachi-competition-2/\">California State Fair’s Viva El Mariachi youth competition\u003c/a> on July 20, which drew nine teams from counties across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Opportunities for youth groups to compete and perform in public are less common in Northern California than they are in the southern part of the state, yet they are vital to a music education,” said Ashleigh Worley, director of education and community engagement for Luther Burbank Center, the organization that trained and sponsored the Sonoma County team, which was the only ensemble from the Bay Area that participated in the statewide competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorado wasn’t sure how to follow through on her desire to play mariachi until one of her instructors from the youth symphony connected her with Torres-Ramos to see if she could practice with Mariachi San José. She ended up joining as a member.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group’s performance at the Fiesta del Mariachi was exhilarating, she said. Even practicing for eight hours a day for weeks leading up to the performance was “fun.” She plans to transfer to San José State to pursue a career as a speech pathologist and to continue learning and playing mariachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am going to take mariachi as far as I can. I would love to perform on big stages,” Dorado said. “I just want to do it. It makes me happy whether I play with a big professional group or a small group.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara native Abril Dorado has loved mariachi music for as long as she can remember. Every time she saw a mariachi perform, she thought, “I want to do that, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19-year-old picked up the violin in middle school. Her parents steered her toward classical music, but her interest in mariachi didn’t wane. She proved her talent when she surprised her parents at her quinceñera by performing two songs: an instrumental track and a cover of Solamente una Vez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made them cry,” she said with a tone of satisfaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I met Dorado on a recent Friday morning when she \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910702/mariachi-san-jose-performs-live-in-studio\">performed live with Mariachi San José\u003c/a> on Forum at KQED, the show I work on as a producer. She was the first to arrive, wearing her elegant black charro outfit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I started with classical music, but I love my culture and I wanted to play mariachi music so bad,” she said. “I’m doing what I love most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorado, a student at De Anza College in Cupertino, is among a growing number of young people in the Bay Area pursuing mariachi music. More Northern California schools are adding academic programs in an effort to catch up to more established offerings in places such as Southern California and Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mariachi San José is based at San José State University, which last year hired ethnomusicologist Jose Torres-Ramos to establish a mariachi studies program in the School of Music. The ensemble appeared on Forum to \u003ca href=\"https://www.schoolofartsandculture.org/fiesta-del-mariachi\">promote Fiesta Del Mariachi\u003c/a> in San José on July 26. The perennial event draws local and nationally recognized mariachi groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“(Mariachi) is very infectious music because it has a lot of energy. It has a lot of sentiment,” Torres-Ramos said. “It sounds so cliche, but it’s very true that once you start playing mariachi, you fall in love with it and it becomes a passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12049747\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12049747\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250725-K-ONDA-AUGUST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Mariachi San José performed on Forum on July 25, 2025. From right to left: Jorge Dovalina, José R. Torres-Ramos, Thomas Hernández, Anthony Cera, Debra Barrera and Abril Dorado. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mariachi is considered Mexico’s most popular musical genre, with fans and devotees spanning the globe. It’s also an older style that originated in the 18th century in the western state of Jalisco — and yet it is constantly evolving, keeping it fresh and relevant to young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres-Ramos, a Texas native, is well-versed in the intensity of high school mariachi programs there, where regional and state competitions are just as competitive as football. This dynamic is beautifully captured in the 2024 Netflix documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81749914\">Going Varsity in Mariachi\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which you should definitely watch if you haven’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re Latino like I am, my father’s from Puerto Rico and my mother is of Mexican heritage, it’s a music that’s very much identified with Latino culture in general because its popularity spans throughout all of Latin America, not just in Mexico,” Torres-Ramos said. “When I started playing it, it was the one place where I could go and practice my culture. It made me feel like I could sing in Spanish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Dorado, I grew up hearing mariachi at special events or at home on the radio. I have a deep love for many of Mexico’s music genres — cumbia, nortena and banda — for dancing and parties, but when it comes to music that really encapsulates the emotionality of life, no other genre can match mariachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people associate mariachi with background music at a Mexican restaurant. In fact, one listener wrote into Forum to ask if mariachi was only happy and festive. “Are there any sad mariachi songs?” the listener wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mexican culture tends to prize stoicism, valiance and strength during hard times, but it’s perfectly acceptable to sob loudly during a mariachi song. The lyrics and melodies provide an outlet for complicated feelings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11957045\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11957045\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Women wearing ornate white outfits sing and play instruments in an outdoor setting as a child in a suit runs by.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/RS67482_230730-MariachiBonitasWedding-18-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The group Mariachi Bonitas performs during a wedding at Grand Island Mansion in Walnut Grove, Calif., on July 30, 2023. The group of all-women musicians performs throughout Northern California. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My family has hired mariachi bands for weddings, funerals and milestone birthdays. In 2020, we had planned a big party for my mother’s 80th birthday, but had to cancel those plans because of the pandemic. Instead, we surprised her with a private mariachi concert in our backyard with just immediate family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hearing one of my favorite ranchera songs in the car, such as \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/11/749901083/juan-gabriels-amor-eterno-takes-on-new-meaning-after-el-paso-shooting\">Amor Eterno (Eternal Love)\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a standard about losing a loved one, can bring me to tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides its emotional resonance, “there is so much pride in listening to and singing mariachi,” Dorado told me. This kind of music isn’t just an artistic and cultural import; it also affirms cultural identity and combats the erasure of Mexican heritage in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mariachi education is especially important when the current presidential administration has attacked diversity programs, and California is walking back its plan to require high school students to take one ethnic studies class before graduation.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In the Bay Area, school districts in Castro Valley, Pleasanton and Alum Rock in San José offer mariachi instruction. \u003ca href=\"https://www.loscenzontles.com/\">Los Cenzontles\u003c/a> in San Pablo, \u003ca href=\"http://www.mariachiacademy.org/\">Mariachi Academy of Music\u003c/a> in San José and Gilroy and \u003ca href=\"https://lutherburbankcenter.org/education/for-community/mariachi-ensemble/\">Luther Burbank Center for the Arts\u003c/a> in Santa Rosa offer private programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group from Sonoma County recently placed third in the \u003ca href=\"https://castatefair.com/viva-el-mariachi-2025-youth-mariachi-competition-2/\">California State Fair’s Viva El Mariachi youth competition\u003c/a> on July 20, which drew nine teams from counties across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Opportunities for youth groups to compete and perform in public are less common in Northern California than they are in the southern part of the state, yet they are vital to a music education,” said Ashleigh Worley, director of education and community engagement for Luther Burbank Center, the organization that trained and sponsored the Sonoma County team, which was the only ensemble from the Bay Area that participated in the statewide competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dorado wasn’t sure how to follow through on her desire to play mariachi until one of her instructors from the youth symphony connected her with Torres-Ramos to see if she could practice with Mariachi San José. She ended up joining as a member.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group’s performance at the Fiesta del Mariachi was exhilarating, she said. Even practicing for eight hours a day for weeks leading up to the performance was “fun.” She plans to transfer to San José State to pursue a career as a speech pathologist and to continue learning and playing mariachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am going to take mariachi as far as I can. I would love to perform on big stages,” Dorado said. “I just want to do it. It makes me happy whether I play with a big professional group or a small group.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a field obsessed with the future, sometimes it’s worth looking back. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">OGs of Tech \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a new occasional series from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that looks beyond the billionaires to spotlight the often-overlooked innovators who helped build the digital world we live in today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of these OGs is Felidoro Cueva, who grew up in a rural village in the Andes mountains of Peru, and immigrated to the US in 1964 — during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. He went on to become one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s also our producer Maya Cueva’s dad. Maya takes us through Feli’s journey — from how counterculture experimentation influenced his fascination with technology to the discrimination he faced in a startup world where Latino representation was nearly nonexistent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6847623220\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Felidoro Cueva, a pioneering Latino engineer in Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/334057744?share=copy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only The Moon/Solamente La Luna\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — directed by Maya Cueva and animated by Leah Nichols \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/04/14/523960333/meshugganismo\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meshugganismo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Maya Cueva, Latino USA\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So on this show, we often talk about how people interact with new technology in surprising ways, like attacking Waymos or using VR to memorialize their loved ones. But we also think it’s important to look back at how we got here today. And one way to do that is to acknowledge what we’re calling “the OGs of tech”, the often overlooked people who paved the way for this digital age. Like the technicians who kept semiconductor equipment running, or the female switchboard operators who pioneered workplace equality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s more than a history lesson. Understanding the people who built this industry and the challenges they faced, especially if they weren’t straight white men, helps us better understand the stories we cover today. One of these OGs is Felidoro Cueva, who grew up in a rural village in Peru in the Andes Mountains. Felidoro, who goes by Feli for short, immigrated to the U.S. in 1964 — during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War — and became one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s also our producer, Maya Cueva’s dad. This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our producer, Maya, is going to lead this deep dive. Hey, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, Morgan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m really excited to hear this story because it seems like the ones I grew up hearing. Both our dads immigrated to the US, and my dad also got his start in tech many, many years ago. And Maya, you’ve recorded your dad’s story before, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I actually interviewed him for an animated documentary I directed called, Only The Moon, about his immigration story. And I also did a piece for Latino USA about my family’s Latino and Jewish roots. But honestly, it wasn’t until I started working on Close All Tabs with you and Chris that I got really curious about what it meant for him to be a pioneer in tech, especially as a Latino man in an industry with very few Latinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this feels especially relevant now in this political climate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally. As we’ve seen, this is a time of increasing anti-immigrant actions. And honestly, I think it’s really important to acknowledge how immigrants have contributed so much in this country and specifically to the tech innovation that we now take for granted. Honestly, I feel like this is a chance to tell one of those stories. And it’s wild that I’m now a producer on a tech show. It sort of feels like he paved the way for me to even have this opportunity. My dad worked on foundational computer technology, like microchips and transistors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can’t wait to hear about it. So I’m going full passenger princess for this episode and you’re gonna drive us through the story. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s do it, Morgan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take it away, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab. Meet my dad, Felidoro Cueva. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m originally from Peru and I’ve been in the US for most of my life and I have two daughters and one of my daughters is Maya Cueva and she’s interviewing me right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you feel like you know why I’m interviewing you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My feeling is that you’re having some kind of podcast about technology and, um, you know, maybe Brown, native people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you can hear, my dad likes to make jokes. I’m sitting with him at my parents’ house in Berkeley, California. It’s the home I grew up in. My dad is sitting low in a chair I’m hoping doesn’t squeak as he moves. As he talks, his hands move with him, and I notice they are now wrinkled with age. I think about how much he’s been through, worked on, and survived with these hands. Growing up, he was and still is always the one repairing and fixing the tech in the house. When I was younger, I don’t think I really understood just how different my access to technology and resources were from his own when he was growing up. So I asked him about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I grew up in a very rural environment in which there were no cars, no machines available. In the time when I grew up there was no idea of what computers are. We used cows to till the soil, you know, bulls to till soil and all that stuff. So all the time I basically grew up in a farm. I, you know, I had never seen a car in my village. Cars came when I was already more or less a teenager. That’s what cars start showing up in my area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad says that when he was young, the lack of technology around him actually kind of made him afraid of machines, especially cars. They seemed so powerful, so hard to control. He had this recurring dream. He would hitch his mule to a car and let it pull him while he sat behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that was a very comfortable dream actually because then, then I could do whatever was supposed to be done with cars, but I didn’t have to deal with the machinery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That fear of machines eventually turned into fascination many years later, after he left Peru. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you feel like you remember the first time you heard about a computer? What was the first time that you used one? Can you remember? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I bought my first computer, actually. It was a PC, uh, with the lowest memory you could have. And, um, when I bought this computer, I got so concentrated in the program that the computer had, which was called BASIC. And I started doing computer graphics with it, and I was totally fascinated by what you could do with one pixel, controlling one pixel in the screen, and then making a complete program from there. So you actually have a complete image moving in the screen. You and the machine become one entity in a sense for the time you’re immersed in it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">O k, clearly, my dad is nerding out over this stuff. But how did he go from being tech-phobic to being totally enchanted by technology? That’s a new tab. Feli’s immigration story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad was born in 1944 and grew up in a small village in the mountains of Peru called Ayabaca. He was a curious kid and very studious. Though he was afraid of some machines, there was one piece of technology that he couldn’t resist. It was a shortwave radio and it opened up a whole new world to him. Here he is describing it in my documentary, Only The Moon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had a shortwave radio which broadcast news from all over the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice of America: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">July 23rd. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BBC, Voice of America, Radio Havana, Radio Moscow. What I remember hearing was the different news, the politics, the fights they were having. Voice of America would call Cuba, “communist. “\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice of America: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Western Hemisphere at Havana…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Radio Havana would call them, “aggressive imperialists.” Basically, the radio exposed me to the world, outside of myself, outside of the village. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He soaked up that knowledge eagerly. It left him ready for an adventure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My third year of high school, I got sort of a thirst for knowledge. I became first in class, started learning English, and I would talk to myself, I’d talk to plants, animals in English. I realized after, you know, after English, I realized that I really like languages because I mean, I learned French here, I was learning Russian for a while because I was working for Russian engineers in the U.S. in the beginning of my career. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To me, that’s why you liked computers so much. It was like a language in itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh definitely, I think that’s definitely a link there. You know, it’s a communication language like everything else. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad’s fascination with learning English in Peru would pay off. During his last year in high school, an anthropology student from the University of Chicago came to my dad’s school on a research trip. My dad teacher had him help the visiting student translate newspapers from Spanish to English. My dad and the American student got along so well that they created a bond. After some time in Peru, the student returned back home to the U.S.. My dad continued on with his studies, and then… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One day, when I was actually just finishing school, he sent me a telegram saying that if I want to come to U.S., there will be an opportunity for me to come. Basically, my school, they got together with the church and just, you know, just collected a bunch of money for me and it was almost like a fate kind of experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it like for your family? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, my mother, when I was ready to come, my mother was crying and crying and crying, you know. But my father was, you know, like sort of similar to my behavior, sort of stoic about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad arrived in the U.S. In 1964. He was only 18 and first settled in Chicago in the suburbs, staying with the family of the student who visited his village. It was winter and so foreign to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not even sure where I was going to stay or go. It was for me a big adventure, just the fact that I was coming of a different society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of that adventure was becoming immersed in a completely new culture and way of living. But the mindsets of people he encountered surprised him. My father began to notice that even though the family he stayed with had a TV and access to information, they seemed pretty misinformed. He even used the word brainwashed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I realized that lots of the information that people were receiving was mainly from television because they were, you know, even the newspapers they were too tired to read them after they came from work. So the television kept basically gave you no information at all. I called them “the caveman with technology” and that was my first classification of this society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you mean by that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In terms of social behavior, social consciousness, it seemed like they were very just controlled by the media, by the immediate media they had. There was no information. It was very advanced society in terms of technology, but yet socially it seemed to me didn’t seem to match. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a lot of ways, I get what my dad is saying. Even today, it can often feel that even though we have so much access to information in the U.S., misinformation is rampant, leaving little room for critical analysis. At the time he came in the early 60s, social and political awareness was just beginning to grow more widespread. And as he started studying and working, his world was also expanding. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I started working at the University of Chicago as a laborer, basically doing photo duplication. It was basically putting newspapers, magazines and all that into microfilm. And probably that was where my exposure to the world became because I had to photograph all the newspapers and the magazines from different parts of the world. So that was my total education I got from that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then I started looking for uh ways to study. I started taking courses first for English. I started taking courses in YMCA, you know, because that’s where all the foreigners were learning the language. And that was a really good experience because you get to talk to people from all over. After that, I um, I went to Illinois Institute of Technology. I start taking courses there because I could take them at night because I was working during the day. So I started taking chemistry, physics, math, algebra. Basically, I started an engineering curriculum without realizing that I was doing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was now the mid 60s. The Vietnam War was escalating, and the Anti-War and Civil Rights Movements, as well as other protest movements, were in full swing. And he embraced this counterculture by expanding his mind in other ways. When we come back from the break, my dad goes on a trip. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, we’re back. Living in Chicago in the 60s changed my dad dramatically. He grew out his hair and beard, kind of resembling a young Che Guevara. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All the movements start taking place from all the students, everybody gets involved. Also in the process of uh the movement itself, there are lots of people experimenting with, uh, basically what they call drugs, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they call drugs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you mean they were drugs! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s another clip from my documentary where he describes his first acid trip experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The telephone had become gigantic. I could not pick up the telephone. The television was in the background and Nixon was on the on television and it looked like he was a complete puppet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Nixon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world, the war in Vietnam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact that I was introduced to that, it opened my mind because coming from a village, I had no, no concept of the world outside of me. And when I came to that experience, my mindset got changed dramatically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad says that being exposed to hallucinogens inspired him later when he started experimenting with computer graphics on his first PC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you are on drugs, you could, you know, you enter in those kinds of worlds, but it’s not real. But when you actually get into computers by controlling an image on that screen, you could create those images yourself. Start creating all these images, these graphics, which move in the screen, all this stuff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So cool. So you could like make it tangible, like the mind altering became tangible because you got to like — \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s what computer graphics became, at the end, the fact that that experience from those, from all that time in the 60s, moved people to so many, you know, ways of communication, really, to creating movies, to creating all these graphics and all these virtual worlds and you know. That’s my take on the whole thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It does make me sad that, as my dad was creating new experiences in the U.S., the distance from his family in Peru only grew. For a long time, I resented that we didn’t have much connection with that family growing up. While my dad went back to visit over the years, his new life in the U.S. took over. And his village became more foreign as he began breaking into the tech industry. My dad’s first job in tech in Chicago was at a company called Guardian Electric, where he tested electromagnetic switches, the little components that help turn machines on or off. It wasn’t glamorous, but it got him in the door of the industry. His boss was a Russian engineer, and although they spoke different languages, they created an unspoken bond. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was like broken English for both of us in a sense, but he was a very sharp mechanical engineer actually. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that job, my dad moved to a subsidiary company of AT&T, where he tested integrated circuits and microchips for early computers. These are the foundation of modern computing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the computer at the time was more like, it was a refrigerator sized with very little memory. So it’s just a very simple little programs to test it. You know, I learned a lot because it was fun. You know just learning something totally different while you get paid, you know, which is important and to get paid is important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point, it had been 15 years since moving to the U.S. My dad had broken into the tech industry. He learned some of the engineering basics and even started programming. But he decided it was time to move because there were more opportunities for tech jobs in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I decided to just leave Chicago. So after I worked at AT&T, in the year about ’79, I came to California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In California, he reconnected with my mom, who he had been friends with in Chicago. They fell in love and eventually got married. It was the tech boom at the time, and California was a world full of startups. In 1981, he started working in Silicon Valley doing tech support for a company that made networking hardware to connect PCs and Macs. Apple had only been around for a couple of years at that point. Imagine a board that would plug into both machines and allow them to talk to each other. It was a way to share data and information. He spent a lot of time answering phone calls. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I changed the name from “Tech Support” to “Psychotech Therapy.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why did you say that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So people would call, especially people from New York, they would call and they were very upset at me that uh, as if it was my fault, you know. And, uh, they started screaming at you first, they want to sue the company because things are not working the way they’re supposed to. They heard my accent, they were asking for an expert, they want an expert because my accent was, I guess, not good enough for them or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did that make you feel that they were asking that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, discrimination, I experienced a lot from Chicago just by being in the street, more from the police that would stop me constantly for driving. I would get so many tickets all the time because they would just stop me for walking in the streets — they wouldn’t give me a ticket for walking the street — but they always questioned me what I’m doing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess, you know, tech support, when I got introduced to that process of being discriminated for speaking with an accent. They would call me, they asked me for an expert, who knows how to solve the problem. So I said, tell me what the problem is, and I had to find the right expert for you as if, as if we had a big company of people dealing with it. And then I ask other questions and say, “have you tried this?” And that would solve the problem, so I pretend there was, there was lots of experts working. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you were like, “I’ll go get an expert”, and it was just you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The expert was me, you know, but since they would not believe that I was the expert, so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it like to be first like a Latino man in tech in Silicon Valley? Did you see a lot of people who looked like you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming to California, I was probably the only Latino working in tech. But you know, but there were a lot of Latinos doing the cleaning and all these stuff, and you know working in the office, or you know in that, but not in that technology side that I work with. At least one time, this other engineer who was, you know from the U.S., he was white obviously, but he sent me to open some boxes. And in fact, I had a degree, and he didn’t have a degree even, you know, but what happened is he confused me with a guy who opened the boxes, you know, who basically does the labor work in the office. And so I told him, you know, “is he busy or what? Why doesn’t he open his own boxes?” And he was shocked, I would talk to him that way. And then he soon realized that he made a mistake and he tried to apologize, you know, but that’s the first experience I had with somebody who just thought I would be a laborer and just not an engineer at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just because you were brown. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that had to do with being Brown, of course. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did it make you feel that he said that to you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just felt sorry for him, for not really understanding anything, because that’s one problem people have, is that they don’t have exposure to other cultures. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It bothers me that my dad had to be the bigger person in this instance and have empathy for the engineer who was racist towards him. But I understand that in his experience, he was able to change people’s minds just by talking to them. A skill that is hard to come by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had experience in which people, after I talked to them for a while, they actually changed their minds about how they feel, how they see the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad has always been an optimist. It’s representative of the optimism that has been part of the Silicon Valley tech scene from the very beginning. That idea that “innovation can save the world.” But it’s not lost on him how much technology has changed and how it’s changed us. I think that’s time for a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say, let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you say us versus the machine? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Us versus the machine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It sounds like ass. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Us versus the machine. My dad worked in Silicon Valley from 1981 to 2008. In the late 80s and early 90s, my older sister and I were born and were lucky enough to grow up and stay in Berkeley because of his years working in the tech boom. But he says that despite being in such a rapidly expanding field, he always felt like an outsider. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my time, I was involved just in working, I felt like a high-tech migrant worker. I was making good money, but that’s how I felt. I was more like an outsider within the system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said a high-tech migrant worker? What does that mean? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s just, you know, basically I’m Latino, so there were lots of migrants working the houses, building the farms and everything else, but I was basically a Latino guy with an engineering degree, so I felt I was a migrant worker myself, even though I was a [inaudible] and all that, but I still had the same feeling, you now, because I was never really part of that, society of technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His experience echoes some of my own conflicted feelings about Silicon Valley. I grew up hating how the tech industry gentrified my hometown and the Bay Area at large, and also angry at how my father was discriminated against. At the same time, my family has benefited from the growth of that industry, which my dad played a foundational role in. He got to see the world expand in more ways than one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was basically a part of a revolution without realizing it. There was a revolution of the 60s, and then the other revolution was without really thinking, was actually in technology, because everything was changing. Now we start working from the rudimentary technology of from vacuum tubes to transistors to the integrated circuits, the chips, microprocessors, then computers, now AI. So, you know, I being involved in all that stuff without actually even thinking about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does it ever make you frustrated to like learn the new technology? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I can’t learn, it’s too much. Yeah, I prefer to just take a walk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, Morgan, that’s my dad’s technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like I learned so much. What do you want people to remember from this episode? What can we learn about the industry we cover today by looking at the past? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, I feel that my dad’s journey and the sacrifices he made really shapes the person I am today. I mean, I think a lot of children of immigrants can relate to that, but I do think it’s important to recognize that the new tech stories we cover don’t happen in a vacuum, and tech innovators aren’t all white men. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obviously, things in the tech industry have changed a lot since your dad first started, but like we’ve talked about on the show before, there is a real backlash against social progress or so-called wokeness right now. Some of Silicon Valley’s most vocal leaders believe that it holds back innovation, but stories like your dad’s pushed back against this whitewashed narrative of tech history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. It’s honestly inspiring to me that my dad was able to start a new life where everything was foreign. He was a part of tech innovation and was also able to raise his political consciousness and the consciousness of others around him. And before interviewing him I didn’t even know he helped test some of the early models of computers we now use today. It really feels full circle. He was working on early tech and now I get to report on it with you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and it’s also so interesting that he was there at the very beginning, and he still feels out of touch with the latest technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well I should mention that he actually has gotten into making AI videos. Oh no! Yeah, like the one he sent to the family group chat of my mom flying through the air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad does that too. Dads just can’t resist the AI video. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does he really do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, my siblings and I have to like yell at him, explain the environmental impact, but another deep dive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it was kind of creepy, but I’m glad he gets to have a creative outlet in tech. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love that. So, Maya, are you ready to close these tabs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our Producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music, including our theme song by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound design by Maya Cueva and Brendan Willard. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sana. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager and Ethan Toven-Lindsay is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we want to send out a special thanks to founding producer Xorje Olivares, who helped define and create the show at its very first stages. We’ll miss you, Xorje!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or drop it on Discord — we’re in the Close All Tabs channel at discord.gg/KQED. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you use.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Producer Maya Cueva's dad, Felidoro Cueva, immigrated to the US in 1964, and became one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. \r\n",
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"title": "OGs of Tech: A Latino Engineer in Silicon Valley | KQED",
"description": "In a field obsessed with the future, sometimes it’s worth looking back. OGs of Tech is a new occasional series from Close All Tabs that looks beyond the billionaires to spotlight the often-overlooked innovators who helped build the digital world we live in today.One of these OGs is Felidoro Cueva, who grew up in a rural village in the Andes mountains of Peru, and immigrated to the US in 1964 — during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. He went on to become one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. And he’s also our producer Maya Cueva’s dad. Maya takes us through Feli’s journey — from how counterculture experimentation influenced his fascination with technology to the discrimination he faced in a startup world where Latino representation was nearly nonexistent.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a field obsessed with the future, sometimes it’s worth looking back. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">OGs of Tech \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a new occasional series from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that looks beyond the billionaires to spotlight the often-overlooked innovators who helped build the digital world we live in today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of these OGs is Felidoro Cueva, who grew up in a rural village in the Andes mountains of Peru, and immigrated to the US in 1964 — during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. He went on to become one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s also our producer Maya Cueva’s dad. Maya takes us through Feli’s journey — from how counterculture experimentation influenced his fascination with technology to the discrimination he faced in a startup world where Latino representation was nearly nonexistent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6847623220\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Felidoro Cueva, a pioneering Latino engineer in Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/334057744?share=copy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only The Moon/Solamente La Luna\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — directed by Maya Cueva and animated by Leah Nichols \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/04/14/523960333/meshugganismo\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meshugganismo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Maya Cueva, Latino USA\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So on this show, we often talk about how people interact with new technology in surprising ways, like attacking Waymos or using VR to memorialize their loved ones. But we also think it’s important to look back at how we got here today. And one way to do that is to acknowledge what we’re calling “the OGs of tech”, the often overlooked people who paved the way for this digital age. Like the technicians who kept semiconductor equipment running, or the female switchboard operators who pioneered workplace equality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s more than a history lesson. Understanding the people who built this industry and the challenges they faced, especially if they weren’t straight white men, helps us better understand the stories we cover today. One of these OGs is Felidoro Cueva, who grew up in a rural village in Peru in the Andes Mountains. Felidoro, who goes by Feli for short, immigrated to the U.S. in 1964 — during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War — and became one of the first Latino engineers in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s also our producer, Maya Cueva’s dad. This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our producer, Maya, is going to lead this deep dive. Hey, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, Morgan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m really excited to hear this story because it seems like the ones I grew up hearing. Both our dads immigrated to the US, and my dad also got his start in tech many, many years ago. And Maya, you’ve recorded your dad’s story before, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I actually interviewed him for an animated documentary I directed called, Only The Moon, about his immigration story. And I also did a piece for Latino USA about my family’s Latino and Jewish roots. But honestly, it wasn’t until I started working on Close All Tabs with you and Chris that I got really curious about what it meant for him to be a pioneer in tech, especially as a Latino man in an industry with very few Latinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this feels especially relevant now in this political climate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally. As we’ve seen, this is a time of increasing anti-immigrant actions. And honestly, I think it’s really important to acknowledge how immigrants have contributed so much in this country and specifically to the tech innovation that we now take for granted. Honestly, I feel like this is a chance to tell one of those stories. And it’s wild that I’m now a producer on a tech show. It sort of feels like he paved the way for me to even have this opportunity. My dad worked on foundational computer technology, like microchips and transistors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can’t wait to hear about it. So I’m going full passenger princess for this episode and you’re gonna drive us through the story. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s do it, Morgan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take it away, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab. Meet my dad, Felidoro Cueva. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m originally from Peru and I’ve been in the US for most of my life and I have two daughters and one of my daughters is Maya Cueva and she’s interviewing me right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you feel like you know why I’m interviewing you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My feeling is that you’re having some kind of podcast about technology and, um, you know, maybe Brown, native people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you can hear, my dad likes to make jokes. I’m sitting with him at my parents’ house in Berkeley, California. It’s the home I grew up in. My dad is sitting low in a chair I’m hoping doesn’t squeak as he moves. As he talks, his hands move with him, and I notice they are now wrinkled with age. I think about how much he’s been through, worked on, and survived with these hands. Growing up, he was and still is always the one repairing and fixing the tech in the house. When I was younger, I don’t think I really understood just how different my access to technology and resources were from his own when he was growing up. So I asked him about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I grew up in a very rural environment in which there were no cars, no machines available. In the time when I grew up there was no idea of what computers are. We used cows to till the soil, you know, bulls to till soil and all that stuff. So all the time I basically grew up in a farm. I, you know, I had never seen a car in my village. Cars came when I was already more or less a teenager. That’s what cars start showing up in my area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad says that when he was young, the lack of technology around him actually kind of made him afraid of machines, especially cars. They seemed so powerful, so hard to control. He had this recurring dream. He would hitch his mule to a car and let it pull him while he sat behind the wheel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that was a very comfortable dream actually because then, then I could do whatever was supposed to be done with cars, but I didn’t have to deal with the machinery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That fear of machines eventually turned into fascination many years later, after he left Peru. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you feel like you remember the first time you heard about a computer? What was the first time that you used one? Can you remember? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I bought my first computer, actually. It was a PC, uh, with the lowest memory you could have. And, um, when I bought this computer, I got so concentrated in the program that the computer had, which was called BASIC. And I started doing computer graphics with it, and I was totally fascinated by what you could do with one pixel, controlling one pixel in the screen, and then making a complete program from there. So you actually have a complete image moving in the screen. You and the machine become one entity in a sense for the time you’re immersed in it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">O k, clearly, my dad is nerding out over this stuff. But how did he go from being tech-phobic to being totally enchanted by technology? That’s a new tab. Feli’s immigration story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad was born in 1944 and grew up in a small village in the mountains of Peru called Ayabaca. He was a curious kid and very studious. Though he was afraid of some machines, there was one piece of technology that he couldn’t resist. It was a shortwave radio and it opened up a whole new world to him. Here he is describing it in my documentary, Only The Moon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had a shortwave radio which broadcast news from all over the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice of America: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">July 23rd. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BBC, Voice of America, Radio Havana, Radio Moscow. What I remember hearing was the different news, the politics, the fights they were having. Voice of America would call Cuba, “communist. “\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice of America: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Western Hemisphere at Havana…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Radio Havana would call them, “aggressive imperialists.” Basically, the radio exposed me to the world, outside of myself, outside of the village. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He soaked up that knowledge eagerly. It left him ready for an adventure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My third year of high school, I got sort of a thirst for knowledge. I became first in class, started learning English, and I would talk to myself, I’d talk to plants, animals in English. I realized after, you know, after English, I realized that I really like languages because I mean, I learned French here, I was learning Russian for a while because I was working for Russian engineers in the U.S. in the beginning of my career. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To me, that’s why you liked computers so much. It was like a language in itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh definitely, I think that’s definitely a link there. You know, it’s a communication language like everything else. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad’s fascination with learning English in Peru would pay off. During his last year in high school, an anthropology student from the University of Chicago came to my dad’s school on a research trip. My dad teacher had him help the visiting student translate newspapers from Spanish to English. My dad and the American student got along so well that they created a bond. After some time in Peru, the student returned back home to the U.S.. My dad continued on with his studies, and then… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One day, when I was actually just finishing school, he sent me a telegram saying that if I want to come to U.S., there will be an opportunity for me to come. Basically, my school, they got together with the church and just, you know, just collected a bunch of money for me and it was almost like a fate kind of experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it like for your family? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, my mother, when I was ready to come, my mother was crying and crying and crying, you know. But my father was, you know, like sort of similar to my behavior, sort of stoic about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad arrived in the U.S. In 1964. He was only 18 and first settled in Chicago in the suburbs, staying with the family of the student who visited his village. It was winter and so foreign to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not even sure where I was going to stay or go. It was for me a big adventure, just the fact that I was coming of a different society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of that adventure was becoming immersed in a completely new culture and way of living. But the mindsets of people he encountered surprised him. My father began to notice that even though the family he stayed with had a TV and access to information, they seemed pretty misinformed. He even used the word brainwashed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I realized that lots of the information that people were receiving was mainly from television because they were, you know, even the newspapers they were too tired to read them after they came from work. So the television kept basically gave you no information at all. I called them “the caveman with technology” and that was my first classification of this society. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you mean by that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In terms of social behavior, social consciousness, it seemed like they were very just controlled by the media, by the immediate media they had. There was no information. It was very advanced society in terms of technology, but yet socially it seemed to me didn’t seem to match. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a lot of ways, I get what my dad is saying. Even today, it can often feel that even though we have so much access to information in the U.S., misinformation is rampant, leaving little room for critical analysis. At the time he came in the early 60s, social and political awareness was just beginning to grow more widespread. And as he started studying and working, his world was also expanding. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I started working at the University of Chicago as a laborer, basically doing photo duplication. It was basically putting newspapers, magazines and all that into microfilm. And probably that was where my exposure to the world became because I had to photograph all the newspapers and the magazines from different parts of the world. So that was my total education I got from that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then I started looking for uh ways to study. I started taking courses first for English. I started taking courses in YMCA, you know, because that’s where all the foreigners were learning the language. And that was a really good experience because you get to talk to people from all over. After that, I um, I went to Illinois Institute of Technology. I start taking courses there because I could take them at night because I was working during the day. So I started taking chemistry, physics, math, algebra. Basically, I started an engineering curriculum without realizing that I was doing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was now the mid 60s. The Vietnam War was escalating, and the Anti-War and Civil Rights Movements, as well as other protest movements, were in full swing. And he embraced this counterculture by expanding his mind in other ways. When we come back from the break, my dad goes on a trip. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, we’re back. Living in Chicago in the 60s changed my dad dramatically. He grew out his hair and beard, kind of resembling a young Che Guevara. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All the movements start taking place from all the students, everybody gets involved. Also in the process of uh the movement itself, there are lots of people experimenting with, uh, basically what they call drugs, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they call drugs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you mean they were drugs! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s another clip from my documentary where he describes his first acid trip experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva\u003c/b>\u003cb>/Only The Moon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The telephone had become gigantic. I could not pick up the telephone. The television was in the background and Nixon was on the on television and it looked like he was a complete puppet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Nixon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world, the war in Vietnam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact that I was introduced to that, it opened my mind because coming from a village, I had no, no concept of the world outside of me. And when I came to that experience, my mindset got changed dramatically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad says that being exposed to hallucinogens inspired him later when he started experimenting with computer graphics on his first PC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you are on drugs, you could, you know, you enter in those kinds of worlds, but it’s not real. But when you actually get into computers by controlling an image on that screen, you could create those images yourself. Start creating all these images, these graphics, which move in the screen, all this stuff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So cool. So you could like make it tangible, like the mind altering became tangible because you got to like — \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s what computer graphics became, at the end, the fact that that experience from those, from all that time in the 60s, moved people to so many, you know, ways of communication, really, to creating movies, to creating all these graphics and all these virtual worlds and you know. That’s my take on the whole thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It does make me sad that, as my dad was creating new experiences in the U.S., the distance from his family in Peru only grew. For a long time, I resented that we didn’t have much connection with that family growing up. While my dad went back to visit over the years, his new life in the U.S. took over. And his village became more foreign as he began breaking into the tech industry. My dad’s first job in tech in Chicago was at a company called Guardian Electric, where he tested electromagnetic switches, the little components that help turn machines on or off. It wasn’t glamorous, but it got him in the door of the industry. His boss was a Russian engineer, and although they spoke different languages, they created an unspoken bond. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was like broken English for both of us in a sense, but he was a very sharp mechanical engineer actually. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that job, my dad moved to a subsidiary company of AT&T, where he tested integrated circuits and microchips for early computers. These are the foundation of modern computing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the computer at the time was more like, it was a refrigerator sized with very little memory. So it’s just a very simple little programs to test it. You know, I learned a lot because it was fun. You know just learning something totally different while you get paid, you know, which is important and to get paid is important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point, it had been 15 years since moving to the U.S. My dad had broken into the tech industry. He learned some of the engineering basics and even started programming. But he decided it was time to move because there were more opportunities for tech jobs in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I decided to just leave Chicago. So after I worked at AT&T, in the year about ’79, I came to California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In California, he reconnected with my mom, who he had been friends with in Chicago. They fell in love and eventually got married. It was the tech boom at the time, and California was a world full of startups. In 1981, he started working in Silicon Valley doing tech support for a company that made networking hardware to connect PCs and Macs. Apple had only been around for a couple of years at that point. Imagine a board that would plug into both machines and allow them to talk to each other. It was a way to share data and information. He spent a lot of time answering phone calls. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I changed the name from “Tech Support” to “Psychotech Therapy.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why did you say that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So people would call, especially people from New York, they would call and they were very upset at me that uh, as if it was my fault, you know. And, uh, they started screaming at you first, they want to sue the company because things are not working the way they’re supposed to. They heard my accent, they were asking for an expert, they want an expert because my accent was, I guess, not good enough for them or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did that make you feel that they were asking that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, discrimination, I experienced a lot from Chicago just by being in the street, more from the police that would stop me constantly for driving. I would get so many tickets all the time because they would just stop me for walking in the streets — they wouldn’t give me a ticket for walking the street — but they always questioned me what I’m doing there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess, you know, tech support, when I got introduced to that process of being discriminated for speaking with an accent. They would call me, they asked me for an expert, who knows how to solve the problem. So I said, tell me what the problem is, and I had to find the right expert for you as if, as if we had a big company of people dealing with it. And then I ask other questions and say, “have you tried this?” And that would solve the problem, so I pretend there was, there was lots of experts working. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you were like, “I’ll go get an expert”, and it was just you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The expert was me, you know, but since they would not believe that I was the expert, so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it like to be first like a Latino man in tech in Silicon Valley? Did you see a lot of people who looked like you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming to California, I was probably the only Latino working in tech. But you know, but there were a lot of Latinos doing the cleaning and all these stuff, and you know working in the office, or you know in that, but not in that technology side that I work with. At least one time, this other engineer who was, you know from the U.S., he was white obviously, but he sent me to open some boxes. And in fact, I had a degree, and he didn’t have a degree even, you know, but what happened is he confused me with a guy who opened the boxes, you know, who basically does the labor work in the office. And so I told him, you know, “is he busy or what? Why doesn’t he open his own boxes?” And he was shocked, I would talk to him that way. And then he soon realized that he made a mistake and he tried to apologize, you know, but that’s the first experience I had with somebody who just thought I would be a laborer and just not an engineer at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just because you were brown. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that had to do with being Brown, of course. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did it make you feel that he said that to you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just felt sorry for him, for not really understanding anything, because that’s one problem people have, is that they don’t have exposure to other cultures. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It bothers me that my dad had to be the bigger person in this instance and have empathy for the engineer who was racist towards him. But I understand that in his experience, he was able to change people’s minds just by talking to them. A skill that is hard to come by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had experience in which people, after I talked to them for a while, they actually changed their minds about how they feel, how they see the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad has always been an optimist. It’s representative of the optimism that has been part of the Silicon Valley tech scene from the very beginning. That idea that “innovation can save the world.” But it’s not lost on him how much technology has changed and how it’s changed us. I think that’s time for a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say, let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you say us versus the machine? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Us versus the machine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It sounds like ass. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Us versus the machine. My dad worked in Silicon Valley from 1981 to 2008. In the late 80s and early 90s, my older sister and I were born and were lucky enough to grow up and stay in Berkeley because of his years working in the tech boom. But he says that despite being in such a rapidly expanding field, he always felt like an outsider. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my time, I was involved just in working, I felt like a high-tech migrant worker. I was making good money, but that’s how I felt. I was more like an outsider within the system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said a high-tech migrant worker? What does that mean? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s just, you know, basically I’m Latino, so there were lots of migrants working the houses, building the farms and everything else, but I was basically a Latino guy with an engineering degree, so I felt I was a migrant worker myself, even though I was a [inaudible] and all that, but I still had the same feeling, you now, because I was never really part of that, society of technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His experience echoes some of my own conflicted feelings about Silicon Valley. I grew up hating how the tech industry gentrified my hometown and the Bay Area at large, and also angry at how my father was discriminated against. At the same time, my family has benefited from the growth of that industry, which my dad played a foundational role in. He got to see the world expand in more ways than one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was basically a part of a revolution without realizing it. There was a revolution of the 60s, and then the other revolution was without really thinking, was actually in technology, because everything was changing. Now we start working from the rudimentary technology of from vacuum tubes to transistors to the integrated circuits, the chips, microprocessors, then computers, now AI. So, you know, I being involved in all that stuff without actually even thinking about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does it ever make you frustrated to like learn the new technology? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Feli Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I can’t learn, it’s too much. Yeah, I prefer to just take a walk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, Morgan, that’s my dad’s technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like I learned so much. What do you want people to remember from this episode? What can we learn about the industry we cover today by looking at the past? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, I feel that my dad’s journey and the sacrifices he made really shapes the person I am today. I mean, I think a lot of children of immigrants can relate to that, but I do think it’s important to recognize that the new tech stories we cover don’t happen in a vacuum, and tech innovators aren’t all white men. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obviously, things in the tech industry have changed a lot since your dad first started, but like we’ve talked about on the show before, there is a real backlash against social progress or so-called wokeness right now. Some of Silicon Valley’s most vocal leaders believe that it holds back innovation, but stories like your dad’s pushed back against this whitewashed narrative of tech history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. It’s honestly inspiring to me that my dad was able to start a new life where everything was foreign. He was a part of tech innovation and was also able to raise his political consciousness and the consciousness of others around him. And before interviewing him I didn’t even know he helped test some of the early models of computers we now use today. It really feels full circle. He was working on early tech and now I get to report on it with you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and it’s also so interesting that he was there at the very beginning, and he still feels out of touch with the latest technology. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well I should mention that he actually has gotten into making AI videos. Oh no! Yeah, like the one he sent to the family group chat of my mom flying through the air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad does that too. Dads just can’t resist the AI video. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does he really do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, my siblings and I have to like yell at him, explain the environmental impact, but another deep dive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it was kind of creepy, but I’m glad he gets to have a creative outlet in tech. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love that. So, Maya, are you ready to close these tabs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our Producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music, including our theme song by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound design by Maya Cueva and Brendan Willard. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sana. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager and Ethan Toven-Lindsay is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we want to send out a special thanks to founding producer Xorje Olivares, who helped define and create the show at its very first stages. We’ll miss you, Xorje!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. Follow us on instagram at “close all tabs pod.” Or drop it on Discord — we’re in the Close All Tabs channel at discord.gg/KQED. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple podcasts or whatever platform you use.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "levis-denim-gets-a-fresh-look-thanks-to-a-latinx-designer",
"title": "Levi’s Denim Gets a Fresh Look Thanks to a Latinx Designer",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra spends her days designing the final touches on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13929529/sewing-new-life-into-levis-jeans\">Levi’s jeans\u003c/a>, obsessing over details like colors, fading, whiskering and the perfect placement for rips and tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039171/built-to-last-some-san-francisco-businesses-date-back-to-the-gold-rush\">iconic Levi’s Strauss & Co.\u003c/a>, founded in San Francisco in 1853, invented denim pants the way we know them today. But to survive, the company has to stay relevant. That’s where designers like Gonzáles Ginestra come in. She describes her work as “making sure that we have newness to this heritage garment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, some of her finishing touches were featured in an ad where global superstar Beyoncé walks into a laundromat, takes off the jeans she’s wearing and washes them with a bucket of diamonds. When she created the design a year prior, Gonzáles Ginestra had no idea it would be part of the singer’s campaign with Levi’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Denim is a blank canvas and I can do whatever I want with it,” she said. “It’s my job to just take my canvas, that is a pair of jeans, and apply trends to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q40oimgnN00\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before landing at Levi’s six years ago, Gonzáles Ginestra designed everything from leather handbags for Kenneth Cole to bedsheets for teen boys at Pottery Barn. She worked on fashion shows for Paris Fashion Week and pajamas for a small family-owned company in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, however, Gonzáles Ginestra wasn’t sure she could craft a career in the fashion industry. Like many Latines in creative fields, she had no roadmap to follow and no role models she could identify with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 36-year-old grew up in a middle-class Mexican American family in San José that encouraged her to pursue a stable career. Designing clothes was not what they had in mind. But no matter how hard she tried, Gonzáles Ginestra couldn’t shake the artistic bug. She built a creative career that defied cultural expectations while helping other Latinx creatives along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until I got to Levi’s, I really was often the one Latina in the room,” she said. “I say this for fashion, and I say this for every industry, we need to be everywhere, especially in consumer goods. No one is going to be able to speak up for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046801\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046801\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra holds a photo of her grandmother drying jeans in the sun in the 1960s that she keeps at her desk at the Levi’s offices in San Francisco on July 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gonzáles Ginestra’s experience resonates with me as a journalist — another field where Latinos are underrepresented. Diversity advocates say things like, “You need to see it to be it,” but for many Latinx professionals, that’s a luxury we don’t have. We’re often told to dream big, which is great, but getting started — or charting a path — is often full of uncertainty.[aside postID=news_12039171 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/GettyImages-2208524376.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzáles Ginestra’s parents grew up in modest homes in the Central Valley, harvesting fruit and vegetables on farms alongside her grandparents. They were the first in their families to earn college degrees and later moved into the middle class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It brought along a new set of pressures, Gonzáles Ginestra told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were the Mexican family in the affluent San José neighborhood. We weren’t allowed to look schlubby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That meant having her hair long and perfectly in place, and wearing clean, pressed — even if they were hand-me-downs. In high school, Gonzalez Ginestra longed to cut her hair short and wear all black, embracing an emo aesthetic that went against her parents’ wishes. Her mother taught her to sew, opening up her artistic sensibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was the one emo kid on the Folklorico team, and I was up there with a fake bun in my hair because my hair was so short, I couldn’t put it in a high pony. We made it work,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was easier to be myself if I had control of making the clothes and making the look rather than just buying off the shelf. That agency really brought me peace. I fell in love with clothes and with shaping myself to be who I wanted to be rather than how someone else was telling me to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046802\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046802\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra at the Levi’s offices in San Francisco on July 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After high school, she enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, where she was excited to take Chicano studies classes and, as she put it, “be radicalized.” And, as the first person in her family to attend a UC, just being there felt like an accomplishment. But within a year and a half, her enthusiasm dissipated when she realized reading books and writing papers was not how she wanted to spend her college years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her then-boyfriend, now husband, Alex Ginestra, encouraged her to transfer to the school where he was studying — the Academy of Art in San Francisco — to pursue fashion design. Her parents were opposed at first, but finally agreed after months of pleading and making the case that she would be able to find a job after graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her time in college, she landed an internship with Kenneth Cole and spent time in London, Paris and New York doing internships and short-term jobs before returning to the Bay Area. She eventually took a job with Pottery Barn, then worked for four years at Tart Collections, a local brand, until she was laid off in 2018, three months after returning from maternity leave.[aside postID=news_12043304 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ049-KQED.jpg']While collecting unemployment and caring for her newborn, a recruiter called to say a denim company needed designers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘I have no denim experience, but I think my resume indicates I can do anything,’” she said. “It was a three-month sketch temporary gig, and now I’ve been here for six years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representing Latine culture has been a big part of Gonzáles Ginestra’s work at Levi’s. For years, she led the company’s employee resource group for Latinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also focuses on helping younger creatives find their footing in the fashion industry through mentoring and guidance. Young people often turn to her for encouragement or to fill the role model gap she experienced. The most important advice she offers is to speak up for themselves and their ideas in the workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She had to unlearn some cultural habits, like not speaking unless spoken to and deferring to others in group settings — behaviors she learned in her Mexican family that she realized were not serving her at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t wait for someone to ask for your opinion in fashion. You have to say the thing. And if people agree with you, then they agree with you, and if they don’t, they don’t, but at least you said it,” she said. “I want to give young people a heads-up because if someone gave me a heads-up, I would have really appreciated it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra spends her days designing the final touches on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13929529/sewing-new-life-into-levis-jeans\">Levi’s jeans\u003c/a>, obsessing over details like colors, fading, whiskering and the perfect placement for rips and tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039171/built-to-last-some-san-francisco-businesses-date-back-to-the-gold-rush\">iconic Levi’s Strauss & Co.\u003c/a>, founded in San Francisco in 1853, invented denim pants the way we know them today. But to survive, the company has to stay relevant. That’s where designers like Gonzáles Ginestra come in. She describes her work as “making sure that we have newness to this heritage garment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, some of her finishing touches were featured in an ad where global superstar Beyoncé walks into a laundromat, takes off the jeans she’s wearing and washes them with a bucket of diamonds. When she created the design a year prior, Gonzáles Ginestra had no idea it would be part of the singer’s campaign with Levi’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Denim is a blank canvas and I can do whatever I want with it,” she said. “It’s my job to just take my canvas, that is a pair of jeans, and apply trends to it.”\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/q40oimgnN00'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/q40oimgnN00'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Before landing at Levi’s six years ago, Gonzáles Ginestra designed everything from leather handbags for Kenneth Cole to bedsheets for teen boys at Pottery Barn. She worked on fashion shows for Paris Fashion Week and pajamas for a small family-owned company in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, however, Gonzáles Ginestra wasn’t sure she could craft a career in the fashion industry. Like many Latines in creative fields, she had no roadmap to follow and no role models she could identify with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 36-year-old grew up in a middle-class Mexican American family in San José that encouraged her to pursue a stable career. Designing clothes was not what they had in mind. But no matter how hard she tried, Gonzáles Ginestra couldn’t shake the artistic bug. She built a creative career that defied cultural expectations while helping other Latinx creatives along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until I got to Levi’s, I really was often the one Latina in the room,” she said. “I say this for fashion, and I say this for every industry, we need to be everywhere, especially in consumer goods. No one is going to be able to speak up for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046801\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046801\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra holds a photo of her grandmother drying jeans in the sun in the 1960s that she keeps at her desk at the Levi’s offices in San Francisco on July 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gonzáles Ginestra’s experience resonates with me as a journalist — another field where Latinos are underrepresented. Diversity advocates say things like, “You need to see it to be it,” but for many Latinx professionals, that’s a luxury we don’t have. We’re often told to dream big, which is great, but getting started — or charting a path — is often full of uncertainty.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzáles Ginestra’s parents grew up in modest homes in the Central Valley, harvesting fruit and vegetables on farms alongside her grandparents. They were the first in their families to earn college degrees and later moved into the middle class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It brought along a new set of pressures, Gonzáles Ginestra told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were the Mexican family in the affluent San José neighborhood. We weren’t allowed to look schlubby.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That meant having her hair long and perfectly in place, and wearing clean, pressed — even if they were hand-me-downs. In high school, Gonzalez Ginestra longed to cut her hair short and wear all black, embracing an emo aesthetic that went against her parents’ wishes. Her mother taught her to sew, opening up her artistic sensibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was the one emo kid on the Folklorico team, and I was up there with a fake bun in my hair because my hair was so short, I couldn’t put it in a high pony. We made it work,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was easier to be myself if I had control of making the clothes and making the look rather than just buying off the shelf. That agency really brought me peace. I fell in love with clothes and with shaping myself to be who I wanted to be rather than how someone else was telling me to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046802\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046802\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250701-K-ONDA-JULY-MD-06-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marisela Gonzáles Ginestra at the Levi’s offices in San Francisco on July 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After high school, she enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, where she was excited to take Chicano studies classes and, as she put it, “be radicalized.” And, as the first person in her family to attend a UC, just being there felt like an accomplishment. But within a year and a half, her enthusiasm dissipated when she realized reading books and writing papers was not how she wanted to spend her college years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her then-boyfriend, now husband, Alex Ginestra, encouraged her to transfer to the school where he was studying — the Academy of Art in San Francisco — to pursue fashion design. Her parents were opposed at first, but finally agreed after months of pleading and making the case that she would be able to find a job after graduation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her time in college, she landed an internship with Kenneth Cole and spent time in London, Paris and New York doing internships and short-term jobs before returning to the Bay Area. She eventually took a job with Pottery Barn, then worked for four years at Tart Collections, a local brand, until she was laid off in 2018, three months after returning from maternity leave.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While collecting unemployment and caring for her newborn, a recruiter called to say a denim company needed designers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘I have no denim experience, but I think my resume indicates I can do anything,’” she said. “It was a three-month sketch temporary gig, and now I’ve been here for six years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representing Latine culture has been a big part of Gonzáles Ginestra’s work at Levi’s. For years, she led the company’s employee resource group for Latinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also focuses on helping younger creatives find their footing in the fashion industry through mentoring and guidance. Young people often turn to her for encouragement or to fill the role model gap she experienced. The most important advice she offers is to speak up for themselves and their ideas in the workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She had to unlearn some cultural habits, like not speaking unless spoken to and deferring to others in group settings — behaviors she learned in her Mexican family that she realized were not serving her at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t wait for someone to ask for your opinion in fashion. You have to say the thing. And if people agree with you, then they agree with you, and if they don’t, they don’t, but at least you said it,” she said. “I want to give young people a heads-up because if someone gave me a heads-up, I would have really appreciated it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "born-in-the-mission-built-by-immigrants-the-burrito-that-became-a-bay-area-icon",
"title": "Born in the Mission, Built by Immigrants: The Burrito That Became a Bay Area Icon",
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"headTitle": "Born in the Mission, Built by Immigrants: The Burrito That Became a Bay Area Icon | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent afternoon, my mouth began to water as I placed a to-go order for a lengua burrito at Taqueria San Jose near the 24th Street BART Station in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was already hungry when the cashier handed me my order of three burritos, which I planned to eat once I arrived home in Concord. I would have to wait an hour to unwrap the foil and pour salsa on each bite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as usual, my Mission-style burrito was worth the wait — a simple but satisfying punch of perfectly cooked ingredients, rolled into cylindrical tortilla greatness that is as portable as it is palatable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time musing on Bay Area burritos than I have in the 20-some years I’ve lived in this region. I didn’t feel the need to overthink why I enjoy burritos. I just did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 29, I hosted an event for KQED Live called \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/live/9wAlyDvpwBA?si=LeQWS3qQln4ADeCT\">Burrito Showdown\u003c/a> that brought together three generations of Mission burriteurs (yes, I made that up).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043338\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043338\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">KQED Live’s Burrito Showdown, hosted by Blanca Torres (right), on May 29. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The morning after the showdown, I followed up by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910084/why-the-mission-style-burrito-defines-the-bay-area\">producing a Forum segment\u003c/a> on why the burrito remains a culinary icon in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hosting the live event and producing a Forum show centering the influence of Mission-style burritos gave me a deeper appreciation for the amazing success of the Mission-style burrito — and what they represent, not just for the Bay Area, but for how culture transforms and is shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I love about burritos is that they shine in both their simplest and most complex forms. The standard bean and cheese variety can earn a Michelin nod.[aside postID=forum_2010101910084 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/La-Taqueria-e1694719808236.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The showdown featured Miguel Jara of La Taqueria, who’s been in business more than 50 years and was a pioneer in the Mission; Victor Escobedo, who started Papalote Mexican Grill 25 years ago; and Ricardo Lopez, owner of La Vaca Birria, a restaurant that’s been in business for a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jara was one of the original purveyors of what became known as the Mission-style burrito. Born in Jalisco and raised in Tijuana, he ran a body shop in San Francisco. He decided to pivot into restaurants because he missed the kind of street food he was used to in Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t work in a restaurant. My dad asked me if I knew how to cook beans, and I said, ‘No, but I know how to eat them,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spent a year developing the space and menu for La Taqueria at 2889 Mission St. When it opened, there were only a handful of taquerias in the Mission, including the La Cumbre near Valencia and 16th streets and El Faro, a taqueria often credited as the originator of the Mission-style burrito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jara said he doesn’t know how the term Mission-style took hold. But he does know his restaurant has thrived and has had influence across the United States and worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A friend of mine went over to New York to visit his daughter, and they took him to a restaurant, and on the wall, they had a picture of my restaurant,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043342\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Audience members laugh during KQED Live’s Burrito Showdown on May 29. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cesar Hernandez, restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, told me there are various creation myths about where the burrito came from, but no certified history. Flour tortillas come from northern Mexican states, and a burrito refers to a taco in which the tortilla is folded on its sides to create a self-contained vessel, making it more portable and less messy to eat than a taco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lopez’s foray into the restaurant industry started when he was 15 with a part-time job to earn extra cash. He went on to operate a food truck before opening La Vaca Birria, basing his signature birria on his grandfather’s recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La Vaca Birria went viral last year for its $22 burritos, but the expensive burrito on the menu, featuring New York steak, costs $32. Lopez said he uses standard restaurant calculations based on the cost of ingredients and overhead — he’s not charging ridiculous prices for the fun of it. Pricing is, of course, relative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I waited for my burrito order at Taqueria San Jose, I perused a large mural of a plaza in the Mexican town of Tepatitlán in Jalisco. These murals may seem like generic taqueria decor, but if you look closely, you will see unique details about the artist or the town they depict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The murals remind me of my parents’ hometown, Huejuquilla el Alto, Jalisco, that, like hundreds or probably thousands of towns in Mexico, has a central plaza anchored by an ornate church facing a square park with a picturesque kiosk in the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11961196\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 810px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11961196\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito.jpg\" alt=\"Hand holding a large burrito stuffed with filling and wrapped in foil, cut in half.\" width=\"810\" height=\"805\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito.jpg 810w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito-800x795.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito-160x159.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A carne asada burrito from La Taqueria in San Francisco’s Mission District. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of La Taqueria/Instagram)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The familiar scenes depicted on the walls of taquerias always pique my interest. They pay homage to specific places in Mexico. The people working behind the counter are all Mexican. A taqueria is a Mexican restaurant, but the Mission-style burrito is an American-born offshoot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It reminds me of kitchy T-shirts and keychains I’ve seen that read, “Made in the USA with Mexican parts” — a joke for people like me, a child of Mexican immigrants. It’s true that the Mission-style burrito does not exist in Mexico. If you find one there, it is an explicit take on the California burrito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What this shows is how culture is a living, organic process borrowing from influences regardless of borders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Papalote does not have any murals inside its compact eatery on 24th Street near the intersection with Valencia Street. That’s on purpose, Escobedo said. A papalote is a “kite” in Mexican Spanish, a term that comes from the Nahuatl word for butterfly. I love the symbolism of using an indigenous word from Mexico to name a restaurant in San Francisco that specializes in an Americanized take on Mexican food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Escobedo, Papalote’s owner, said the burrito is a better representation of American multiculturalism than the worn-out melting pot metaphor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The melting pot demands that whoever comes in has to blend in. You have to stop being who you are, and you have to be just like everyone else. A burrito is individual items that stay exactly who they are,” he said. The burrito “is a vessel that really unites all of us … And it’s really tasty and terrific.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In the past few weeks, Blanca Torres has spent more time musing on Bay Area burritos than she did in the more than 20 years she’s lived in this region. Find out why.",
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"title": "Born in the Mission, Built by Immigrants: The Burrito That Became a Bay Area Icon | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/newsletters/k-onda\">Click here to subscribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent afternoon, my mouth began to water as I placed a to-go order for a lengua burrito at Taqueria San Jose near the 24th Street BART Station in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was already hungry when the cashier handed me my order of three burritos, which I planned to eat once I arrived home in Concord. I would have to wait an hour to unwrap the foil and pour salsa on each bite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as usual, my Mission-style burrito was worth the wait — a simple but satisfying punch of perfectly cooked ingredients, rolled into cylindrical tortilla greatness that is as portable as it is palatable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time musing on Bay Area burritos than I have in the 20-some years I’ve lived in this region. I didn’t feel the need to overthink why I enjoy burritos. I just did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 29, I hosted an event for KQED Live called \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/live/9wAlyDvpwBA?si=LeQWS3qQln4ADeCT\">Burrito Showdown\u003c/a> that brought together three generations of Mission burriteurs (yes, I made that up).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043338\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043338\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ009-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">KQED Live’s Burrito Showdown, hosted by Blanca Torres (right), on May 29. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The morning after the showdown, I followed up by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910084/why-the-mission-style-burrito-defines-the-bay-area\">producing a Forum segment\u003c/a> on why the burrito remains a culinary icon in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hosting the live event and producing a Forum show centering the influence of Mission-style burritos gave me a deeper appreciation for the amazing success of the Mission-style burrito — and what they represent, not just for the Bay Area, but for how culture transforms and is shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I love about burritos is that they shine in both their simplest and most complex forms. The standard bean and cheese variety can earn a Michelin nod.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The showdown featured Miguel Jara of La Taqueria, who’s been in business more than 50 years and was a pioneer in the Mission; Victor Escobedo, who started Papalote Mexican Grill 25 years ago; and Ricardo Lopez, owner of La Vaca Birria, a restaurant that’s been in business for a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jara was one of the original purveyors of what became known as the Mission-style burrito. Born in Jalisco and raised in Tijuana, he ran a body shop in San Francisco. He decided to pivot into restaurants because he missed the kind of street food he was used to in Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t work in a restaurant. My dad asked me if I knew how to cook beans, and I said, ‘No, but I know how to eat them,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spent a year developing the space and menu for La Taqueria at 2889 Mission St. When it opened, there were only a handful of taquerias in the Mission, including the La Cumbre near Valencia and 16th streets and El Faro, a taqueria often credited as the originator of the Mission-style burrito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jara said he doesn’t know how the term Mission-style took hold. But he does know his restaurant has thrived and has had influence across the United States and worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A friend of mine went over to New York to visit his daughter, and they took him to a restaurant, and on the wall, they had a picture of my restaurant,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12043342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12043342\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/2025BURITTOSHOWDOWN_PHOTOS_ESTEFANYGONZALEZ041-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Audience members laugh during KQED Live’s Burrito Showdown on May 29. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cesar Hernandez, restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, told me there are various creation myths about where the burrito came from, but no certified history. Flour tortillas come from northern Mexican states, and a burrito refers to a taco in which the tortilla is folded on its sides to create a self-contained vessel, making it more portable and less messy to eat than a taco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lopez’s foray into the restaurant industry started when he was 15 with a part-time job to earn extra cash. He went on to operate a food truck before opening La Vaca Birria, basing his signature birria on his grandfather’s recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La Vaca Birria went viral last year for its $22 burritos, but the expensive burrito on the menu, featuring New York steak, costs $32. Lopez said he uses standard restaurant calculations based on the cost of ingredients and overhead — he’s not charging ridiculous prices for the fun of it. Pricing is, of course, relative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I waited for my burrito order at Taqueria San Jose, I perused a large mural of a plaza in the Mexican town of Tepatitlán in Jalisco. These murals may seem like generic taqueria decor, but if you look closely, you will see unique details about the artist or the town they depict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The murals remind me of my parents’ hometown, Huejuquilla el Alto, Jalisco, that, like hundreds or probably thousands of towns in Mexico, has a central plaza anchored by an ornate church facing a square park with a picturesque kiosk in the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11961196\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 810px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11961196\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito.jpg\" alt=\"Hand holding a large burrito stuffed with filling and wrapped in foil, cut in half.\" width=\"810\" height=\"805\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito.jpg 810w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito-800x795.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/Burrito-160x159.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A carne asada burrito from La Taqueria in San Francisco’s Mission District. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of La Taqueria/Instagram)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The familiar scenes depicted on the walls of taquerias always pique my interest. They pay homage to specific places in Mexico. The people working behind the counter are all Mexican. A taqueria is a Mexican restaurant, but the Mission-style burrito is an American-born offshoot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It reminds me of kitchy T-shirts and keychains I’ve seen that read, “Made in the USA with Mexican parts” — a joke for people like me, a child of Mexican immigrants. It’s true that the Mission-style burrito does not exist in Mexico. If you find one there, it is an explicit take on the California burrito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What this shows is how culture is a living, organic process borrowing from influences regardless of borders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Papalote does not have any murals inside its compact eatery on 24th Street near the intersection with Valencia Street. That’s on purpose, Escobedo said. A papalote is a “kite” in Mexican Spanish, a term that comes from the Nahuatl word for butterfly. I love the symbolism of using an indigenous word from Mexico to name a restaurant in San Francisco that specializes in an Americanized take on Mexican food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Escobedo, Papalote’s owner, said the burrito is a better representation of American multiculturalism than the worn-out melting pot metaphor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The melting pot demands that whoever comes in has to blend in. You have to stop being who you are, and you have to be just like everyone else. A burrito is individual items that stay exactly who they are,” he said. The burrito “is a vessel that really unites all of us … And it’s really tasty and terrific.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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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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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"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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"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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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"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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"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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},
"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. ",
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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": {
"site": "news",
"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": {
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"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": {
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