Crosscurrents

Josiah Luís Alderete will tell you he is “a full-blooded Pocho Indio who refries his beans and poesia in Spanglish.”

Our ongoing series The Spiritual Edge occasionally spotlights stories about how people have found their own personal religious beliefs. Today’s story profiles an Uber driver named Oscar from Napa. He didn’t grow up particularly religious, but during a months-long incarceration, he found the Bible that would change his life.

In the past few weeks, the Bay Area has had one protest after another over the country’s immigration policies. There were thousands of people who took to the streets to march in protest of family separation.

This is an excerpt from “Order 9066,” a podcast from American Public Media and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

What’s happening today to immigrants seeking asylum or refuge in the United States has many thinking about another time, a time when another population was incarcerated in this country in the name of national security. The time was World War Two, and the people were Japanese Americans.

As thousands of migrant children wait to be reunited with their parents, images of them in detention centers continue to rock the country. Poet and activist Tongo Eisen-Martin traveled to McAllen, Texas to see what was happening for himself.

The new Transbay Transit Center opens next month in San Francisco. It’s meant to connect buses from the East Bay with MUNI, Caltrain, and High-Speed Rail. The only problem? The tunnel connecting Caltrain to the transit center hasn’t been built yet. The tunnel will be less than miles long, but building it will cost $4 billion dollars, on top of the $2.2 billion already spent on the transit center.

You ask, we answer.

One listener wanted to know, “What is this ‘test of the emergency system we hear now and then on the air?” Reporter Christine Nguyen has the answer.

KALW listener Lori from El Cerrito wrote in to ask why BART doesn’t go to Marin.

San Francisco’s Bush and Pine Streets efficiently get drivers from Point A to B. Or as some like to say, “From Bush to the Bay, Pine to the Pacific.” KALW listener Steve Greenberg wanted to know when these two streets became one-way. But more importantly, why?

Almost 60 years ago, the City of San Francisco named a unique street Brotherhood Way. On the south-side of Brotherhood Way, there’s a row of churches and faith-based institutions.

When recreational cannabis was legalized in California just over six months ago, the people championing legal weed had high hopes. Growers could emerge out of the shadows into the light. People arrested during the War on Drugs could become CEOs of cannabis empires. Millions of dollars worth of tax revenue would ooze out of marijuana plants right into the government’s pockets. But cannabis trade groups also warned regulations would push some people out.

Last month in San Francisco, an estimated 30,000 people protested against President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, which has led to the incarceration and separation of children from their parents.

One particularly vocal group at the protest: Japanese Americans, part of the group Nikkei Resistors. 

We’ve heard about kids sent to camps and detention facilities and we’ve seen the images of children in cages, wrapped up in foil blankets. One question we’ve been asking is—what happens to them after detention?

Pianist, composer, and MC Kev Choice represents Oakland hard. He started learning the piano in seventh grade at Westlake Junior High near Lake Merritt and recently composed a piece for the Oakland Symphony. Though he’s done stints in Illinois, New Orleans, and Atlanta, he considers the Town his artistic and spiritual home.

A few months ago the Oakland Zoo rescued three orphaned mountain lions cubs from the wild. They are part of a new exhibit called the California Trail that opens tomorrow. It’s a huge expansion that features our state’s native wildlife.

San Francisco just wrapped up an intense mayoral election. There’s another major race for mayor coming up. This time in Oakland.

A new generation of Oakland-raised Maya are working to give their communities a voice in their native tongues.

As the nation has been following for weeks now, thousands of migrant children coming to the United States are separated from their families at the Southern border.

Navy veteran Ron Ekika Riveira Jr. says that when you first see him and all his tattoos, you might see a “big bad scary-looking Hell’s Angels guy.” But if you look closer, you'll see that the ink tells a different, much more surprising story.

Architecture has the power to transform. A building can make us feel joy or sadness, powerful or weak. 

Rents have increased 40 percent across the Bay Area in the last three years. Six of the country's 11 most expensive rental markets are in California.

The statewide community project California Speaks, based here at KALW, recently asked listeners this question: “How has the opioid crisis affected your community, and what should be done about it?”

We heard from a range of people — intimate stories deeply exploring tragedies and solutions. We wanted to share some of them, at length, with you today.

Today on Crosscurrents:

• The battle over rent control is headed for the November ballot.
• How an architect designs meaningful space.
• StoryCorps: Preparing dying veterans for their "last deployment."

Today on Crosscurrents:

• San Francisco may be the first city in the nation to open safe injection sites
• California Speaks: How has the opioid crisis affected you?

The Village began as an illegal, direct-action program to provide tiny homes for homeless people. It has since gained the city of Oakland’s official blessing. But, the activists say the collaboration with the city has been unnecessarily rocky — and the feeling is mutual.

Oakland’s trying a new response to its growing communities of homeless encampments: replacing some with gated communities of Tuff Sheds meant to help residents find their way to permanent housing.

Today on Crosscurrents:

• San Francisco is giving low income people a discount if their cars are towed
• Inside TEPCO, an East Bay ceramics company that’s become cultishly collectible

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Technical Porcelain and Chinaware Company produced dishes for restaurants all over the Bay Area. While the El Cerrito based factory closed in 1968, this durable dishware lives on as an iconic East Bay collectible with an unexpected and impassioned cult following.

The death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, set off months of protests and an investigation by the federal Department of Justice.

Today on Crosscurrents:

• Visiting a school that helps girls who’ve experienced trauma trust, learn, and thrive.
• How an Oakland musician transformed her career after motherhood.
• The story behind one of San Francisco’s architectural curiosities.