Making Contact

Fifty years ago, 30,000 people peacefully protested the disproportionate number of Latinos dying on the frontlines in Vietnam. The August 29th Chicano Moratorium ended with an attack by police, 400 arrests, and the deaths of four people, one of whom was Los Angeles Times journalist Rubén Salazar.

We often see children as innocents who need love, support, and stability. But not all young people are nurtured this way. Too often youth from marginalized communities of color are not seen as needing protection -- they are treated as the ones we need protection from. We see this in this episode, brought to us from Re:Work Radio, with Phal Sok, who was once a kid in Long Beach forced to grow up too soon.

Activists in the Latinx immigrant community of Los Angeles share what they do to take care of their mental health. Self-care becomes a "selfless act" when it allows activists to stay healthy and do their work in a sustainable way.

Journalists have been violently targeted by police and arrested alongside demonstrators at Black Lives Matter protests across the country. In this episode we'll look at the struggle for press freedoms during a time of repression and surveillance.

On this episode of Making Contact, we will look at the privatization of our earth's most precious resource – water. We will look at the ways people around the world have been organizing against this privatization in the face of climate change and rising sea levels that threaten to contaminate our limited drinking water supplies.

Our radio adaptation of the film, Let the Fire Burn. Directed by Jason Osder, examines the controversial, 1985 clash between police in Philadelphia and MOVE, a radical, non-violent group. On May 13, police dropped a bomb on MOVE's home, killing 11 people and destroying 61 homes.

Producer Robert Raymond interviews Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing--a critical examination on the history of the police, and the police's evolution as a tool for social control that exacerbates race and class divisions.

44 million Americans hold over 1.6 trillion dollars of student debt and the cost of higher education continues to skyrocket. This unpayable debt causes long term financial damage, especially, for students of color and women. What can we do to fix the debt crisis? We look at two solutions: Free schools like Berea College in Kentucky and the possibility of a student debt strike.

Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw defined the concept of intersectionality 30 years ago. She developed that framework to understand how identities such as race, gender and class intersect in overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination -- resulting in compounded damage.

Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. In this show, we'll explore the history of Juneteenth and we'll expand our conversation of Juneteenth to include a case for reparations.The topic of reparations for African Americans has recently resurfaced with Democratic presidential candidates taking positions on the issue, elevating the discussion to the mainstream.