Making Contact

Almost half of Puerto Rico's doctors have fled the island over the past decade, leading to a lack of specialists and treatment and incredibly long wait times. And this isn't just an inconvenience. People are dying from lack of care. Why is Puerto Rico's health care system collapsing, and why are doctors fleeing the island?

We take a look at its deeply dysfunctional private medical system and why attempts to fix it, and create a universal health care plan on the island, are being hindered by Puerto Rico's status as a US colony. Its massive unpayable debt, held by investors in the US, means that it cannot make its own economic decisions, even when it affects the livelihood of poor Puerto Ricans living there. But there might be a fix, getting rid of Puerto Rico's debt and rethinking its colonial relationship to the US. This episode first aired in October 2024.

Credits:

Making Contact Team

• Episode Host: Salima Hamirani
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
• Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)
• Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credits

• Daniel Birch – Indigo Strokes
• Axletree – Goldfinch- Flight to the North
• Mindseye – Spores
• Soft and Furious – So What

Learn More:

Boricuas Unidos en la Diaspora | The Nation Magazine: Puerto Rico's Unnatural Disaster

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

We return to Norfolk, Virginia, where flooding and rising sea levels threaten residents, and the climate plan for the city could perpetuate harmful patterns of segregation and environmental racism. With the help of the podcast Wading Between Two Titans, we'll take a look at how urban redevelopment is pushing out low-income and Black residents and what happens when communities are displaced due to climate gentrification.

Featuring:

• Mr. Vernell, resident
• Vincent Hodges, social worker and organizer
• Monét Johnson, lead housing and environmental organizer for New Virginia Majority
• Paul Riddick, former Norfolk City Council member

Credits:

Making Contact Team

• Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credit: "A Documentary" by AKTASOK via Pixabay

Wading Between Two Titans Team

• Written, recorded, produced, edited, mixed, mastered and hosted by Adrian Wood
• Show art by Adrian Wood
• Story editing by Kelly Jones
• Consultation and visioning with the Repair Lab 2022 Practitioner-in-Residence, Kim Sudderth
• Music by Sugarlift
• A project featuring original research by the Repair Lab

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Wading Between Two Titans

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

In this episode, we'll head to Norfolk, Virginia, where flooding and rising sea levels are disproportionately threatening Black residents, while the city is also also weathering a housing crisis. We'll hear about how sea-level rise, racism and housing are intertwined in this coastal city in a story from episode one of the podcast Wading Between Two Titans, brought to us by the University of Virginia's Repair Lab and producer Adrian Wood.

Featuring:

Dr. Tommy L. Bogger, professor of history at Norfolk State University | Cassandra Newby-Alexander, endowed professor of Virginia Black History and Culture at Norfolk State University

Credits:

Making Contact Team

• Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain
• Music Credit: "A Documentary" by AKTASOK via Pixabay

Wading Between Two Titans Credits

• Written, recorded, produced, edited, mixed, mastered and hosted by [Adrian Wood](http://adrianwoodstudio.com/)
• Show art by [Adrian Wood](http://adrianwoodstudio.com/)
• Story editing by Kelly Jones
• Visioned by the Repair Lab 2022 Practitioner-in-Residence, [Kim Sudderth](https://www.kimfor92.com/)
• Music by [Sugarlift](http://soundcloud.com/sugarlift)
• A project featuring original research by [the Repair Lab](http://repairlab.virginia.edu/)

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Wading Between Two Titans

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Today on Making Contact we present "Saltwater Soundwalk," an Indigenous audio tour of Seattle featuring a watery audio experience, with streams of stories that ebb and flow that intermixes English and Coast Salish languages. Indigenous Coast Salish peoples continue to steward this land and preserve its language, despite settler colonialism, industrialization and gentrification. Part story, part sound collage, this piece is scored entirely with the sounds of the waters and animals who live in and around the Salish Sea. This episode first aired in April 2023.

Saltwater Soundwalk Credits

Rachel Lam (Anigiduwagi enrolled Cherokee Nation) and Jenny Asarnow produced this work as part of FLOW: Art Along the Ship Canal, a commission from Seattle Public Utilities in partnership with the Office of Arts & Culture

Special Thanks

Commissioned with SPU 1% for Art Funds. Administered by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. City of Seattle, Bruce Harrell, Mayor. This episode of Making Contact was supported in part by a Moral Courage grant from the Satterberg Foundation.

Making Contact Team

• Episode host: Anita Johnson
• Segment Editor: Jessica Partnow
• Staff Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Lucy Kang, Amy Gastelum
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Audio Engineering: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music Credits

Last Kiss – Magnus Moone | Audiobinger – Enchanted Forest

Learn More

Saltwater Soundwalk | Seattle Times | Art Beat Blog

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

On this week's Making Contact, we talk about baseball with the help of some Venezuelan players living in Peru. In a story brought to us by the podcast In Confianza, with Pulso, we hear about how their hopes and dreams of making it big can fuel community when they're living far from home. The story featured in this show first aired in July 2024.

Featuring:

Raian Baute, Venezuelan baseball aficionado | Rodrigo Baute, Los Astros player | Manny Padron, Major League Baseball scout for the Miami Marlins | Franklin Lopez, Los Astros coach | Wilmer Flores, baseball player for the San Francisco Giants

Making Contact Team:

• Episode host: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music credit:

"Drums" by Andrewfai via Pixabay

Guest Episode Credits - In Confianza from Pulso

• Show hosted by Liz Rebecca Alarcón
• Story produced and narrated by Anthony Wallace
• Editing by Mark Pagán and Charlie Garcia
• Audio engineering and scoring by Anthony Wallace
• Additional audio engineering and mixing by Charlie Garcia

Listen to the full episode from In Confianza, with Pulso

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Sixty-two years ago, a quarter of a million people gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. On today's show, we take a look at the life and legacy of a central organizer of the march, Bayard Rustin. Rustin was an openly gay civil rights leader and a trusted advisor to labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This show first aired in June 2021.

Featuring:

• Bayard Rustin, architect of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
• Ashon Crawley, University of Virginia Associate Professor of Religious Studies and African-American and African Studies
• Nancy Kates, filmmaker and producer of _Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin_
• Bill Sutherland, Fellowship of Reconciliation
• Reverend A.J. Muste, pacifist and mentor of Rustin
• George Houser. Fellowship of Reconciliation
• Louis John, nephew of Bayard Rustin
• Devi Prasad, pacifist

Credits:

Making Contact Team

• Episode host: Anita Johnson
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music

• Cory Gray – "Medieval Tension"
• Ketsa – "This Way Joyous"
• Blue Dot Sessions – "Rally"
• Blue Dot Sessions – "Rayling"
• Dee Yan-Key – "Hold On"
• Dee Yan-Key – "Go Down Moses"
• Blue Dot Sessions – "3rd Chair"
• Andy G. Cohen – "Our Young Guts"

Learn More:

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, by John D'Emilio | Bayard Rustin Fund | Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington, by Jacqueline Houtman, Michael G. Long, Walter Naegle | I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters by Bayard Rustin, edited by Michael G. Long | Bayard Rustin: Troubles I've Seen | Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers | PBS on the March on Washington | History.com on the March on Washington | AFL-CIO and Bayard Rustin | Washington Post | NY Times

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

This week, we're sharing a guest episode from our friends at Project Pulso: Miami's Battle Over Bilingualism. The path for Miami to get as bilingual as it is today has been hard. Deep discrimination and mass resistance were what it took to get here. Today's episode is about a decades-long power struggle between those who embraced diversity and those who fought to repress it. Produced in July 2024.

Featuring:

Dr. Paul George, Eduardo Padron, Gregory Samms

Making Contact Team

- Episode Host: Jessica Partnow

- Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang

- Executive Director: Jina Chung

- Engineer: Jeff Emtman

- Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain

Pulso/In Confianza Podcast Team

- Host: Liz Rebecca Alarcón

- Producer, engineering, scoring, mixing: Charlie Garcia

- Editor: Mark Pagán

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

This story is brought to us by the podcast Kerning Cultures. "Black Panthers in Algeria" tells the story of Elaine Mokhtefi as she landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s and found herself at the center of a special period in the country's history when it was known as the "Mecca of revolution." Elaine encountered world famous radicals, ragtag political parties, spies and military leaders – and became an unlikely sidekick to one of the most iconic liberation groups of our time. This episode first aired on Making Contact in September 2024 and Kerning Cultures in April 2023.

Featuring

• Elaine Mokhtefi
• Natalia Bin Khaled Vince
• Justin Gifford
• Eldridge Cleaver

Making Contact Credits

• Episode host: Anita Johnson
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](https://jeffemtman.com/)
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Kerning Cultures Credits

• Produced by Deena Sabry and Alex Atack
• Edited by Dana Ballout
• Fact checking by Eman Alsharif
• Sound design by Mohamad Khreizat, Paul Alouf and Alex Atack
• Our team also includes Zeina Dowidar, Nadeen Shaker and Finbar Anderson

Learn More

Algiers: Third World Capital | Revolution or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver | Kerning Cultures

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was created in the aftermath of 9/11. To contextualize what's happening with immigration today under Trump 2.0, we bring you one person's story of being caught in the anti-Muslim fervor post-9/11 and how she became an organizer advocating for the immigrants' rights. We'll also hear what her story teaches us about avoiding burnout in doing social justice work. This story comes to us by way of Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center.

Featuring:

Ainee Athar, immigrant rights and climate justice

Making Contact Team

• Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music:

"Documentary Piano Ambient" by BoDleasons via Pixabay

Re:Work Episode "Beyond the Glass Wall" Credits:

• Hosted by Veena Hampapur and George Chacon
• Produced by Veena Hampapur, George Chacon, and Saba Waheed Sound design and editing by Veena Hampapur
• Mixing by Aaron Dalton

Learn More:

Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center | FOC Media

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside Eurocentric concepts of psychology he was learning in school and instead asked tribal members how mental illness is addressed using traditional Indigenous practices. What he learned changed the trajectory of his career. Listen to find out how he helped bring precolonial cultural and spiritual practices into substance use disorder treatment in contemporary Indigenous settings. This show first aired in July 2024.

Featuring:

Dr. Joseph Gone, psychologist and interdisciplinary social scientist at Harvard University and member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Tribal Nation of Montana

Credits:

Making Contact Team:

• Episode Host: Amy Gastelum
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music credits:

• Songs: The Horses are Coming, The Gift, Song of Honor
• Album: The Return of the Buffalo Horses
• Artists: Darrell Norman and Ramon Kramer

Learn More:

**Learn More:**

• Dr. Joseph Gone
• American Indian Health and Family Services, Detroit, MI

Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.