Making Contact

A year ago, the world said goodbye to Reverend James Lawson Jr. On today's show, we look back at the work and legacy this leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement and advocate of nonviolence, with the help of the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center.

Reverend James Lawson Jr., nonviolence advocate and civil rights leader

Making Contact

• Episode host and producer: 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:

"For Documentary" by The\_Mountain via Pixabay

"Soul Force 2" from Re:Work by the UCLA Labor Center Credits:

• Produced by Veena Hampapur and Saba Waheed
• Sound design and editing by Veena Hampapur
• Mixing by Aaron Dalton

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center | Show on FoC Media

Last week, we visited a community in California's Central Valley called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and fix its sewage problems? To answer that question, we take a look at the community utility districts that run sewage and water in unincorporated towns all across California. We'll discuss their problems as well as ways to save them. This show first aired in August 2024.

Episode Credits

• 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
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Voiceovers

• Ana Portnoy Brimmer
• Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

Music Credits

• Komiko – Blue
• PC III – Ocean Tapping
• Alpha Hydrae – Friends and Apples
• Hicham Chahidi – Gouttes
• Ben von Wildenhaus – Week Twenty-five
• Ketsa – No Light Without Darkness
• The Custodian of Records – Thunderstorm

Learn More

Making Contact | Community Water Center | Self-Help Enterprises

In 2012, the state of California declared water a human right. Yet nearly 400 water systems don't meet the state's drinking water standards. In the Central Valley, the community of East Orosi hasn't had safe tap water in over 20 years. The water is full of harmful nitrates and other runoff from industrial agriculture. We visit East Orosi and talk to Berta Diaz Ochoa and others about what it's like living without access to clean drinking water and how the community has taken action to find a solution. This episode originally aired in July 2023.

Making Contact Credits

• Episode host and producer: Salima Hamirani
• 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

Voiceovers

• Amy Gastelum
• Bobbi James
• Ana Portnoy Brimmer
• Alex Corey

Music Credits

• Komiku – Blue
• Monet's Water Lilies
• Dark Rainy Day
• Water Drops, Sad Slow Piano Background
• Mother Womb piano
• Guracha Sonidera Cumbia Loops De Bateria Series II

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Community Water Center | Self Help Enterprises | State Water Resources Control Board

Dr. Rebecca Crumpler was the first Black woman to become a physician in the United States. Working in the aftermath of the Civil War, she made immense contributions to public health, despite the racism and sexism she faced. We'll trace the course of her remarkable life and work with in a story brought to us by the podcast Lost Women of Science, hosted by Katie Hafner and producer Dominique Janee.

Featuring:

Dr. Melody McCloud, Physician and author of Black Women's Wellness Dr. Joan Reede, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School Jim Downs, Historian and author of Sick from Freedom * Victoria Gall, with Hyde Park Historical Society and Friends of the Hyde Park Branch Library

Making Contact Credits

• 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: "The Road From Home" by Sergii Pavkin from Pixabay

Lost Women of Science: "Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, America's First Black Female Public Health Pioneer" Credits

• Producer and host: Dominique Janee
• Host: Katie Hafner
• Managing senior producer: Barbara Howard
• Audio engineer and sound designer: Samia Bouzid

Published in partnership with Scientific American

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Listen to the full episode from Lost Women of Science

For AAPI Heritage Month, we bring you an encore of our 2023 episode "Seeing Signs." With help from the Queens Memory Podcast, we'll learn about "Little Manila," a Filipino neighborhood dating back to the 1970s that still struggles to find its political footing. We also hear from Filipino care workers about their experiences battling COVID 19. This episode first aired on Making Contact in May 2023.

Featuring:

• Potri Ranka Manis: Nurse, Activist and Artist
• Joey Golja: Community Member
• Mary Jane de Leon: Community Member
• John Bahia: Community Member
• Steven Raga: Assemblymember for District 30, Queens, NY
• Jaclyn Reyes: Artist, Designer, and Cultural Organizer
• Gemma Balagtas: Community Member, Nurse
• Zenaida (Ida) Castillo: Community Member and Owner of PhilAm Food Mart

Making Contact Team:

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

Queens Memory Podcast Team:

• Producers: Rosalind Tordesillas, Melody Cao, Anna Williams, and Natalie Milbrodt
• Mixing and editing by Cory Choy
• Music composed by Elias Ravin
• Voiceover work by Arianne Arreglado

Learn More:

Making Contact homepage | Listen to Season 3 of the Queens Memory Podcast: NYC Libraries | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project. The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex.

The Healing Project takes action towards abolition with forms such as musical songs, films, an exhibition, community gatherings, live performances, and a digital library of audio interviews. At the center of the project are the intergenerational voices of people across the country, including folks incarcerated in prisons and detention centers. Their stories, experiences, and ideas serve as the foundation for The Healing Project's vision for societal transformation. This story first aired in February 2023.

Featuring: Samora Pinderhughes, composer, pianist/vocalist, and interdisciplinary artist

Making Contact Credits:

• Episode Host: Anita Johnson
• Segment Editors: Jessica Partnow, Lucy Kang, Jacinda Abcarian
• 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:

• Borrtex – "Creeping"
• Samora Pinderhughes – "Process"
• Samora Pinderhughes – "Hope"

Learn More:

Samora Pinderhughes | The Healing Project | Exhibition site | Tiny Desk Concert filmed live inside the exhibition | Exhibition films, "Masculinity" & "Hold that Weight" | Exhibition album

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we bring you a story at the intersection of therapy, healing and social justice. We'll hear about one therapist's work to bring the lens of radical therapy and community care into her practice. This piece was produced by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center.

Featuring: Claudia Morales, therapist at Social Justice Healing

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](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)
• Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain

Music credit: "Documentary" by [Coma-Media](https://pixabay.com/users/coma-media-24399569/) via Pixabay

Re:Work Episode "Radical Therapy" Credits

• Hosted and produced by Veena Hampapur and Saba Waheed
• Sound design and editing by Veena Hampapur
• Mixing by Aaron Dalton

Learn More:

Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center

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.

For Earth Day, we bring back a special environmental episode from our archives!

As we head into an ever warming world, some experts and politicians are embracing a possible solution to climate change called geoengineering. Theoretically geoengineering could slow down climate change, stop it, and maybe even remove carbon from the air. It sounds like the perfect answer for a global political system that just can't stop burning fossil fuels even if it kills us all. But it might not be the easy fix we're hoping for.

We talk to scientists and activists about what geoengineering is and why it could actually be a dangerous way to tackle climate change. We also dive into the moral and ethical questions of testing geoengineering technology on Indigenous lands. This episode first aired in 2023.

Featuring:

Basav Sen, Climate Justice Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies | Dr. Steven Zornetzer, Vice-Chair, Governing Board of Arctic Ice Project | Panganga Pungowiyi, organizer for the nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network in Alaska

Making Contact Team:

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

Music Credits:

Chris Zabriskie – Air Hockey Salon | Bio Unit – Industrial Zone | Chris Zabriskie – Take Off and Shoot a Zero | Doctor Turtle – Leap Second | Monplaisir – Ridiculous | Monplaisir – Juan Garcia Madero

Learn More:

Indigenous Environmental Network | Arctic Ice Project | Institute for Policy Studies

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.

For Black Maternal Health Week, we celebrate the important work that Black midwives do in their communities. In this week's show, we'll hear a conversation about how one woman followed her calling to midwifery in a story brought to us by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. Featuring Kimberly Durdin, licensed midwife and co-founder of Kindred Space LA and the Birthing People Foundation

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: "Documentary" by The Mountain via Pixabay

Re:Work Episode Credits

Hosted and produced by Veena Hampapur and Saba Waheed

Learn More

Making Contact homepage | Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center

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.

What is caste? According to author Thenmozhi Soundararajan, "caste is suffering. That one's worth and fate are determined at the moment of birth. Forced to exist in a caste apartheid of segregated ghettos." On this week's episode, we talk to Thenmozhi Soundararajan the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition. Examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective , Thenmozhi lays bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical social structures on the caste-oppressed. This is an encore presentation of a show that first aired June 12, 2024.

Featuring: Thenmozhi Soundararajan the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolitio

Making Contact Team

Host: Anita Johnson

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

Executive Director: Jina Chung

Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain

Music:

Blue Dot Sessions - "3rd Chair"

Blue Dot Sessions - "Paving Stones"

Learn More:

• The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition
• Thenmozhi Soundararajan / Dalit Diva
• Google's plan to talk about caste bias led to 'division and rancor'
• Hindu Sect Accused of Using Forced Labor
• Dismantling the Caste System

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.