Angelo Quinto was having a mental health crisis when his family called 911 for help. After Antioch Police arrived at Quinto’s home, his family says an officer kneeled on his back near the neck before his body went limp. Quinto, a 30 year-old Filipino American, died days later in the hospital. His death has drawn national attention, especially among Filipino Americans across the country, and spotlights a Bay Area suburb where a now majority-Black city council and young activists are trying to change the power dynamics of the traditionally pro-police community.

Guest: Sandhya Dirks, Race & Equity Reporter for KQED

Listen to KQED's American Suburb podcast here. Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/2OAbEEV

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On Thursday, the California state legislature approved a $6.6 billion plan to encourage school districts to resume in-person learning for the youngest public school students in the state. Meanwhile, some students have noticed their perspectives missing from the conversation about re-opening schools. Today, we hear from some.

Guests: Joy Cheng, senior at Lowell High School in San Francisco; Melina Kritikopoulos, senior at Santa Clara High School; Isabella Brenneman, junior at Kit Carson International Academy in Sacramento

Subscribe to our newsletter here. Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3sPLTPB

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Mill Valley in Marin County is one of the 10 most segregated cities in the Bay Area. During the rise of protests following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last year, Mill Valley Mayor Sashi McEntee claimed the Black Lives Matter movement was “not of immediate local importance.” That summer, community activists held protests and sit-ins demanding a public apology from the mayor and plans for lasting change.

In response, the City Council created the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force, but in February the City Council rejected half of the task force's proposals and refused to accept its recommendations.

The fight for racial justice is happening in cities across the Bay, but what has it looked like in the Bay Area's whitest and wealthiest county?

Guest: Lorenzo Morotti, Marin Independent Journal reporter and Amber Allen-Peirson, activist in Marin City and Mill Valley.

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/2MIEvGm. Subscribe to our newsletter here.

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The ZIP codes in and near East San Jose have been hit the hardest by COVID-19 in the Bay Area. They’re predominantly immigrant neighborhoods with thousands of essential workers, many of whom work for the Silicon Valley tech giants located nearby.

Many say the pandemic has simply exposed generations of disinvestment in this corner of Santa Clara County. So how are community members in these neighborhoods surviving and helping each other during a pandemic that has affected the Bay so unequally?

Guest: Farida Jhavala Romero, KQED reporter

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3syRj1a

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Last fall, KQED launched a new, five-part podcast about possible solutions to the housing crisis. It’s called SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America, hosted by housing reporters Erin Baldassari and Molly Solomon.

Since then, Erin and Molly have also received lots of questions and comments from listeners who are curious about what’s happened on the housing front since the podcast dropped. 

Today, we wanted to pass it off to them. Whether you’ve listened to SOLD OUT or not, this is a timely conversation about a subject that affects all of us.

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3pWPVDS

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An oil spill from Chevron’s Richmond refinery earlier this month and the toxic fumes released last November are part of a long trend of dangerous spills into the Bay Area’s water and air. So why’s it so hard to keep the fossil fuel industry from releasing harmful stuff into our environment over and over again?

Guest: Ted Goldberg, KQED senior editor

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3upixsZ

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Several surveys show that Black Americans are, on average, more hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine compared with white people. And when it comes to Black communities showing less trust in the health care system overall, many journalists, politicians and experts point to one specific historical incident: the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

But many people, including KQED reporter April Dembosky, are worried that Tuskegee has become a scapegoat for the many structural inequities in the health care system today. And it has real implications right now, especially for Black people who are disproportionately dying from COVID-19.

Guest: April Dembosky, KQED health correspondent

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3aA4MQ9

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After the pandemic forced strip clubs in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood to close and protests against police violence erupted in the summer, many dancers were laid off and started to work virtually instead.

This created an unexpected opportunity to push for more worker power among strippers, and fight back against issues like sexual harassment, racism, and a culture of fear around speaking out. And now, some dancers are hoping that this organizing will lead to better working conditions in strip clubs when the pandemic eventually ends.

Guests: Kathryn Hurd and Ellie Lightfoot, reporters and students at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3aBSua9

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Sakhone Lasaphangthong spends his work day in Oakland's Chinatown helping people get the resources they need. He walks the streets and connects with merchants, elders, and people who don't have housing.

Over the last few weeks, violence against Asian elders in the community received national media attention and sparked a lot of debate about race, policing, and community safety. Today, we speak with Sakhone about what he's been seeing in Oakland's Chinatown.

Guest: Sakhone Lasaphangthong, director of housing services at Family Bridges and Chinatown ambassador

Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3apL49O

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Traditional Chinese Medicine has a complicated history in the Bay. In the 70s, a Chinese immigrant in Palo Alto named Miriam Lee was arrested and put on trial for practicing acupuncture — even though she learned it from a master in her hometown in China.

Today, Traditional Chinese Medicine is still often exoticized or dismissed. But now, some Asian Americans in the Bay Area are reconnecting with these practices — and building new communities in the process.

Guest: Cathy Erway, food writer and host of the podcast Self Evident: Asian America's Stories

Read Cathy's piece about this in the San Francisco Chronicle here. Episode transcript here: http://bit.ly/3tQXSxD

We're taking a break on Monday, Feb. 15th. Talk to you on Wednesday!

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