For our latest “At Work With” episode, where we talk to Pacific Northwesterners with interesting jobs and ask them your questions about what it’s like to do what they do, we bring you along as we visit a queseria where Mexican cheese is made, hit the streets at dawn with a garbage collector and meet a biologist whose job it is to protect birds at the airport. 

For our “At Work With” series, let us know who you want to hear from next! You can also send us questions you have for our next “At Work With” interview. Email us at [email protected] or visit our web page to submit questions.

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This month marks 50 years since the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. It’s also the anniversary of many Vietnamese families arriving to start a new life in the Pacific Northwest. Thousands of people fled the country and became refugees in 1975, and many of those people ended up on the west coast of the United States. According to the census data, there are now more than 37,000 Vietnamese Oregonians. We’ll hear from a few of them. 

Van Le and Allen Luong are organizing a series of art exhibits featuring paintings by Le’s late father to mark the anniversary and look towards the future. OPB arts and culture producer Steven Tonthat, whose parents emigrated from Vietnam, shares his perspective. And we hear from Thuy Huyen, whose harrowing story of escaping her home country was featured in OPB’s documentary “The Vietnam War Oregon Remembers.”

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The United States’ entry into World War II presented a challenge to American farmers. On the one hand, demand for agricultural products skyrocketed. On the other hand, a dire labor shortage emerged, as tens of thousands of American farm workers joined the military and others headed from rural areas to bigger cities in search of wartime industry jobs.

So, the governments of the United States and Mexico made an agreement: the creation of a program to bring Mexican workers to the U.S. on temporary labor contracts to help farms, as well as railroad companies, across the country.

Officially called the “Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program,” it became known as the Bracero Program. Around 15,000 Mexican workers came to Oregon as braceros while the program lasted here, from 1943 to 1947.

Braceros often endured labor abuses, workplace injuries, and anti-Mexican racism. They also saved American agriculture during the war and built Mexican American communities in the Northwest for years to come. This week, we learn about the history of the Bracero Program in Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest.

To learn more, watch OPB’s 2007 “Oregon Experience” documentary, “The Braceros.”

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On “The Evergreen,” we’ve talked about the history behind the largest dam removal project in the United States: the long fight over water in the Klamath basin between Tribes and farmers, the process of getting the dams out, and what dam removal means to the Tribes along the river. 

Today, we’re bringing you up to date. What’s on folks’ minds now that all the dams are out a year later — and what still needs to be done to piece this basin together again? 

Cassandra Profita is an editor and reporter at OPB. She’s been covering the Klamath Dam removal for years and joins us to talk about the challenges that remain to repair salmon habitat. 

Profita also produced a documentary about the Klamath Dams for OPB's "Oregon Field Guide." Check it out.

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Food is obviously part of our lives every day. We literally need it to survive. But it can also be an art form and serve as creative inspiration. From fifteenth century still life paintings to pop art, food and art have gone hand in hand for a long time. In this episode, we’ll introduce you to three Pacific Northwest artists whose creativity is inseparable from food. 

Julie Beeler is an artist and designer based in Trout Lake, Washington. She makes inks, dyes and watercolor paints from the mushrooms she collects in the forest, and she’s the author of the Mushroom Color Atlas. 

Portland photographer Isabella Cassini captures food in a number of different ways – from carefully arranged kaleidoscope images to her dynamic “splashes, crashes and smashes” series. That series is all about capturing messy food in motion – raw eggs, bowls of cereal and milk and plates of spaghetti get thrown in front of the camera as Cassini captures the midair collisions and spectacular spills. 

Gena Renaud’s exquisite artwork is actually meant to be eaten. She makes wagashi, or Japanese sweets, meant to be enjoyed as part of a traditional tea ceremony. For most of her career, she was a graphic and industrial designer and worked at companies like Nike and Adidas. Now, she spends time on her meticulous, seasonally-inspired wagashi – delicate, pickled cherry blossoms suspended in wobbly agar, a jelly candy made to look like pieces of sea glass and a confection called manju made with sweet lima bean paste.  

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

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It’s hard to keep up with the dizzying pace of changes being made by the Trump Administration. This episode, we take a tour of OPB’s newsroom and hear from reporters covering politics, climate, health, business and more about what those changes mean for people in the Northwest, and what it’s like to be covering them as a journalist right now. 

You can find even more coverage of federal policies and how they are playing out in the Pacific Northwest here.

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

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In the fruit orchards of the Hood River Valley, spring means rolling fields blanketed with blossoms and a view of Mount Hood that looks so close you could reach out and touch it. And at the Kiyokawa Family Orchards in Parkdale, the apples are beginning to grow. The family-owned farm was once called the best apple orchard in America, and is known for its wide selection of 125 apple varieties.

The family also has an incredible local history dating back three generations, to when a vibrant community of Japanese American orchardists established itself in the Hood River Valley in the early 20th century. The Kiyokawas have worked as fruit orchardists in the area since 1911. They’re also one of the few Japanese American families from the valley that was able to return and work the land after surviving forced relocation and incarceration during World War II.

Video producer and cinematographer Jeff Kastner and his family have been eating the Kiyokawas’ apples for years, and followed the family last year for a full growing season. He recently shared their story for OPB’s “Oregon Experience” and “Superabundant” series. This week, we head out onto the farm with owner and third-generation orchardist Randy Kiyokawa, meet the family’s 101-year-old matriarch Mich, and learn all about how the Kiyokawas created an apple paradise in the shadow of Mount Hood.

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Scientists at Oregon State University and Oregon Health and Science University have teamed up to find new ways to treat endometriosis, ovarian cancer and other health conditions using nanoparticles and magnetic fields. Joining us to tell us more about this fascinating research are OPB science reporter Jes Burns, who is also the host and producer behind the “All Science. No Fiction.” video series, and OPB cinematographer and editor Brooke Herbert. This episode was recorded with a live audience at the Tomorrow Theater in Portland.

You can see the video about the medical applications of magnetic nanoparticles here.

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, host Jenn Chávez and Oregon Field Guide.

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Quiet can be an elusive thing, especially in an urban environment. Going out into nature is a good way to escape the sounds of the city, but trails are often full of people talking, dogs barking and you can still hear road noise from a lot of parks and hiking spots. Some people even feel the need to bring a Bluetooth speaker along with them when they’re out in nature. So how can you find a place that is truly quiet? And what would that be like? Ed Jahn is the executive producer of Oregon Field Guide and he recently went on a quest to find the quietest spot in all of Oregon. In this Evergreen episode, he takes us to that place. 

You can see Ed’s video about the quietest place in Oregon here.

And if you want to hear about a spot in the Pacific Northwest that just might be the quietest place on earth, check out this episode of “The Wild” from our friends at the public radio station KUOW. 

For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, host Jenn Chávez and Oregon Field Guide.

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You might encounter an ice sculpture of a swan at a fancy banquet, or an ice luge on a night out. But have you ever seen an 18-foot-tall punk baby with a mohawk made of ice? That’s one of the massive ice sculptures dreamt up by world-class ice carver Chris Foltz. Every winter, master sculptors from across the globe converge for the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, where the temps are sub-zero, the ice blocks are sawed out of frozen ponds and the sculptures can weigh up to 20 tons. Foltz, a longtime chef who teaches ice sculpting to culinary students on the Oregon coast, has led teams to multiple world championships in Alaska.

“Oregon Field Guide” producer Noah Thomas followed Foltz and his team from Oregon to Fairbanks and joins us to share the thrills and chills of their quest for icy glory.

For more “Evergreen” episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.

Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.

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Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:

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Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

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And many more! Check out our full show list here.