Making Contact

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

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 Cu

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

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 Podca

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 Dir

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 pod

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 E

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 an

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 Deona

On this week's episode, we speak with Bay Area based comedian Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories - finding humor in the most ordinary moments of her daily life - including her girlfriend’s arbitrary policy on household pests, the changes hipsters have brought to Oakland, and a Black woman’s unique packing list for hiking. This is an encore presentation of a show that first aired August 14, 2024. Featuring: Karinda Dobbins, standup comedian, writer, and actor Making Contact Staff: Host: Anita Johnson 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 Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain Music Credits: Dee Yan-Key "Hold on" Audiobinger "The Garden State"   Learn More:  Karinda Dobbins  Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narr

During his first term, Trump stacked the Supreme Court with hard right judges creating a 6-3 split that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a stunning ruling in which a human right which was previously granted by law was taken away from the public. This time Trump faces even less resistance and could remake the Supreme Court once again.  Ellie Mystal, justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation magazine, joins us to talk about the Supreme Court: what the democrats could have done under Biden to fix the third branch of government so that we wouldn't now be in such a politically vulnerable position; but also what we can expect in terms of possible new Supreme Court nominations and what they could mean for our remaining rights. Featuring: Ellie Mystal: The justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation magazine and host of their legal podcast, “Contempt of Court.” Author of  “Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution” Music: Nihilore - More Scared of You Anemoia - Tephra Ben

Dr. Flemmie Kittrell was a Black home economist whose research in the field of early childhood education shaped the way we think about child development today. She became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in nutrition and contributed immensely to programs like Head Start – even though her name is often left out of the history. We'll hear more about her life and work in a story from the podcast _Lost Women of Science_,_ _hosted by Carol Sutton Lewis and Danya AbdelHameid. Featuring: Dolores Caffey-Fleming, Program director of Project STRIDE, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Allison Horrocks, Public historian Lauren Bauer, fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution  Credits 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:  "Science Documentary" by [Aleksey Chisti

In 1965 Margaret Crane was a young designer creating packaging for a pharmaceutical company. Looking at the rows of pregnancy tests she thought, “Well, women could do that at home!” and so she made it a reality for potentially pregnant people to be able to know about and take control of their own lives and bodies.  But while the design of the prototype was simple, Crane faced the issues we continue to fight when it comes to reproductive rights and the health and autonomy of people who give birth: an uphill battle to convince the pharmaceutical companies, the medical community and conservative social leaders that at-home pregnancy testing was safe and necessary. After all this, Crane is only now receiving credit for her contributions to the industry. Featuring: Margaret Crane – Graphic designer and inventor of the first home pregnancy test Wendy Kline – Dema G. Seelye Chair in the History of Medicine, History Faculty Purdue University Jesse Olszynko-Gryn – Head of the Laboratory for Oral History and Experimen

A new philosophy steeped in the ideas of Artificial Intelligence, space colonization, and the long-term survival of the human species is gaining ground among the wealthy.  However, there are reasons to question its goals and its ethics. Longtermists believe that not only could we colonize space and create simulated humans in giant servers around stars, but that we must. Anything short of a trillion-year multi-planetary existence for our species would be a moral failing. They also believe that all of our ethical actions should focus on the countless lives that may exist in that dim future, instead of on the people alive today. Is this the kind of ethics we should all accept, however? Philosopher and historian Émile P. Torres joins us to discuss Longtermism and its dangerous pitfalls. Featuring: Émile P. Torres, Philosopher and Historian Credits: Host: Salima Hamirani Co-host: Amy Gastelum Executive Director: Jina Chung Segment Editor + Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Staff Producers: Anita Johnson, Sa

This week on Making Contact, we bring you a story of urban planning and how race has shaped American cities.  In his book, Hella Town: Oakland’s History of Development and Disruption, Mitchell Schwarzer explores the origins and the lasting impacts of transportation improvements, systemic racism, and regional competition on Oakland’s built environment. Schwarzer, an architectural and urban historian, pulls from his experience as a city planner, and educator to tell the story of a city divided. Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks! Featuring: Mitchell Schwarzer; Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts. He has written books on architectural theory, visual perception, and the buildings of the San Francisco Bay Area. Credits Host:  Anita Johnson Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Produ

In Episode 2 of “Exposed”  from our friends at San Francisco Public Press, we explore a little-known chapter in San Francisco’s nuclear era: human experiments carried out to assess the health effects of radiation. Scientists from the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, located at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, designed and executed at least 24 experiments that involved gathering data from humans — in some cases, injecting test subjects with radioisotopes or having them ingest fluids laced with trace amounts of radioactive materials. Even football players from the San Francisco 49ers were enrolled as test subjects in these so-called tracer studies. We hear from military veterans who were sent on a mysterious mission to spread radioactive substances onto rooftops at an Army base near Pittsburg, Calif., for an experiment the radiation lab played a role in designing. Some recount experiences of witnessing nuclear bomb blasts in the Nevada desert. We also examine a national pattern of human radiation experim

Today we present the first half of a two-part radio documentary from our friends at SF Public Press, “Exposed,” opening a window into the little-known history of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The sprawling abandoned naval base, in San Francisco’s southeast waterfront Bayview neighborhood, is currently the site of the city’s largest real estate development project. The base played a key role in the Cold War nuclear era, when it housed a research institution known as the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, which studied the human health effects of radiation. In Episode 1 of the podcast, we trace the radioactive contamination found in the shipyard soil today back to its origins, with nuclear bomb testing in the Marshall Islands. We also hear from environmental justice advocates, including one who led a health biomonitoring survey revealing that nearby residents have toxic elements stored in body tissues that match the hazardous chemicals of concern identified at the shipyard. Featuring: Ahimsa Porter Sum

Today we head back to Indianapolis with the podcast Urban Roots. In the 1950s and 1960s, Ms. Jean Spears was a young mother and burgeoning preservationist. She saved antiques from houses about to be demolished; she bought a home in a white slum and renovated it; later on, she did the same with a historic home in the black neighborhood near Indiana Avenue. In the eighties, she and some neighbors started digging into this black neighborhood’s history, uncovering the names of Black doctors, civic leaders, and other professionals who had lived there, many of whom had worked for Madam C.J. Walker. She helped rename the neighborhood to Ransom Place, in honor of Freeman Ransom, Madam Walker’s prodigious lawyer. And in 1991, they succeeded in getting the Ransom Place Historic District included in the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks in no small part to the connection to Madam C.J. Walker, Jean Spears was able to save this pocket of Black history, in an area that — as we explained last episode — the city o

Madam C.J. Walker was a brilliant entrepreneur who built a haircare empire and became the first African American woman millionaire. You might have heard about her, but not many people know that her headquarters used to be located in Indianapolis, along a once vibrant Black corridor called Indiana Avenue, a place that today is known for parking lots, high-speed traffic, and uninspiring university buildings. Why do so few people know this story? Because, over decades, government planners and private developers slowly and systematically erased Indiana Avenue's history. Luckily, however, some Black Hoosiers are working to uncover, and reclaim, what almost disappeared without a trace. In this episode, we tell their, and the Avenue’s, story. Featuring: A’Lelia Bundles: Journalist and Madam C.J. Walker biographer; Susan Hall Dotson of the Indiana Historical Society; Claudia Polley of the Urban Legacy Lands Initiative; Wildstyle Paschall, artist and community advocate; Devon Ginn of the Walker Legacy Center; and cent

On today's show, we look at how art can highlight the struggles of incarcerated women, build solidarity with them across prison walls, and fight against the erasure and censorship inherent to incarceration.  First, we'll hear about a dance performance called "If I Give You My Sorrows" that's built around the complex ways that incarcerated women relate to their beds. Then, we'll learn about an art exhibition, "The Only Door I Can Open," that's curated and created by incarcerated artists, writers and poets inside Central California Women's Facility. Featuring Jo Kreiter, artistic director of Flyaway Productions and creative director of If I Give You My Sorrows Betty McKay, formerly incarcerated advocate and organizer Tomiekia Johnson, incarcerated writer and co-curator of The Only Door I Can Open Chantell-Jeannette Black, incarcerated artist and co-curator of The Only Door I Can Open Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, executive director of Empowerment Avenue Credits Making Contact Team Episode Host: Lucy Kang Producers