But Next Time Part 3: The Fight for Fair Housing in the Face of Climate Change (Encore)
No matter where we come from, or how much money we make, we all deserve a safe and healthy place to call home. In this episode we meet Jamie, a mom who lives in subsidized housing in Houston, Texas, who joins with other moms to stand up to landlords and local officials whose policies have kept Black and brown families trapped in unsafe homes for years. Before and after Hurricane Harvey, Jamie and organizers in Houston came together...
But Next Time Part 2: Language Justice and the Road to Recovery After Disaster (Encore)
This week we continue delving into community-rooted disaster relief in California, from wildfires to the pandemic. From building mutual aid networks, to translating emergency messages in common local languages, we see in action the incredible difference language justice can make in our communities. In Sonoma County, organizers hit the field with information on where to get food, shelter, and support. In San Francisco, they set up a...
But Next Time Part 1: California Wildfires and Protecting Our Farmworkers (Encore)
As fires ravaged California’s world-famous wine country in 2017, a community radio station, emergency dispatcher, and tenant organizers helped the most vulnerable in their community survive and recover. Community organizers and hosts of the podcast But Next Time Chrishelle Palay and Rose Arrieta bring us the first of four stories of hard-won lessons learned from people on the frontlines of California’s wildfires and Texas’...
Behind the Sound: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong
Welcome to Behind the Sound, an interview series with the folks who make Making Contact. This month we interviewed Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong, a freelance reporter, producer, and Making Contact’s sound editor. How did you get into this line of work? I got into audio while I was getting an MFA in Creative Writing. I’d been a writer and editor for most of my life, and grew up on NPR (my parents are not native English speakers, so when...
Statement of Palestinian Solidarity
We want to acknowledge that recent events have thrown into sharp relief the violence, displacement, and apartheid that Palestinians in Gaza have lived under for decades. As a media organization, we bear responsibility for telling the truth about the historical context leading us to this current crisis, one founded on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Making Contact staff have joined other solidarity media makers and...
Modern Parenting… The Latino Way
How do you decide what kind of parent you want to be? Our friends at Pulso Podcast, Maribel Quezada Smith and Liz Alarcón, discuss ways they maintain their children’s cultural identity as Latinos. They also touch on what they have changed from how their immigrant parents raised them. And, Liz sits down with Latinx parenting coach Leslie Priscilla to talk about her work using an antiracist, anticolonial and child-centered lens. Like...
Whose Point Reyes? Indigenous History and Public Lands
Dive into the history of Point Reyes National Seashore in northern California with us. It’s one of the most iconic national parks in the region, known for rugged sweeping beaches and the famous tule elk. We’ll recount the waves of colonization that violently upended the lives of the Coast Miwok peoples who lived there – and one Indigenous woman’s struggle to preserve her family history. The story of Point Reyes is a...
Toxic Tracks (Encore)
On today’s show, we’ll hear an encore of a show from our archives that first aired in April. We’ll be looking at the environmental impact of the rail industry and hear from people in two communities currently impacted by rail-related contamination. In February, a Suffolk Northern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and residents are still recovering from the disaster over two...
70 Million – Highway Robbery: How a Small Town Traffic Trap Became A Legal Black Hole
This week on Making Contact, we bring you a story from our podcast partners, 70 Million titled Highway Robbery: How a Small-Town Traffic Trap Became A Legal Black Hole. About 20 minutes north of Birmingham, Alabama, on Interstate 22, is the working-class town of Brookside. Its almost 1300 residents make it about the size of a large high school. According to the 2020 census, Brookside’s population is mostly White and 21% are...
Self-Managed Abortion: Medicine of the Future?
Since Roe V. Wade was overturned last summer, it’s harder than ever to access abortion services. But it’s never been easy in the rural midwest and southern states, even when Roe was the law of the land. We sat down with staff at All Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Indiana to talk about how they handle an increase in need for funding the rising cost of abortion. They do a lot, but there’s one...
