Back in 1992, toy company Mattel nearly had to recall its “Teen Talk” Barbie. Women’s groups protested the doll’s use of the phrase “Math class is tough.” They called it out for indirectly perpetuating a harmful stereotype-- that boys and men are better at math than girls and women. Research -- especially over the last 10 years -- has shown there is no innate difference in math ability between males and females. And yet the stereotype persists. Women earn 43% of all college math degrees, yet their presence is scarce in the higher echelons of mathematics. The statistics for women of color are even lower.

Stanford education researcher Jo Boaler says the seeds of this disparity are sown well before college. She says it starts as soon as kids first go to school, when they start to get the message that: you’re either a math person, or you’re not.

“Unfortunately, in the US right now, there’s a belief that you’re either a math person or you’re not. Kids believe that, parents believe that, and most devastatingly, teachers believe that. This idea that you haven’t got the brain for math, it’s really outdated, and anybody can grow that brain that’s needed to excel in math.”

Women in STEM: Interview with Stanford math education researcher Jo Boaler

California has long been a land of possibility. From the Gold Rush to the promise of fertile farmland, people from all over the world have flocked here for the chance at a new life. That has created some unexpected immigrant communities. One of those happened in the state’s Central and Imperial Valleys. In the early 20th century, Punjabi men came to the area, by way of Canada, to plant fruit trees, hoping to make their fortune in peaches and plums.

Family life was important, but restrictive immigration policies made it impossible for these men to look to India to find a wife, so many married the Mexican women who worked in the orchards. The marriages created an unlikely sub-culture of Punjabi-Mexicans. And now, the children of these mixed marriages are reaching the end of their lives.

-- Listen to the audio player for the full story. 

Punjabi-Mexicans in California: A story told through dance

Drew Ackerman works in the Alameda County Public Library system by day, but at night, his Sleep with Me podcast helps listeners around the world fall asleep.

In each episode, Ackerman plays the role of Dearest Scooter, a character who tells what he calls a boring, lulling bedtime story. Ackerman sat down with KALW’s Audrey Dilling, who’s also an insomniac and a fan of the podcast.

Podcaster tells boring bedtime stories to help put you to sleep

Photographer Matthew O’Brien grew up in the East Bay, but he found one of his favorite and deepest subjects a continent away in Colombia.

His new book, No Dar Papaya, is a collection of polaroids that he took in Colombia over the course of eleven years visiting that country, including a stint as a Fulbright Fellow.

East Bay photographer's new book captures beauty and humanity in Colombia

Living in the Bay Area means you have an endlessly diverse palette of cuisines to pick and choose from. San Francisco’s rich culinary scene means you can have a bean burrito for breakfast, dim sum for lunch, and chicken coucous for dinner.
And if you were in the mood for something like "carne asada rib pie dipped in white gravy with a side of refried greens," you should go to San Pablo in the East Bay. But you wouldn’t eat it -- you’d hear it, because those are the words that SF Weekly used to describe the sound of a local musical group there.
And that’s today’s Artery, cultural coverage that makes you go "Otra! Otra!"
Los Cenzontles is a unique musical group. Based in San Pablo, it's a band that usually performs usually performs and writes rock, latin fusion music. But Los Cenzontles is more than a band. It is also a community cultural center in San Pablo where kids are learning for the first time about their Mexican roots through music and dance.
Reporter April Dembosky went to meet Los Cenzontles to see how they came to embrace their Mexican American identities.
*     *     *
MARISA BAUTISTA (singing): Mi, me, mi...
APRIL DEMBOSKY: Marisa Bautista started coming to the Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Centerwhen she was a little girl. She started with piano and dance lessons. Now she’s 17, and she sings and tours with the band Los Cenzontles and helps teach singing and dance classes at the arts center.
BAUTISTA: (singing in Spanish)
BAUTISTA: My mom’s mom, she used to mainly only speak Spanish. So, and I don’t speak Spanish. Here, I sing in Spanish and the music around us is in you know, a language that I don’t speak, but it was a way for me to connect to her and to understand my culture.
Marisa’s great grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico. Her parents and grandparents were born in the U.S. She considers herself Mexican American, but that’s sometimes hard to define.
BAUTISTA: I’ve always struggled a little bit with the American side and the Mexican side. People want you to be Americanized. But then, Mexican people I meet that speak Spanish are native speakers, they ask me, "Well, why don’t you speak Spanish?"
The issue of Mexican American identity is one Eugene Rodriguez has watched evolve for decades, and it’s what inspired him to start the Arts Center back in 1994.
EUGENE RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, when I first started teaching in this neighborhood, most of the kids were Mexican American, primarily identified as American, English-speaking, listened to American rock and hip hop, and learned culture as side thing, maybe their parents wanted them to. And in the mid-90s, or the 90s, was when the big influx of immigrants came. Still Mexican American, but different, and that kind of put some pressure on the neighborhood in terms of conflicts between kids based on how they saw themselves and how they saw the other.
Those pressures resulted in social tensions and gang violence in San Pablo. In 1994, they reached a crisis level. 
RODRIGUEZ: It kind of culminated with the rape, murder of a 15-year-old girl named Cecilia Rios at a local elementary school. The tensions were very high because kids were talking about revenge and a lot of graffiti. What I noticed that the kids didn’t seem to have any constructive way to express their grief, and their anger and their shock.
So what we did is we assembled about 12 of her friends and we put together a workshop in corrido writing. Corridos are traditional narrative songs. They’re not sentimental songs, they’re not romanticized songs, they’re just, they’re chronicles. 
Many of them told us it was the first time that they had ever had an opportunity to express how they felt about her death. To me what this was was a sign that our traditions that have served us over centuries, still serve us today.
Now, 16 years later, the Arts Center has classes every day in piano, violin, guitar, singing, dancing, beading, and crafts. Instructors teach classical minuets and Mexican rancheras, traditional jarocho dances and popular revivals like merengue.
While the social tensions have calmed in San Pablo, Rodriguez says today’s teenagers are still dealing with an identity crisis. He says today’s heated political debates around immigration can be brutal for Mexican American kids coming of age.
RODRIGUEZ: People develop, especially children develop a shame about who they are, even what their name sounds like or what they look like. So when you throw all these factors on top of normal adolescents’ angst, it really creates crisis proportions. I feel very strongly that it’s important to get young folks, especially immigrant kids, to learn a vocabulary to talk about these kinds of things. It’s not going to be the same language that the white kids and the black kids kids are going to talk about because they come from a different place. It’s a language that has to come from their own experience and their own sensibilities.
Most of the band members started out as students at the Arts Center. Rodriguez wanted to reflect their bi-cultural identity on the band’s latest album. He decided to revive a Chicano song from the 1970s called “Soy Mexico Americano.” He was surprised by how it went over on tour.
RODRIGUEZ: It was at the Fillmore and it was at the House of Blues in Southern California. All these kids were there to rock and roll, and they were in the mosh pit. Typically they’re not real kind to opening acts, and we were warned. We came out there and we started doing these traditional Mexican tunes, including “Soy Mexico Americano.” And you could just see all these faces out there, listening to the words and nodding their head and going, "Yeah."
Because the words say, "Through my mother I am Mexican, because of destiny I am American. I am Mexican American." It was this amazing turn of events, historical events, where you have this whole new generation of people saying, "Wow, that’s true, I am Mexican American." What does that mean to me? What does that mean to them? I don’t know, but it’s fascinating to watch.
LUCINA RODRIGUEZ: Because we come from Mexico we have Mexican roots. But then we’re also American because we grew up here and we have the American mentality.
Lucina Rodriguez sings “Soy Mexico Americano” on the new album. She moved to San Pablo from Jalisco when she was 11 and discovered the Arts Center when she was 15. She sings to stay connected to her Mexican roots, but she’s got plenty of American features too.
LUCINA RODRIGUEZ: I grew up Catholic. But I like to know about other religions, and I like to, I like to do yoga. I love Mexican food but I barely cook Mexican food because it’s very time consuming. So I do cook a lot of, I guess, Americanized foods, or I go to Trader Joe’s and get my frozen dinners and put them in the microwave (laughs).
The new Los Cenzontles album is also part American in its sound. It reflects a community that is very much aware of where it came from and who it is today.
In San Pablo, I’m April Dembosky for Crosscurrents.




Los Cenzontles proudly says, "Yo soy Mexico Americano" #SanFranciscoCrosscurrents #BayAreaArt

FSFSF is a weekly serving of Bay Area comedy that airs Tuesdays at 4:45pm as part of KALW's presentation of All Things Considered.

FSFSF is hosted by San Francisco's own Natasha Muse, and produced and engineered by Colin Peden in partnership with Rooftop Comedy.

If you are a local comedian and would like to be heard on FSFSF, we encourage you to submit material for us to check out. Please send us a short (no longer than 5 minutes) and quality (highest possible) recording of your favorite live material to: colin dot peden at gmail dot com

Also include any personal details (i.e. Twitter handle, Facebook link, website link etc.) and content (i.e. photograph of yourself, bio information, where you regularly perform etc.).

FSFSF

FSFSF: Comedy from Nemr and Aries Spears

FSFSF: Comedy from Gareth Reynolds and Norm MacDonald

Wilbert Stoneham has been incarcerated since the 70s – a time when prisons were especially dangerous, guards were particularly unpleasant, and Stoneham was one of their targets. He had a terrible relationship with the “watchers” which continued for over 40 years ... until the day he died.

The prisoner who died twice, and lived

Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral were teachers at San Francisco’s Opportunity 2 High School in the 70s. It’s the school Jim Jones chose for the teenagers of his People’s Temple.

Teachers pay tribute to students they lost in the Jonestown massacre

A lot of people want to get out of prison. This is the story of one bird that tried to get in.

A wild turkey flies into a prison yard. Hilarity ensues.

On April 13, a Mercedes slammed into a family crossing the street in East Oakland. A 6-year-old and his mother were both killed. Another family member was critically injured. Foothill Boulevard, where it happened, is one of Oakland’s most dangerous streets for pedestrians.

A 6-year-old and his mom were killed crossing the street. This Oakland community wants safety.

While growing up in the Bronx, writer Gabby Rivera would sit at her grandmother’s dining table listening to stories from her “sheroes” — the women in her family. Gabby infused elements from her own life into America Chavez, Marvel Comics’ first queer Latina superhero with her very own series.

Since jumping into the diversifying comic book industry, Gabby is bringing more stories about Latinx identity and the LGBTQ+ community to other projects.

Marvel writer Gabby Rivera on creating stories that reflect the world around her

Growing up in Maryland, cultural worker and interdisciplinary artist Kimberley Acebo Arteche didn’t see a lot of other Filipinos in the predominately white schools she attended. Traditional values were passed down from her family, but there weren’t a lot of other resources to help Kim learn more about her heritage.

Kimberley Acebo Arteche reclaims indigenous traditions in the Pilipinx diaspora

The First Offender Prostitution Program is like traffic school, except the goal is to educate people who have been arrested for soliciting prostitutes.

'Johns' in San Francisco sit down for a class on the sex trade

Eric "Maserati E" Abercrombie is a 25-year-old guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He's been in prison for eight years. In August, he’s due to get out.

Maserati E plays music to cope with his brother’s death

Following the 2016 presidential election, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus decided to take their songs and message to the south. They toured areas of the southern United States with the most discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and the experience was turned into a new award-winning documentary called Gay Chorus Deep South. KALW’s Truc Nguyen sat down with SFGMC artistic director and conductor Dr. Tim Seelig to hear more about that experience.

Touring the Deep South with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus

Oakland resident Tigisti Weldeab was a child when she fled the Eritrean-Ethiopian war with her mom. They lived in refugee camps for years. During that time, her mom made a living by selling injera- their traditional flatbread. A decade later, they were resettled in the US.

Tigisti went to school and landed a solid job in the energy industry. They did well- then her mother got diabetes. Tigisti knew something had to change about the way they, and their community, ate in this new land. People were making traditional stews and breads with American ingredients and something was just not working.

Today, Tigisti is a nutritionist, wellness influencer, health coach. She works with Oakland’s Eritrean community to reimagine recipes from her home with new ingredients, and in a way that keeps them healthy. I visited Tigisti in her kitchen, where she told me her story while making a lentil stew called adas.

Oakland Health Coach reimagines traditional Eritrean foods

Cleaning up after the San Francisco Pride March

When Mart Meiel was a kid, he heard his grandmother’s voice saying he would go to Alcatraz for twice as long as Al Capone. For years, he dismissed the idea. Alcatraz closed down. Then one day, Mart got a clue from an unlikely place.

"I never met my grandmother. Years later, my mom told me that she was psychic and could predict when the Russians and the Germans were shelling each other ... As soon as they got out of the house, the shell blew the house to pieces."

Uncuffed is produced by men at Solano State Prison. Learn more about them here.

KALW’s radio training program at Solano State Prison is supported by the California Arts Council, with funding from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The producers fact-check content to the best of their ability. All content is approved by a prison information officer.

Email KALW's Uncuffed editors: uncuffed@kalw.org

Write to the Uncuffed producers at Solano State Prison:

Uncuffed
Level 3 Education / Media Lab
P.O. Box 4000
Vacaville, CA
95696-4000

His grandmother’s ghost said he was going to Alcatraz

The battle over the right to access People’s Park in Berkeley began 50 years ago, but it never really ended. Now, UC Berkeley plans to develop the space into housing for students as well as homeless people.

The Fight for People's Park Reignites 50 Years Later

Burning Man is pagan at its core with a hellish, flaming aesthetic. It's understandable that many evangelical leaders condemn the event. But why do many devout Christians attend?And what do they do once they're there? THE INTERSECTION finds out. 

"I think Jesus would have been a Burner." - Annie Dunlop, co-leader of Religious AF camp
This episode picks up where party meets prayer at Burning Man. We follow Episcopal priest Brian Baker and his flock of Christians from the Religious As F#!k theme camp as they engage Burners in deep conversations about spirituality and try to heal wounds caused by the Church. We also explore the event’s Satan-infused early years. 

Want to hear how the story ends? Head to theintersection.fm or subscribe to THE INTERSECTION wherever you get your podcast fix. 

THE INTERSECTION looks at changing cities through physical intersections. This time we’re doing something different: The city is temporary and the intersections are conceptual. We’re heading to a remote corner of Nevada for Burning Man. 

THE INTERSECTION is a co-production of David Boyer and KALW. 

Jonathan Davis is the associate producer. This episode was edited by Ben Trefny. And engineered for your listening pleasure by Gabe Grabin with music from Erik Pearson.

Subscribe to THE INTERSECTION podcast here or wherever you get you audio fix. And if you want to know more about the project, head to our website.

Party Meets Prayer At Burning Man (excerpt)

Hey Area is where we find answers to questions you ask. This one comes from New York staff writer Jelani Cobb. He asks, “How did there get to be an entirely separate city inside of Oakland?”

https://www.kalw.org/post/why-there-another-city-inside-oakland

Why Is There Another City Inside Of Oakland?

Walter Parenteau and his housemates run an all-volunteer soup kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District. Their goal is to provide hospitality for anyone who walks through the door, but how are they dealing with the changes that the coronavirus brings?

What One Soup Kitchen Is Doing During The Coronavirus Shutdown

May is mental health awareness month. It's an issue for people of all ages, including teenagers. According to the CDC, suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth ages 15 to 24. And the rate is increasing. A Los Gatos teen who experienced challenges of her own started a podcast to give her peers struggling with mental health issues a voice.

Silicon Valley Teen’s Podcast Peeks Into The Minds Of Her Peers

The Bay Area protests against ongoing police brutality have caused cities and counties to enact curfews, including Alameda County. The purpose is to mitigate the destruction of property, but some officials wonder whether that’s a wise measure.

Brendon Woods is the chief public defender of Alameda County and the only black man in that position in the state. In this interview, Woods discusses the protests and what his department is seeing right now.

Alameda County’s Public Defender Weighs In On Protests And Curfews

The coronavirus has pumped the brakes on air travel. But before that, flying was responsible for about 5% of man-made global warming. So if and when the demand for air travel goes back to its pre-COVID trajectory, it could account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. That budget is what would keep temperatures from rising more than 1 and a half degrees Celsius by 2050. That’s why there’s been a growing movement for people to fly less.

What Does Giving Up Air Travel Mean For Families Thousands Of Miles Apart?

Amy Kisch is the founder of Art+Action Coalition. She’s working with other artists and the Yerba Buena Center to urgently get the word out about the census. She shares why it’s important for everyone to be counted.

The new deadline to respond and be counted is September 30, a month sooner than the original date. The Census Bureau’s director says they’re pushing it up to make the deadline for the president to receive the data by December 31. 

Activists and census experts are concerned the new deadline would cause an undercount of people of color, immigrants and residents in rural areas. Which would mean less federal funding for these marginalized groups. 

Learn more about the Come to Your Census campaign and visit the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to see some of the art, videos and discussions. 

Visit the 2020 Census website if you haven’t submitted a form.

Art+Action Founder Amy Kisch Wants You To Come To Your Census

Joe Kirk is one of thousands released early from California prisons to slow the spread of COVID-19. The world he returned to was something he never prepared for.

Unconfined is a new series of special episodes that feature Uncuffed producers navigating life after incarceration.

Unconfined: Joe Kirk

Measure V would raise the hotel room tax in East Palo Alto. Every year, the proceeds would go toward improving affordable housing.

Let’s get some background. When you stay in a hotel or any short-term rental for a period of 30 days or less, part of what you pay is called a Transient Occupancy Tax. 

In San Francisco and Oakland, that tax is 14%. Right now, in East Palo Alto, it’s 12%. If Measure V passes, East Palo Alto’s tax would rise to 14% by 2023. The city estimates that this would raise nearly $400,000 a year.

Measure V supporters include the mayor and the entire city council of East Palo Alto.

Measure V opponents include the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association, which is concerned about the government overreaching and overspending. They say that out-of-town visitors to East Palo Alto shouldn’t be the ones paying for city services like affordable housing.

So here’s what it comes down to: if you’re an East Palo Alto voter and want to increase the transient occupancy tax to fund the city’s affordable housing projects, then vote yes on Measure V. If you want to keep the tax the same, then vote no.

San Mateo Measure V: Transient Occupancy Tax

This year has marked a turning point in how American athletes have engaged in political issues. In this episode of tbh, Maddie Johnson catches up with a Bay Area group that has been organizing basketball-themed Black lives matter protests around the country.

Why Basketball Players Shouldn't Just 'Shut Up And Dribble'

In San Francisco, there are 588 polling places spread out across the city. And, most elections, the city needs about 3,000 people to volunteer to work them. This year, the Department of Elections got more applicants than ever -- 14,000! They actually had to turn people away.

Meet The People Making San Francisco's Election Run Safely And Smoothly

It’s around 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning at the 2200 block of the Wood Street homeless encampment in West Oakland.  I’m here because I want to find out whether at least some of the city’s estimated 4,000 homeless people will vote. There’s a lot at stake for them this year.

Voters Experiencing Homelessness Weigh In On Oakland Elections

Over the past weeks, we've ramped up our voter outreach in five communities with historically lower voter turnout rates. We created special voter guides for East Palo Alto, West Oakland, Richmond, Fairfield, and San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhoods. These pamphlets are tailored to each area, and explain where and how to vote.

KALW Voter Guides Make A Splash Around the Bay Area

The country is starting the week with a new president-elect. For many people, it was a weekend of celebration. For others, it was a weekend of protest. And, while we’ve been directing a lot of our attention to the presidential race, we are also following the aftermath of our local elections here in the Bay Area. 

Today, we are looking at Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco, and what the results mean to people who live there. Policing has been a big issue, and San Francisco voters passed Measure D, increasing oversight of the Sherriff’s Dept, and Measure E to adjust police staffing requirements. Measure A passed, approving nearly $30 million dollars towards to develop India Basin Open Space Park in Bayview.

Overall, in this historically low turnout area, more voters cast their ballots this election. In this interview, Hoodline reporter Meaghan Mitchell breaks down what the local election results mean for San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point.

What Election Results Mean for San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point Neighborhood

This election, voters in Richmond elected City Council members, West Contra Costa School Board members, and passed Measure U, which changes the way businesses are taxed — it would generate $5 million dollars a year for the city. Overall, the results show big wins for progressives in Richmond.

Richmond Election Re-Cap: Progressives Sweep City Council And City Revamps Its Tax System

Natalie Devora’s memoir "Black Girl, White Skin: A Life in Stories" is about challenges she faced growing up with albinism during the '60s and '70s in East Oakland.

Natalie Devora Writes About Being Black With Albinism

San Francisco author Marke Bieschke reads from his new book, "Into the Streets."  It’s about how 500 years of protest shaped what’s happening in our world today.

Marke Bieschke Book Explores 500 Years Of Protest And Representation

At the beginning of the Coronavirus shutdown, the city of San Francisco rented hotel rooms for over 2,300 homeless people. For many, it was the first time in years they had a bed and bathroom to themselves. Now, the city is gradually closing these shelter-in-place hotels.

The plan is to eventually move everyone into permanent housing. And if it’s successful, it could be one of the city’s largest rehousing efforts to date. But critics say the plan is moving too quickly.

"The people who are in these hotel units are in very, very poor health condition for the most part. It is likely be a death sentence sending them back to the streets." - Jennifer Friedenbach

Jennifer Friedenbach is the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness.

Critics Warn People Could End Up Back On Street, As Shelter-In-Place Hotels Close

Jazz vocalist Valerie Troutt tells a coming-of-age story in her new album "The Oakland Girl."

Valerie Troutt grew up in The Town, where the community recognized her talent when she was a kid. Members of her church would buy her tickets to concerts and musicals to expose her to all types of music. That support, plus having encouraging parents (her mom took her to the night club Sweet Jimmie’s!), influenced Valerie.

"The 'Oakland Girl' is someone who gives birth. Someone who is a holder of space and really has a vision for life."

Valerie’s jazz and gospel vocals have been heard all around the Bay Area. 

She wrote second album, The Oakland Girl wrote 20 years ago while living in New York City. But the themes of growth and love still resonate today. Her album is available on Bandcamp.

This interview was produced by Jenee Darden and Precious J. Green and mixed by Gabe Grabin.

Singer Valerie Troutt Opens Her Musical Diary In Her New Album 'The Oakland Girl'

KALW is local public radio from the San Francisco Bay Area. Tune into 91.7FM or find some of KALW's fine programming here, from shows like our nightly newsmagazine Crosscurrents. And check out the sounds from special projects like Audiograph, which is out to capture the sonic signature of the Bay Area. 

KALW 91.7 FM Bay Area

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