The Cal Ag Roots podcast series “We Are Not Strangers Here” explores the history of Black Americans in rural California. This week’s Valley Edition features an episode from the series, titled “Back to the Land: Allensworth and the Black Utopian Dream,” produced and hosted by Caroline Collins. https://www.kvpr.org/sites/kvpr/files/styles/big_story/public/202104/Teachers.jpg

The Fresno Arts Council recently announced the city’s fifth poet laureate, Megan Anderson Bohigian. In her new role, Anderson Bohigian says she hopes to facilitate healing around the pandemic with a community involved poetry writing project. FM89’s News Director Alice Daniel reached out to her to participate in our own …

Last summer’s reckoning over police brutality against Black people, led both Fresno and Bakersfield to establish commissions of community members, charged with making recommendations for reform. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock checked in with some of the activists involved to see how the work is going, and to hear their …

The new historical novel “Tears of Honor” by Fresno author James Ardaiz documents the experience of Japanese-Americans during WWII. The sweeping narrative includes two boys from Calwa who are forced into an internment camp, and ultimately show their loyalty to America by joining the Army and fighting in the war. …

Soon after COVID-19 vaccines were first developed, health authorities estimated that as much as 40 to 50 percent of the population would be reluctant to get it. However, vaccination clinics in the San Joaquin Valley are already reporting a lull in demand, even though nearly 70 percent of the local …

On this week’s Valley Edition, we continue our series looking at how people are processing the pandemic. Last week, we heard from a hip hop dance instructor who says she’s taking more time to slow down and enjoy simple pleasures. This week, a funeral manager talks about his experience. He …

Two upcoming documentaries on Valley PBS cover Armenian-Americans’ struggles grappling with cultural identity and intergenerational trauma, a century after the Armenian Genocide. Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke with Jared White and Lilit Pilikian, the husband and wife team behind the film “100 Years From Home.” It documents Lilit’s quest …

Temperatures are on the rise, wild flowers are in bloom, and many are feeling pulled to the great outdoors. Among them is Leigh Bernacchi, a researcher at UC Merced and the author of the new guidebook “Sequoia and Kings Canyon: Hiking, Camping, Waterfalls and Big Trees.” She spoke with Valley …

How do we make sense of the magnitude of this pandemic? We each have our own way of navigating through it. As part of a new series looking at how we process this extraordinary time, FM89’s News Director Alice Daniel produced this audio postcard from her conversation with Debra McCoy, …

As of this week, more than a half million San Joaquin Valley residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. For some, that means being able to more safely visit grandkids or elderly parents, while for others it’s a ticket to spending more time in public or feeling more secure in …

The late Ricardo Favela was the child of farmworkers in Dinuba who went on to become a prominent artist, teacher and activist who helped found the Royal Chicano Air Force. Now he is being celebrated by Arts Visalia in the exhibition “Seen and Unseen: Ricardo Favela’s Expressions of Chicano/Chicana Art,” …

Legendary NPR talk show host Diane Rehm is on a mission, inspired by the death of her husband John after 54 years of marriage. In 2014, he was denied medical aid in dying during his final days battling Parkinson’s disease. Since then, Rehm has become an advocate of expanding access …

In the wake of the damage that last year’s Creek Fire brought to the Central Sierra, an effort is underway to keep the fire from claiming yet another casualty, that of memory. The Creek Fire Storytelling Project is a campaign by the Central Sierra Resiliency Fund to document and preserve …