Listening Room

Asian Americans in Day of the Dead

      
Date: October 26, 20061

LISTEN (opens 5 MB mp3 file in new window.)

Description: This was an excercise in re-purposing! I was able to sell two stories off of only one set of interviews. This version features Cynthia Tom and Kana Tanaka.

My editor asked me to try to produce the piece narration-less and thankfully the co-curator, Rio Yañez guided youth through a tour of the exhibit. This served as my vehicle for narration .

Another challenge was to discover a way to talk about VISUAL art through  audio. Evesdropping on some of the opening night discussions helped with that.

Broadcast History:
Pacific Time

       

Multicultural Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead Banner, originally uploaded by El Rio.

Date: October 27, 2006         

LISTEN (opens 2 MB mp3 file in new window.)         

Description: Rene Yañez curates an AMAZING Day of the Dead show at Somarts each year. He has taken a traditional Mexican tradition of celebrating our deceased and expanded it to reflect the way many cultures deal with death and many interpretations of what death and dying is.

Latino USA was hesitant to accept my pitch about a VISUAL art show. How would I SHOW the exhibit on radio? But with co-curator, Rio Yañez offering tours to youth, I was able to weave his descriptions with my interviews and ambience from the gallery opening.

And here's Rio's post with a little shout out to me!

Broadcast History: Latino USA

Labor Day Vignettes

Date: September 1, 2006

LISTEN (opens 5.7 MB mp3 file in new window.)

Description: Latino USA did a call to their producers for sound snapshots of Latino laborers for their Labor Day show. In light of the immigration debate,  they wanted to show the range of work that Latinos do. They attracted stories representing a graffiti artist/gallery owner, a housing lawyer, a business man, a teacher, a domestic worker, a filmmaker, and mine,  on composer Guillermo Galindo.

I saw the crazy contraption he built with his Meet the Composer grant and I thought it would make for a fun, sound-rich story. It just so happens that he was "going to work" to perform live at KFJC during their record swap. I wanted to show that although artists look like they're having a lot of fun, they are also very hard workers and Guillermo helped bring that point home.

Broadcast History:
Latino USA on September 1, 2006

Waves of Change, Rivers of Doubt

Date: August 23, 2006

LISTEN (opens 11.5 MB mp3 file in new window..)

Description:Before  I left to Hawaii, I learned that the National Radio Project received a PRX reversioning grant and the show they picked was WATER. NRP asked me to check in with the folks from my first story and see how things had progressed.         

Appearantly, people including the Mayor of Maui's aide, Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees, and Maui council people had listened to  the Maui water story I produced for Making Contact. The pairing of that story with international water issues supported efforts to take control of the water out of the former sugar cane companies hands and put it back into public hands.

Production Notes: Once again, I met some interesting people and visited locations I've only driven by previously. I got to listen in at a water commission hearing where I worried that I would have to chase down Avery Chumbley for an interview. (Instead, he and his representation were a no show.) I interviewed the Mayor after seeing him at the King Kamehameha Day parade.

But my most interesting interviewee was Duke Sevilla. A local boy spoke in thick pidgin over the phone. He said he'd pick me up and take me to his home where a sacred spring once ran. When I told him             where I stayed, he said, "Do you know me?!" His father ran a store right next to our house and he knew my grandpa!

I felt very confident about this piece and was able to submit it with minimal edits.          

Broadcast History:
Making Contact during International Water Week
Winner of the 2007 Society of Professional Journalists Award for Investigative Journalism, Broadcast