Crosscurrents

Series produced by KALW

Series image

Context, culture and connection from around the Bay Area.

KALW's Crosscurrents is the Bay Area's public radio news magazine. Winner of three awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and voted "Best Local News Program" by SF Weekly, Crosscurrents brings you context, culture and connection from around the Bay Area.


356 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Saving the Bay starting with the Clapper Rail
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: A California Clapper Rail at Arrowhead Marsh, MLK Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA., Credit: Len Blumin
The California Clapper Rail is a bird that likes to be heard, but not seen. But today, on this windy morning at Arrowhead Marsh in Oakland, they ar...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 07:13
A starting place for former foster youth
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Darrell Molett in his living room, Credit: Rachel Wong
Dejon Lewis was 11 years old when child protective services arrived to take him and his twin sister away from their mother, whom he says is a drug ...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 08:47
In legal grey area, West Oakland resident discovers free house
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
Like everywhere in the Bay Area, home prices in Oakland have recently gone through the roof. The price of a house there is up almost 70 percent in ...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 07:00
Lost Weekend Video finds new ways to entertain in the digital age
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Lost Weekend Storefront on Valencia Street., Credit: Audrey Dilling
A couple on an evening stroll down Valencia Street comes to a stop outside Lost Weekend Video. They’re peering in through the big front window...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 06:33
Volunteers hack technology to improve Oakland city government
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Data visualization of Oakland’s budget (2012-13) created by Open Budget Oakland
It’s a Tuesday evening in Oakland’s City Hall. A group of people ranging in age from their 20s to 50s are sitting, many in front of their laptops. ...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 04:54
The first surfers to brave San Francisco’s Ocean Beach
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Boards rest against the seawall at Ocean Beach, Credit: Angela Johnston
In his backyard in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond neighborhood, Arne Jin An Wong coats a pink and white striped, eight-foot-long surfboard. This bo...

Bought by WXDU


  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 06:58
  • Purchases: 1
In San Francisco, rent control gets personal
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Apartments in San Francisco, Credit: (wallyg/flickr)
Rent control has been a way for cities to regulate their housing prices and evictions since World War One, in the wake of a big housing shortage in...

  • Added: May 17, 2014
  • Length: 05:13
The Bay Area connection to the "Human Secret Weapons” of World War II
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Frank and Ginger Masuoka at the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center, Credit: Melanie Young
If you read your history books, you might think that America’s involvement in the war against Japan began with the attack on Pearl Harbor on Decemb...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 08:12
A father reflects on the daily realities of parenting as a team
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
Living a balanced life requires an early morning for KALW's executive news editor Ben Trefny. It takes getting up before 6am to prepare lunch, and ...

Bought by WABE and PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 06:03
  • Purchases: 2
Beyond the pale of Parkinson’s Disease
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
I met Ben Rivers in 2011. Though only 41 years old, he had Parkinson’s disease for 10 years. At that point in time, most any kind of movement was h...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 12:44
From AIDS to housing crises, they’ve seen it all: Castro’s long-time residents fight to stay
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Jeremy Mykaels stands outside San Francisco's City Hall after speaking out against Ellis evictions., Credit: Liz Mak
Jeremy Mykaels is in his early 60s, and he has AIDS. As a young gay man, he moved to the Castro, where he has lived for almost 40 years. He's been ...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 07:41
  • Purchases: 1
Living with HIV as a senior
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
People 50 years or older now make up the majority of HIV and AIDS cases in San Francisco. Since HIV emerged in the 1980's, treatments have improved...

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 08:14
  • Purchases: 1
What’s it like to manage the Oakland Police Department?
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: OPD Assistant Chief, Paul Figueroa, Credit: Kyung Jin Lee
It’s been almost a year since former Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan -- then, his replacement -- abruptly resigned. “It happened very quickly,...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 06:39
Bay Area cities expand employment protections for ex-convicts
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: A job application asks about past convictions., Credit: Flickr user: Waponi
When you fill out a job application, you expect to answer some basic questions. Things like your employment and education history, and relevant ski...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 07:14
Meet Golden Gate Park’s hairiest denizens
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: The bison of Golden Gate Park., Credit: Laura Klivans
Betsy. Buttercup. Bambi. Those are not Disney characters but three of the eight female bison that live at the bison paddock in Golden Gate Park. Sa...

Bought by PRX Remix


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 06:28
  • Purchases: 1
Only Olympic sport played with brooms finds a home in the Bay Area
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Barry Ivy at the Golden Gate Bonspiel, Credit: San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club
Inside a huge ice rink in San Jose, where the Sharks hockey team practices, thirty-two men and women are laughing, yelling, and taking turns sweepi...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 06:31
Balancing being Mommy and Nanny
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
Lupita Espinoza can often be seen pushing a stroller up one of those steep San Francisco hills that many of us try to avoid. She can’t avoid it, th...

  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 09:01
Human trafficking: A fisherman’s story
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Piece image
San Francisco has some of the country’s highest reports of human trafficking. It’s one of the top 10 cities in the U.S where trafficking is the worst.

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio and KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 09:55
  • Purchases: 2
An Afternoon with the Bard in Golden Gate Park
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Shakespeare Garden, Credit: Jeremy Dalmas
In a quiet spot, just west of the bustle of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, sits a garden dedicated to English literature’s...

Bought by New Hampshire Public Radio


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 05:29
  • Purchases: 1
Two men and a baby: Navigating parenting and partnership in a two-dad family
From: KALW
Series: Crosscurrents
Caption: Mickey, Alicia and Amos Lim, Credit: Phyllis Christopher
When Amos and Mickey Lim met in 1995, they had no idea they would someday have a daughter together. It just didn’t seem possible. They lived an oce...

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio


  • Added: Mar 12, 2014
  • Length: 09:05
  • Purchases: 1