The California Report Magazine

San Jose is home to the largest Sikh temple – or gurdwara – in the U.S., and for decades, it has been a place of sanctuary and refuge. But lately, another feeling has settled in for worshippers: fear.ICE enforcement has ramped up over the past year, with some of the sharpest increases in California. And Sikhs, many who are from the Indian state of Punjab, worry their sacred spaces could become targets. South Asians aren’t always the first group that comes to mind when we talk about undocumented communities. But according to U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement, 35,000 people from India were apprehended at the border this year.  Journalist Tanay Gokhale has been out reporting in the South Asian community, and joins host Sasha Khokha to talk about what he’s been hearing from Sikh worshippers at gurdwaras and those who’ve been detained by ICE.  And we visit CJ's BBQ and Fish in Richmond. Owner Charles Evans calls himself a "World War II baby." He was born in Richmond to parents who moved to the Bay Area from Arkansas, part of a migration of African Americans west to work in the shipyards. His dad created BBQ pits out of washing machines and refrigerators in their backyard. His mom insisted all of her kids learn to cook, clean, and sew. After driving AC Transit buses for many years, Charles opened CJ's BBQ and Fish 30 years ago, putting his own born-in-California spin on the barbeque and soul food recipes his parents taught him. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse discovered CJ’s is not just a celebration of Richmond’s Black history and Southern roots, but also a place of refuge and delicious comfort for everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year, for the first time since it was established in 1988, the U.S. did not commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1. That’s despite more than 630,000 deaths from HIV-related illnesses in 2024, according to the World Health Organization. This week, we’re traveling back in time, to visit a queer church that provided refuge and support to San Francisco’s gay community during the height of the AIDS crisis. We’re bringing you the first episode of a new podcast called We All Get To Heaven, which draws on sound from 1,200 cassette tapes – recordings of songs, memorials, and sermons from the Metropolitan Community Church.  It brings to life voices of loss, and of faith, of people who refused to abandon their spirituality or their queerness, and who built a community that could hold both. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fierce Santa Ana winds that whipped the Palisades and Eaton fires into deadly infernos also spared precious things you’d think would have been the first to burn: old family photos, children’s art work, postcards, even pages of old sheet music. Those things sometimes blew across neighborhoods, and people are still finding them as fire cleanup continues. Reporter Steven Cuevas introduces us to an Altadena resident who has made it her mission to return these fragile paper keepsakes to their owners. And we got to the Andrerson Valley to visit a Grange hall. These community gathering places have been around for more than 150 years. Today there are more than 100 in California alone. The Grange began as a fraternal organization for farmers. Even though farming and Grange membership are down to a fraction of what they were decades ago, many rural towns still rely on Grange halls as community centers. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse visits the Anderson Valley Grange, where many residents credit this place for bringing together groups of people that were once divided. This episode orginally aired on June 13, 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the last few weeks, The California Report Magazine has been sharing conversations between transgender and nonbinary kids and the people in their lives who love and support them — a series called Love You for You. As we enter Transgender Awareness Month, we shift the lens toward intergenerational stories — young people in their twenties in conversation with transgender elders whose lives trace the long arc of LGBTQ+ activism in California. These bonus episodes carry heavier histories and more mature themes than the family conversations featured earlier in the series. They offer deeper context to the ongoing fight for safety, dignity and self-expression. This week’s story brings together Zen Blossom, a 26-year-old Black transgender rights activist at the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project in San Francisco, and Andrea Horne, a San Francisco-based actress, model and jazz singer who once performed with Sylvester, the legendary disco artist, in the 1970s. Now a historian working on her forthcoming book, How Black Trans Women Changed the World, Andrea reflects with Zen on those who came before them and those who will come after. Read the transcript for this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the last few weeks, we’ve been sharing conversations between transgender and nonbinary kids and the people in their lives who love and support them — a series called Love You for You. As we enter Transgender Awareness Month, we shift the lens toward intergenerational stories — young people in their twenties in conversation with transgender elders whose lives trace the long arc of LGBTQ+ activism in California. These bonus episodes carry heavier histories and more mature themes than the family conversations featured earlier in the series. They offer deeper context to the ongoing fight for safety, dignity, and self-expression. This week, we meet Donna Personna, a 79-year-old transgender Chicana artist, activist, and playwright who grew up in San José and now lives in San Francisco. A longtime drag performer and advocate, Donna has devoted decades to uplifting the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, she was named Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade. She also co-wrote Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, an immersive play that brings to life a 1966 uprising in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District — when trans women and drag queens stood up to police harassment, three years before Stonewall. In this episode, Donna speaks with Quetzali (who also goes by “Q”), a 23-year-old Latinx nonbinary organizer from Sacramento who uses they/them/elle pronouns and who is using only their first name to protect their identity. Together, they reflect on how Latinx gender-expansive identities have evolved across generations, from quiet survival in the shadows to living freely. Donna also shares how she continues to cultivate self-love and resilience in a world that still tests both — grounding today’s struggles in a lifetime of resistance, care, and optimism. Read the transcript of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices