Bay Trailblazers: Stories of Community

In this show, reporters take listeners on a trip around The Bay to meet community leaders with big dreams. You’ll hear from people striving for deeper connections to the environment, their communities, and themselves.

This is a recording of North Gate Radio that was broadcast live on KALX radio station, 90.7FM.

 

 

Bay Trailblazers: Stories of Community Transcript

 

Amaray Alvarez: Good morning and welcome to North Gate Radio, I’m Amaray Alvarez

 

Hussain Khan: And I’m Hussain Khan. Today is Thursday May 2nd, and the last week of school is finally here. 

 

Amaray Alvarez: It’s also our last North Gate Radio show of the school year. Today, we have four stories to share.

 

Hussain Khan: Next year on the road, Cal’s varsity players will have to navigate the student part of being student athletes.

 

Elana Eisenberg: It feels like you’re missing about 30% of the semester with traveling and feeling like you’re behind and missing lectures missing discussion. 

 

Amaray Alvarez: Then we’ll hang out with Marlene Gadea, she’s got her walking shoes on and is touring the Bay

Marlene Gadea: It’s to be able to be safe outdoors in places where you don’t see a lot of women sometimes, and to be able to build community. 

 

Hussain Khan: We’ll visit a group taking matters into their own hands to clean up Oakland. 

 

Michael Corzo: We wouldn’t need to be doing these cleanups if they just had an actual handle on the illegal dumping situation. 

 

Amaray Alvarez: A floating community in Sausalito…

 

Isabella Kirkland: When I moved in, it was a funky, old wooden pier. It was pretty feral. And people just built their own boats. 

 

Hussain Khan: And later, we’ll meet a Black artist, exploring joy and grief through art.

Julie Atkinson: So I wanted to just kind of paint around that idea. And the idea of black women showing up for ourselves.

 

Amaray Alvarez: But first, Mitzi Perez-Caro with the news

Mitzi Pérez-Caro: Live from North Gate Radio, I’m Mitzi Pérez-Caro.

 

Today marks the 11th day of the encampment. There are about 40 tents set up on Sproul Plaza protesters are demanding that UC Berkeley divest from companies that do business with Israel.

 

Campus administrators have begun negotiations to end the encampment and discuss the coalition’s demands.That’s according to the Daily Cal.

 

Our reporter Aisha Natalia Wallace-Palomares went out to Sproul Plaza recently and spoke to sophomore Hamza Mahmoud, one of the organizers of the encampment. 

 

Hamza Mahmoud: My name is Hamza Mahmoud. I’m a sophomore studying sustainable environmental design.

 

Aisha Wallace-Palomares: What brought you out to the encampment?  

 

Hamza Mahmoud: There’s like an overpowering sense of helplessness that a lot of us feel that we can’t do anything about this, despite the fact that we’re so deeply entangled in everything that’s happening there. 

 

The two strongest emotions that I’ve felt in the last seven months and honestly whenever Palestine comes up is guilt and shame for all the privilege that I have here. And so this is just a way number one for myself to do something. And then we truly believe that this is having an impact. 

 

I mean my parents were protesting on college campuses for Palestine. So there’s deeply rooted activism on campuses in that we were able to quickly mobilize.

 

Aisha Wallace-Palomares: So what are these demands that you guys are advocating for from the campus specifically?  

 

Hamza Mahmoud: So we want the university to divest from all investments that are um you know tied to israel in the same way that they did with South Africa. And directly condemning

the colonization and the apartheid and all that that’s happening.

 

Aisha Wallace-Palomares: So, when it comes to like the encampment, like, why pick this tactic?  

 

Hamza Mahmoud: I think we’re tried everything else. There needs to be some sort of disruption for the campus to really address it. Thousands of students have walked out. Thousands of students have voiced their concerns, signed petitions. We feel that there needs to be some disruption so that they’re forced to address it. 

 

Aisha Wallace-Palomares: So you look at, you know, Columbia, um, and a lot of these other universities that are also, um, hosting encampments, why do you think the response has been so severe from, like, campus administrators on those campuses versus, like, Berkeley?

 

Hamza Mahmoud: I think now that, um, this protest is gaining national recognition in national media, I think the university is…This is just speculation….but the university is really hesitant about, um, shattering their image of a university that, you know, upholds, you know, free speech values and, and being known for, you know, the free speech movement starting here in Berkeley. 

 

Mitzi Perez-Caro: That’s Hamza Mahmoud, one of the organizers of the encampment, speaking to reporter Aisha Natalia Wallace-Palomares. And I’m Mitzi Perez-Caro, North Gate Radio

 

Hussain Khan: Live from KALX. This is North Gate Radio…I’m Hussain Khan.

 

Amaray Alvarez: And I’m Amaray Alvarez

 

Hussain Khan: Change is on the horizon for UC Berkeley’s athletic teams, who are leaving the dying Pac 12 to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Also known as the ACC. This means teams are expecting to travel to the East Coast around every other week. So what is Cal doing to help these students balance athletics and academics? Fernando Andrade finds out. 

 

Fernando Andrade: Elana Eisenberg is a junior from Los Altos. She started playing field hockey in 6th grade and by the time she got to high school, Elana wanted to play in college at the Division 1 level. 

It’s the most competitive collegiate level, and Elana knew there’d be some trade offs. 

 

Elana Eisenberg: Every high schooler knows, to some extent when they decide to play a sport in college, especially a division one sport, that the experience is going to look different than the average student experience. 

 

Fernando Andrade: If juggling school and a division one sport isn’t hard enough, Elana decided to go after a competitive double major in Business Administration and Data Science. To make matters more challenging, the Cal Field Hockey team previously belonged to the America East Conference, which meant lots of travel back east. 

 

Elana Eisenberg: It feels like you’re missing about 30% of the semester with traveling and feeling like you’re behind and missing lectures…missing discussion.

 

Fernando Andrade: With Cal now moving to the ACC, some 900 student athletes will be facing the same situation. Whereas the football team, for example, used to play games mostly on the west coast, now they’ll be traveling cross country a couple of times a month.

 

Fernando Andrade: But Elana says if the field hockey experience tells her, the school needs to make more accommodations for athletes to succeed as students. 

 

Elana Eisenberg: I was taking four classes last semester, all of them required for one of my majors and only one of them had course captures. 

 

Fernando Andrade: Course Capture is when instructors record their lectures … without them Elana struggled to make sense of the slides and out-of-context pdfs.

Elana Eisenberg: Every professor will preach lecture attendance as being really integral to like learning. And so when you don’t have that, I think most people would agree that for many classes, just reading a PDF of slides is, you know, not at all the same. 

 

Fernando Andrade: Another issue: tests. Without any university-wide policy, student athletes have to go from professor to professor brokering deals. Sometimes they let students take the test but other times that’s not the case. Elena says in one of her classes, the professors pointed to the syllabus, which read:

 

Elana Eisenberg: If you miss an exam for any reason, even though this is a university-sponsored, excused event, you just basically take the zero on that exam.

Fernando Andrade: And for Elana, her final exam was worth 50 percent of her grade … which felt like a lot of additional – and unnecessary –  pressure. Elana thinks if the university is changing to ACC – they’ve got to address these pain points to ensure all students get a UC Berkeley education.

Van Rheenen: So the kind of student athlete that comes to Berkeley wants to have a first -rate education. We just have to make certain we can deliver on that.

Fernando Andrade: That’s Derek van Rheenen, the director of the Athletic Study Center … It offers academic support for student-athletes. He’s also a Cal Hall of Famer for men’s soccer. Van Rheenen says the Center is working with the Academic Senate to put some of Elana’s suggestions in place. 

 

Fernando Andrade: He says, traditionally professors had to “opt in” to record their lectures.

Van Rheenen: One thing that has happened is that rather than faculty having to opt in, for course captioning, now faculty have to opt out. So the default is actually course capturing should be included rather than it’s a possibility. 

 

Fernando Andrade: Many instructors are afraid that if they record their lectures, students won’t come to class. While the Senate can’t force professors to record their lectures, the Center is trying to educate them on the options. For example, they might only make the recordings available to athletes with university excused absences or make it available for a limited time only. 

 

Fernando Andrade: But even if they have the recordings, Van Rheenen says he’s pushing coaches to make sure students have time to watch them while traveling. 

 

Van Rheenen: Itineraries on the road for sports teams must include times for academics, whether it be to watch missed lectures, whether it be to find study, hall times, just to make a very concerted effort.

 

Fernando Andrade: As for the issue of the tests, Van Rheenen says they’re still figuring out the recommendations to be made. As for Elana, she says it would have been nice if the University worked on such accommodations for the Field Hockey team in prior seasons … 

 

Elana Eisenberg: A, it’s nice that it’s happening now. And B, I think we need to remember that a massive amount of the money that makes programs like field hockey run is coming from the revenue from football and basketball. And so it’s a kind of relationship that, you know, it’s complicated.

 

Fernando Andrade: The Academic Senate will decide on whether to take the Athletic Study Center’s suggestions in the summer. For now, I’m Fernando Andrade, North Gate Radio.

 

Amaray Alvarez: If you’re on Tik Tok, you’ve probably seen those videos with the tagline “Hot Girl Walk.” Well… that trend has sparked female walking groups all around the nation including here in the East Bay. I caught up with Marlene Gadea, on a recent Sunday at the Berkeley marina. She started “East Bay Girls Who Walk” last July. Gadea said she started the group, after moving up from San Diego. She says being in a new place coupled with the after effects of the pandemic… where so many of us lost touch with people made her want to create a sense of community.

Marlene Gadea: Yeah, it was to be able to build community, a safe environment for women to meet each other after the pandemic. And considering, like, there’s not a specific space that’s meant for women specifically, where as opposed to. I feel like bars are very male centered and also, like, dating centered. And I didn’t see very many opportunities for women to be able to meet other women in a safe way, and that’s really important to me. So there was a lot of knitting groups, hiking groups, a lot of dating groups actually, too, around the area specifically centered around the cities. And that wasn’t really what I was looking for. So when I saw this group, there was a group in San Diego who does the same thing. They’re a women’s walking group, and I decided to start one here.

 

Amaray Alvarez: Can you describe most of the trails? I know this one was about a three mile walk.

 

Marlene Gadea: I try to keep it between two to 3 miles. I feel like that’s relatively easy for most people. We’ve done a lot of walks around, like, bodies of water, and we’ve done Emeryville, we’ve done Richmond, we’ve done Concord, Martinez, Walnut Creek, like all over. We did a high tea recently and that was really fun. I felt like a lot of like, I saw a lot of little girl happy moments.

 

Amaray Alvarez: What has the general response been from the girls or women who show

up?

 

Marlene Gadea: A lot of them are really grateful and it’s really heartwarming to hear. Especially, I think younger women don’t really know how to get that started, to get out of their comfort zone and ask for phone numbers and start relationships, because they do take a lot of time. You don’t just follow somebody and then you’re just friends with them. It’s interesting to see that connection from Instagram to real life, but I think it’s not something people are used to. But we do plan to have an online community discord to be able to help women communicate that don’t feel necessarily comfortable giving out their phone number because you never know. As women, we’re just very cautious. So I think once we do develop the discord community, it’ll be a little easier for people to get connected outside of the walks, too.

 

Amaray Alvarez: That was Marlene Gadea, who started East Bay Girls Who Walk. The next meet up is this Sunday in Fremont. If you want to find out more go to their Instagram or Facebook page: East bay girls who walk. 

 

Hussain Khan: Did you know you can adopt a spot? I mean like a public spot in a city. Well in Oakland you can. Volunteers fill out applications to take care of a specific park. That’s what The Friends of Raimondi Park have been doing for more than six months.

 

Negar Ajayebi: It’s raining in Raimondi Park … that’s in West Oakland … and Michael Corzo is out here to pick up trash. As he’s doing it, he points out that the park sits next to three freeways … and that has made it a location that’s particularly prone to illegal dumping. 

 

Michael Corzo: So we have people coming from San Francisco, we have people coming from Richmond, and we have people coming east, and all of them come to this freeway and dump.

 

Negar Ajayebi: Corzo lives in the neighborhood and he is the co-founder of Friends of Raimondi Park. It has soccer and baseball fields and a small playground for neighborhood kids. 

 

Michael Corzo: As soon as they dump, they just go back on the freeway go back wherever they’re going. 

 

Negar Ajayebi: You can see what he’s talking about, There are large pieces of wood and what looks like a bed frame … in addition to the basic trash like cigarette butts and food containers. 

 

Michael Corzo: I think we wouldn’t need to be doing these cleanups if they just had an actual handle on the illegal dumping situation.

 

Negar Ajayebi: Despite the rain, more than a dozen volunteers showed up. 

 

Robin Freeman: I’ve lived in the neighborhood for about six years now. And I love it. And this park is one of the best things about this area. 

Negar Ajayebi: That’s Robin Freeman. She runs and walks by the park. On this day, however, she’s holding a bucket and a trash picker. But leaves the bigger items alone. 

 

Robin Freeman: That’s more of a city and government thing and our city council person needs to be focused on.

Negar Ajayebi: Technically, it’s the city’s job to clean parks. In fact in 2020,  Oakland residents even voted to increase the Parks and Rec’s budget by 22%. They did it by approving parcel tax called Measure Q. But a recent city audit found that Oakland has underspent Measure Q revenue. The audit says – quote – “We found that the City did not have a baseline to assess the effectiveness of Measure Q funds in reaching its parks or homelessness goals, and park visits show ongoing maintenance issues and encampments at parks.” 

And so groups like Friends of Raimondi Park have sprung up to clean the parks. 

 

Ryan Loughlin: And so neighbors kind of step in to fill in the gaps. 

 

Negar Ajayebi: This is Ryan Loughlin, a Friend of Raimondi Park. 

 

Ryan Loughlin: It’s the way I understand it. It’s just that like, they don’t have the resources to clean up into, like, maintain all the parks.

 

Negar Ajayebi: Friends of Raimondi Park believe that through cleaning up, they’ve found new friends and like the opportunity to hang out with their neighbors.

Ryan Loughlin: I think like, with the renewed kind of energy from all the neighbors, like, hopefully, this will make some sort of impact and like, get it back on the city’s radar. And like, it becomes like a snowball effect thing, right?

Negar Ajayebi: Change may be on the horizon. The baseball team the “Ballers,” also known as the B’s, have a $1.6 million upgrade planned for Raimondi, where the team expects to play 48 games. 

Negar Ajayebi: The Friends of Riamondi are intent on keeping the park as clean until the Ballers start playing in June.  

Josh Gunter: My top goal is to just make sure that we continue a regular regular cleanup day. So that You know, anyone can come and help. 

 

Josh Gunter is the host of this clean up. 

 

Josh Gunter: I also want to think about like, are there like, the city does have like plantings. So there are different grants available through keep Oakland beautiful. So could we like, plant some native plants or like, plant some more trees, things like that would be like my second goal after the cleanups.

 

Negar Ajayebi: By day’s end, Friends of Raimondi Park had collected 320 gallons of trash. The park looked tidy and fresh, and you could hear birds chirping and kids cheering on the soccer field. If you want to participate in the next clean up, it’s on May 18, and they promote the events on Meet Up. From North Gate Radio, I’m Negar Ajayebi.

 

Amaray Alvarez: If you’ve been to Sausalito, you might have noticed that some of the houses aren’t exactly where you’d expect them to be…they’re floating!..  out in the Richardson Bay. 

 

Julia Haney: Hello. 

 

Isabella Kirkland: Good morning, come in. 

 

Julia Haney: How are you? 

 

Isabella Kirkland: I’m well how about yourself? 

 

Julia Haney: I’m great. What an incredible spot you’ve got. 

 

Amaray Alvarez: Well, Reporter Julia Haney was curious to know what it’s like to live on a houseboat. So she visited Isabella Kirkland, a painter and houseboat owner in Sausalito.  

 

Isabella Kirkland: Oh you’ve never been the houseboats?

 

Julia Haney: No, I’ve never been in a houseboat. 

 

Isabella Kirkland: Would you like some tea?

 

Julia Haney: Sure, thank you. 

 

Isabella Kirkland: I live on an old ferry called the city of Seattle that was built in Seattle in 1888. And my in-laws were up sailing in the Delta and saw this beached boat that was kind of derelict and they bought it for a song and then brought it down here and bought some property that was underwater and just anchored it there for a while. And finally got a piece of land connected to it. I’ve lived there for 32 years. I was pregnant when I moved in. 

 

Julia Haney: For somebody who has not been to your little part of the world, will you describe what the docks look like?

 

Isabella Kirkland: Sure. When I moved in, it was a funky old wooden pier. Way too dangerous to go barefooted on because you would get lots of splinters. But I fell in love with the waterfront and at that time it was really colorful. This road was dirt and there was such a gigantic puddle in the middle of it that somebody put a no fishing sign in it. It was pretty feral. And people just built their own boats. So a lot of them are handmade. Most of them leak…somewhere. So now when you walk out, you walk out of the parking lot under an awning and out a dock that has nice tree boxes on it with all olive trees and each house is connected to the pier by some sort of a ramp. But you know, it’s one thing to live on the water and sort of be carefree but you have a house that can leak and 360 degrees, so there’s always some issues. Particularly in big storms.

 

Julia Haney: Yes, I wanted to ask you: there have been a couple of big storms recently. What has that been like? 

 

Isabella Kirkland: Well, I’ve seen some that are so big that these don’t feel like much. I had an anemometer on our house at this Easter-time storm. And I clocked 103 miles an hour on our own roof. So that was crazy. We live next to a sailboat Marina that has halyards and they clank on the metal masts when it’s windy. And at that rate, at 100 miles an hour, it doesn’t clank, it whines. So when I hear that sound, I know we’re in really big trouble. That morning we had four gangways go in the bay. So the ramp that connects the boat to the dock just fell in or completely broke. The ferry itself broke loose and was ramming into the dock. And my husband was of course out of town. 

 

That was bragging rights. I got our boat and four other boats through 103 miles an hour wind, you know, I felt like I had accomplished something!

 

Julia Haney: I know how did you do that? 

 

Isabella Kirkland: Called everybody I knew. For help! 

 

Julia Haney: What do you think that people who live on land are missing out on?

 

Isabella Kirkland: We’re really connected to nature. I can go to the grocery store and say to somebody, oh my god, wasn’t that amazing wind last night? And people will say, “Did it rain?” 

 

You’re part of an aquatic system that you get to observe. I’m definitely aware of the moon and the tides and the weather and the migration patterns of animals.  I like being connected in that way.

 

Amary Alvarez: That was Isabella Kirland from the docks in Sausalito and you’re listening to North Gate Radio on KALX.

 

Hussain Khan: Being an artist is hard, from trying to make a name for yourself to paying the bills with your craft. But Black artists following the Black Lives Matter protests have another hurdle: getting recognized for work beyond grief and loss. North Gate reporter Audy McAfee wants people to know black artists are here, are real, and are more than their trauma.

 

Audy McAfee: Julie Atkinson lives in Orinda, California. And she’s greeting me in the gallery of ACCI in Berkeley … On the white walls are three of her paintings. They are of black women with natural hair and in nature.  Like her painting “Hyacinth.” 

 

Julie Atkinson: So hyacinth flower, if you know it’s got like a lot of big clusters of blossoms together 

 

Audy McAfee: In the painting, you can’t see the subject’s full face … it’s blurred out … but she’s looking at you. Her fluffy round hair looks like it’s decorated with bright colors of blooming flowers. In another painting … it’s called “Wings 3”  … you can see a woman with her back to the audience. She’s naked and has petals-like wings. 

 

Julie Atkinson: Done a lot of paintings where a woman’s back is turned actually and I kind of like that image of just shutting out what other people are saying and talking about and that we can find healing in ourselves, we can find peace within ourselves.

 

Audy McAfee: Atkinson isn’t a trained artist, in fact she was a lawyer for about a decade.  Although it’s a lucrative job, Atkinson wasn’t fulfilled … So about ten years ago, she began playing with art. She started crocheting and making jewelry, all the things new creatives start with. Still wanting more she did what any ex-law minded person would do… she went to educate herself. 

 

Julie Atkinson: my office was right down from the San Francisco Library, and I would go there on my lunch break, and I checked out like every book in the art section cause I was like, I just want to know more. 

 

Audy McAfee: So she took community classes and went on YouTube looking for tutorials. 

Atkinson says her art is a space where she can take a step back and put out the images of black women she wants to see. One where black women are at peace and ignoring judgment from the outside world. Atkinson says, one common experience black women face is being judged for their hair.  As a lawyer, she changed her hair to look quote – “the part.”

 

Julie Atkinson: I had to change who I was naturally in order to be acceptable. 

 

Audy McAfee: She’s not throwing shade at women who want to straighten their hair … she just doesn’t want it to be out of peer pressure.

 

Julie Atkinson: I think you can wear your hair however you want. If you want to straighten it, not straighten it, fine. But to do it, because you don’t think that you would be accepted otherwise is not right.

 

Audy McAfee: Atkinson said she had to break the trauma of feeling like her hair made her less than and that work informed her paintings. And Atkinson paints her characters  in nature because that’s where she feels you can truly be free.

 

Julie Atkinson: For me, nature, apart from just being just a beautiful place to me, it’s also a place where there’s no expectations. And you can go out and go into this space and you don’t have to perform for anybody. 

 

Audy McAfee: But that narrative of a black woman at peace and relaxed in nature goes against the common images of them as mothers or being isolated. Atkinson says black artists who go against stereotypes find it difficult to break into the art world. 

 

Julie Atkinson: My thoughts it’s excluded, because white people don’t maybe see it as maybe as relevant or that they’re not going to understand the themes, or they’re kind of scared to approach it.

 

Audy McAfee: According to artnet.com – an online site that tracks the art market – artists identifying as black women created 1 thousand 877 pieces out of the 339-thousand– 969 objects taken in by museums in the U.S. during 2022. 

 

Julie Atkinson: There’s so much that needs that is still out there that news to be said and expressed. And it’s being said, by black people, by other people of color. And we’ve been silenced for so long.

 

Audy McAfee: But that doesn’t mean black people should stop making their art …  

 

Julie Atkinson: I don’t know how to get more representation or get out there more. But, you know, if we stop doing it, we’re definitely not going to get there. So we just have to keep at it, keep making stuff. And eventually, the light is going to find us.

 

Audy McAfee: Atkinson finds her light through patterns, textures, stories of black women resting and not having to be the savior for others before themselves. Although there may be certain guidelines to painting it is the fact that she has creative control over her work that she enjoys most.

Julie Atkinson: Just kind of the nice thing with painting is I kind of do whatever you want and what  I want to do as a black woman in white spaces is like whatever I want.

 

Audy McAfee: Atkinson also has two children and she feels that it’s important for them to see art … and finds it funny she didn’t grow up consuming it herself. She said art can be healing for children’s self esteem like it is for hers now. She believes that through art children may find new ways to express hard emotions. 

 

Julie Atkinson: You know the more they can see themselves represented the more they can create images of themselves like I didnt – I feel like I’m creating  what I didn’t see and what I want to see so that when i look around my studio  I’m like yes  these are the woman I always wanted around me.

 

Audy McAfee: It’s easy to paint sad things … our minds can go quickly to grief and loss – but the true act of defiance is showing that we’ve healed from those wounds.   

 

Julie Atkinson:  It can be much harder to come up with instances where you have felt healing and where you felt joy. We are still here despite everything. so when you look around you should see that you should see something that uplifts you and reminds you and gives you that strength to like, keep  going the next day. I don’t need a painting to remind me of grief. 

 

Audy McAfee: But Atkinson said  we do need to be reminded of joy .. and given the choice, I vote for seeing something happy too. I’m Audy McAfee, for North Gate Radio. 

 

Hussain Khan: That’s it for North Gate Radio. Thanks for tuning into our last show for the semester, produced by I-Yun Chan

 

Amaray Alvarez: Julia Haney was our Executive Producer…

 

Hussain Khan: Rick Johnson was our engineer…

 

Amaray Alvarez: Queena Sook Kim and Shereen Marisol Meraji were our faculty advisors…

 

Hussain Khan: North Gate Radio is a production of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, I’m Hussain Khan

 

Amaray Alvarez: and I’m Amaray Alvarez ….have a great summer and good luck on finals!