Communities That Care

On this episode of North Gate Radio, five reporters explore how community has shaped the past and present of the Bay Area.

You’ll hear about senior citizens in Emeryville playing Mahjong to sharpen their memories, a former Black Panther reflecting on the legacy of the party, and the artistry of the girls flag football team at Berkeley High School. We also meet a death doula helping the bereaved navigate loss through “grief gardening” and close with a trip to an encampment in West Oakland where volunteers are addressing illegal dumping.

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

 

Full transcript

Brenda Vasquez: From KALX Berkeley, this is North Gate Radio. I’m Brenda Yamilex Vasquez.

Patricio Provencio: And I’m Patricio Provencio. Today is Thursday, May 14th. It’s our last show of the semester and we’re bringing you stories from the community across the Bay.

Brenda Vasquez: We start our show in Emeryville with senior citizens playing mahjong.

Bob Lee: It’s called “mixing”. It’s called “washing”.

Joni Binder: I love that sound.

Bob Lee: Yeah.

[Sound of mahjong tiles]

Patricio Provencio: Then, we chat with a former Black Panther about the party’s legacy.

Gayle Asali Dickson: I understand using the Black Panther Party as a model.

Brenda Vasquez: Next, we go to Berkeley High School, where an all-girls team is shaping a new sport.

Robin Vegt: I’m watching the future of how this game’s gonna be played.

Patricio Provencio: Then, we meet a death doula connecting the living and the dead.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Rituals are this embodiment of crossing that threshold between regular life and the spirit world.

Brenda Vasquez: Finally, we go to an encampment in West Oakland, where volunteers are addressing illegal dumping.

Maverick Brown:  It’s not a clean or safe, or happy way to live when you’re surrounded by trash.

Patricio Provencio: But first, Chelsea Kurnick with the news.

Chelsea Kurnick: Live from North Gate Radio, good morning! I’m Chelsea Kurnick with the news. We begin in Oakland, where early this morning a union representing about 40,000 UC workers called off a strike that was set to begin today. The strike could have affected care at five medical centers and 10 campuses across the state, but the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 reached a tentative contract with the university after more than two years of negotiations. The union represents some of the lowest paid employees in the system, which include hospital, custodial and cafeteria workers. The new contract gives permanent employees $1,500 and increases the union’s minimum wage to just over $30 an hour. It also includes layoff protections, an additional paid day off, and a cap on healthcare insurance rates.

In Napa County, three adults were hospitalized after eating poisonous wild mushrooms over the weekend. The victims foraged the mushrooms near Silverado Trail in the Deer Park area. Dr. Christine Wu is the public health officer for Napa County. She said that recent spring rains caused a resurgence of wild mushrooms in the area, and that contributed to the unprecedented number of poisonings this year. Since last November, at least 47 people have become severely ill from eating poisonous mushrooms. Four people have died and three more needed liver transplants.

And finally, in San Francisco … Bay to Breakers is back for its 113th year on Sunday. The 7.5-mile race heads west from the Embarcadero to Ocean Beach and about 30,000 people – many naked and many more in irreverent costumes – are expected to participate. The race began in 1912 as a way to celebrate San Francisco’s triumphant recovery after the massive 1906 earthquake. Its first year, 174 people ran the race and there were no costumes and no birthday suits. It was a straightforward and straight-laced affair for many years, but became legendary when runners introduced costumes and kitsch in the 1970s.

For North Gate Radio, I’m Chelsea Kurnick.

Brenda Vasquez: Welcome back to North Gate Radio from KALX Berkeley. I am Brenda Yamilex Vasquez.

Patricio Provencio: And I’m Patricio Provencio.

Brenda Vasquez: Patricio, have you ever played Mahjong?

Patricio Provencio: No, but I keep seeing it everywhere. What is it exactly?

Brenda Vasquez: It’s a game played in groups of four that uses tiles with symbols, numbers, and characters on them…

Patricio Provencio: Oh, that sounds fun!

Brenda Vasquez: Yeah, and for some people, it even helps with their memory. Our next story takes us to a Japanese cultural center in the East Bay. Here’s reporter Joni Binder.

J-SEI Participant #1: Oh Nancy! We just took … look at that!

J-SEI Participant #2: I pay you back.

[Sounds of mahjong tiles]

Joni Binder: It’s a Wednesday in Emeryville. We are in a converted warehouse building where sunshine streams through skylights and illuminates six tables set up for games. We hear the clacking sound of tiles, and players calling out the tiles’ names …

J-SEI Participant #3: Green Dragon.

Joni Binder: Green Dragon.

J-SEI Participant #4: Wow! Fancy. I wish I had.

J-SEI Participant #5: White Dragon. Little birdie, little birdie just fly away.

Joni Binder: Among the many offerings for seniors, J-SEI holds weekly supervised play of Mahjong, a rummy-style game played with thick tiles that players collect to form pungs and kongs– three to four identical tiles– and chows – which are like runs– to build a “Mahjong” out of the 14 tiles they take at the beginning of the game. But tiles sound much better than cards.

[Sounds of mahjong tiles]

Bob Lee: That sound you like, I like it too. It’s called “mixing”. It’s called “washing”.

Joni Binder: I love that sound.

Bob Lee: Yeah.

Joni Binder: I sat in with a group of players including Elaine Kim, Bob Lee, Jim Furuichi, and Nancy Niijima.

Elaine Kim: Nancy is a concert pianist.

Nancy Niijima: Used to be; I’m too old now.

Joni Binder: Nancy is wearing a beautiful blue kimono, and a blue scarf, and blue jelly shoes and blue hospital socks.

Nancy Niijima: Hi Jim. You need four.

Elaine Kim: You can tell she’s a horse ’cause she’s impatient. Me too.

Joni Binder [scene]: Me too.

Joni Binder: All of the sounds of play around the tables at J-SEI made it hard to get to know the players, so a few days later I went to visit with Nancy at her daughter Elizabeth’s nearby home in Berkeley.

Nancy Niijima: I was born in Okinawa, 1942, long time ago.

Joni Binder: Nancy moved to the United States as a young married woman. She told me she barely slept in those early years and had to reinvent herself many times. Today, she switches between Japanese and English and has a humor about how parts of her memory are fading. I asked her what brought her to mahjong tables.

Nancy Niijima: For my memory, and, probably, you know, social communication and friends.

Joni Binder: How do you feel like Mahjong helps with your memory?

Nancy Niijima: Oh, very sharp. Everything is clear.

Joni Binder: Is it while you’re playing that you feel your memory gets sharper? Or do you feel like because you play, your memory gets sharper?

Nancy Niijima: Hmm. Only playing the game is the memory sharp.

Joni Binder: It’s not just Nancy that thinks Mahjong helps with memory. There have been studies out of China that show that, over time, playing Mahjong improves executive function in elderly people with mild cognitive impairment. I spoke with the author of two books on Mahjong, clinical psychologist Gregg Swain.

Gregg Swain:  One of the best things that you can do as you age is interact with others. The game itself offers a lot of challenges in terms of trying to figure out different patterns, trying to figure out plans, goals, how to meet the goal, what to do when you can’t meet your goal.

Joni Binder: The researchers also found that Mahjong can delay dementia.

Gregg Swain: It’s not a surprise to any of us who play the game because all the things that they talk about in terms of successful aging take place at the Mahjong table.

Nancy Niijima: Oh “Seven Sisters” again. Okay. Eight point, 256.

Joni Binder: That’s Nancy again, sharp as a tack, playing Mahjong at J-SEI. Today, she is a pianist without a piano in her home. Music provides a deep reservoir of powerful memory. She conjures both her voice and her hands when I ask her about the composer she likes best.

Nancy Niijima: Chopin is the best. Yeah. Nocturnes is my … the best, you know? Opus 27. Number two. That one.

Joni Binder: Let me see.

[Voice of Nancy Niijima vocalising and fingering Chopin Op. 27 no.2]

Joni Binder: This is Joni Binder for North Gate Radio.

Patricio Provencio: Since the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids, neighborhood patrols have popped up across the country. But one group in particular went viral during an ICE protest in Philadelphia, a group calling themselves the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Black Panthers basically wrote the playbook on police watchdogging nearly sixty years ago in Oakland, but there was also more to the movement. Our reporter Lylah Schmedel-Permanna sat down with a former member  of the Party to talk about the future of these movements.

Gayle Asali Dickson:  My name is Gayle Asali Dickson.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: Dixon is a lifelong artist and also a minister at Beth Eden Church in West Oakland. In her 20s, she was an active member of the Black Panthers.

Gayle Asali Dickson: And at the church now they introduce me as Reverend Gayle Asali Black Panther Party Dixon.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: I met Dixon at her church during its 136th anniversary. She’s 77 and keeps her hair cut short. In her 20s, Dixon worked as a graphic artist for the Black Panther newspaper and helped run its free breakfast program. And Dixon’s from Oakland, born and raised.

Gayle Asali Dickson:  My husband and I, we were married down here in Oakland. We joined in 1970, so we served in the breakfast program. And in 1972, I was recruited to the newspaper because they knew of my art skill.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: Like many people on social media during the time of the ICE raids, I clung to my phone monitoring how the community was responding to the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officials. I saw people protesting, patrolling neighborhoods, and then this video popped up.

Paul Birdsong [archive video]: The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, we’re the same Panther Party from back in the day, but we’re a little more aggressive now, you dig?

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: So when a group of primarily Black men stood up during protests adorning themselves in all black, berets, and big guns, it made sense. The Black Panther Party was a movement that started here in Oakland. They were community builders – leading voting drives and feeding children across the country. But they made their name by policing the police.

Bobby Seale [archive video]: But they occupy community just like a foreign troop occupies territory. It’s very important to understand – we hate cops beating Black people over their heads and murdering them. That’s what we hate!

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: It was striking to see this group of men trying to revive a movement that’s been long gone. And so before we met, I sent Dixon the video and asked her what she thought of Black Panther Party imitators. She didn’t have too much to say without knowing the people personally, but she did mention that there was more to the movement than holding big guns and patrolling the streets. Dixon says you don’t need to wear a Black Panther uniform to create change. People on community patrols are often just in plain clothes.

Gayle Asali Dickson:  And those who are doing something, they’re primarily focused on education and feeding hungry people.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: She’s talking about the churches getting food to those in need. And all those “know your rights” cards being passed out. But she said it’s also different.

Gayle Asali Dickson: This is just stopgap. This is just survival stuff.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: Dixon says these community patrols could be the seeds of something, but she thinks we need to create a new movement, one that speaks to the challenges of today.

Gayle Asali Dickson:  What I will say is people don’t want to see this happening and want to see how can they help bring about a change. So now we are into another vision of freedom. What does freedom look like?  Now, see, freedom is an abstract word. So, is it a new Black Panther Party? I don’t think so. I don’t know what it’s gonna look like. But I understand using the Black Panther Party as a model.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: Dixon says everybody knows about the Black Panther’s ten point program, which spelled out the need for equal access to housing, food, jobs, and more. She says the ten point program was basically just policy. The spirit that animated the Black Panthers …

Gayle Asali Dickson: Communication, relationship building, getting to know the people around you, getting to know your neighbors will help a lot. But that ten point platform program, see that’s the Black Panther side. The Biblical side is relationship building.

Lylah Schmedel-Permanna: And Dixon says, if you combine the two … a clear policy and neighborhood building … systems will change.

For North Gate Radio, I’m Lylah Schmedel-Permanna.

Brenda Vasquez: Girls flag football is one of the fastest growing high school sports in California. But at Berkeley High School, the sport is attracting students who say they never really saw themselves in traditional sports culture, bringing a new artistry to the field. Reporter Dinée Dorame has more.

Dinée Dorame: When we think of football, we normally think of players who fit a certain mold. Power, size, and high-speed collisions are part of the game.

Commentator #1 [NFL video]: I mean, they just get faster, bigger every year.

Commentator #2 [NFL video]: That size, with that vertical, with that bench rep.

Commentator #3 [NFL video]: So, we’ve got 322-pound guys running 4.8s.

Dinée Dorame: That’s from the NFL’s coverage of their annual scouting combine. But in girls flag football, there’s space for a different kind of athlete. Some students come from other sports, like basketball … or dance. Lilah Montoya, a junior at Berkeley High School, reflects on why she tried out.

Lilah Montoya:  I quit soccer after my freshman year.  I grew up with my dad and my brother always throwing balls around and always including me. And I was like, “That’s something that I know how to do, and I wanna do.”

Dinée Dorame: Montoya plays at the linebacker position, a defensive role requiring speed and agility to chase down players with the ball. Berkeley High’s head flag football coach, Israel Carrero, says flag football requires players with a wide range of skills, so sometimes he turns to other activities and teams when recruiting for fall season try-outs.

Israel Carrero: I look for dancers too, and everyone’s like, “Why dancers?” I was like, light on their feet. They have to remember choreography. They have the movements, which is huge for flag.

Dinée Dorame: Coach Carrero’s roster brings together students from different social groups, athletic backgrounds, and experiences around sports. The culture of Berkeley High flag football creates a space for young women to express themselves safely.

Israel Carrero:  You have all walks of life coming. There is no specific look that we’re looking for, so anyone can join this.

Dinée Dorame: The game itself is evolving too as athletes experiment with styles of play. Without tackling or blocking, Carrero says flag football relies more heavily on speed, agility, and improvisation.

Israel Carrero:  You rely more on trick plays now. Let’s throw it to this side of the field, then we’re gonna throw it all the way back to this side of the field, and then we’re gonna throw it deep. So you can get the creative juices flowing.

Dinée Dorame: Girls flag football has taken off across the state. It officially became a California Interscholastic Federation sport in 2023. That year, Berkeley High only had 18 girls sign up – 14 of whom had never played the sport before. They went undefeated in the regular season. This past fall, they had over 80 players tryout, with 25 of them making the Varsity roster, and for the first time ever, they fielded a JV squad. Berkeley High’s Co-Athletic Director Ross Parker says the school has a population of about 3,200 students, but shares just one turf field across multiple sports and teams. Adding another high participation sport complicates field access.

Ross Parker: Flag football interestingly enough has a more of a basketball schedule than a football schedule. So now we’re, you know, squeezing 20 games onto our field where there was none four years ago.

Dinée Dorame: Berkeley High’s other Co-Athletic Director, Robin Vegt, says despite the scheduling stress, watching the development of a new sport is exciting. She attended several games last year, and was blown away by the moves and style of play. She vividly remembers one player’s maneuver.

Robin Vegt:  She had this twisty move that looked like a ballet kinda thing, and no one could grab her flag. And I was sitting in the stands thinking, “Okay, I’m watching the future of how this game’s gonna be played.”

Dinée Dorame: That personal flair and self-expression is what keeps players and spectators invested. Here’s linebacker Lilah Montoya again.

Lilah Montoya: The sports that I played before, the communities I was in, it wasn’t really interconnected in the same way that this team is. I felt like there was just some cliquiness or distance.

Dinée Dorame: Most high schools have a football team, a soccer team, or a basketball team. But this is what makes the inclusion of girls flag football so important. So, as the sport joins the 2028 Olympics, players and coaches hope even more girls will feel empowered to take up space in a game long dominated by men.

Lilah Montoya:  Flag football means everything to me. I love the team and the sport with my entire heart.

Dinée Dorame: For North Gate Radio, I’m Dinée Dorame.

Patricio Provencio: When a loved one dies, most workers in the U.S. are given five days of bereavement leave. And then they’re expected to be back at work, as though nothing happened. In a culture that doesn’t talk much about death, grieving people are often left feeling lost and confused, asking themselves, “Is it just me? Should I still be feeling this way?” These are some of the questions reporter Zoe Meyer had after losing her grandmother recently. So she went to see a grief doula and was inspired to bring us this story.

Zoe Meyer: Grief doula Andrea Sexton-Dumas has experienced a lot of loss in her life. Her dad died when she was eight. Then, right before Covid, one of her friends died from cancer. Through these experiences, Sexton-Dumas realized that grief isn’t something our society often makes space for or treats as deserving of our time.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas:  Capitalism is our religion. Everything we do is navigated by the gravitational pull of our jobs. It’s the only thing we collectively care about. We will do anything for our jobs, and we do very little for our grief.

Zoe Meyer: So Sexton-Dumas set out to create more spaces to really feel grief and rituals to honor it.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Rituals are this embodiment of crossing that threshold between regular life and the spirit world. You know, that which is sacred. Death and grief are sacred.

Zoe Meyer: It seems like you don’t have to be religious to practice rituals.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Most definitely not.

Zoe Meyer: Sexton-Dumas says that rituals give you a designated time and space to feel your grief. And this resonated with me. At the beginning of 2026, my Grandma died from a sudden stroke. I didn’t know how to deal with it and I felt like I had to mask the intensity of my pain to make other people comfortable. On a recent Wednesday, I went out to Wildcat Canyon with Sexton-Dumas to see what these rituals are all about. As part of her role as a death doula, Sexton-Dumas practices grief gardening – it’s a way of physically expressing grief through rituals. She led me through a grief gardening exercise. It’s one she often does with clients who are facing acute grief.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: What do you need in this moment, Zoe?

Zoe Meyer: I need my Grandma to be alive again.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Yeah. Okay.

Zoe Meyer [scene]: That’s what I need.

Zoe Meyer: Sexton-Dumas motions to a fallen oak tree off the side of the path.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Let’s use this log as the place of containment.

Zoe Meyer: A place of containment acts as a space to revisit and hold your grief.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: We’re just gonna say something: dear creator, dear Universe, dear Earth that we inhabit. Thank you for having us here today.

Zoe Meyer:  Sexton-Dumas looks deep into my eyes as she speaks, and it feels like she’s stepping into my grief with me.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: Grandma Elaine, with this water we pour onto this ground, water’s Zoe’s heart. Come alive in her heart. Come alive in her dreams. Stay alive in her spirit.

Zoe Meyer: Sexton-Dumas takes out a water bottle and prepares to pour its contents onto the ground.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: And we’re just giving water to the soil as an offering to the land for holding us, for the great spirits, and for Grandma Elaine.

Zoe Meyer [scene]: Okay. Is it my turn?

Zoe Meyer: She hands me the bottle and I pour some water out, too.

[Sound of water hitting the ground]

Zoe Meyer: Andrew Scharlach, a Professor of Aging at the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School, says that rituals have been replaced by modernization.

Andrew Scharlach:  Technology has served to bring us together over long distances, but has also served to replace the complexity of human connection with something that is more curated and more controlled.

Zoe Meyer: He says that rituals help us to metabolize grief. This can be seen in several cultures around the world.

Andrew Scharlach:  Rituals are designed to help the deceased transition to their next state and to help the bereaved transition to their new state.

Zoe Meyer: But Sharlach says, in a society that values individualism and undervalues the breadth and depth of human emotions, these ways of grieving have been lost. And have left us feeling more alone.

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: With gratitude in our hearts, with grief in our hearts.

Zoe Meyer: Back at the park, Sexton-Dumas and I close out the ritual. Her eyes still trained on mine, she says …

Andrea Sexton-Dumas: The ritual is over. We’re closing that sacred space, and we’re coming out of the land of spirit and back into our realm to carry on with our day.

Zoe Meyer: After the ritual, returning to that log brings me comfort. And Sexton-Dumas says that’s the point – to find refuge where you can go and unleash your grief… completely unmasked.

For North Gate Radio, I’m Zoe Meyer.

Brenda Vasquez: Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee says illegally dumped trash is one of her top priorities. And to address it she has been announcing all sorts of new approaches.

Mayor Barbara Lee [archive video]: Stronger penalties and tougher enforcement. New aerial technology. State legislation, that’s SB 1218. Over one million in new funding.

Patricio Provencio: Oakland spends millions of dollars every year cleaning up this trash and in 2025 responded to over 25,000 cleanup requests across the city.

Brenda Vasquez: But for many Oaklanders — especially people living in homeless encampments — the problem remains a daily reality.

Reporter Lenéa Sims takes us to an illegal dumping cleanup in West Oakland.

Lee Heward [background]: All right, if I could get, uh, everyone’s attention.

Lee Heward: We had 22 come out in the rain today, uh, to spend a few hours of their Saturday cleaning up.

Lenéa Sims: That’s Lee Heward.  On a recent Saturday morning, he was addressing volunteers at an illegal dumping cleanup as part of his job leading operations for Urban Compassion Project, or UCP. A grassroots nonprofit that organizes community cleanups and mutual aid efforts, UCP cleaned up 1.3 million pounds of illegally dumped trash last year.

Today, they’re clearing waste at an encampment close to West Oakland BART. Clad in matching blue shirts and vests with the UCP logo, volunteers spread out across a sprawling dump site, hauling waterlogged furniture, broken pallets, and shovels full of trash into massive piles for removal.

Lee Heward: We used about 150 bags and I’d say we’re about 8,000 pounds of trash today in about an hour and a half.

Lenéa Sims: Across the street, 57-year-old Maverick Brown watches from outside the RV he’s called home for the last five years. He says illegal dumping has become part of everyday life here.

Lenéa Sims [scene]: Being around all this trash has gotta be bad for your health. Right? Do you ever think about that?

Maverick Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Good thing I grew up poor. Great immune system, you know? It built me strongly.

Lenéa Sims: Jokes aside, the conditions surrounding the encampments are no laughing matter. Advocates say that waste dumped near encampments often includes hazardous materials — like fiberglass from construction sites — that can pose serious health risks.

Supriya Golas: Unfortunately, what we think is that the city has not really focused on the root of these issues that are creating this like horrible, toxic, hazardous landscape that’s affecting everyone.

Lenéa Sims: Supriya Golas is the executive director of UCP. And she says the real root cause of illegal dumping is cost.

Supriya Golas: It costs double to dump your trash in Oakland versus in neighboring cities like Hayward.

Lenéa Sims: A recent city auditor’s report found that Oakland residents do indeed pay significantly more for garbage service than neighboring cities — in some cases up to 40 percent more. Back in West Oakland, I ask Brown …

Lenéa Sims [scene]: Why do you think people do the dumping in encampments?

Maverick Brown: To save money. You have independent people who do hauling, haul your waste away or whatever. Rather than pay $100 or $200, $300 or whatever cost to dump this at the dump site, they keep that in their pocket. Dump it over here, be like the hell with it.

Lenéa Sims: For their part, city leaders say they’re cracking down on these illegal dumpers by increasing penalties and fines. State Senator Jesse Arreguín recently introduced legislation that would prevent people with unpaid dumping fines from renewing their vehicle registration. But UCP says dumping is difficult to stop through enforcement alone. The group fills the gap by paying stipends to encampment residents who help keep the sites clean after UCP’s cleanup events. Still, volunteers know many of these sites will likely be dumped on again — sometimes within days. Here’s UCP volunteer McDieun Philidor.

McDieun Philidor: It’s really important that we don’t become too reliant on institutions to fix problems that are really at our hands. We have to live in this, you know, like we all share these spaces and we could choose to drive by all the time and say, “Okay, well somebody else is gonna pick it up.”

Lenéa Sims: Philidor says even if the sites get dumped on again, cleanups can shift how people think about their neighborhoods.

McDieun Philidor: You still made an impact. People saw it. People walked through that street the very next day and were like, “Wow, it’s so much cleaner.” And they knew something was possible at the very least. That’s how I feel whenever I’m out here.

Lenéa Sims: Back at the encampment, Maverick Brown says the cleanups matter not only because they remove trash, but because they remind the people living there that someone cares.

Lenéa Sims [scene]: Does it help when they come out here and pick up the trash?

Maverick Brown: It does. Yes, it does. They come out here not just picking up the trash. It’s just good, it’s just good to have somebody that give a damn.

Lenéa Sims: For North Gate Radio in Oakland, I’m Lenéa Sims.

Brenda Vasquez: That’s it for North Gate Radio. Thanks so much for tuning in. Today’s show was produced by Dinée Dorame and Chelsea Kurnick. Our Director was Joni Binder and our Executive Producer was Lenéa Sims.

Patricio Provencio: Thank you to Rick Johnson who was our engineer …

Brenda Vasquez & Patricio Provencio: And, Happy Birthday, Rick!

Patricio Provencio: Thanks also to Queena Sook Kim and Ethan Toven-Lindsey who were our faculty advisors.

Brenda Vasquez: North Gate Radio is a production of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. I’m Brenda Yamilex Vasquez.

Patricio Provencio: And I’m Patricio Provencio. Congratulations to the class of 2026! This was the last North Gate Radio Show of the semester.

Have a good summer!