From the Bay to Bogotá, reporters dove deep into how communities are coming together in times of strife. In Oakland, statewide homelessness policy is shaping how advocates are organizing in the face of sweeps. Also, federal funding cuts are coming down hard on an LGBTQ center on the shores of Lake Merritt. A researcher at the California Institute for Integral Studies walks us through a new framework for thinking about neurodiversity. Two reporters traveled abroad to South America to document the legacy of “El Sistema,” which trained generations of Venezuelan musicians. Their reporting took place in Colombia, home to many Venezuelan migrants who have left the country in the wake of political turmoil and upheaval. These pieces were made in collaboration with Royvi Hernandez through Berkeley Journalism’s International Reporting Project.
This is a recording of North Gate Radio that was broadcast live on KALX radio station, 90.7FM.
Full Transcript
Jasmine Ascencio: Good morning and welcome to NorthGate Radio, I’m Jasmine Ascencio
Robert Strauss: And I’m Robert Strauss!
Jasmine Ascencio: Feels like summer is here in the Bay!
Robert Strauss: But it’s raining all week in Colombia.
Jasmine Ascencio: That’s where two of our reporters went, right?
Robert Strauss: Yes, we’ll be hearing their stories later. They are adventurous souls.
Jasmine Ascencio: But first, we’ll go to the Oakland LGBTQ Center, where volunteers are learning to run services in the face of major federal funding cuts.
Hillary Rusk: I’m worried about my fellow queer seniors and my fellow queer youth and all the folks in between
Robert Strauss: Then, an interview with Professor Nick Walker, a leader in the neurodiversity movement:
Nick Walker: The goal is for everyone to break out of neuronormativity entirely by having everybody queer their minds and continually reinvent their own consciousness.
Jasmine Ascencio: After that, we’ll hear about a world-famous Venezuelan youth music program.
Deisy Valencia: Es un refugio necesario para los niños, sin duda.
Robert Strauss: Then, we go to a Venezuelan musician living in Colombia, who had to choose between high school and his music.
Dioswal Solano: O la música, o el colegio.
Jasmine Ascencio: But first, the news…
Anna Zou: Live from NorthGate Radio, I’m Anna Zou. Governor Gavin Newsom urged cities and counties to clear homeless encampments earlier this week. While Newsom can’t force cities to do so, he can withhold about $3.3 billion in new funding from Proposition 1, which voters passed last year. This is the second similar request from Newsom, and Oakland is starting to respond. NorthGate Radio’s Anasooya Thorakkattu reports.
[Noises of a Truck Backing Up]
Anasooya Thorakkattu: It’s Monday morning, and a slew of Oakland city departments – including the police, fire, and public works were clearing out a stretch of East 12th street near Chinatown. It’s one of the city’s biggest encampments.
Jaz Colibri: There’s more than 180 people living here in the stretch that they’re evicting for the next month.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: Although the city’s survey estimates 79 people in the East 12th encampments. Jaz Colibri is part of a group of volunteers who help unhoused people in the city that are being moved. She was formerly unhoused and has been doing this for about four years now.
Jaz Colibri: Right now I’m hooked up to this RV ’cause they don’t want it to get impounded, so I’m gonna go move it somewhere else.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: Jaz is in a U-Haul and the RV is hooked up to it. The volunteers crowdfund to rent the truck. While she’s doing that another volunteer:
Jaz Colibri: Kelsey is working with those folks to try to help them move their belongings.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: Kelsey is moving tents, clothes and anything else people want to take, that’s what the U-Haul is for.
Jaz Colibri: We slept here overnight, because sometimes they came as early as five or six in the morning to set up fencing.
Mark Jones: Jaz and somebody else yeah, they always come out here, I guess, and check on people.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: That’s Mark Jones, but everyone knows him as Ifuma. He has a dog and says Jaz and the volunteers helped clear him out of an encampment three and a half months ago to bring him here. And now he has to move again.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: Jaz and the volunteers have stayed in touch with people like Jones and now, folks in the encampments call them if they see city agencies moving in.
Jaz Colibri: It’s only ever gonna be solved when they start listening to the folks who are impacted the most by it, they know what will fix it.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: The city says it will house about 80 people in transitional housing, which will be funded by a grant from the state.
Anasooya Thorakkattu: For NorthGate Radio, I’m Anasooya Thorakkattu.
Anna Zou: And in Berkeley, the city has ordered unhoused people camped out in Ohlone Park to leave. The encampment has grown significantly in the last few months. Roughly two dozen tents can be seen on Hearst Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Grant Street.
Anna Zou: Residents have complained about trash pile ups, dog waste, and stalking by a camp resident — that’s according to Berkeleyside. Earlier this year, Old City Hall and Civic Center park were cleared out.
Anna Zou: Staying in Berkeley, the Aurora theatre is suspending their upcoming season because of financial challenges. It’s one of a series of arts organizations in the East Bay that have struggled to recover after the pandemic.
Anna Zou: The playhouse was founded in 1991. It has launched a Spring fundraiser to help them get through its current season, which ends in august.For NorthGate Radio, I’m Anna Zou.
Robert Strauss: Welcome Back to NorthGate Radio, I’m Robert Strauss.
Jasmine Ascencio: And I’m Jasmine Ascencio.
Robert Strauss: Among those seriously affected by the Trump administration’s cutbacks is the Oakland LGBTQ center. But, the center is returning to its roots to get through, Nava Rawls reports.
Nava Rawls: It’s a sunny, Saturday afternoon at the Oakland LGBTQ center. The building is located right across from Lake Merritt and has been a pillar in Oakland’s community since its opening in 2017. With the Trump administration cuts, the center has lost ten employees or about 30 percent of its staff.
Nava Rawls: To get by, the Oakland LGBTQ center is returning to its roots as a volunteer led organization. And the first step toward that goal is to recruit and train volunteers. Hilary Rusk is a 62-year-old queer woman and a retired science writer. She typically attends the senior events at the center. But today, Rusk is here attending a volunteer training session to make sure the services continue.
Hilary Rusk: I’m worried about my fellow queer seniors and my fellow queer youth and all the folks in between there.
Nava Rawls: At the meeting, Rusk learns what services are most in need of volunteers. Every team at the center has lost staff, but it’s especially dire for the youth and senior services. And, Rainbow Recovery, the center’s addiction program, lost the entirety of their funding only last month.
Hilary Rusk: I wanted to come here and offer my time and skills to help replace some of what I know is a huge and terrible loss of support and funding for our community.
Nava Rawls: Before the return of the Trump administration, the LGBTQ Center paid an outside organization called Turnout to recruit … and manage … its volunteers. But since the cuts, they’ve had to bring that job back in house. Joe Hawkins is the co-founder and CEO of the Oakland LGBTQ Center. He opened up the meeting by saying the need for volunteers is urgent.
Joe Hawkins: I’ve never seen anything like what we’re witnessing today. And we’re fighting, and we’re going to fight and we’re going to prevail, and we will continue to fight.
Nava Rawls: The leaders of the organization say they live to fight another day by replacing the staff with volunteers. Dawn Edwards is the COO of the Oakland LGBTQ Center.
Dawn Edwards: In the first two years we were just volunteer run. We had no major contracts or grants. It was really community based.
Nava Rawls: In fact, Edwards first got involved with the center as a volunteer in 2017. She was on the Oakland Pride mailing list and found out they were looking for help to start a new center in the city.
Joe Hawkins: We don’t get the same resources that typically in major cities that white-led organizations do, and that’s nationwide.
Nava Rawls: … back at the volunteer information meeting, Hakwins reminds volunteers that “scrappiness” is in their DNA.
Joe Hawkins: That’s the world we live in. That’s the country we live in.
Nava Rawls: He told the room of forty-or-so people that the center was started by … and for … black and brown folks. This was at a time when those communities were marginalized by the mainstream LGBT community, like across the Bay in San Francisco.
Joe Hawkins: Black and Latinx and Latino people, we would go over there and we would be discriminated against by white queers. So we made our own morals here.
Nava Rawls: Alexis Ora Herron was in the room. She first heard about the training at the Senior Lunchbox event the day before.
Alexis Ora Herron: I love my LGBT community. Uh, I am an out great grandmother, I’m one of the OGs as they call me, so I just want to be here to help them, uh, for their future.
Nava Rawls: Gary Turner was also there. He’s a widower who regularly socializes at senior events throughout the month.
Gary Turner: it would be good to be able to be in touch with more people, one it will get me out of the house ’cause I’m over 65 There’s less to do, but I know my experience and knowledge can probably help other people.
Nava Rawls: Over the next few weeks, this new cohort of volunteers will go through background checks, interviews and more to make sure they’re the right fit to support the center. According to Trump, these cuts aren’t slowing down any time soon, but the Oakland LGBTQ community is speeding to catch up. For NorthGate Radio, I’m Nava Rawls
Jasmine Ascencio: Robert, did you know that queer theory came from the LGBTQ struggle?
Robert Strauss: No, I didn’t!
Jasmine Ascencio: Yeah! AND it helped shape the neurodiversity [nur-ow] movement, too. Professor Nick Walker, who coined the term “Nueroqueer,” spoke at UC Berkeley’s first Neurodiversity Symposium. Reporter NeEddra James has more.
NeEddra James: In early April, I joined other neurodiverse students, faculty and staff for two days of connection, resource sharing and learning.
NeEddra James: Professor Nick Walker, a leader in the neurodiversity movement and author of Neuroqueer Heresies delivered the keynote address. I had a chance to chat with Professor Walker a few days after the event.
NeEddra James: You offered a really incredible idea in your work querying neuro-normativity, right. To critique this idea that there’s a particular and objectively obvious way that a brain is supposed to work. And, you know, if you, if you don’t really act like that, well find ways to kind of discipline you and to acting that way.
NeEddra James: Yes. Um, so for people who are new to your work, can you explain like what queering neuronormativity means?
Nick Walker: Right. So what I’ve been doing is applying a queer theory lens to neurodiversity, to the diversity of ways that human minds can function. And so in queer theory at its core, queer is a verb. Queer is something you do. This actually goes back to the original meaning of the word queer, which was to tangle. Way before it got associated with, you know, sexual orientation or gender. You’d have fishermen in the 18 hundred, their fishing line would get tangled and they’d be like, oh, my line is queered.
Nick Walker: And that’s where the term started.
NeEddra James: Wow. No way. Yeah.
Nick Walker: And so to queer heteronormativity means to, to take those binary gender roles and mess with them and tangle them and literally. To queer, something means to make it not straight.
NeEddra James: Literally
Nick Walker: Right. So, so I’m taking that same lens and applying it to neuronormativity to this idea. Just like, this is the one right way for a mind to work and the one right way to, to think and embody your consciousness. And so I’m saying, well, just like we can queer heteronormativity, we can queer neuro-normativity. It can be, it can be creatively messed with and tampered with. So that’s the essence of my work.
NeEddra James:A couple of years ago, Berkeley launched this neurodiversity initiative. Mm-hmm. At the heart of its mission is to create what it calls strength space and, and trauma informed, spaces, neuro affirming spaces, um, neuro distinct, distinct spaces and like access intimacy.
NeEddra James: And when I read that, I thought, Hmm, that sounds a hell of a lot better than accommodations. Mm-hmm. It seems to me that that’s qualitatively different. What’s your take on that? What are accommodations? Are there, you know, limitations to that model and might this be something better?
Nick Walker: I think they can exist side by side. I think that that’s crucial. I think we should be asking, how do we create spaces for particular types of body minds, particular orientations. How do we make spaces that can continually be revised by the people who occupy them and use them? We’re optimizing this space for our particular consciousness and our particular sensory experience, and how are we gonna do that?
Nick Walker: And there’s an ongoing meta conversation about what’s working in the space and what isn’t. How do we make it more inclusive? To what extent does this group need, uh, separate spaces and to what extent do we wanna merge spaces and experiment with that? But there’s also this question of how do we accommodate a wider range of people in shared spaces?
Nick Walker: Because otherwise you just end up with separatism. You end up with, you know, segregated special education classes sort of situation. And so ultimately if the goal is inclusion, then we also need to be having that conversation about how do we arrange a space to accommodate, uh, the maximum possible variety of people and their needs and cognitive styles.
Nick Walker: So I think both are crucial.
NeEddra James: I appreciate that perspective. Um, so here’s my final question for you. Mm-hmm. Um, considering the increasing visibility of neurodiversity and diversity justice, I’m, I’m sorry, diversity justice, that should be a thing, but disability justice movement, what is one key message?
NeEddra James: Or hope that you would like to leave with our audience regarding the, the power and potential of neuro queering as a framework for liberation, for getting free, for being more authentically in our, I-I-I would say, like real selves.
Nick Walker: Mmm, I would say. First of all, neuro querying is for everyone. It’s about everybody. Every single human being, being able to take some control and have some intentionality around shaping their own body minds. It’s not so much about discovering who we are as about creating who we are and It’s not just about accepting neurodiversity. Oh, there’s some people are autistic, some people are ADHD, some people are dyslexic.
Nick Walker: We should accept and accommodate this it’s more radical in that it’s about increasing neurodiversity. The idea, the goal is for everyone to break out of neuronormativity to erase neuronormativity entirely by having. Everybody queer their minds and continually reinvent their own consciousness.
NeEddra James: Oh my gosh. So for those of you who don’t know, Professor Walker also is a leading scholar of psychedelic studies. So that’s like a whole other thing I would wanna talk to you about is that I feel like that’s where this conversation is going. Happy to talk anytime and um, thank you for your work.
NeEddra James: Thank you for. Interrupting and disrupting hundreds of years of oppressive narratives that are really trying to keep folks in boxes that are not helpful. So thank you so much for your work. Thank you for sitting down and talk to me today.
Nick Walker: Thank you so much for having me here. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you.
NeEddra James: That was Dr. Nick Walker a Professor of Psychology and Psychedelic Studies at California Institute of Integral Studies. And I’m at NeEddra James with NorthGate Radio.
Jasmine Ascencio: El Sistema is an internationally renowned youth music program that started in Venezuela and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Robert Strauss: Young musicians who took part in the program – and the teachers who ran it – now participate in orchestras around the world from Ann Arbor to Bogotá…
Jasmine Ascencio: … And Los Angeles, where El Sistema alum Gustavo Dudamel currently conducts the LA Philharmonic.
Robert Strauss: As part of Berkeley Journalism’s international program, Anna Zou went to South America to find out more about the history of El Sistema.
Jorge Zorro: Hola, buenas tardes. Disculpen que estoy…
Anna Zou: That’s Jorge Zorro … he’s a musician, conductor, teacher and the former Vice Minister of Culture for Creativity of Colombia. I met him at my hotel in Bogota.
Anna Zou: Soy Anna.
Jorge Zorro: Encantada.
Anna Zou: Mucho gusto.
Anna Zou: Jorge is 79-years-old and his years of experience show on his face.
Anna Zou: He says he first met El Sistema’s founder Jose Antonio Abreu in the city of Tunja,
Jorge Zorro: Iniciamos en tunja un proyecto, con todos los niños.
Anna Zou: Which is about 90 miles north of Bogota. It was the 1980s and Jorge was starting up a music school for kids.
Jorge Zorro: Que fueron apareciendo en ese entorno, muy interesante porque él se logró un nivel altísimo en ese proyecto.
Anna Zou: Jorge says Abreu was in Colombia recruiting teachers for El Sistema and they became close.
Anna Zou: Abreu started El Sistema in 1975 as a way to keep at-risk youth from a life of crime or drug abuse.
Jorge Zorro: “Salían de esos entornos, adquirían una técnica instrumental…
Anna Zou: Jorge says Abreu gave kids instruments and instruction, and the orchestra taught them teamwork.
Anna Zou: And it had a marvelous effect.
Jorge Zorro: Aprendían lo que significaba el trabajo de equipo, con todas las maravillas que eso conlleva, ¿no?
Anna Zou: He says it changed communities throughout Venezuela. It allowed kids to flourish in all of their talents and possibilities.
Jorge Zorro: Permitieron que ellos afloran en todos sus talentos y todas sus posibilidades.
Anna Zou: And it made Venezuela the center for classical music in South America.
Anna Zou: Seeing how successful El Sistema was in Venezuela, Colombia tried to create its own version in the 1990s.
Jorge Zorro: Colombia tiene recursos, sí los hay. Que desvirtuaron el proyecto, bueno, es lamentable
Anna Zou: Jorge says Colombia had the resources but it was a shame that the project didn’t take off like El Sistema.
Jorge Zorro: Porque no se puede modificar, digamos…
Anna Zou: He says that without the mission to make social change, Colombia’s youth orchestra wasn’t transformational like it was in Venezuela.
Jorge Zorro: Socialmente una comunidad si no es a través de la acción social.
[Deisy opening her apartment door]
Deisy Valencia: Buenas, respiración, mucho gusto, adelante, respira, adelante.
Anna Zou: Deisy Valencia is a Colombian french horn player. She invited us into her apartment on the 8th floor located in a wealthy neighborhood in Bogota. She’s been playing the French horn since the age of 14.
Deisy Valencia: Bueno esto es el corno francés, les presento a mi mejor amigo, jajaja….
Anna Zou: Deisy shows us her french horn … she calls it her best friend .. and plays us a song called “Venezuela.”
Deisy Valencia: Es una canción muy linda, se llama “Venezuela.” [Horn music starts playing].
Anna Zou: Deisy’s in her mid-30s. She moved to Venezuela in 2008 to teach in El Sistema.
Anna Zou: She says musicians from all over Latin America want to take part in the program because the orchestra plays at a very high level.
Deisy Valencia: Es muy fácil de romantizar.
Anna Zou: She says it’s easy to romanticize the transformative power of El Sistema.
Deisy Valencia: Sigue teniendo un impacto nacional impresionante.
Anna Zou: But Deisy says having lived in Venezuela for eight years, she saw El Sistema’s impact firsthand on communities throughout the country. Deisy says it’s because it creates a necessary refuge for kids,
Deisy Valencia: Es un refugio necesario para los niños, sin duda.
Anna Zou: Something that’s now considered a necessity in Venezuela and not a luxury.
Anna Zou: As a musician, Deisy auditioned for El Sistema’s top orchestra – the Simon Bolivar Conservatory – and was accepted. She performed around the world, in cities like Tokyo, Beijing, and Vienna with the orchestra.
Anna Zou: Deisy says both learning and making a living from music was a transformative experience.
Deisy Valencia: Eligiendo el arte como, como tu medio de subsistencia — un lindo aprendizaje.
Anna Zou: Because receiving her main income from music was a reality
Deisy Valencia: Pues que yo tuve en Venezuela, era palpable, era una realidad…
Anna Zou: For her, Venezuela was a country that supported musicians.
Deisy Valencia: Aprender la música, dedicarme a la música, vivir, y vivir bien de la música, culturalmente a nivel personal es muy lindo.
Anna Zou: Deisy finally left Venezuela In 2016. The economic situation was continuing to deteriorate under the Nicolas Maduro regime…
Deisy Valencia: Los niños vivían en la calle y por la tarde iban a la clase de música.
Anna Zou: She says it was difficult to see her students living in the streets by day and then come to her class in the afternoon
Deisy Valencia: A veces sin zapatos, a veces sin comer.
Anna Zou: Some came without shoes and didn’t have anything to eat.
Anna Zou: After returning to Colombia, she found a gig teaching at the Philharmonic Centers in Bogota, a government funded program that offers music classes for kids ages seven through 17.
Anna Zou: While tensions between Colombians and Venezuelan immigrants have been rising in the society at-large — Deisy says in music class, it was a different story.
Anna Zou: Como el niño está aprendiendo un nuevo lenguaje, un nuevo idioma, y a la vez aprende a trabajar en equipo.
Anna Zou: She says learning the language of music and how to work in a team go hand in hand.
Deisy Valencia: Porque la música es, sin duda, un trabajo en equipo.
Anna Zou: Because music without a doubt is teamwork.
Deisy Valencia: Entonces no hay, no hay tiempo para señalar, no hay tiempo para decir, es que tú eres de allá, tú eres de acá.
Anna Zou: She says they were too busy focusing on their music to fight about which country they came from.
Anna Zou: Sadly the pandemic put an end to those classes, so Deisy eventually joined the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra. If not for her experience in El Sistema, Deisy says she wouldn’t be the musician she is today.
Anna Zou: On the 50th anniversary of El Sistema … Deisy reflects on the importance of the program for all of South America. She says El Sistema musicians play in symphonies across the globe.
Deisy Valencia: Estoy segura en todos los países del mundo hay un venezolano del sistema, ay, los puedo asegurar.
Deisy Valencia: So much so that it’s become an inside joke … that if there’s an orchestra, there’s at least one musician from El Sistema.
Deisy Valencia: For NorthGate Radio, I’m Anna Zou.
Robert Strauss: Anna just told us about El Sistema’s influence in South America. But, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has displaced more than 8 million people since the year 2000.
Robert Strauss: So many El Sistema alums live abroad. Renée Bartlett-Webber talked to one young Venezuelan, living in Colombia, who had plans to become a great musician.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Dioswal Solano started playing music when he was just three years old in a small Venezuelan town in the Andes mountains, called Santa Ana
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He learned by associating musical tones with colors.
Dioswal Solano: Entonces ya cada color significa un tono.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: His first instrument was the bells..
Dioswal Solano: Empecé tocando las Campanas.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: …Then the recorder.
Dioswal Solano: Empecé a tocar la flauta.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: At 9 years old, Dioswal had surpassed many of his classmates.
Milsen Solano: Ese niño es demasiado bueno.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: That was Milsen Solano, Dioswal’s mom. She says his teachers encouraged him to apply to El Sistema Nacional de Orquestas. The music program is free to students but is very competitive to get in.
Milsen Solano: Es muy difícil de entrar.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: And Dioswal was accepted!
Renée Bartlett-Webber: El Sistema began in Venezuela in 1975 and has become a model for music education around the world.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Even as the Venezuelan economy collapsed, the government has kept the program funded.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: They’re eager to hold El Sistema up as proof their social programs work and that Venezuela offers working people a real pathway to a career in music.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Now, Dioswal was on that track.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: In El Sistema, students start in the choir and learn to play the cuatro,
Renée Bartlett-Webber: A traditional Venezuelan instrument with 4 (cuatro) strings.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: In the orchestra, Dioswal wanted to play oboe like his cousin, but there were no oboe teachers, many had migrated by 2016. He reluctantly chose the clarinet…
Renée Bartlett-Webber: …and promptly fell in love.
Dioswal Solano: El instrumento, nosotros siempre decíamos que es nuestras novias porque los cuidamos los amamos.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He progressed rapidly and poured himself into his practice.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: But while El Sistema remains a gem of Venezuela, Diowsal found it wasn’t insulated from the economic crisis.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: As people migrated, they sometimes took the program’s instruments with them.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: For Dioswal this meant he was given a clarinet that was falling apart. He had to tape the corks in place.
Dioswal Solano: Hacían falta unos corchos.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: In his orchestra, the wind section was sparse^. He was the only clarinetist, and there was no oboe or bassoon player.
Dioswal Solano: Los musico estan migrando.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: At home it was far worse! They could barely afford just rice and eggs
Milsen Solano: Y nos tocó muy difícil.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: So his father moved to Bogotá Colombia to earn a better living. In September of 2019 he told the rest of the family to come. More than 4 million Venezuelans left in that year alone.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: But Dioswal didn’t want to leave.
Dioswal Solano: Por mi música, por mis amigos.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He had his music and community…and he felt guilty for adding another hole in his orchestra. But he said it was necessary.
Dioswal Solano: Dejamos a sobrevivir a intentar vivir aquí en Colombia.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He says they were merely surviving in Venezuela and had to come to Colombia to actually try to live.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: When Dioswal left, he could take one suitcase but had to leave his instruments behind.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: I met Dioswal and his family in their home in Bogota, Colombia.
Dioswal Solano: Aqui, Si…*washing dishes.*
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He’s washing dishes and preparing to cook ribs.
Dioswal Solano: Hoy, voy a cocinar costillas de cerdo a la cocacola.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He’s now 18 and lives with his family in a small apartment that overlooks parque tercer milenio… one the most dangerous parts of the city.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: When they first arrived in 2019, five of them shared this space with another family. The boys couldn’t go to school without proper documentation. And when they could enroll, they were told the school’s orchestra had been cut.
Milson: Ya no hay filarmónica.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Then came the pandemic, and everything stopped.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: When Dioswal could finally join an orchestra he was named first clarinet.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: But rehearsals were a 40-minute taxi ride away – too expensive to keep up.
Dioswal Solano: O la música, o el colegio.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: In Venezuela, music had offered a clear future. In Colombia, that path had vanished.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Dioswal had to choose between his education and music. He chose school, and after only 5 months of playing, he left the orchestra.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Today, he studies business tech and wants to become an accountant. But he says he can’t live without music.
Dioswal Solano: La música es lo que me alegre siempre. Y o sin música no puedo vivir
Renée Bartlett-Webber: So he finds ways to keep music in his life.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: He started teaching himself guitar through Youtube tutorials.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: In six years, the Solano family has managed to furnish their home, put food on the table, even buy a few instruments… but not the clarinet, it’s too expensive.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Still, Diosway says Colombia doesn’t feel like home.
Dioswal Solano: Desde que llegamos nos queremos ir, Venezuela es nuestro hogar, nuestra casa.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: Dioswal said that the moment he can return to Venezuela and his Nucleo, he’ll go.
Renée Bartlett-Webber: For NorthGate Radio, I’m Renée Bartlett-Webber.
Jasmine Ascencio: That’s it for NorthGate Radio. Today’s show was produced by NeEddra James and Nava Rawls.
Robert Strauss: Ellie Prickett-Morgan was our Executive Producer.
Jasmine Ascencio: Rick Johnson was our engineer.
Robert Strauss: Queena Kim and Shereen Marisol-Meraji are our faculty advisors.
Jasmine Ascencio: Renée and Anna’s stories were reported with Royvi Hernandez, as part of Berkeley Journalism’s International Reporting program.
Robert Strauss: NorthGate Radio is a production of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, I’m Robert Strauss
Jasmine Ascencio: And I’m Jasmine Ascencio, thanks for listening.
Individual Stories From Show
Credits
Anchors: Jasmine Ascencio, Robert Strauss:
Newscaster: Anna Zou
Reporters: Nava Rawls, Anna Zou, Renée Bartlett-Webber, NeEddra James, Anasooya Thorakkattu
Executive Producer: Ellie Prickett-Morgan
Producers: Nava Rawls
Director: NeEddra James
Faculty Advisor: Queena Kim
Engineer: Rick Johnson
Air Date
May 2025