Stories in Action

A Harvard University study calls Sacramento the most diverse city in the country. Nowhere is this more evident than on a two-mile stretch of Broadway between I-5 and I- 99, where dozens of restaurants serve cuisines from around the world. Now with the help of California Story Fund grant, food reporter Elaine Corn is sharing the stories behind these restaurants in a radio series called “Broadway: Around the World in 30 Blocks” on Capital Public Radio. The series airs the second Friday of each month during “Morning Edition” through November 2009. Listen to the first segment.

If you live in San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego, be sure to catch the California Documentary Project film “Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East Los Angeles” on your local public television station — and tell us what you think. The film chronicles the lively, little-known story of how young Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles and nearby barrios — caught between two cultures and not fully accepted in either — found their identity by creating a new musical form — a blend of white rock, black soul and Latin rhythms. Far more than a local or Chicano story, the experience is all-American, a reflection and inspiration to all hyphenates in their journey to becoming Americans.

KCET (Los Angeles): Sunday, December 14 at 9 pm
KPBS (San Diego): Monday, Dec 15 at 11 pm
KQED (San Francisco): Saturday, Dec 20 at 11 pm

To find out more about the film, read an interview with “Chicano Rock” director Jon Wilkman.

We just learned that former Council Board member and well-known poet Juan Felipe Herrera has just been awarded the 2008 Literary Award for poetry given by PEN USA, the West Coast center of the writers’ organization PEN International. He won the award for “187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border,” published by City Lights Books. The Los Angeles Times called Herrera’s book a “ferocious collection of the veteran Chicano poet and activist’s work from the past 30 years. “You eat lettuce we irrigate lettuce,” writes Herrera, who spent most of his childhood traveling the fields of California with his migrant worker parents. “You watch Oprah we watch Oprah.” Read the review. Learn about other Pen USA award winners.