This week, we're bringing you stories of immigrant parents and the California Dream.
This Deported Nurse is Raising Her Oakland Kids - From Mexico
Over 1 million children here in California have parents who are undocumented. With the rise in deportations under the Trump administration, more families with mixed immigration status are being torn apart. Last summer Maria Mendoza and Eusebio Sanchez were deported to rural Mexico and made the difficult decision to leave their four children behind in Oakland. The family has been living apart for 9 months. Reporter Levi Bridges and KPCC’s Alyssa Jeong Perry checked in with this family on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border to see how they’re doing.
A UC Dream, Deferred
Miguel Eamiguel's parents, immigrants from the Philippines, were thrilled when he got into UC Berkeley. He dreamed of joining the military after college, and hoped for an ROTC scholarship. But he was rejected because his eyesight wasn’t up to military standards. That sent his life spiraling into chaos. Sasha Khokha brings us this profile.
Meet the ‘No ICE’ Man
People come to the West Coast in search of the California Dream, a place where they can be themselves and say what they want. From Vietnam protests at UC Berkeley to the Chicano Moratorium, there has historically been a freedom to speak your mind. One old man in Los Angeles, Jack Gerritson, has taken that to heart through his relentless protest against ICE, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Reporter Tom Carroll ran into him on a bridge over busy Southern California freeway.
Letter to My California Dreamer: How My Parents Found a Place to Love in L.A.
We’ve been doing a lot of stories lately about the California Dream and what that dream to means to people from different walks of life. Now we’ve got a chance for our listeners to tell us about their family’s California Dream. For a series we’re calling “Letters to my California Dreamer,” we’re asking listeners to write a short letter to one of the first people in their family who came to the Golden State. What was their California Dream? What happened to it? And is that California dream still alive for today’s generation? To kick us off, host Sasha Khokha reads a letter to her parents.