Young Mariachi Artist Releases Album as She Sets Off For Harvard
Anaí Adina is an 18-year-old Mariachi musician from the Central Valley town of Delano. She’s just released her first album, “Esperame en el Cielo.” She’s won a number of competitions for voice, violin and trumpet — including the “Shining Star” award at the highly competitive “Battle of the Mariachis” in San Juan Capistrano. She’s heading off to Harvard this fall, just as her album makes its debut. Host Sasha Khokha sits down to learn how growing up in Delano influenced her, and how she found her voice in a genre typically dominated by older men.
Finding Love Again After Alzheimer’s Takes a Spouse
A lot of the daily care that dementia patients need isn’t covered by regular insurance, so families have to step in themselves to care for loved ones. In California, one million people are caregivers for Alzheimer’s patients. We follow the parallel stories of two California caregivers who were forced into early retirement when their spouses were diagnosed in their 50s. It’s been a painful journey, but in the process, something unexpected happened.
A Love Letter to 6 Generations of Strong Women in One Multi-Racial Family
Susan Straight grew up in Riverside, and now teaches writing at UC Riverside. She’s best known for her fiction — she was a National Book Award finalist for her novel, Highwire Moon. But now she’s come out with a new memoir, In the Country of Women. It explores the stories of six generations of women in her family — both the violence they survived and their tenacity in building a future for their families in California.
Letter to My California Dreamer: Discovering The Healing Power of Working With The Land
For our series “Letter to My California Dreamer,” we invite listeners to write letters to their family’s first Californian. This week’s letter comes from listener Gary Crandall to his grandfather, Alfred C. Nelson. Gary remembers his childhood spent on his grandfather’s farm in Lake County. Today, he says those farming traditions are deeply rooted in his family’s DNA.