California To Give 40% Of Vaccine Doses To Vulnerable Areas

Speaker 1: 00:01 A new statewide vaccine strategy shifts more supply to hard hit. Speaker 2: 00:06 There is one thing, but ensuring it gets in the arms of those who are most vulnerable in these communities is a whole nother Speaker 1: 00:12 I'm Maureen Kavanaugh with Jade Heinemann. This is KPBS mid-day edition It's surge program to increase ICU staff has put an added burden on nurses. Speaker 2: 00:36 Okay. Speaker 1: 00:36 We'll find out why Dr. Seuss enterprises is pulling six of its books from publication and on the KPBS podcast, port of entry, a musical time machine back to eighties, electronica that's ahead. On mid day, California is unveiling a new strategy and its vaccine rollout with the goal of protecting the most vulnerable populations and reopening more of the state. Governor Newsome is announcing that 40% of the available vaccine supply will now be dedicated to the most disadvantaged and hardest hit areas of the state. Here's Dr. Mark Guy, Speaker 2: 01:23 We must target vaccines, strategically transmission protect our healthcare delivery system and save lives. Speaker 1: 01:31 2 million doses are administered across the state and areas like the hard hits South Bay in San Diego officials say the COVID tier system could be relaxed and more areas of the economy opened for business. Officials say the new strategy is both practical and equitable, but it also adds another layer of complication on an already strained vaccine supply. Joining me is Ron Lin. He's Metro reporter for the lesser Los Angeles times who specializes in reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. And Ron, welcome to the program. Hello. So what is the criteria for a community to qualify for this extra vaccine supply? Speaker 3: 02:10 So you'd have to live in generally a low income area as defined by the California healthy places index. It's basically the bottom 25% of a number of indicators, such as, you know, being in a low income area or area with crowded housing. And these are generally areas hit as hard by the pandemic. So in San Diego County, this first to places like the national city parts of Chula Vista, city Heights, alcohol in San Ysidro and neighborhoods of San Diego, East and Southeast of downtown. Speaker 1: 02:38 And why do officials believe that increasing vaccine supply in these communities will speed up? California's reopening? Speaker 3: 02:44 So California is facing this really terrible imbalance in who is getting the vaccine. Essentially you're having wealthy, wider populations getting the vaccine at far greater rates than lower income, predominantly black and Latino areas. So we know that the bottom quarter of the state has gotten about 16% of the vaccine, but the richest areas of the state have received double that. Speaker 1: 03:07 And recent reporting found that Latino and black communities are actually falling behind white and Asian rates of vaccination. Did that factor into this decision? Speaker 3: 03:16 I think so. I mean, one of the things that I think the state is trying to do is that, you know, the areas of the state that are being hit the hardest are also areas that are transmitting the disease a lot. And so one idea now that in the coming weeks and months, the supply of vaccine is going to get better when idea to really squelch the pandemic is to really target these areas where the virus is transmitting the fastest. And if you can, if you can really target these hard hit areas that can really help squelch the pandemic and get us back back into reopening the state even faster. Well, let me ask Speaker 1: 03:55 You though, is it just that disadvantaged communities need more vaccine aren't there other considerations like available vaccination sites and maybe time off from work to get a vaccine that will increase the number of people in these communities that actually do get vaccine? Speaker 3: 04:11 So a big issue right now is that in many cases you need to get online to make a reservation. And the demand is so crushing. It's a bit like trying to buy a concert ticket to a sold out event. It helps if you can spend hours and hours, you know, pressing reload on your computer to get a reservation. And that system doesn't really help if you're working two jobs, uh, you're lower income and you just can't stick around your computer for a long time. So strategies that may work for a wealthier populations, you know, don't necessarily work for lower income populations. So part of this effort is, is to try to get situations in which more mobile clinics are going to disadvantaged areas. Uh, you know, maybe you distribute more vaccine through trusted, uh, community healthcare providers in these hard hit areas so that you get more vaccines into the arms of these hard hit communities. Speaker 1: 05:01 Does this new 40% allocation disrupt the 10% statewide vaccine allocation for teachers and school? Speaker 3: 05:09 No, that's still going to be in place. Speaker 1: 05:11 Okay. But it must mean that many communities will be getting less vaccine just when a lack of vaccine supply is a huge issue. So how are state officials addressing that fallout? Yeah, Speaker 3: 05:22 That's going to be a tricky thing. Um, I think they're hoping that more vaccine supply should help. It'll be still tricky in the next couple of weeks. I mean, we are getting the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which, you know, might help another thing that, that is still going to be tricky though, is that on March 15th, the state's going to be expanding eligibility for those with underlying medical conditions and the disabled who are not otherwise eligible now. And so, um, but I think the hope is that since so much vaccine is really going to wealthier people. This will actually just help balance the imbalance that's been going on. Speaker 1: 05:54 How will the COVID tier structure be redesigned because of this Speaker 4: 05:58 New strategy? Speaker 3: 05:59 So it'll actually make it faster to get out of the purple tier. So right now, um, the state says 1.6 million doses in these neediest communities have it administered. And they're saying that once 400,000 more doses are administered, the state's going to relax thresholds for exiting out of the most restrictive tier. And that'll allow counties to open up indoor dining again, indoor gyms and indoor museums and zoos. Speaker 4: 06:23 How quickly could that happen? Because San Diego is, was almost there this time around. Speaker 3: 06:28 Yeah. So, um, as far as I know San Diego County to, to leave the purple tier right now, it for every a hundred thousand residents needs to have an average daily case rate of seven or less. And the last I checked is that San Diego County had a, uh, an average daily case rate of just over 10, what this new uh, solution will do is it'll make it easier to cross that threshold. Um, so I would imagine that San Diego County would be able to move out of the purple tier much faster than in the old system. Speaker 4: 07:00 Okay. Then I've been speaking with Ron Lin, Metro reporter for the Los Angeles times. And Ron, thank you very much. Speaker 3: 07:07 Thanks for having me Speaker 4: 07:12 California saw a hospitalization skyrocket around the holidays when staffing couldn't keep up the state led hospitals put more patients on a nurse's workload than the law usually allows in the first of a two part series KPBS health reporter Taren mento tells us how nurses felt pushed to the brink by that move and questioned whether it was even necessary. It's been a long year for nurse George Santiago, Speaker 3: 07:38 Multiple code blues in one shift that really drains you Speaker 4: 07:42 Santiago's job is to rush toward those calls as a rapid response nurse at Palomar medical center Escondido. And he carries the extra burden of often being a patient's last contact. Speaker 3: 07:53 If this was my family member, and there's nothing that I can do the desperation, the hopelessness, that is what kinda that's, what kind of kills you. Speaker 4: 08:01 The weight grew heavy during the late 2020 surge Palomar received state permission to stray from a landmark law that limits the amount of patients under a nurse's care staff could now be asked to take on one to two additional patients Speaker 3: 08:16 Here. Why don't you carry it as part of breaks while you're trying to travel more? You know, so that's the Speaker 4: 08:21 Palomar is one of more than 200 California facilities that received temporary staffing waivers during the pandemic governor Gavin Newsome expedited the waiver process when COVID 19 patients skyrocketed late last year, but staffing did not nurses Speaker 3: 08:37 In particular that are just doing a ROIC work every single day, asking yet again for a little bit more during these very challenging, challenging, next few, Speaker 4: 08:48 The state health department declined an interview, but said in an email waivers should be a last resort. The waiver application says hospitals should exhaust alternatives before seeking one. But the state said in its email that facilities actually don't need to in a KPBS. I knew source analysis of publicly posted waivers found dozens of approved facilities did not document. They attempted the listed alternatives before seeking the waiver. Speaker 5: 09:15 You know, the process is easy. The process can be approved in as little as eight hours. And then there you go. Speaker 4: 09:23 Ave Roberson leads, government relations for the California nurses association. She says under the expedited process, a staffing waiver could be granted in less than a day. The union has protested against the waivers, including at Palomar. Roberson says they've successfully contested three of the, at least 43 waivers that have been rescinded in the state. Speaker 5: 09:43 We're sitting on the ground. We're looking at your, at your form. And number one, you haven't checked any of the remedies. Okay? Speaker 4: 09:49 The application form asks hospitals. What other options they've tried that includes transferring patients to other beds, rescheduling, elective procedures, and possibly setting up clinics for non-emergency cases. The KPBS I new source review found about half of approved hospitals did not report. They tried all options, including some in San Diego Speaker 5: 10:09 To be quite Frank it's. It's just a formality, Speaker 4: 10:12 Most local facilities that received waivers declined or ignored requests for interviews. But Santiago says the waiver didn't need to happen at Palomar. The facility laid off more than 300 staffers when patient tallies dropped last April. Speaker 6: 10:27 Of course we can't get back now because they're not going to hang around there. They're going to look for other sources of income Speaker 4: 10:34 Locations. Ask if hospitals experienced layoffs within the last two months, the Palomar layoffs were several months before Santiago says the Escondido facility applied. However, the details of its application are not posted on the state's website, but Santiago says the Escondido facility did not cancel elective procedures before getting its waiver Speaker 6: 10:55 Was the, even more difficult for the recovery room nurses because they have their load of people that they have to recover for surgery from surgery. And then they have to have, you know, uh, COVID patients too. Speaker 4: 11:07 San Diego says the union filed a grievance because Palomar did not communicate with them before getting a waiver Palomar refused requests for an interview. But a spokesman previously said claims of unsafe working conditions were inaccurate and called them appalling and irresponsible. All expedited waivers were due to expire last month, but at least 84 hospitals received extensions until the state provides additional staffing resources. Speaker 1: 11:32 Joining me is KPBS health reporter Taran mentor Taren. Welcome. Thanks, Maureen. Tell us a little more about the law that originally limited the number of patients. One ICU nurse could care for you call that law landmark. Okay. Speaker 4: 11:49 Right. So California's law is very unique. It's the only state to nurse patient ratios across all hospital departments. So somehow some other States have rules on how many patients an ICU nurse can take on, but in California, there are limits on how many patients nurses can manage in emergency rooms, pediatrics in other medical beds. Um, so it was passed back in 99 and it wasn't implemented though until 2004 in order to give hospitals time to adjust to those. Speaker 1: 12:17 So why did the governor say hospitals could request these waivers? Speaker 4: 12:21 Well, hospitalizations, uh, late last year were just increasing at such an incredible rate and staffing just couldn't keep up. And on top of that, you had, uh, ICU nurses that are really highly skilled workforce and it takes years to be able to get those skills. And there just wasn't enough of them to go around. And there wasn't enough time to train up many others to be able to fill that gap. So by having the waiver, hospitals could continue to accept the patients that needed their care. And then the hospitals wouldn't face fines for being outside of ratios. If they couldn't find enough staff as more patients came in and it's, uh, January, 2020. Um, so a couple months just before the pandemic hit California, the state health department put out a notice saying that staffing violations could result in fines of 15,000 to $30,000. Okay. Speaker 1: 13:18 What could have been the consequences to patients during the COVID surge? If waivers weren't granted Speaker 4: 13:25 The president of the California hospital association said that those individuals could just continue to have to wait in emergency rooms or ambulances because they couldn't be admitted if the other wards didn't have the staff to allow them to come in. So her main was concerned that these people just weren't going to get care, um, because the law wasn't going to allow them to break from these ratios and welcomed them in. So they would have to wait to get more care. And that was one of the main concerns that Carmela coil from the California hospital association was talking about. Speaker 1: 13:57 Now, the nurses that you interviewed say the winter COVID surge did not necessarily need to threaten staffing levels at hospitals because it was predictable. People knew it was coming. So what do they say hospitals should have done to prepare? Speaker 4: 14:14 Well, hospitals staffed up a lot in the early months of the pandemic, but then because, um, there was just a really good job done by keeping people out of, um, you know, acute care facilities that, that wave never came. So some facilities let some people go, some of these travel nurses, maybe that they, they recruited because they just weren't seeing the patient volumes. But then as the pandemic, um, continued and we saw a surge is happening across the country, then everybody started competing for that mobile workforce. So if some nurses were saying, if we maintained staffing levels, knowing that, you know, we weren't going to get out of this pandemic with just that one, um, couple of months where we saw patient tallies go down, um, then we wouldn't have been in such a dire circumstance when we saw that surge later in the year. And we were competing for the same, um, for the same workforce that people in New York and all across the country where we're calling and trying to recruit. Speaker 1: 15:15 What's been the fallout on the nursing staff from these emergency waivers. Speaker 4: 15:19 No nurses have just said that they are just completely burnt out. And, um, there were protests, you know, all across the state, including here in San Diego County, opposing these waivers. Um, and they, that continued all up and down the state. And recently when the governor did announce back, um, early February, that hospitalizations had declined. And so resources were not as strained anymore. All of these fast-tracked waivers were now canceled save for some of the hospitals about 84, um, that actually got extensions because they still needed some staffing support. But when the governor canceled that the nurses kind of considered that a victory and they felt that that was, um, because of all of the pushback and all of the, how vocal they have been, that these were in their minds, you know, not needed at all times in our investigation showed that there were a lot of, uh, a lot of instances. And when, um, these alternatives were not, were not exhausted or even, or even used, Speaker 1: 16:17 You have part two of your report on waivers coming up tomorrow, can you give us a preview? Speaker 4: 16:21 Yes. Tomorrow we will be talking, um, hearing from Scripps health. A couple of their facilities here in San Diego did receive some waivers, some of the checkmarks. So some of the sorry, some of the check boxes were not marked all of them for all of these, um, alternatives that they could have done prior to seeking a waiver, such as maybe canceling elective procedures or transferring patients out. So we talked to them about why they didn't Mark those, but also why they really needed the waiver and what the conditions and staffing and patient conditions were like inside the hospital for them to need it. Speaker 1: 16:55 Okay. Then I've been speaking with KPBS health reporter Taran Manto Taran. Thanks. Thanks, Maureen. Speaker 5: 17:08 You're listening to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Kavanaugh. As we approach women's equal pay day. We want to look at where we are in terms of closing the gender pay gap. This year women's payday is March 24th, and that day is symbolic of how far into the new year a woman has to work, to make what a man did the previous year for every dollar. A man makes women make just 83 cents. And that wage gap is even greater for most women of color across the country here in San Diego, a recent pay equity study of the city's workforce reveals women make about 18% less than men and people of color earn about 21% less than whites. So how can we close the gap? Joining me is Heyo Kim executive director of the Kim center for social balance. Hey, all welcome. Speaker 7: 17:58 Thank you, David. It's great to be here. Speaker 5: 18:01 So does the pay gap among the city of San Diego's workforce mirror the gap across California and how does that stack up to the pay gap across the country? Speaker 7: 18:11 Well, that's a very good question. And it's actually a complicated answer because there's so many factors that go into it that the pay gap is a multi faceted thing. There are studies, there are multiple studies. So if, if you look at a study that says that, um, they control for job title, you know, geographical location, et cetera, you might see that the pay gap is 2 cents on the dollar, which is, you know, still not acceptable and mean pay gap is a pay gap. But if you consider, uh, certain reports that talk about the difference, when you consider women who work part-time and part year lower paying positions, uh, women of color, as you, as you mentioned, the pay gap can be as big as, you know, 60 or 50 or 60 cents on the dollar. Speaker 5: 19:09 Wow. Uh, and talk about how much wider the pay gap is for women of color. Speaker 7: 19:14 It's pretty significant. And a lot of the reason is because of what kinds of positions women of color tend to hold. And when I say tend to hold, I don't mean to say that this is by choice. It is really important to understand that in a lot of cases, discrimination and bias, and it really doesn't matter whether it's unconscious bias or conscious bias, because the impacts are the same. Uh, these are factors in, in, in the ability of women of color to access the pipeline. And that compounds the issue when you're actually dealing with overt bias in terms of pay, there are situations where, uh, women are not getting equal pay for equal work, which is a big benchmark, but if women of color are not being promoted by their supervisors, you know, sponsored by their supervisors, uh, to decision-makers in terms of getting into higher positions are being discouraged from entering higher paying industries. Then we have a problem that is, is systemic, um, and goes way beyond just the pay itself. Speaker 5: 20:35 You know, what recommendations would you make to the city as it looks for strategies for narrowing that wage gap? Speaker 7: 20:42 One of the most important things is to understand the actual impact of bias and how it plays out. And the only real way you're going to be able to figure that out is by talking to your employees. So when you talk about pay, you're talking about numbers, which tends to be two dimensional data. They, they pulled up a lot of really important things like looking at the trends of parents compared to their earnings, and I believe possibly their promotion levels. And that's, that's a really telling data point, but then you really need to go to the qualitative side, which by the way, can be quantified. Uh, we at the Kim center do this. This is our assessment tool. Um, and it is really important to understand, uh, what are the experiences of women of color. For example, when they're trying to get into the pipeline and move their way through the pipeline, do they have the super Vizio support that they need? Speaker 7: 21:42 Do they feel that gender, all genders are treated equally, uh, within their organization is their allyship from men? So one, one key comparison point that we look at is how do white men feel about the gendered environment compared to women compared to women of color? The differences are very, can be very significant when you're talking about black women versus East Asian women versus Latinas versus native American women. And you cannot apply the same solutions to everybody. For example, when you're talking about childcare, uh, there's very clear evidence that childcare support in the form of onsite daycare or childcare, vouchers, benefits, women of color, Latinas, black women in very different ways from white women who tend not to take advantage of those types of situations. So the there's a tendency to think that a one size fits all women approach is kind of a, you know, one and done let's, let's just do this and we've done everything we can, but it's absolutely not true. So understanding women at the different, uh, the different intersections of marginalization is very key. Speaker 5: 23:06 So in short, what type of cultural change needs to happen for women to get equal pay Speaker 7: 23:12 In order to make the kind of systemic transformation that's necessary for all genders to achieve equal status. We really need to understand that value comes from every direction and a diverse workforce is going to be the most flexible, the most productive, the most innovative workforce that you can have once we're able to unearth the, that happens against women in every group will be able to solve for other groups because women are simply the largest and most influential marginalized population in every group. Speaker 5: 24:01 I've been speaking with Heyo Kim executive director of the Kim center for social balance. Hail, thank you so much for joining us. Thank Speaker 7: 24:08 You for having me Jade Anti-aging Speaker 5: 24:18 Hate crimes have been on the rise since the pandemic began last year in Sacramento, an incident at a Chinese owned butcher shop is under investigation. As a hate crime. We look into how the city's hub for Asian businesses known as little Saigon has been fairing and what its future might be. Calf radio reporter. Sarah Mises, tan has more Speaker 8: 24:40 On a recent Friday morning. Linda Louis stands outside the Indochina friendship temple on Stockton Boulevard, giving out free food to dozens of families waiting in a long line of cards, freshly steam, uh, sweet coconut and vanilla powders. Louie is president of this Buddhist temple community hub, where she grew up helping after her parents immigrated to this South Sacramento neighborhood from Vietnam. But she adds that the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating some issues like crime and homelessness that have always been present in the area personally, just to, you know, growing up in this area, seeing how much we've been through, how Speaker 5: 25:18 Much, how hard we work to be, where we are Speaker 8: 25:21 All the way we were 2019. And you know, we are here now is a little bit sad. It hasn't, you know, sat in me, council woman, my Vang, the first Asian American and Hmong American woman to serve on city council recently introduced a resolution to combat some of the racism against Asian Americans that spiked in recent months. The belief that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are a monolithic group and a model minority perpetuate stereotypes that math hate incidents, trauma, and disparities within our communities. However, I want to be clear today that what you're seeing across the country in the state and locally is not new in our community. My, when runs a nonprofit that serves the area called community partners, advocate of little Saigon, she says the Boulevard has seen a lot of closure. Speaker 7: 26:09 When I was driving through the little Saigon district, I see a lot of empty, empty offices. Speaker 8: 26:15 She anticipates about a quarter of the small businesses. There could close permanently due to the pandemic, partially because of early racist rhetoric that squeezed Asian run buses Speaker 7: 26:26 Being that, you know, the virus came from China and being in little Saigon were mainly high population of Asian business owners to some of the business owners. They felt that they were a target and they noticed that their number of customers decrease and, Speaker 3: 26:44 You know, it hurts Speaker 8: 26:46 Business owners and little Saigon miss out on grants and loans because of a lack of translation and outreach. It's this historic lack of resources to the area that has created a situation where many of the immigrants who built a little Saigon are now looking for better opportunities for their children. Andrew Leon studies, the evolution of Asian ethnic enclaves at the university of Massachusetts Boston. He says this transition outward is a pattern he sees across the country. Speaker 3: 27:15 Growing out of that, whether it's Chinatown, whether there's little Saigon means the upward mobility into professional jobs and into the white suburbs in order to achieve the sensibility of whiteness. Speaker 8: 27:31 He also adds the, the long-term viability of an ethnic enclave. Like Sacramento's little Saigon is dependent on either new immigrants coming in or younger generations staying on the other hand, many in little Saigon, say the Boulevard and the immigrants who built it are resilient. [inaudible] owns VIN, fat supermarket. One of the longest standing Vietnamese run grocery stores in the area. She says there've been changes, but always still have deal as in him, no matter what this is. The little sedan basket says. Even if the younger generation of Vietnamese move away, the Boulevard will always be a hub for their community. Speaker 5: 28:13 That was cap radio, Sarah Mises, tan reporting Books, and the catalog of famed children's author. Dr. Seuss will be pulled from publication for containing racist and offensive imagery though. Dr. Seuss writer, Theodore Geisel, a time resident of the Hoya died 30 years ago, his books remain influential and widely read. Joining me to discuss the decision to cease publication of these books is the San Diego union Tribune writer, John Wilkins, John. Welcome. Hi Jade. Thanks for having me, John, which books from the Dr. Seuss catalog will cease publication. Speaker 9: 28:55 Well, so there are six of them in there. Um, you know, none of them are particularly well known, uh, books if he is, but, um, you have the very first one that he wrote, which was, and to think that I saw it on the Mulberry street and then the other one that's probably, uh, uh, kind of well-known by readers is called. If I ran the zoo, then the others are McElligott pool on beyond zebra scrambled eggs, super. And then the cats quizzer, which is kind of a compilation book that asks kids a bunch of questions. Speaker 5: 29:27 Talk about what's in these books that prompted the decision to end a publication. Speaker 9: 29:32 Well, the, uh, the Mulberry street book, the first one, uh, it has a Chinese character. Who's wearing a pointed hat, carrying chopsticks and a bowl of rice. Uh, if I ran the zoo has drawings of nose ring wearing Africans and averse about Asian workers who all wear their eyes at a slant, um, scrambled egg, super has some stereotypes about Arabs. So it's that kind of thing. Speaker 5: 29:58 What's your sense of why this decision is being made now? Speaker 9: 30:02 Well, this has been an ongoing discussion, I would say, maybe in the last, uh, five, six, seven years among scholars and educators who have taken a harder look at some of these things in his, uh, in his early work. And, uh, made, made some decisions about whether this stuff's appropriate or not. And Seuss enterprises, which controls, uh, Ted Geisel's, um, catalog put together a panel of experts, uh, to go through the entire catalog. And they made a decision, uh, that these were the ones that, uh, Suzy enterprises no longer want to offer for sale. So, you know, now are going to go back. They're not pulling them out of libraries or schools or anything. They're just not going to sell the books. Moving forward. Speaker 5: 30:45 Theodore Geisel who lived much of his life in LA Jolla has had an enormous influence on the San Diego community. Do you think this decision will cause some to rethink his legacy here? Speaker 9: 30:56 Well, I mean, he has a complicated legacy. I mean, he has 40, almost 50 books. His books are about 10% of his total catalog. They're not the particularly well most well-known or influential. So I think, you know, it depends on how people want to react to it. Um, we'll see if they, if people take a sort of a complicated and, um, reasoned look at it in which they try to evaluate everything he did or whether they want to just, um, uh, sort of dismiss this entire work. Uh, I think we'll just have to see how it plays out. I mean, I think he, as an offer himself, he tried to make some amends for some of his earlier work, which he himself was embarrassed by. And, um, I think, uh, he probably used somebody who would have welcomed this conversation. Speaker 5: 31:41 Some scholars argue that some of Geisel's work like the cat in the hat are rooted in similarly racist. Characatures like minstrel shows and blackface. Do you think critics and scholars will continue to reanalyze his catalog through the lens of race? Speaker 9: 31:56 I do. And I think, uh, I think Seuss enterprises said in their statement on Tuesday when they announced this decision that they, this is an ongoing effort on their part to make sure that his catalog is inclusive. So I do think they'll look at it in the cat in the hat will be a really interesting one to me to see how that plays out over time, because ed of course is a, probably his most famous book. Uh, and in any way, in many ways it's most influential. That's the book that kind of chased a Dick and Jane out of the schools as the primer use to teach kids how to read. So it will be interesting to see that one that book does have, as you said, uh, a lot of connection to blackface caricatures, you know, you get the white gloves, you've got the Johnny hat, John T hat, you know, he's an outsider, a con man, those are all characteristics that were part of those characters way back in the day. So we'll have to see how that, um, how that plays out over time Speaker 1: 32:48 Is the decision to pull these books, sit with the larger reckoning we're having as a society about recognizing racism and art and media from the past. Speaker 9: 32:56 I think it fits right in with that racial reckoning that we're seeing going on all over the country, you know, decisions about to rename buildings, to take down statues, that kind of thing. I think it fits in with that. It also fits in with a much wider discussion that's been going on for decades about, uh, uh, diversity and representation in children's literature, you know, for a long time. Um, if you were a child of color, you had a hard time finding any books that had people who look like you. And of course that raises all sorts of, um, difficulties for children growing up. If they see books without them in them, you know, what does it make them think about where they fit in society? So, uh, there's been an ongoing effort in children's literature to expand the number of books that, uh, include, uh, images of people of color, but also the number of books that are written by people of color. So it fits, uh, this, this dialogue that they're having now fits into that broader discussion that's been going on for some time. Speaker 1: 33:57 What has the reaction from the San Diego community been to this decision? Speaker 9: 34:01 I think it's been mixed. You know, you see, uh, I received a number of emails from people who dismiss it as political correctness or cancel culture, but I've also received, uh, emails and phone calls from people who welcomed the change. You know, uh, people of all, um, our understanding of, of, uh, media that came out decades ago has, has evolved as well. And, uh, I don't, uh, some other people think, you know, we shouldn't be stuck in just, um, accepting things as they were written back then. And we should, uh, we should look at them through the new lens. So it's, it's been mixed. You know, the union Tribune ran a poll, uh, catch to the, my story, which asked folks whether they thought the name of the guy's a library at UC San Diego should be renamed. And, uh, um, my opinion, I think was quite overwhelmingly opposed to changing the name of the library. Speaker 1: 34:54 We've been speaking with John Wilkins staff writer for the San Diego union Tribune. John, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Speaker 2: 35:12 [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 35:15 This is KPBS day edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh with Jade Heinemann ever sing in the shower or play Eric guitar. Well when Ramona Moscow was a kid, he would play air synthesizer, a mezcal as better known as Bostitch, a founding member of the legendary electronic music group. Nortec collective born and raised into one, a mess squad frequented record stores on both sides of the border. In the early eighties, by the late nineties, he was at the forefront of the electronic music scene in Mexico in a new episode of KPBS, his border podcast, port of entry hosts. Alan Lilienthal takes us back in time with a mess squad for a taste of the early electronic music that set his imagination on fire. Speaker 10: 36:05 Ramon was one of those lucky people who grew up with older siblings who had great taste in music back in the late seventies, all kinds of exciting new sounds would be playing at Ramone's house day and night. They listened to all kinds of music, mostly rock. He found himself gravitating towards records that had some level of electronic instrumentation going on fans like 10 getting drained and her son being employed. But Ramon says his bonafide love affair with electronic music began with a song called Autobahn by Kraftwerk. How old were you when you heard it? Kraft wrote for the first time? I think I was 16 years old. I didn't know where that sound came from. Lee. That, that, that sounds sounds like from space, mostly from the future. Those sounds of the future synthesizers drum machines, weird effects, completely fascinated him. He was hooked from then. I was trained to find more music that they use it. This kind of sounds back in high school in the Quanah. Ramon had this pretty hip teacher who played music in class to help teach English. He played air wind and fire in bands that used to have a little synthesizes, but sometimes he drank this Alvin oxygen. Speaker 10: 38:13 This is oxygen by John Michelle jar. [inaudible] I learned the name of the synthesizer because in the credits of the album in the back of the cupboard, you can read 2,600 are all the, say a Moog synthesizers. And thanks to that album, I learned about the Eastern myths about the, the way they compose electronic music. Listening to music during class might as well have stopped there. But luckily for Ramon, he got his hands on a Sony Walkman, a portable cassette player with little headphones. Now he could take the music with him everywhere. One song in heavy rotation was this one floating by clouds, shorts, a soundbath over 25 minutes. They have a lot of hair in at that time, like Afro. And I remember I was in my classroom that my headphones, the hair West covering my, the, the headphones in only listening to Klaus channels and not listening to my classes, only listening to she all the class. Wow. That must've been. Did the teachers ever catch you while you were listening or was it well hidden the headphones under your Afro? No. The headphones were very small. Wow. Imagine that you are in the late seventies and imagine yourself in the future where maybe cars flying or going to space being an astronaut, that kind of imagination. I, I used to have when I listened to these ovens, Speaker 2: 40:32 [inaudible] up until this Speaker 10: 40:32 Point, all the music Ramon found was the family and friends and school, but there was also the radio and living in a border city. You can often tune into stations from both sides of the border. So in the early eighties, he caught a documentary series on KPBS radio. Very lucky. The main bus had totally wild, Speaker 2: 41:00 Totally wired artists and electronics Speaker 10: 41:03 C'mon must have geeked out, just listen to this intro. Speaker 2: 41:07 And yesterday the music of tomorrow maybe sounds, we've never heard. We live in an electronic world. These are the sound shapers of our era. Speaker 10: 41:25 Totally wired was a 13 part music series featuring artists and musicians at the forefront of electronic sound. People like Klaus Schultz and Robert mode, the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer throughout the 1960s and seventies, the named Mo was synonymous with the synthesizer. In fact, the history of electronic music can be conveniently divided as before Moke and after mug, Your station Ramon tuned into was based in Mexico city. It was short-lived, but it served just straight music with no frills. They put a lot of music, new music, but with no DJs, only music, they put the album from the beginning to the end. It was here that Ramon discovered the futuristic Italian pioneer Giorgio Moroder, and his song equals Speaker 2: 42:18 C squared Westbury. Speaker 10: 42:37 Sure. With not only with electronic sounds, Hey, catch her about the use of the corridor. This instrument that transformed Speaker 2: 42:47 This kind of robotic style [inaudible] that was Ramona. Speaker 10: 43:13 Meskwaki also known as Bostitch of Speaker 2: 43:15 Nortech collective talking with Speaker 10: 43:17 Venturing host, Alan Lillian Thall to hear the full episode, get port of entry online at port of entry, pod.org, or find it wherever you listen to pod Speaker 2: 44:01 [inaudible].