Only Here

We want to tell you about an exciting new season of KPBS Explore podcast, "Rad Scientist." Recent events involving the killing of unarmed Black people have brought discussions about racism to the forefront, including at scientific institutions. This season of KPBS Explore podcast "Rad Scientist" is centered on Black scientists, from graduate students to faculty to those who have left the ivory towers. They study bug microbiomes, autism, neural prosthetics and more. But they will also discuss how racism has impacted their scientific journey. First episode drops Sept. 2. Subscribe here: https://www.kpbs.org/podcasts/rad-scientist/

Meet a San Diego artist who dresses up as a “cleaning lady” to force a conversation about immigrant women. This episode first aired in June 2019. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Who's behind the show: Host Alan Lilienthal, producer Kinsee Morlan and sound designer Emily Jankowski Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Support Us: https://www.kpbs.org/donate Give us Feedback: 619-452-0228‬ podcasts@kpbs.org

- This episode first aired in October of 2019. - Lowriders are big in Japan. These days, the customized, slow and low to the ground cars and bikes can be found almost anywhere. Lowriding is a culture created by Chicanos and exported all over the world. But at the border, the lowrider scene is a lifeline. For lots of people here, lowriders are much more than just a hobby. The culture that’s coalesced around lowriders on both sides of the border has offered some people here salvation. It’s given new meaning and purpose to peoples’ lives — from deportees in Tijuana to military veterans struggling with PTSD in San Diego. In this episode of "Only Here," a KPBS podcast about art, culture and life at the Western Hemisphere’s busiest border crossing, we bring you a story about lowriders as life rafts.

In this episode: A story about trash and dirt flowing from one side of the U.S.-Mexico border to the other, and two guys’ plan to stop it. This episode first aired in December of 2019. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Support Us: https://www.kpbs.org/donate Give us Feedback: 619-452-0228‬ podcasts@kpbs.org

For years, Beto Soto had two secrets. And these weren’t small secrets. These were really big secrets. The kind that define who you are. Soto is openly gay now, but he didn’t come out of the closet until a few years ago. He's also been living without citizenship papers in the United States since his family brought him here when he was 6. He kept his undocumented status quiet until recently, too. In this episode from our archive, we talk to Soto about being gay and undocumented, and the photographic series he made about the experience. This episode first aired on March 20, 2019.

The perception that the U.S.-Mexico border’s been effectively sealed shut because of the pandemic is wrong. Lots of people are still crossing. Actually, the biggest, most dramatic change in who can’t cross right now; you’re not going to find those folks at the ports of entry. Instead, you have to look inside Tijuana’s migrant shelters, and at the refugees who can’t seek asylum in the U.S. right now and are instead stuck in border towns. So that's what we do today. We talk to a migrant stuck at the border, and a doctor trying to help. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Who's behind the show: Host Alan Lilienthal, producer Kinsee Morlan and sound designer Emily Jankow

Everyone has songs they treasure — songs that evoke vivid memories and color different periods of our lives. Sometimes, music ends up shaping who we become. For Paola Villaseñor, better known as the influential border artist Panca, music from both sides of the border has been a lifelong companion whenever she’s painting. Sometimes, lyrics from songs or traces of the flow and melody of music can be found in her final works. Today, we’ve got a story about one of our border region’s most well-known artists, told through the lens of music. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Su

We caught up with Jenn Budd at Las Americas mall a few months before the pandemic hit. Jenn has become well known in the border activism world. Her criticisms of U.S. immigration policies and Customs and Border Protection are harsh, and very personal. Because Jenn; she used to be a Border Patrol agent herself. Today, a story about a big perspective shift at the border. It’s also a story about how some people have to hit rock bottom before they change. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Support Us: https://www.kpbs.org/donate Give us Feedback: 619-452-0228‬ podcasts@kpbs.o

Today we're tracing the story of how Latin music became as popular as American pop music, all through the eyes of Isabela Raygoza. Isabela is a music journalist from Tijuana and San Diego whose career very closely paralleled the boom in Latin music that's happened over the past decade. Back in the day, when Latin stars wanted to cross over into pop music, they would have to start singing in English. Nowadays, you have music icons crossing over the other way: singing in Spanish. About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Support Us: https://www.kpbs.org/donate Give us Feedback: 619-45

Ruffo Ibarra Arellano is a pedigreed chef. With his resume, he could be working at some of the fanciest Michelin-star restaurants in the world. But he chose to be here, running a restaurant in Tijuana instead. Because Ruffo loves his roots. And he wants his food to be infused with them. Obviously, the coronavirus pandemic is deeply impacting Ruffo’s work and his restaurant. It’s impacting all of us. But restaurants are being hit particularly hard. Ruffo’s team had just finished remodeling the restaurant a couple of weeks before the quarantine became the new normal. Even as many restaurants layoff a lot of their staff, though, Ruffo and his partners have assured their team that they have their backs. They’re committed to their safety and well being, even if that means taking a big financial hit. Who we are: Hosted by Alan Lilienthal Produced by Kinsee Morlan Sound design by Emily Jankowski Follow Us: https://www.facebook.com/onlyherepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/onlyherepodcast/ Suppor

Dulce Garcia is undocumented, but her status has mostly fueled her ambition, not stifled it. Dulce’s an immigration lawyer. And she’s recently become one of the most high profile immigrant advocates working on the border today.

We know what’s on your mind right now: the coronavirus. And we know you, our cross-border audience, you’ve probably got one big question completely dominating your brainwaves: will our border close? Or, when our border closes, what exactly will happen? So, we’re gonna hit the pause button on our normal programming and bring you some news you can use right now. Max Rivlin-Nadler covers the border for KPBS. Max gives us the most up-to-date information he has as of recording time: 1:30 p.m. Thursday, March 12.

Telefónica Gastro Park has grown into one of the most popular destinations for both locals and tourists in Tijuana. We continue our conversation-style episodes with Antonio Gamboa, the founder of the foodie hot spot, which has always attracted a big cross-border crowd. Antonio describes how his parking lot filled with food trucks sprouted organically and eventually grew into the sophisticated collection of food trucks, beer, wine, art and coffee that it is now. He also breaks a bit of food news: he's currently working on opening Telefónica Norte in San Diego. Telefónica Gastro Park info: http://telefonicagastropark.com/en/ About the Show: “Only Here” is about the unexplored subcultures, creativity and struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border. The KPBS podcast tells personal stories from people whose lives are shaped by the tension reverberating around the wall. This is a show for border babies, urban explorers or those who wonder what happens when two cultures are both separated and intertwined. Who we ar

In a new episode of KPBS' border podcast "Only Here," we continue our series on border art with a mural that's broadcasting the voices of deportees and those commonly known as DREAMers, children brought to the U.S. illegally as children. From heart-wrenching stories about parents being deported and separated from their kids to first-hand accounts of what it’s like to start a new life in a new country, the mural painted on the actual border fence uses technology to share stories of deportation and struggle. You can hear the stories when you walk up to the mural in Playas de Tijuana. It's painted on the actual border fence, and you can use your phone to scan black-and-white QR codes printed on little stickers stuck to the mural. Scanning the stickers takes you to YouTube videos. The stories you'll hear in the videos are from two digital storytelling archives: Humanizing Deportation: http://humanizandoladeportacion.ucdavis.edu/en/ Dacamented: https://dacamentedarchive.com/ The Playas de Tijuana Mural Pr

We’ve got something new for listeners. In addition to our long-form, deep dive episodes, we’re going to try something new by sprinkling in more low-key, casual conversations with interesting people who live cross-border lives. You'll know it's happening when you see the word "conversation" in the title of the episode. To be honest, the highly produced episodes you’re used to hearing take a lot of time. Between field recordings, research, sound design and writing, it’s just a ton of work. We had to come up with a way to give our small team more time between new episodes so we can get even better at telling these longer, more nuanced stories. So that’s why we’re doing these conversations -- to give ourselves the time we need to make the best show possible. So, in this new conversation series, we’re going to talk to creatives, entrepreneurs, influencers- anyone that embodies our binational region and can help us get to know it a little better. We’re going to start this week with the greatest food in the wo

The line of cars and people waiting to cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry is so big — so long — it’s got its own gravitational pull. It’s created this whole world of its own, an ecosystem that swirls all around it. A shorter line would be a thing of beauty. The long line is actually a problem that the federal governments and local business leaders on both sides of the border are trying to solve. Because the border equals money. In this episode, we bring you sounds from the border line, then take you to the Border Innovation Challenge at UC San Diego. After that, we introduce you to Cheslav Versky, a tech entrepreneur who won the Border Innovation Challenge and is now working on installing a system that would collect detailed border-crossing data at a level it's never been collected before.

We wanted to take a minute or two to tell y’all about some exciting developments for the Only Here podcast team. We were recently selected to be part of a prestigious podcast accelerator program that’s pushing us to experiment, take risks and step outside of our creative comfort zones when it comes to this show. We were one of just six public media stations from across the country chosen to be a part of a grant program called Project Catapult. We’re suuuper excited and honored to be a part of it. Project Catapult is basically a training that takes our Only Here production team to Boston once a month where we learn from a team of experts from PRX and other public media stations. PRX, by the way, is kinda on par with NPR...it’s a public media company that distributes a long list of podcast and broadcast shows that include some of the most popular in the world -- like This American Life and The Moth. We are learning soooo much from PRX! And one of the most important things we’ve learned is to think a loo

Anishka Lee-Skorepa wants to break cultural barriers surrounding both the border and opera music. The San Diego opera singer is part of Artistas Fronterizas, a group that works to paint a clearer picture of border life through performances in places where opera doesn't normally go. Our series of episodes focused on border art continues with a story about an opera singer who’s painting a clearer picture of border culture through song.

In this episode: A story about trash and dirt flowing from one side of the U.S.-Mexico border to the other, and two guys’ plan to stop it. The state of California spends $1.8 million annually on a system that keeps trash and dirt from clogging up the estuary in Border Field State Park, a park that butts up against the U.S.-Mexico border fence. The agency that takes care of the park, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, says the system has stopped approximately 2 million pounds of debris from entering the environmentally sensitive estuary. But the trash just keeps coming and coming, pouring through a culvert under the border that's connected to polluted canyons in Tijuana. And perpetually managing the pricey problem instead of actually solving the problem seems like the forever plan. That is, unless Steven Wright and Waylon Matson’s idea gets funded. The environmentalists want to use re-purposed trash from the canyon to build retaining walls and other structures in Tijuana's Los Laure

Today, we’re kicking off an ongoing series of shorter episodes about border art. In this episode, we talk to a guy we're calling the godfather of border art. He's the guy who helped put border art on the map: Marcos Ramírez, a Tijuana artist most people know as “Erre.” Border art is art at the actual border fence, art about the border, and often times, it’s both. It feels weird to say that the U.S.-Mexico border wall inspires artists. Because mostly, it pisses them off. Not to lump all artists into one sweeping stereotype, but a lot of the work being made about the border is pretty heavy in its opposition to the fence and all it stands for. It’s protest art. Or art that wants to start a conversation about power, immigration or human rights.