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Podcasts Take Two
COVID-19 Continues To Affect Small Businesses in LA, Coronavirus: How Parents Are Handling the School Year, Indigenous Writers in Hollywood on Representation
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Oct 15, 2020
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COVID-19 Continues To Affect Small Businesses in LA, Coronavirus: How Parents Are Handling the School Year, Indigenous Writers in Hollywood on Representation

COVID-19 continues to hit mom and pop shops hard, parents on how remote learning is going and indigenous writers send a message to Hollywood about representation.

A lunchtime customer orders at the Santa Cecilia Restaurant, one of the small businesses lining Mariachi Plaza.
A lunchtime customer orders at the Santa Cecilia Restaurant, one of the small businesses lining Mariachi Plaza.
(
Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC
)

How COVID-19 Continues to Affect Small Businesses in Los Angeles

COVID-19 has hit small businesses hard. Last week we talked about independent bookstores like Vroman’s in Pasadena and Chevalier’s Books in Larchmont Village - longtime fixtures in their neighborhoods that are on the brink of closure. Thankfully, customers have been rallying to their cause but mom and pop shops and eateries everywhere are on the precipice.

Guest:

  • Paul Ong, UCLA professor and the director of the university’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge

Coronavirus: How Parents Are Handling the School Year

We're now more than six weeks into the new school year and with online learning still the norm for most students, parents continue to be put through the ringer ... trying to figure out how to best help their kids. 

That said, some hope is on the horizon. 

L.A. County is now accepting waivers from schools that hope to reopen to teach at least some students in person, but it remains to be seen when that could move forward. To help us understand how some families have been dealing with all this we return to two moms we've spoken to in the past.

Guests:

  • Vicky Martinez, parent of four boys  all attending LA Unified schools in Highland Park
  • Priya Bahl Sen, parent of a daughter and a son going to school in the Long Beach Unified School District

Early Education Leadership

California's early childhood workforce is diverse, but research shows women of color are often concentrated in the lowest paying jobs in the field. KPCC's Mariana Dale reports on leaders paving the way for the next generation. 

Flex Alert

It's hot out there and high temperatures all across California have triggered a state wide flex alert starting at 3 o'clock.

Guest:

  • Sharon McNary, KPCC's Infrastructure Reporter 

Lake Fire Recovery

More than 8600 structures have been damaged or destroyed in wildfires this year in California. And it's easy to forget that even as these fires are put out and we move on to the next one, that there are families who've lost everything. KPCC science reporter Jacob Margolis has a story about what it's like for one man, two months after the Lake Fire.  

Indigenous Writers in Hollywood

A few days ago the Native American and Indigenous Writers' Committee of the Writers Guild released an open letter to Hollywood. It was timed with Indigenous People's Day but their message went way beyond that holiday… At a time when the country, the media and corporate America is going through a reckoning around race and inclusion… this group of screenwriters is telling the entertainment industry to stop erasing them from the narrative. Joining us are the co-chairs of that committee.

Guest:

  • Tazbah Rose Chavez and Anthony Florez, co-chairs of the Native American and Indigenous Writers' Committee of the Writers Guild