PathBreakers

More than 200,000 immigrant farmworkers power Central California's agricultural industry, including over 60,000 people from many diverse and distinct Indigenous Mexican communities. Across those communities, more than 16 unique Indigenous Mexican languages are spoken, bringing issues of access and translation to the front and center of daily life – navigating work, civic engagement, and social services. When Latino communities are treated as linguistically homogeneous, much critical information remains out of reach. The Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (the Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities, or CBDIO) was founded in Fresno in 1993 because Indigenous farmworkers in California’s Central Valley could not access social services offered only in English and Spanish. Since 1993, their mission and services have grown tremendously beyond language justice to also include building community power through economic justice, education justice, health justice, immigration justice, and worker justice. The CBDIO has also entered its second generation of leadership with Dr. Sarait Martinez as Executive Director. In this episode, Dr. Martinez shares about:The invisibility that Indigenous Mexican communities face even within Latino spacesWhat “language justice” means in practice and how they work to ensure people can participate in decisions about their lives regardless of what language they speakHow the CBDIO transformed the “3 sisters” farming method into their “4 sisters” organizing frameworkCBDIO’s recent wins recovering over $50,000 in stolen wages and expanding interpreter access. Next Episode, meet Danielle Bergstrom. Danielle spent a decade as a city planner before deciding the most powerful way to shape Fresno was to start her own news platform and tell people what was actually happening in their city. Subscribe to PathBreakers on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]Learn more about the CBDIO at https://www.centrobinacional.org/Listen all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.orgCo-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie BennettProducer: Juliet HinelyManaging Editor: Krista JahnkeProduction support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey PearsonSpecial thanks on this episode to Kresge’s American Cities and Arts Programs, especially Kara Elliott-Ortega and Katie Van Dusen.Thanks for listening! 

Hugo Morales grew up picking produce in the farm fields of Fresno with his family. When he returned to Fresno after college, he saw that his community – the Central Valley’s half-million Latino farmworkers – barely had radio in their own language, much less a radio station controlled by their own community. In 1976, Hugo and a group of activists and artists set out to change that. And by 1980, Radio Bilengüe – the nation’s first multilingual news and cultural radio station built to empower the Latino community – was broadcasting live from Fresno. Over the last 45 years, Radio Bilengüe has grown into the largest public radio network of its kind in the United States with 30 public radio stations and 75 affiliate stations across five states. In this episode Hugo shares about:Flyering on telephone polls to get the station startedWhat it means for a community to own its narrative by owning its own airwavesHow the station blends music, culture, and hard news to support cultural preservation and community safetyHow his other organizing work in and around Fresno is interconnected with Radio BilengüeWays the radio station has literally saved livesAnd Radio Bilengüe’s plans for a bricks and mortar cultural center in downtown FresnoNext episode, meet Dr. Sarait Martinez, who  leads the only Indigenous women-led organization serving Indigenous communities in the Fresno region. She's working to close the harmful structural gaps created when institutions don’t account for distinct Indigenous languages or cultural context.  Subscribe to PathBreakers on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]Tune in to Radio Bilengüe at RadioBilengue.orgListen all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.orgCo-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie BennettProducer: Juliet HinelyManaging Editor: Krista JahnkeProduction support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey PearsonSpecial thanks on this episode to Kresge’s American Cities Program, especially Chantel Rush Tebbe and Anand Sharma.Thanks for listening! 

Fresno, California is smack-dab in the middle of the state, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a city surrounded by farmland. But Fresno is the 9th most diverse city in the nation. And its population and history is deeply shaped by Indigenous communities like Mixtecs and Zapotecs, Chicano farmworkers, and large Southeast Asian communities too. Fresno has historically been a city whose story has been told by outside forces — agribusiness interests, state planners, commercial media, national narratives that flatten its complexity. All season, we've been asking “who has the power to shape their city?” And a city like Fresno is the perfect place to ask: whose story gets to shape the way things work? Whose story is this city?To kick off our Fresno City Series, Kresge President and CEO, Rip Rapson, sits down with Jerry Dyer – Fresno’s 26th mayor and its longest-serving police chief before that – for a conversation at the historic Warnors Theater. Mayor Dyer shares:What makes Fresno “four cities in one,”How Interstate 5 was routed to bypass the Central Valley and the economic isolation that followedChanges, advancements and challenges in the agricultural economy that built the regionThe benefits he sees in blending the long-standing agricultural economy with a developing manufacturing economy. His ambitious downtown and Chinatown revitalization plans he hopes will define his legacy. Plus culinary districts, adaptive reuse housing projects, brewery districts, and more. And before Mayor Dyer and Rip Rapson dive in, Co-hosts Tracey and Jamie share some good news about the PathBreakers podcast.Next episode (out September 16th) we meet the first of our three featured Fresno PathBreakers.  Each of our upcoming guests are leading projects and building systems across Fresno for cultural inclusion and preservation. Next week we’ll talk to Hugo Morales of Radio Bilingüe. Hugo built a community and cultural news radio station from scratch when he realized his community – and Fresno’s half-million farmworkers – couldn’t get programming in their own languages. Subscribe to PathBreakers on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]Learn more about Mayor Dyer: https://www.fresno.gov/mayor/Listen to all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.orgHost: Rip Rapson, President & CEO, Kresge FoundationCo-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie BennettProducer: Juliet HinelyManaging Editor: Krista JahnkeProduction support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey PearsonVideo interview captured and edited by by Meza StudioLogo animation: Collin LeixSpecial thanks on this episode to Nicole Owens and her team at the Warnors Theater, Jennifer Kulczycki Director of External Affairs and Communications at Kresge, and to Kresge’s American Cities and Arts Programs, especially Kara Elliott-Ortega and Katie Van Dusen.Thanks for listening! And please stay tuned for more from Fresno.

Anna McQuiston says the MidSouth is at a tipping point. While the region – which comprises 6 counties and 38 cities across West Tennessee, East Arkansas, and North Mississippi – has been facing population loss, it also has potential for upwards of 100,000 new jobs in the next 10 years. How do you ensure that those jobs go to locals who have been sticking it out in leaner times? And how do you build infrastructure to support a thriving region with leadership that will collaborate rather than compete for resources? As Executive Director of the MidSouth Development District, Anna McQuiston says it all comes down to the magic of teams that can trust each other. In this episode, co-hosts Tracey Pearson and Jamie Bennett talk with Anna McQuiston about:How Anna gets mayors and civic leaders across the region to “get real” with each other and share experiences, information and ideas without competition and posturing. The importance of regionalism and pooling resources to build stability across the region.Her findings from the recent “State of the Region” convening she organized to address shared challenges and opportunities for leaders across the MidSouth.How she approaches the balance of stabilizing long-time families and attracting new residents to the region.The advice she was given the summer before graduate school that she uses every single day. ***Stay tuned for our next city series all about what PathBreakers are up to in Fresno, California. Our Fresno series launches in September. ***Subscribe to PathBreakers on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]Learn more about the MidSouth Development District at https://www.midsouthdd.org/Preview all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.orgCo-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie BennettProducer: Juliet HinelyManaging Editor: Krista JahnkeProduction support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey PearsonGraphics: Alejandro HerreraLogo animation: Collin LeixSpecial thanks on this episode to Kresge’s American Cities Program, especially Chantel Rush Tebbe and Anand Sharma. 

Most real estate developers have dollar signs in their eyes. But in the rare instance when the developers actually come from the communities being redeveloped, they are able to see the equations very differently. This is the case for father-daughter real estate development duo Archie Willis and Alex Willis-Boddie at ComCap Partners, a South Memphis-based real estate development and public finance firm focused on equitable community development in historically Black neighborhoods. Traditional developers would say ComCap projects will never “pencil out,” but Alex and Archie’s methods and track record show otherwise when it comes to community benefit. In this episode, co-hosts Tracey Pearson and Jamie Bennett talk to Archie and Alex about:How their methods for community engagement and trust-building are central to their approach.The complex "capital stacks" they build (involving low-income housing tax credits, new market tax credits, philanthropic funds, public subsidies, and partnerships with local, state, and federal agencies) to fill funding gaps and make their projects happen. Several large-scale redevelopment projects they’ve done recently, like their transformation of old public housing in South Memphis into mixed-income housing and community hubs, as well as the adaptive reuse of vacant schools like Northside High School into workforce development centers.Some of the Willis family legacy in Memphis, including the landmark civil rights work of Archie’s father, and their generational commitment to making a difference in the lives of local residents.***Next episode (out July 29th) we zoom up to the regional level and talk to Anna McQuiston of MidSouth Development District, who brings together mayors and municipal governments across a three-state mid-south region to collaborate for the resources and plan for a future that will stabilize families in Memphis and beyond.*** Subscribe to PathBreakers on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]Learn more about ComCap Partners at https://comcap-partners.comPreview all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.orgCo-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie BennettProducer: Juliet HinelyManaging Editor: Krista JahnkeProduction support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey PearsonGraphics: Alejandro HerreraLogo animation: Collin LeixSpecial thanks on this episode to Kresge’s American Cities Program, especially Chantel Rush Tebbe and Anand Sharma.