KQED's Forum KQED

When most people think of a burrito, the “mission-style” burrito probably comes to mind. Rice, beans, meat – and maybe guacamole or salsa – wrapped in a giant flour tortilla and served in foil. Popularized across the country by the Chipotle chain, the mission-style burrito has its roots in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. But just because it’s the most popular, is it the best? Los Angeles and San Diego each provide their own unique offerings and in a state as diverse as California, burritos are always evolving. We’ll revisit the legends around some popular burrito varieties, learn about your favorites and try to settle if there’s one style that deserves to be called California’s burrito.

Guests:
Bill Esparza, writer, Eater LA; author, "L.A. Mexicano: Recipes, People and Places"
Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic, San Francisco Chronicle
Luke Winkie, staff writer, Slate

Author and seasoned travel writer Gary Shteyngart had never been on a ship larger than the Staten Island Ferry before he embarked on the inaugural voyage of the “Icon of the Seas,” the world’s largest cruise ship. Proudly sporting a “Daddy’s Little Meatball” t-shirt that he hoped would be a conversation starter and aiming to make new friends, Shteyngart instead experienced loneliness and despair. He chronicles his experience in the Atlantic Magazine piece “Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever.” Shteyngart joins us to talk about this journey, his life as a travel writer and the vacations that can make you feel part of — or alienated from — the rest of the world.

Guest:
Gary Shteyngart, writer. His latest piece for the Atlantic is titled "Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever"; author, "Our Country Friends, "Little Failure: A Memoir," and "Super Sad True Love Story."

Recent Hollywood films and TV shows have taken to presenting a “Magical Multiracial Past,” according to filmmaker Kabir Chibber in a recent New York Times Magazine article. It’s a past where “every race exists, cheerfully and seemingly as equals, in the same place at the same time. History becomes an emoji, its flesh tone changing as needed.” Some of the backlash to so-called colorblind casting has been outright racist. But some of the pushback has come from artists of color who feel uncomfortable with utopic depictions that erase the racism of past eras. As Chibber argues, “the problem, for viewers, isn’t wokeness run amok; it’s the incoherence of the world we are watching.” We’ll talk about the benefits and drawbacks of colorblind and color-conscious casting — and the uncomfortable truths it forces us to address.

Guests:
Kabir Chibber, writer and filmmaker
Brandon David Wilson, writer; educator; filmmaker
Maurice Emmanuel Parent, actor, director and professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, Tufts University

Berkeley Unified School District superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel testified before Congress on Wednesday as part of hearings examining how K-12 school districts are handling anti-semitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Republicans say the education leaders invited to testify – from Berkeley, New York City, and Montgomery County, Maryland – have failed to respond to antisemitic incidents in their schools. But Ford Morthel rejected allegations that antisemitism is “pervasive” in Berkeley, and said that the district is indeed addressing issues as they come up. We’ll discuss the hearings, the politics behind them, and how they fit into Republicans’ broader efforts to reform education in the U.S.

Guests:
Dana Goldstein, reporter covering education and families, New York Times
Sara Hossaini, reporter, KQED Radio
Bianca Quilantan, higher education reporter, Politico

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Illia Ponomarenko was a 29-year-old journalist for the newspaper he co-founded, The Kyiv Independent. His daily, on-the-ground reporting quickly captured an international audience: by 2023 the German media organization Der Spiegel called him “likely the best-known Ukrainian after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.” Ponomarenko’s new book, “I Will Show You How It Was,” provides a first-person account of the Battle of Kyiv and its impact on civilians. “Life during the Battle of Kyiv,” he writes, “was a bizarre mixture of inconceivable inspiration, unity, and pride—and at the same time, of dark grief and mourning.” We talk to Ponomarenko about what he’s witnessed over the past two years and his plea for America to “do the right thing.”

Guest:
Illia Ponomarenko, journalist and author, “I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv”; former defense and security reporter, The Kyiv Post; co-founder, The Kyiv Independent. He has covered the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict's beginning, as well as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022

The 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting was awarded to the staff of Lookout Santa Cruz on Monday. The prize committee praised the tiny, digital-only media outlet for its “detailed and nimble community-focused coverage” of the catastrophic flooding and mudslides last year that did great damage to the Santa Cruz area. We’ll talk to the staff about the media outlet, which was founded in 2020, its coverage, and the future of local journalism.

Guests:
Ken Doctor, CEO and founder, Lookout Santa Cruz. Doctor writes regularly for Harvard's Nieman Journalism
Tamsin McMahon, managing editor, Lookout Santa Cruz
Christopher Neely, correspondent, Lookout Santa Cruz