Anna Sale: Hello! Welcome back to the first-ever Death, Sex & Money...

ANDREW DUNN: Audio We Love Festival.

Anna: I'm Anna Sale, and this is day three of our week-long-in-feed appreciation of some of our favorite recent listens. The name for this podcast festival is Audio We Love, which is also the name of a section in our weekly newsletter. If you're not signed up, just text DSM news to the number 70101. Every week, you'll get behind the scenes show updates, letters from our listeners and recommendations of podcasts and radio pieces that we've really enjoyed. Like the podcast California Love, which we are sharing with you today. Before we get to that, I want to remind everyone that our festival ends tomorrow, Friday, October 16th with a special live show at 7:00 PM Eastern.

I'm going to be joined on Zoom by Tracy Clayton and Josh Gwynn, who are co-hosts of the great new podcast called Back Issue. We'll be getting nostalgic about some of our favorite pop culture moments and it's going to be a really fun way to spend our Friday evenings. Get all the details and RSVP at the green space.org, that's green with an E. California Love is a show from LAist Studios hosted by writer, Walter Thompson-Hernandez. It's part-audio memoir, part-love letter to his hometown of Los Angeles. This episode is about Walter's mother, Ellie Hernandez, who made Los Angeles Walter's home after she decided to leave Mexico and settled there as a young woman.

Walter: What do you have for lunch today?

Ellie: [Spanish language]

Walter: Always speaking in Spanish today?

Ellie: No.

Walter: I'm cool with that. This is my mom, Eleuteria Hernandez. Her friends call her Ellie. She's one of my best friends, a big homie, a big sister and so much more.

Ellie: I made rice, the same style as my mom used to make it. Usually, when we eat white rice, it's just white [Spanish language] will put a little bit of milk and onion and garlic and one chili and it's really delicious. Not a lot of milk, just a little drop.

Walter: My mom and I are sitting in our sister's room in Huntington Park. We're in my aunt's room because she has these two tiny white dogs that never stopped barking and a blue macaw that never stops talking. There's at least 50 different religious candles around me and pictures of different Santeria Saint semi art keeps by her bed. There's also the remains of a green apple on the dresser. My mom's hair is almost fully white at this point in her life, and she's wearing these cool pink and black Nike running shoes that I bought her a few months ago.

[Ellie sings]

Ellie: My mother, whenever she felt sad, she will sing. Whenever she was happy, she will have a beer. She was [Spanish language]. No, but she will have a beer.

Walter: Really?

Ellie: Yes, and she was an activist.

Walter: This isn't just a trip down memory lane. This whole show is about my relationship to the city, and I wouldn't be here if my mom hadn't decided to make LA her home, too. It's been a while since we sat down and spoke like this, but it feels like everything, for me, begins and ends with my mom. This is California Love, and I'm Walter.

Ellie: I still remember I was about five or four years old. In our neighborhood, we didn't have an elementary school. All of the kids would have to walk almost a kilometer to go to the Elementary School in the downtown area. My mother organized all of the mothers from the neighborhood. We all walked from our neighborhood to the city hall, la presidencia. All of the women were walking, protesting to talk to the president of the alcalde del pueblo, so that he could build a elementary school in our neighborhood. I was like four or five, but I felt so powerful. So proud of my mom, because my mom was the organizer. I was in the front walking with all the kids and mom. My mom was holding my hand. I feel like my mom is Chingona.

Interviewer: What do you think your life would have been like if you would've stayed in Mike Delena?

Interviewee: I will have probably now look really old, have a lot of kids. No husband.

Interviewer: Why no husband?

Interviewee: Because I don't think I will be able to stay with someone who didn't treat me right, who was having kids all over town. The only available man in the town were the Narcos probably I would have married a Narco guy, honestly, and probably I would have gotten involved with selling drugs, and probably I would have been in jail. A lot of my friends, female friends, that's what they did.

Interviewer: My mom was 14 years old when she was sent away from [unintelligible 00:06:17]. Her older sisters were already living in LA and she left to join them. She filled up a light blue suitcase with all her things and left home for the first time. Why do you think my grandma, your mom? Why do you think it was important for her to send you to LA?

Interviewee: So that I could have a better future? She didn't have a happy marriage life but she was so Catholic. She was so spiritual that she couldn't leave my father. She didn't want that for me.

Interviewer: Do you remember the day that you left for LA for the first time?

Interviewee: I was sad and I remember we took the picture. I put on very nice clothes. White suit with white top. Very elegant because when you take a plane, you had to dress nice. That was the mentality. Not comfortable choose, not a comfortable dress. No, no, no it was a suit. My father didn't give me the [unintelligible 00:07:33] because he was really upset I was coming to the United States, so I came without his blessing. I lived in Bell, California with my sisters.

Interviewer: What was your first impression of LA?

Interviewee: A lot of traffic and a lot of people. I never seen so many different people in my whole life. For me, I used to be like Madonna, looking at people to see how they look like, you know, Asian people, people from Africa, Cubans, people from Spain, they were very different from me and that was nice. I didn't like the fact that I was far from my mom, but I knew that I had to sacrifice that, but it was nice too. I feel like I was wealthy.

Interviewer: I just felt like you were wealthy?

Interviewee: Because only wealthy people will go to different countries to study. Even though I was living with my sisters, I feel like, oh, [foreign language]

Interviewer: My mom went to Bell high school, a city in Southeast LA. She was in the 10th grade.

Interviewee: I was taking only GSO courses, English as a second language. We used to watch-- I love Lucy. That's how I learned English, and it was really interesting to understand the Cuban guy, [unintelligible 00:09:19]

Interviewer: Ricky Ricardo.

Interviewee: Ricky, Ricky. My level of comprehension was a little limited, but I was ready for the challenge. Then on my second semester, I got into tennis, and guess what?

Interviewer: What mum?

Interviewee: You're not going to believe this.

Interviewer: What happened?

Interviewee: I wanted to be a cheerleader.

Interviewer: Hold on. You've never told me this before. You also want it to be a cheerleader?

Interviewee: Yes, because they look so cute with the little skirt and then they were so popular and I wanted to follow the Archie, the comic book, but I was not selected. I was a [foreign language] I couldn't jump and then my English was very limited.

Walter: Damn.

Ellie: I know, but I still remember one cheer. At the beginning of the world nobody knew how to, except the eagles.

Walter: Is there more? [laughs] No wonder you didn't make it.

Ellie: Nobody knew how to, except the Eagles.

Walter: Mom, no wonder they didn't select you because you don't remember the cheers. I'm not mad at them for that.

Ellie: It was 40 years ago. Okay, so please give me a break. My impression of the American life was Archie. My introduction to the "American life" was Archie. For me, being a cheerleader was the biggest accomplishment. Maybe if I have a granddaughter, she will be a cheerleader.

Walter: When she was a senior, she and a close friend went to see the guidance counsellor. They wanted information about how to apply to college.

Ellie: The counsellor told us that since we were ESL students, because we are still classified as ESL students, we were better off going to a [unintelligible 00:11:32] school. We left very sad. He wanted to be a doctor and he said, "I'm going to apply to colleges," and I said, "Me too." We went to the Career Center, and we submitted applications. I was admitted to several schools, but I was not ready. My English was still limited and I was afraid to go to college so I decided to go to community college, Los Angeles Trade Technical college right there on grand and Washington Boulevard.

I took all of the courses to transfer because my goal was to transfer to become an engineer so that's what I did. I played tennis there and I was a very good tennis player so I met a tennis player in the team.

Walter: She's talking about my dad.

Ellie: We became the number one mix doubles, couples in our community college. We fell in love. We were dating and then he transferred to UCLA and then I transferred to UCLA. We had a very nice relationship. Our life was around tennis. Like on the weekends when we were not playing any tournaments. We would play in the Huntington Park Salt Lake Park and play tennis the whole day or we will go to Rancho Park and play tennis the whole day. Being the only non-Black around the African, Afro-American tennis circuit was hard because the girls would look at me like, "What are you doing with my man?" It was hard. Because I am Mexican and he was Black and he was very good looking.

Walter: How did the relationship end?

Ellie: I still remember very clearly when I went to see him at his job in [unintelligible 00:14:06] mall. He used to work in a shoe store. I dressed really nice [unintelligible 00:14:11] elegant. I was already three months and a half, four months pregnant and he said, "No, I cannot be a father right now." I said, "Well, thank you for letting me know. I'm going to have my child." That was the end of our relationship.

Walter: My dad says this is a really simplified version of what happened and he wasn't around when I was growing up, but we reconnected when I was 23. Stories have multiple versions, but this episode is about my mom. My mom was pregnant with me when she was going to UCLA. She was first studying to become an engineer, but then dropped that major and chose literature instead.

Ellie: I was taking math calculus 31B or 31C. I don't remember. I used to sit in the front of the lecture hall because I could move the table so that I would fit, because I was big. Oh my God, every time I would go into this particular lecture, you would start kicking me and moving all over. I couldn't stay put in a seat. I had to get up and walk around so that you could be happy.

Walter: Why do you think I was doing that?

Ellie: Because you didn't like numbers.

Walter: I was like, "Get me out of here now." My mom had me when she was a junior in college and then started contemplating dropping out. We didn't have a lot. We lived in Huntington Park with my aunts and uncles and cousins. Everyone picked up cardboard boxes in the city of Vernon and took them to the recycling center for money. That's how we survived.

Ellie: After you were born, I was on welfare. I was receiving food stamps and all of the benefits from the government. I decided that I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be the stereotype that, "Oh, single moms are always living off the government." I decided that I was going to quit UCLA, and just go to work. However, I still remember very clearly, I was coming back from, I don't remember where I was coming back. We were in the bus number 60 coming from downtown to Huntington Park. It was around three, four o'clock. All of the ladies, todas las señoras, they would get on the bus really tired, and they would just fall asleep, because they were coming out of the factories.

I said to myself, "No, I'm not going to quit." To me, college was something that my son was going to be proud of me. I knew he was going to be proud of me, even if I had become a factory worker, but I wanted more. I decided not to quit, and go back still receive benefits from the government, but as soon as I could, I was off welfare. It was not easy, but it was my goal and I made it.

Walter: I am so proud of you, mom. You have no idea.

Ellie: Thank you, mijo.

[music]

Walter: We moved to the West Side in 92 because of the uprisings, and because it was easier for my mom.

Ellie: I wanted to be closer to school, and I wanted better schools for you. My whole family was against that idea, but I needed to become a grownup. I needed to be independent. I remember the first night we went to the supermarket in the White neighborhood in the Westside. You and I were the only brown people in the supermarket. It was late in the afternoon, and everybody was looking at us, or maybe it was just my assumption that everybody was looking at us, so I felt really weird.

Walter: You were really active with demonstrations and hunger strikes and protests when we moved to the West Side. I'm wondering if my grandma, if her early activism if that inspired you in any way.

Ellie: Yes, I was very involved with a lot of protest. My friends used to say that if I will see a protest, I will stop and support them, even though I didn't know what the cause was. I feel like I have always been like that since my mom took me to those demonstrations in the presidencia.

Walter: Why was it important to take me to those?

Ellie: I would take you everywhere. What else? I didn't have a babysitter, so there was no choice, mijo. No. It was important for you to learn about [unintelligible 00:20:01] out there, social injustice. It was important for me that you were aware of that.

Walter: Do you remember any demonstrations that you took me to?

Ellie: Core is the most important one, the hunger strike at UCLA. They wanted to dismantle that Chicana Chicano studies program and all of the students, brown students, Black students, American Indian students, the few of them, Islamic students, Asian students, we all got together and organize ourselves. We left from [unintelligible 00:20:42] all the way to UCLA walking. There was another group coming from Loyola there was another group coming for Northridge and it was so much fun. It was so beautiful to walk down a wheelchair Boulevard.

There is a point in Wiltshire Boulevard when it's a little higher, it's like a little hill, and where you can look back and see the waves of people who would like an ocean of people walking and walking and walking. When you're in a Ph.D. program, you have to do all of that because if you're just go there to get an education and you don't get involved, what's the point?

Walter: What about LA now feels special to you?

Ellie: Taking the Metro, taking the bus, but especially the Metro. That's when I met so many beautiful people and I also have guided so many parents, moms, and dads, how to help their kids in high school. I connect that with the students, I guide them. I don't even know them, but I'm a mentor in the Metro.

Walter: Metro mentor.

Ellie: Oh, I like that. Metro mentor, MM, I'm an MM.

Participant: You're an MM.

Walter: A big reason why I wanted to interview you was because so much of what I know about LA is through you. It's through the experiences that you first helped me learn about. I felt like it was really interesting to ask you questions, to bring a full circle in the sense where it's like I'm really coming back home to learn more about my city, but I'm also coming back home to learn more about you.

Ellie: Well, thank you for giving me credit that you know the city threw me, but we never left. We never left Hinton Park. We never left southeast because I found out that the markets in the Westside were very expensive. I will come back to Hinton Park to go to the market here. I will come back also because my mother was here at the moment. We would come back on Friday night, stay in their own Southeast for the weekend and we were able to come back home and be able to combine the two worlds.

Walter: I don't know if I'd be a writer or a journalist if it wasn't for my mom. What parts of yourself do you see in me?

Ellie: You know what you've been doing lately and I don't want to give myself credit for that, but I think I do deserve some credit.

[laughter]

Walter: Go ahead.

Ellie: Because of me, you were introduced to a lot of books.

Walter: That's right, you're right.

Ellie: Okay, so, please. No, I'm just being fun. That was the only thing I could share with you, I could share with you my books. You could see me reading until late at night. You could see me having conversations with my colleagues, from the Ph.D. program and I think that's why you got hungry for books, hungry for words and I see that part of me.

Walter: Do you remember me asking you for a college fund in elementary school?

Ellie: [laughs] Mijo, if I'm 90 years old, I will still remember that we were in the kitchen, or we're going to have dinner? You were about eight, seven, and then you said, "Mom, do I have a college fund?" I looked at you with this big, wide-open eyes, and I said, "[Spanish language]. We barely have money to eat hotdogs and you do want me to have a college fund for you?" You said, "Where did you get that idea?" And you're very innocent. You said, "Mom, everybody at school were talking about college fund. I just wanted to know if I have one." [Spanish language], but I totally understand.

You wanted to find out, wouldn't you have a college fund when everybody was talking like having a pair of tennis shoes? Everybody's conversation was so normal, but no, our conversations were different. They were not about college fund. They were about survival. We had enough food stamps to go and eat and buy the food, but it was cute. I never forget that.

Walter: What parts about me inspire you?

Ellie: When you turned your life around to me, that was a sign of endurance-

Walter: Perseverance.

Ellie: -perseverance. That was such a powerful moment. I knew that you were going to go far me because you made the decision to change your life.

Walter: The reason why I changed my life around is because at 14 and a half, almost 15, I understood that. You made so many sacrifices for me, and I felt like the path that I was going down, I was either going to be dead or in jail. I also thought about you and I thought about how you felt at 14 and 15 when you came to this country. We were at the same age, essentially. For me, it was really important to think, "Wow, my mom was 14, 15 when she came to LA and I'm 14, 15 now, and what am I doing?" I felt like I was throwing it all away.

Ellie: It's very nice how you compare your age at that age when I came to the United States, that's really nice. I never thought about that.

Walter: Did you ever want to leave LA?

Ellie: No. When I compared with the life that I could have had in Mexico in my hometown, I feel that I'm wealthy here. I have everything. I have a car, I have a house, I have a job, I have a family, I have friends. I can go to the stores and I don't have to be super-wealthy to buy me things. In Mexico, I will have to be really wealthy to go to the stores. The fact that I have options makes me feel powerful.

Walter: What kind of options are you talking about?

Ellie: I'm talking about economic options. I'm talking about job options.

Walter: How do you feel about where LA is now?

Ellie: I wish I could see more like what's going on right now with the protest. I wish those things could be implemented. The police doesn't have to treat us bad just because we have a different skin color. It's different now, very different.

Walter: Do you still think about the comic book, Archie?

Ellie: Of course, it's cute. Sometimes when I want to laugh, I think of Beverly Hills because Beverly Hills was represented in that comic book. It was not South Central, it was not LaPointe, it was not Whittier. It was not. No, it was Beverly Hills with those big mansions. Yes, I still think about that. When I want to laugh, I think that, "Oh, Beverly Hills, it's Archie."

Walter: Has your idea about Archie changed over the years?

Ellie: Yes, of course. Look where I live.

Walter: Not in Beverly Hills.

Ellie: It's not Beverly Hills. We don't have any big mansions with big walls around the houses. No, of course. This is the reality, this is my reality. Sorry.

Walter: It's our Beverly Hills, right?

Ellie: Yes, this is our Beverly Hills.

Walter: What's up mom? The older I get, the more I realize what it took to raise me. You had to wear so many different hats and sometimes you wore them all at once. You were mom, friend, big sister, mentor, father, and so much more. There wasn't a handbook that we followed and it felt like we were both going up at the same time, learning from our mistakes, and cherishing our small victories. Sometimes, I think back to those Friday nights, the ones we used to stay up late watching The X Files and eating pizza. I really miss them.

I think about the old white Volvo we used to have, the one that was full of my toys. The same one I used to ask you to drop me off two blocks away from school because I was embarrassed of how old our car looked. Mom, I'm really sorry, I was embarrassed. There was nothing to ever be ashamed about. The West Side often felt like a distant world and full of strangers who didn't look like us. I really miss my friends, Alex, Brian, Matthew, and the rest of our family. I've never told you this but sometimes I used to cry at night, wishing we had never left. I felt really alone, but I always had you and we had each other.

At this age, it's even harder to comprehend what having a child in my early 20s would feel like. I don't know how you did it. Some of your classmates went home for the summer or had internships but you had me. I now see what you did and more importantly, your why. I'm so thankful that in this lifetime, we were able to call each other mother and son. I'm really thankful you chose to come here because without LA there is no me. Thank you, Mama. I love you.

Anna: That's Walter Thompson Hernandez and the episode Ellie of his podcast California Love from LAist studios. I talk with Walter about making this after the break.

Anna: This is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC. I'm Anna Sale and this is our audio we love fast. Before the break, we heard an episode of the podcast California Love from LAist studios and I'm here with the host and writer of the series, Walter Thompson Hernandez, who's joining me from Los Angeles. Hi, Walter.

Walter: Hey, thanks for having me.

Anna: Of course, thanks for making this series. I love it. The sense of place that you created across the episodes is just remarkable. I feel very much in LA as I listen.

Walter: Well, thank you. It is about LA, and it is about a certain geography and a certain view of the city that is really intimate to me and personal to me. I think for a lot of us, especially my friends and my family, we've never really had something like this for us and for our version of LA. I think this is really removed from tropes, from stereotypes about the city. We don't talk about palm trees, we don't talk about the beach, we don't talk about the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's more intimate, and it's really personal to me and to people of color in the city and I think it's really special.

Anna: Yes. Have you ever interviewed your mother before or was this the first time?

Walter: I've talked to my mom a lot, but I've never really interviewed her, per se, especially in a official way. It was our first time really talking about a lot of these things. My mom and I have a really open relationship and we talk about a lot of different things, but a lot of this was new information and I was just so happy and so grateful that she opened up to me in the way that she actually did. She's someone who I think over time has become more open to me emotionally and as she has gotten older is more vulnerable physically and also emotionally. I think a lot of what she shared to me was really news, and it was my first time hearing a lot of it.

Anna: The two sentences or maybe it's just one sentence, the sentence where you just say, stories have different versions, but this episode is about my mom. I just thought you just contained so much about family and how you can love people who understand the past differently and you don't have to litigate it every time you talk about it and just to say we're carving out this space to listen to this woman who was my mother. I just thought it was really beautifully and simply stated.

Walter: Yes, now I appreciate that. To be frank and to be really honest, I wrote that because I also to your point, I wanted us to both understand that this was my mom's story, my mom's universe, and my mom's reality. I think in speaking to my father, my father and I just reconnected when I was 24 so maybe 9 or 10 years ago and so our relationship is still forming and I had to fact check a lot of what my mom said with my father, which wasn't easy to do because what I've learned so far in this lifetime is that multiple truths and realities can exist at the same time. My father had like a version of the story that was aligned with what my mom was saying but also had his own version.

For me, it was really important to not put my dad out there like that because him and I are still working through things and we're still developing a relationship and I also wanted to respect him and to also not make this about my dad, but to make this about my mom in a way that just allows all of us to understand that the past is really complicated and I think for a lot of us it's really easy to hold on to not just grudges, but to confusion and how we understand different events and nobody is perfect. I think my mom is a really complicated person, but there's still so much love and respect that I have for her and I wanted the episode and especially that line to reflect that.

Anna: Yes, I loved it. Walter as we are talking to podcast makers and writers and producers this week, one of the things that I'm curious to know about is when you were figuring out what you wanted to make and how you wanted it to sound and what your inspirations were, I want to hear what you look to. Can you tell me a few of the things that you thought of as creative inspirations for this series and maybe this episode in particular?

Walter: Yes, definitely. I'm not really a podcaster per se, I think I was entering this project with a different lens, I'm a storyteller and I tell stories using different mediums and formats, but I think in terms of sound and audio what James Kim did with MOONFACE to me was really special.

Anna: The podcast MOONFACE.

Walter: Yes, it was just such an incredible show. James is also someone who is from South East LA just like I am and just hearing the beauty in that show and how intimate it sounded and how experiential it was and how I think it pushed the limits of sound and fiction and fantasy. I really wanted a California love to follow in that vein, but to make it my own right because that show to me is so beautiful and it's such a perfect show. I wanted to really allow us to think about memory and nostalgia and that was a show that I really was drawn to and really loved and wanted to be inspired by.

Anna: Should we talk about music? What was the music that you thought about when you were thinking about this year?

Walter: Well, the theme song is a song that is inspired by a Tyler, The Creator Song. I'm a West coast guy, I'm definitely from LA so most of my favorite music is like the internet or like Sid or Thundercat, or Kendrick Lamar, it's like jazzy, it's like laid back, it's hip-hop derived, it's also like an alternative. I just wanted to reflect that and I think for someone who grew up in LA in the '90s, there was such a strong hip hop and rock movement and alternative moment. I think our show was really built on there.

Anna: Yes, as you layout in the prologue. As soon as I heard the prologue, I was like, I'm in for this show. This show is just like, I'm here for this.

Walter: I'm here for this!

Anna: It's just so beautiful.

Walter: Thank you.

Anna: Yes, I loved that. Then, is there anything else when you think about not necessarily like listening, but just when you started thinking about how am I going to capture what LA has meant to me and how it's connected to my identity and my family's identity? Was there anywhere you can look to be like, oh, anywhere else that you looked and thought what they did over there in that medium, I want to try to do in this medium.

Walter: Yes, there's a TV show called Atlanta that I really love so much. Atlanta is one of my favorite shows of all time. I think I love it so much because there's no explaining of the culture, there is no real explaining of experiences of advancing, I feel like oftentimes like historically, folks of color have had to really explain things to white people about our culture, and overexplain things. I think for me, there's something really special about creating a show in the vein of Atlanta that just presents people's lives in ways that are organic and natural, and isn't explaining every word or isn't explaining every experience.

It just feels really nice to not be able to do that and ultimately, if people don't know something, people don't know a word or a lingo or a term there's Google. We all have access to Google and so I think for me, I didn't want to own this to be on me or us to explain these experiences in LA or anything else. I think Atlanta for me was a huge model and it's something that was really important to watch before making the show.

Anna: There's something very similar about the way that Atlanta plays with pacing in the way that your show does too. There's a lot happening sometimes and other times it's just you feel like you're hanging out like your slowing down.

Walter: Yes, totally. I think that's such an accurate description. I think our engineers and our producers are so talented and did a great job of structuring pacing or timing of things. I think silence and pauses to me are really important to enunciate points and I create a certain tension or conflict in an episode and I think we wanted it to feel informal. I think we wanted this to feel like a conversation in the audio memoir vein and we wanted it to feel like I was just riding shotgun in someone's car, telling them a story as we drove by a neighborhood.

I think that's what it felt like. I think when people hear me in this show, I don't think they really hear a traditional podcasting voice or an audio sound. I think when, when people hear me, they hear a friend or a cousin or a neighbor, and I think that's the goal.

Anna: Well, thank you, Walter Thompson Hernandez, for California Love and for talking with us, it's been really fun.

Walter: Thanks so much, I really appreciate this.

[music]

Anna: You can find all of the episodes of California Love from LAist studios, wherever you listen to podcasts. Walter Thompson Hernandez wrote this episode of California Love the rest of their team includes Elizabeth Nakano, Tamika Adams, Arwin Knicks, Valentino Rivera, Andrew, Ethan, Megan tan, and Angela Bromstad. Special thanks also to Kristin Hayford at Southern California public radio.

Death, Sex & Money is a Listener-supported Production of WNYC Studios in New York. Annabel Bacon is producing our Audio We Love Festival. The rest of our team includes Katie Bishop, Afi Yellow-Duke, Emily Botein, and Andrew Dunn.

Special thanks to Michelle Shu for her work on this festival. The Reverend John DeLuca and Steve Lewis wrote RP music. I'm on Twitter at Anna Sale. The show is at Death, Sex & Money on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Just text DSM News to 70101. Join us tomorrow Friday, October 16th at 7:00 PM Eastern for the grand finale of our Audio We love Festival. It's a live event with the cohosts of the back issue podcast, Tracy Clayton and Josh Quinn. You might know Tracy from her work on shows like Another Round and Strong Black Legends and her past appearances on our show.

It's going to be a really, really fun live show. Again, that's tomorrow, Friday, October 16th at 7:00 PM Eastern. We are streaming it on our Facebook page and you can get all the details at the greenspace.org, that's green with an E. I'm Anna Sale and this is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC.

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