Alcatraz

  On this edition of Your Call, Kent Blansett discusses his new book, A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement.

Fifty years ago today, indigenous people began a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island to protest broken treaties and reclaim Native American heritage. Last month, Native American tribes celebrated the anniversary early with a canoe trip to the island. They gathered to honor both the history of the earth, and elders who fought to defend their place in it.

From the series Uncuffed:

When Mart Meiel was a kid, he heard his grandmother’s voice saying he would go to Alcatraz for twice as long as Al Capone. For years, he dismissed the idea. Alcatraz closed down. Then one day, Mart got a clue from an unlikely place.

Uncuffed is produced by men at Solano State Prison. Learn more about them here.

Shortly after Alcatraz prison shut down in 1963, the people who lived and worked on the island began hosting annual get-togethers. When the National Park Service invited the “alumni” to host the reunions on the island, convicts were invited, too. This year, as surviving alumni dwindle, the tradition is coming to an end.

The 1969 reclamation of Alcatraz Island sparked a national Red Power movement as Native Americans united to fight for land reclamation, environmental protection, human rights, cultural preservation, and sovereignty.

Here's the sound we played as a clue. We asked you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it. 

When someone is imprisoned, it doesn’t just affect the incarcerated. It affects the people left behind. Young people. Nearly three million children in the united states have parents in the criminal justice system – it’s almost 1 in 10 kids in California alone. It can be costly and difficult to visit or call a parent behind bars. And losing a relationship can be traumatic... with lasting consequences. A new art exhibit on Alcatraz Islan, called The Sentence Unseen, examines this reality. KALW’s Catherine Girardeau has the story.

The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has become something of a superstar in America. He is known for his provocative artwork, his outspoken critique of Chinese policy, and for his imprisonment by the Chinese government.

Ai has been under house arrest in Beijing since 2011, but that has not stopped him from making work internationally. He just opened a massive and unprecedented installation, @Large, on the former prison island of Alcatraz.

The sun is just beginning to rise over the glassy water at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park. Karen Wapato is beaming as she emerges from the Bay and peels off her goggles.

“It was better than yesterday,” she says. “I keep on just telling myself, stay calm don’t panic, keep breathing, try to keep my stroke real smooth, as smooth as I can,” she says as she catches her breath.

Wapato has never swum in the ocean before, and it’s her second day swimming in the San Francisco Bay. 

“I can’t believe I am doing it! I can’t believe I am one of these people that swim in the Bay, I’ve joined this elite group.”

For a lot of people trying to go to Alcatraz today, the cancelations were just an inconvenience. Sure, they’d come from far away or were leaving town soon, but it was a beautiful day and they said they’d find something else to do. But this isn’t true for Linda Plourde.

All week long we've been playing this sound, and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

Alcatraz Island is famous mainly for one thing: its prison. But it’s also a good place to lay eggs.