Episode 11: Jaime Lowe

Jaime Lowe is the author of Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California's Wildfires and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.

For a long time, a stereotypical idea of what California might be would have this Hollywood glamor. Now it’s this Silicon Valley glamor, and it’s this sheen of wealth and success and privilege and manifest destiny and gold. And I think that we need to acknowledge that that is actually absolute destruction. For the majority of people, that is a detrimental vision and not even something that really exists. [...] I think finding the people who are actually making the state work is much more useful in terms of finding ideals.

Notes and references from this episode:

@kicklikeagirl1, Jaime Lowe on Twitter

Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California's Wildfires, by Jaime Lowe  

“Ten Sessions,” by Jaime Lowe, This American Life

“The Incarcerated Women Who Fight California’s Wildfires,” by Jaime Lowe, NY Times Magazine

“Essential California newsletter - Nov. 17, 2021,” by Justin Ray, LA Times

“The Super Bowl of Beekeeping,” by Jaime Lowe, NY Times Magazine

City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965, by Kelly Lytle Hernández

“Los Angeles Goes to War With Itself Over Homelessness,” by Jaime Lowe, NY Times Magazine 

Mental: Lithium, Love, and Losing my Mind, by Jaime Lowe

“Deputy cliques in L.A. County Sheriff’s Department likely growing, study finds,” by Alene Tchekmedyian, LA Times

“‘Our Origin Story’: Queen Calafia Returns to California in New Theatre Production,” by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, KQED

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