Over the years Off-Ramp was on the air, LA City Archivist Michael Holland researched, wrote, and narrated many pieces for the show that used the city archive to illuminate aspects of the city's history most people have forgotten or don't know in the first place ... like Mayor Fletcher Bowron's active campaign against Japanese-Americans during World War Two. Bowron, who lived from 1887-1968 and was mayor from 1938-1953, used radio to drive his point home, and the transcripts of his speeches aren't pretty.

This time, we'll hear Holland's piece from 2017, and from the same year, George Takei telling us what happened to his family when FDR signed his infamous Executive Order 9066.

Note: "Internment" was, of course, a euphemism, so politicians and others didn't have to say they were putting innocent people in prison. Our policy at KPCC is to call it "incarceration." 

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

(Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.)

(This is the second part of a two-part episode.)

This time, we mark the 30th anniversary of one of the darkest days in LA history: Friday, April 29, 1992, when the all-white Simi Valley jury found 4 LAPD officers not guilty in the beating of Rodney King. Rage, protests, and violence, broke out across the city and lasted for days.

Five years ago on Off-Ramp, we marked the 25th anniversary with a full hour of interviews, archival footage, and an unflinching reckoning of the LAPD and its legacy of violence. We wound up with an interview with the late Rodney King.

That's what we're going to listen back to on this episode, but please remember that a lot has changed in five years, and one of them is that as a newsroom - like a lot of other newsrooms around the country - we at KPCC and LAist no longer use the phrase LA Riots.

While riotis used historically, we cannot ignore the media's role in popularizing a term that is now often used as a dog whistle for race. Words like response, unrest, or uprising encourage our audiences to think deeper about its origins.

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

(Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.)

The Ashes of Oakridge - One Year Later ... Arthur Dong's "Hollywood Chinese" documentary becomes an exhibit ... Eli Broad and Sam Hall Kaplan help Off-Ramp mark MOCA's 30th ... Lisa Ling and KCET on middle-class homelessness.

Mayor Picks Beck to Lead LAPD ... Melrose Larry Green Weighs In ... Dracula author pays tribute to his late, great brother ... Jackson Musker has Encounter at LAX ... CyberFrequencies on Life on the Web.

A Halloween Special ... Chris Ames and the Dog in the Nighttime ... RH Greene's News Take on Dracula ... Lugosi, Jr. on Life with Father ... Bats: Behind the Myths ... Creepiest Moment from Richard the Third.

We're for Contradancing ... It's Mourning at Heritage Square ... New Dracula Memoir Preview ... Rabe's Family History ... WEB EXCLUSIVE: Comics Icon Marv Wolfman ... Selling Medical Marijuana.

Randolph Mantooth of "Emergency!" and "Scream of the Bikini" ... John and Queena pitch good journalism and public radio ... Ed Asner on "Up!" ... Carl Orff teaches kids music ...

Richard III - done straight for once ... Dinner Party Download makes you smarter ... Asner's radio work ... Spiders creep into the Natural History Museum ... Meet the Raincoats

Orff-Ramp Music for Kids ... the late Henry Hopkins on Race in Art ... the Eagle Rock music festival ... Jackson Musker has the poop on zoo poop ... CyberFrequencies on stars who explode online ...

Music Savant Brian Eno's art installation comes to Long Beach... John Rabe plays Mo Roca at the Aquarium, sustainably ... Will Riverside's Chris Arreola become the new World Heavyweight Champ?