KalaLea is an audio journalist who has produced stories for NPR’s Latino USA, Slate Studios, NPR’s Interfaith Voices, The New Yorker podcasts and KCRW.
She received her Master’s degree from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism with a specialization in multimedia storytelling. In 2017, KalaLea was a recipient of the Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism fellowship.
Before working in audio, KalaLea worked as a digital producer for advertising and publishing companies. And before that, she was the owner of a little cafe in Brooklyn.
KalaLea appears in the following:
Isabel Wilkerson on America’s Caste System
Friday, August 07, 2020
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian’s new book, she asserts that racism in the United States is best understood as a caste system, not unlike the one that dominated in India.
The Rikers Debate Project
Friday, August 07, 2020
Inmates and former felons debate the critical issues of our time, parliamentary style.
A New Documentary Explores How to Make Art While Blind
Friday, July 17, 2020
“Vision Portraits,” which has been streaming on PBS, examines the work of a writer, a dancer, and a photographer who are—like the filmmaker—visually impaired.
A Former D.O.J. Official on How to Fix Policing
Friday, June 05, 2020
Ron Davis was a cop for nearly thirty years before working at the Department of Justice. He knows how hard it is to reform an institution with a history of racial repression.
What Does It Mean to Defund the Police?
Friday, June 05, 2020
A Minneapolis activist group says that the police department, whose history is rooted in racial repression, cannot simply be reformed; it has to be defunded.
When Is a Killing Not a Crime?
Friday, May 22, 2020
In the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a legal scholar sees a fatal confusion of citizen’s arrest, stand-your-ground law, and racial profiling.
To Test a Vaccine for COVID-19, Should Volunteers Risk their Lives?
Friday, May 22, 2020
Larissa MacFarquhar talks with a would-be participant in a human-challenge trial, in which trial subjects are–hypothetically—infected with SARS-CoV2 to test a potential vaccine.
The Pandemic and Little Haiti
Friday, May 08, 2020
The novelist Edwidge Danticat says COVID-19 is changing the lives of Haitians, both on the island and in the U.S.
The Pandemic Is Wreaking Havoc in America’s Prisons and Jails
Friday, May 01, 2020
With the pandemic putting inmates—who cannot maintain social distance—as well as corrections workers in danger, the movement for decarceration suddenly seems politically possible.
Inside DJ D-Nice’s Club Quarantine
Friday, April 03, 2020
The story of an Instagram Live party that attracted hundreds of thousands of people—including Rihanna, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Drake.
Exploitation in the Amazon
Friday, April 03, 2020
Jon Lee Anderson reports on Jair Bolsonaro’s push to allow commercial mining on protected lands, and the harm it will do to Brazil’s indigenous groups.
A Visit with Thundercat
Friday, March 06, 2020
Briana Younger talks with the bassist and producer who helped make the Kendrick Lamar album “To Pimp a Butterfly.”
Pam Grier, from Blaxploitation to Black Excellence
Friday, February 21, 2020
Outrageous, raunchy, and empowered, the star of “Foxy Brown” helped change the way black lives were presented onscreen.
Tyler Foggatt Picks Three
Friday, February 07, 2020
A New Yorker staffer picks three things she can’t stop thinking about.
What Would a World Without Prisons Be Like?
Friday, January 24, 2020
Kai Wright sits down with two advocates of prison abolition to discuss the why and the how of ‘decarceration.’
Life After Prison
Friday, January 17, 2020
A few months ago, Jonathan was released from prison. Our producer shadowed him to learn what emancipation feels like after two decades of being locked up.
Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow”
Friday, January 17, 2020
In 2010, Michelle Alexander’s best-selling book spelled out how mass incarceration harms communities of color. Assessing its impact, she looks back, and forward, with David Remnick.
Peter Dinklage on Cyrano, and Life After “Thrones”
Friday, December 20, 2019
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” made him a superstar; now Dinklage can return to the stage.
The Chef Niki Nakayama Does It Her Way
Friday, December 06, 2019
The chef at one of Los Angeles’s best restaurants on how to build a woman-friendly kitchen.
Lena Waithe on Police Violence and “Queen & Slim”
Friday, November 15, 2019
The screenwriter’s new film is about a first date that goes terribly wrong when a police officer is accidentally shot. “We create the heroes we need,” Waithe tells Jelani Cobb.
