For over a decade Re:Work, the UCLA Labor Center podcast, has elevated stories of work and activism to humanize and break down economic and racial justice issues, and challenge problematic dominant narratives.
Each episode centers the life story of a worker or activist — with a focus on people of the global majority — through curated interviews punctuated with host reflections, music, and archival tape that draw listeners to a particular time, place, and feeling. It is produced by Veena Hampapur and Saba Waheed.
Re:Work also trains community producers and students in multimedia story production and includes curriculum and educational tools.
LET’S RETHINK WORK!
UCLA Labor Center
The UCLA Labor Center believes that a public university belongs to the people and should advance quality education and employment for all. Every day we bring together workers, students, faculty, and policymakers to address the most critical issues facing working people today. Our research, education, and policy work lifts industry standards, creates jobs that are good for communities, and strengthens immigrant rights, especially for students and youth. The UCLA Labor Center is housed in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to the study, teaching, and discussion of labor and employment issues at UCLA.
Celebrating 60 Years
It’s the 60th anniversary of the UCLA Labor Center, and we’ve made a mixtape for you — our friends, partners, and supporters! Join the celebration by putting on your earbuds and doing some deep listening with us!
To learn about the mixtape’s curatorial process and Re:Work’s narrative change mission, check out this interview with Re:Work co-producer Veena Hampapur.
Indebted
Education, Housing
Who was your favorite teacher in high school? We all have that unforgettable teacher that sets us on our life’s trajectory. But most of the …
Baby’s Bodyguard
Women
All of us are on this planet because we were born. Still, for most of us, giving birth is so mysterious. Many people don’t really …
Coming Home
Immigrants, Young Workers
A group of undocumented youth cross the border from the US into Mexico to cross back and turn themselves into border patrol. Why would you …
A Hand Up
Housing
Everyday we pass by someone who’s homeless. We may be so used to seeing homelessness that it just becomes part of the normal city landscape. …
Human v. Walmart
Low Wage Work
Sometimes work can take a toll on your creativity, your individuality, and what makes you human. So what is the cost of being efficient at …
Raw Deal
Low Wage Work
For those of sitting in a restaurant eating, we may not be aware of what it takes to make our meal possible. What’s it really …
Dream On
Black Workers, Immigrants, Women, Young Workers
What is the future of this country’s dream for black and brown communities? This week’s episode, Dream On, is a fascinating conversation between two fierce …
Get Up Stand Up
Immigrants, Low Wage Work
When you get into a taxi, you usually know where you are coming from, where you are going. But what about your taxi driver? This …
Newcomers
Immigrants
Immigration visas dictate where someone can work, how they can work, how long they can work. But what happens when you throw friendship into the …
Breaking Out of Roles
Historical, Low Wage Work
Sometimes you have to become someone different to fit into a new job. Or, sometimes the job is exactly the right fit– but your being …
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Veena Hampapur
Host & Editor
Veena is our New Media Narrative Strategist and leads Re:Work. Previously, she was Director of Communications at the UCLA Labor Center. Dedicated to storytelling for social change, she discovered her passion for narrative change and public education while working at various nonprofits including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in California and Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) in New York, where she focused on issues related to homelessness, immigration, policing, and youth.
Veena is a filmmaker and 2012 Visual Communications Armed with a Camera Fellow; her films include advocacy and education films for community organizations as well as documentaries that have been showcased in film festivals, classrooms, and by the Smithsonian. Veena also created Memos from Motherhood, a podcast that unpacks the personal and political nuances of stepping into parenthood during a global pandemic through an anthropological lens. She was an AIR New Voices Fellow in 2022.
Veena earned her PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from UCLA. Her research focused on working class South Asian immigrants and their children, and examined how race, immigration, education, and surveillance shape one another in post-9/11 America.
Saba Waheed
Co-Founder & Host
Saba Waheed is the Director of the UCLA Labor Center and former Research Director. She has nearly twenty years of research experience developing projects with strong community participation. With her team at the UCLA Labor Center, she coordinated the first-ever study of domestic work employers, launched a multi-year study of workers and learners, and conducted research on the impact of the pandemic on nail salon workers and owners. She has also conducted research related to gig workers, young workers, Black workers, LGBTQ+ grocery workers and retail workers. Saba teaches the Labor Summer Research Program, guiding students through an applied research project.
Previously she worked as the Research Director at DataCenter where she co-developed the framework of “research justice,” which aims to address the structural inequities in research. In addition to her research work, Saba is an award-winning radio producer and writer, and strongly believes that research and media are powerful tools for community storytelling. She received an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University and a BA in English and Religious Studies from UC Berkeley.
Stefanie Ritoper
Co-Founder
Stefanie Ritoper was Re:Work’s co-founder, co-host, and editor. She has spent over 10 years supporting civic engagement through media in mission-driven organizations, including the UCLA Labor Center and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Though she no longer works on Re:Work, she still actively produces audio stories as a freelancer.
Get Involved
Hidden Closed
Pitch Your Story
To pitch, follow this advice from the show This American Life:
“If you’re pitching a story you’re hoping to tell on the air yourself, let us know in a few paragraphs what happened. You don’t need to be formal about it, just tell the story the way you’d tell it to someone over drinks or coffee. If you have favorite moments in the story, let us know those. Tell us anything you think will help us understand what a great story it is. If the story happened to you and showed you something about the world you hadn’t realized before, or changed you (or the other people in the story) in some way, let us know that too.”
What is a story?
For this show, we are looking for stories that have the following ingredients:
– It is about work! Or we can connect it to work in some way.
– It is something that happens to a person (not a group of people), with audio from that person
– It is a series of events, with a beginning, middle, and and end.
– It has a “moment of truth”- a point of the story where the main character realizes something, has a reflection, or comes to a conclusion. This could also be called the “moral” of the story.
– There is something unexpected about the story. You should be able to fill in the blanks of this sentence: My story is about ____, but what is interesting about it is ____. The second blank should be surprising, out of the ordinary.
– It is accessible – this means no jargon!
Does my project/organization project have a story?
Yes! Just take a moment to ask:
– Who is the person we want to highlight? Is that person charismatic, funny, and/or reflective?
– Is there one specific moment/series of events that highlights what they are experiencing, or a moment where they we surprised?
Make Radio With Us
Contact us if you would like to apply to become a community producer or get involved with the Re:Work team.
Make Your Own Brand
Radio Rookies is a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world. Check out this DIY Toolkit: How to Report Your Own Story.
Transom.org allows you to find essays by the most experienced people doing radio documentaries. Transom also has a Tools section that has reviews of cheap, good equipment you can use to make radio and guides on digital editing and mixing.
Our friend Will Coley of Aquifier Media also created a great intro training to radio Listen Up: Audio’s Role in Digital Storytelling.
And there are a ton of great resources to produce radio on This American Life’s Make Radio page.