The outreach and challenges with mobilizing first-time and younger voters. The ongoing efforts to preserve indigenous languages in California. A Dixon-based author discusses new book “Awaiting the Sun: WWII Veterans Remember the Aleutians.”

Voter outreach

It’s “Election Eve.” According to “Political Data Inc,” which tracks mail-in ballots, roughly a fifth of ballots have been turned in. About 20%, which makes up more than four million returned ballots. The largest voting block showing up so far are those 65 and older making up 41% of ballot returns – as of midnight. The age group at the bottom, those 18 to 34 just 7% of the electoral pie slice. Despite the single-digit percentile a day before the Midterm, there has been a push to fire up enthusiasm for the youngest generation of voters. CapRadio’s Srishti Prabha discusses the outreach and challenges of mobilizing first-time and younger voters leading up to the Nov.8 Midterm.  

Preserving indigenous language

November is “Native American Heritage Month,” first enacted in 1990 to pay tribute to the ancestry and culture of this nation’s indigenous people. One of the essential pillars of Native American culture is under threat of fading from existence: Their languages. According to Ethnologue, a resource on world languages, 98% of indigenous languages in the US are considered endangered. And a United Nations report suggests that California could lose all of its American Indian languages if serious efforts aren’t taken to preserve them. One of the groups behind that effort is the “Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival.” An organization striving to restore and revive these languages so they may survive as an everlasting piece of indigenous culture in the state. Joining us is Carly Tex, the advocacy group’s executive director

Awaiting the Sun: WWII Veterans Remember the Aleutians

When thinking of WWII, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the theaters in Europe and the South Pacific may come to the top of mind. But an author based in Dixon devoted to research to telling a neglected story of WWII. Aleutian veterans deployed to the islands off the Alaskan mainland that were the only North American territory invaded and occupied during the war; many soldiers never returned home. Bill Paul is that author and a veteran himself. He joins us to discuss his new book “Awaiting the Sun: WWII Veterans Remember the Aleutians.”