Jonaki Mehta

  • Harry Gibbons / NPR

Jonaki Mehta is a producer for All Things Considered. Before ATC, she worked at Neon Hum Media where she produced a documentary series and talk show. Prior to that, Mehta was a producer at Member station KPCC and director/associate producer at Marketplace Morning Report, where she helped shape the morning's business news.

Mehta's first job in radio was at NPR West as a National Desk intern. Her career really began when she was nine years old and insisted that the local county paper give Mehta her very own column. (She didn't get the job, but her very patient mother did somehow get her a meeting with the editor-in-chief.) Outside of work, she loves making recipes with harvests from her vegetable garden and riding her motorcycle around L.A.

Black Americans And The Racist Architecture Of Homeownership

By , & • May 8, 2021

This story is part of an NPR series, We Hold These Truths, on American democracy.

Last summer, DonnaLee Norrington had a dream about owning a home. Not the figurative kind, but a literal dream, as she slept in the rental studio apartment in South Los Angeles that she was sharing with a friend.

At around 2 a.m., Norrington remembers, "God said to me, 'Why don't you get a mortgage that doesn't move?' And in my head I knew that meant a fixed mortgage."

As Statues Of America's Racist Past Were Removed This Year, So Were Tattoos

By • Dec 30, 2020

The year of large racial justice protests led to an unprecedented number of Confederate symbols being removed around the country.

More than 100 Confederate symbols have been removed from public spaces or renamed since George Floyd was killed, according to a count by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Why U.S. Schools Are Still Segregated — And One Idea To Help Change That

By & • Jul 7, 2020

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The decision is often framed as a landmark decision that transformed education for Black students, allowing them equal access to integrated classrooms.

'Barely Holding It Together': Stresses Of An Early Child Care Center That Stayed Open

By • Jun 2, 2020

When Luc Jasmin III took over Parkview Early Learning Center six years ago, he wanted to create a safe space where young children could not only be cared for but also get an educational foundation to prepare them for a lifetime of learning.

During normal times, the center in Spokane, Wash., serves about 100 children who range in age from 4 weeks old to 13 years. The center didn't close down during the coronavirus pandemic, except for a couple of days to retrain staff on social distancing and cleaning guidelines.

An 11-Year-Old Girl Writes To Thank Her Mailman. Postal Workers Write Back

By & • May 6, 2020

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night — nor coronavirus — stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

The mail is still coming. And one 11-year-old girl in Sioux Falls, S.D., wanted to show her appreciation.

How else, but by writing a letter.