Jenn Chávez
Jenn Chávez is a podcast host and producer with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Jenn has been making audio in Portland for over a decade, as both a community media and public media journalist. For six years, she was regular voice on OPB's radio airwaves as a host, announcer and newscaster. Her reporting work for OPB has included stories about health, homelessness, immigrant communities, art, activism, Mexican culture in the Pacific Northwest, libraries and more. Prior to joining OPB in 2017, she hosted and produced the local news radio show "The Five Quadrants of Portland" on XRAY-FM, reporting on marginalized communities and the local news and issues that affect their lives.
Jenn has a BA in literature and writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before journalism, she worked as a film-nerdy video store clerk, and remains a source of unsolicited movie recommendations.
Latest Stories
‘The Evergreen’: The Mexican braceros who saved Northwest agriculture during World War II
Facing a dire agricultural labor shortage during World War II, the United States made an agreement with Mexico: a government-sponsored program to bring Mexican workers to the U.S. on temporary labor contracts to help farms, as well as railroad companies, across the country. Over 15,000 of these workers came to Oregon, under what became known as the Bracero Program.
‘The Evergreen’: A year after undamming the Klamath, two dams still remain
Today, we’re bringing you up to date on the Klamath River. What’s on folks’ minds now that all the dams are out a year later — and what still needs to be done to piece this basin together again?
‘The Evergreen’: In Oregon’s Hood River Valley, this Japanese American family has grown apples for more than a century
The Kiyokawa Family Orchards - once called the best apple orchard in America - has history dating back generations. The Kiyokawas have been growing fruit in the Hood River Valley since 1911, and were one of the few Japanese American families from the area to return and work the land after forced relocation and incarceration during World War II.
‘The Evergreen’: Oregon ice sculpting champs build multiton masterpieces with chainsaws and cranes
Every winter, master ice sculptors from across the globe converge in Fairbanks, Alaska, to compete in the World Ice Art Championships. We follow a team of champion ice carvers from Oregon as they build towering sculptures in the snowy Alaska forest in a quest for icy glory.
‘The Evergreen’: How Mexican Americans in Oregon created the first Chicano college
This is the story of Colegio César Chávez – the first accredited, independent Chicano university in U.S. history, and how it continues to inspire as the Latino community in Oregon fights against its erasure.
‘The Evergreen’: Como los México Americanos de Oregon llegaron a fundar el primer colegio Chicano
Esta es la história del Colegio Cesar Chavez – la primera universidad Chicana acreditada e independiente de los Estados Unidos. Y como hasta el día de hoy continúa inspirando a la comunidad Latina en Oregon en su lucha contra la posibilidad de ser borrados.
‘The Evergreen’: At Work With a haunted house actor, a Zamboni driver and a housing outreach worker
In our "At Work With" series, we talk to Pacific Northwesterners from different professions and ask them your questions about what it’s like to do what they do.
‘At Work With’: Helping Portland-area families experiencing homelessness get into housing
It's Yovana Benancio's job to to connect with families and help them access the resources they need to get into stable housing.
‘The Evergreen’: The case of the zombie newspaper in Southern Oregon
The Ashland Daily Tidings, a newspaper in Southern Oregon, shut down in 2023 after nearly 150 years in business. So…why are new articles being posted on its former website nearly every day? Who’s putting them there? And how does artificial intelligence fit in?
‘The Evergreen’: The Pacific Northwest's most active volcano is underwater
Scientists have been studying the Axial Seamount for decades. They predict it’ll erupt again in 2025.