About Us

YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali is weekly antidote to the doom and gloom of mainstream news, lifting up solutions that bring us closer to economic, racial, gender, and environmental justice. The radio program airs on Pacifica stations KPFK, KPFA and dozens of Pacifica affiliate stations, available via Audioport. The television show airs on Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) every Thursday at 3 pm PST/6 pm EST (pushed back to 3:30 pm PST/6:30 pm EST during pledge drives).

This program is brought to you by YES! Media. Find out more at www.YESMagazine.org/RisingUp.

Our theme music is an original composition by Grammy award winning band, Quetzal.

Sonali Kolhatkar, Founder, Host and Executive Producer of Rising Up with Sonali

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and creator of YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali, a program built on the foundation of her earlier show, Rising Up With Sonali, and Uprising, which became the longest running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman.

Sonali has won numerous awards for her journalism including Best TV Anchor from the LA Press Club in 2015, and was also nominated for Best Radio Anchor 4 years in a row. She won First Place at the Los Angeles Press Club Annual Awards for Best National Commentary Political Online (2022) and Best Election Commentary (2016).

She is the author of the new book, Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (Citylights, 2023) and is the Racial Justice editor at Yes! Magazine. She is also a Writing Fellow and the Senior Correspondent for the Independent Media Institute's Economy for All project. Previously Sonali was a weekly columnist for Truthdig.com.

Her earlier book was Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, co-authored with Jim Ingalls. She is also co-Director of the non-profit group, Afghan Women's Mission. She has a Masters in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Watch her 2014 Tedx talk, My journey from astrophysicist to radio host.

Originally from India and born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, she is also an artist, musician, baker and cook and lives with her husband and two children in Pasadena, California. Visit her personal website, www.sonalikolhatkar.com.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to our technical support lead James Ingalls for website support.

We are grateful to Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzalez of the Grammy-award winning band Quetzal for composing and creating our unique theme song.

And a huge thank you to our loyal viewers and listeners from all over the country who encouraged us to not let external obstacles stand in the way of creating and disseminating good journalism!