The Pencil Factory
Snap Judgment
Snap Judgment and PRX
4.7 • 11.5K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
German and his family are stuck behind the walls of a rusty old pencil factory in the jungle. When a Youtuber stumbles onto the scene with a camera, he may be their only hope.
Thank you, to German, Eva, and Sasha. Thanks also to Julia Neusner.
You can see more of Caya’s documentaries about tech and society on his Youtube channel “Slide Bean.”
Check out this story featured on Today Explained!
The Banished By Bargain project is a great resource to learn more about the Trump administration’s third-country deportations.
Produced by John Fecile and Caya, edited by Nancy Lopez, original music by Renzo Gorrio.
Season 16 - Episode 59
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We are so grateful to you for your support over the years. |
| 0:10.5 | We get to make stories year after year because of you. |
| 0:14.4 | But we really love to know more about you, what makes you love to snap. |
| 0:19.9 | And if you're willing to tell us a little about yourself |
| 0:22.1 | and your relationship with the show, |
| 0:24.1 | I would really appreciate it. |
| 0:26.4 | We'd love your honest feedback. |
| 0:28.8 | The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. |
| 0:31.8 | Our first few questions will ask a little bit about you |
| 0:34.6 | so we can make sure we're talking to people |
| 0:36.3 | from a wide range of backgrounds. |
| 0:38.9 | KQED.org slash snap survey. |
| 0:43.2 | That's KQED.org slash snap survey and thank you so much for taking this survey and listening. |
| 0:49.2 | It means a lot. |
| 0:51.8 | KQED.org slash snap survey. |
| 0:55.1 | Thank you. |
| 0:58.2 | On February 25th, 2025, under the cover of darkness, the plane took off from |
| 1:05.1 | human Arizona. |
| 1:06.8 | And according to the humanitarian group Human Rights Watch, this plane was full of men, women, and children that were all flown to Costa Rica, a place where none of them was from, a place that some of them had never even heard of. |
| 1:22.7 | I'm Muslim Washington. |
| 1:24.3 | Listening to Snap Judgment, a special episode, recalling the the pencil factory for reasons that will soon become clear. |
| 1:32.3 | Snap Judgment. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Snap Judgment and PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Snap Judgment and PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.
