Global Nation Archives - The World from PRX
153 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 3 years ago - ★★★★ - 4 ratingsA daily public radio broadcast program and podcast from PRX and WGBH, hosted by Marco Werman
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‘I want to send more money home’: Remittances are a sign of sacrifice, resilience in immigrant communities during pandemic
June 17, 2021 14:18In all, people worldwide sent a total of $540 billion home last year, only dropping by 1.6% from 2019 — a smaller drop than during the 2009 global financial crash. The post ‘I want to send more money home’: Remittances are a sign of sacrifice, resilience in immigrant communities during pandemic appeared first on The World from PRX.
'I want to send more money home’: Remittances are a sign of sacrifice, resilience in immigrant communities during pandemic
June 17, 2021 14:18 - 5.01 MBThis story was reported in collaboration with El Tímpano, a news outlet designed for and with Oakland's Latino and Mayan immigrants. Every Tuesday since the stay-at-home orders took hold last year, Dinora Hernandez heads to the food bank near her home in Oakland, California, to get milk, coffee, rice, canned fruit and oatmeal. She says that the assistance has been a lifeline for her, her three young kids and her mom in El Salvador. Related: Addressing migration requires long-term commitme...
ICE contracts at local, regional level spark contentious debate
May 21, 2021 20:10Without a federal mandate to end immigration detention in county jails and private detention centers, advocates continue turn to local and state lawmakers to act. The post ICE contracts at local, regional level spark contentious debate appeared first on The World from PRX.
Inside a migrant shelter for men: Untold stories of trauma, challenges
April 27, 2021 16:27Single adults make up about 80% of border apprehensions — and men are in the majority — when trying to cross into the United States. The post Inside a migrant shelter for men: Untold stories of trauma, challenges appeared first on The World from PRX.
Cuban Americans make plea to Biden administration for help on immigration limbo
April 16, 2021 17:48A popular program for reuniting Cuban families in the US has been on pause since 2017. Now, many families are asking the Biden administration to restart it. The post Cuban Americans make plea to Biden administration for help on immigration limbo appeared first on The World from PRX.
Refugees stuck in limbo over Biden's inaction to restore admissions program
April 13, 2021 20:30 - 7.33 MBThere's been a steady focus on migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border. But refugees — less in the spotlight — have seen their chances of entry to the US grind to a halt, leaving them in unexpected limbo. Many refugees have already been vetted and approved for entry through official US and United Nations agencies, but President Joe Biden has yet to make an official commitment to rebuilding the US refugee program. Related: Plans for a refugee camp on Lesbos is too isolating, critics say ...
Refugees stuck in limbo over Biden’s inaction to restore admissions program
April 13, 2021 20:30Many refugees have already been vetted and approved for entry, but President Joe Biden has yet to make an official commitment to rebuilding the US refugee program. The post Refugees stuck in limbo over Biden’s inaction to restore admissions program appeared first on The World from PRX.
Seasonal workers have long faced gender and pay discrimination. Now there’s a way to file direct complaints.
April 08, 2021 20:53The new US-Mexico-Canada agreement paves a clear pathway for some workers in Mexico to unionize and also file labor complaints directly with governments. In March, two women petitioned Mexico and the US on gender and pay discrimination allegations. The post Seasonal workers have long faced gender and pay discrimination. Now there’s a way to file direct complaints. appeared first on The World from PRX.
After Texas freeze, immigrants play critical role in repairing tens of thousands of homes
March 12, 2021 18:57Three weeks after the devastating winter freeze, Texans are facing major home repairs, and many still don’t have running water. Immigrants will play an outsized role in helping families get their housing back in order, while also dealing with destruction in their own communities. The post After Texas freeze, immigrants play critical role in repairing tens of thousands of homes appeared first on The World from PRX.
Immigrants, rights activists call on Biden to end private detention
February 10, 2021 22:34Advocates say that ending the migrant detention system is one more piece of the puzzle in achieving racial justice and ending migrant abuse. The post Immigrants, rights activists call on Biden to end private detention appeared first on The World from PRX.
This Latina landed a seat on the powerful San Diego County Board of Supervisors — a first for her community
February 05, 2021 21:58Latinos haven’t historically had representation on the board. The post This Latina landed a seat on the powerful San Diego County Board of Supervisors — a first for her community appeared first on The World from PRX.
A therapists' network supports immigrants, advocates during pandemic
December 22, 2020 18:51 - 8.31 MBEditor's note: This article was produced as a project for the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship. Like many therapists, Lu Rocha uses breathing techniques, meditation and yoga in her practice, but she also asks clients about their personal beliefs: “What stories have you heard about in your own family, your own community, what did they do for healing?” Some tell her that they pray with a rosary....
A therapists’ network supports immigrants, advocates during pandemic
December 22, 2020 18:51The Latinx Therapists Action Network, with a presence in 20 US states, works with therapists committed to supporting immigrant communities and the movements allied with them. The post A therapists’ network supports immigrants, advocates during pandemic appeared first on The World from PRX.
BLM is increasingly a voter issue for Latinos in Georgia
September 30, 2020 16:56 - 2.03 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Growing numbers of Latinos in Georgia have come out to support the Black Lives Matter movement over the past few months — and increasingly, it’s shaping how they could vote in the upcoming US general election. Jerry Gonzalez, the executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, recent...
For Latinos ineligible to vote, US census offers a path to political power
September 03, 2020 02:07 - 2.39 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. By her first day of college last week, Marlene Herrera had moved several times since the coronavirus pandemic hit. First, her mother, three aunts and cousins all moved into one house to save money. Now, Herrera, who is 18, splits her time between that house, her father’s house and another house with an aunt. S...
This Afro Latina says identity will always be important when she votes
August 25, 2020 17:03 - 2.81 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. It’s March 31, 1992. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and California Gov. Jerry Brown Jr. are both at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, debating about education in urban America and sparring over tuition affordability — and gun control — just before the Democratic Party's presidential primaries. Related: This y...
The DNC touted a diverse lineup. But some Latino leaders feel left out.
August 18, 2020 21:38 - 2.64 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. With a record 32 million Latinos eligible to vote this year, many political observers expected to see lots of Latino politicians and representatives at the virtual Democratic National Convention this year. The convention aims to attract a diverse group of voters, with a speaker lineup that includes former First...
As Election Day nears, it's not just about winning the 'Latino vote.' It's about making a real connection.
August 11, 2020 20:33 - 2.48 MBTo be Latino during an election season can feel like landing on a movie set of a suspenseful, high-stakes drama. It’s a story of contradictions. You are a star of the show — Latinos are projected to become the largest, nonwhite racial or ethnic electorate in 2020 — but it is usually set to a predictable, one-note soundtrack: “immigration, immigration, immigration.” An audience of pundits dissects the “Latino vote,” while advocates recite well-rehearsed lines: “Latinos are not a monolith. Ign...
Farmworkers are getting coronavirus. They face retaliation for demanding safe conditions.
July 29, 2020 21:13 - 2.63 MBErnestina Mejía knew people were getting sick all around her this spring. She heard co-workers coughing in the bathroom at work. Others whispered about colleagues looking feverish. Mejía wasn’t surprised. She works at Primex Farms, a dried fruit and nut producer based in Wasco, California, about 130 miles north of Los Angeles. Mejía, who moved to the US from Mexico a decade ago, sorted pistachios indoors on an assembly line, working in close proximity to others. Primex offered them no masks...
Canada judge rules sending asylum-seekers back to the US violates their rights
July 27, 2020 20:59 - 2.12 MBJonathan, an asylum-seeker from Haiti, has a collection of bus tickets from his trip last fall from Florida to the US-Canada border. The last bus dropped him off in Plattsburgh, New York, a little over 20 miles from Canada. Then, he took a taxi to the border. But he didn’t go to an official border crossing. Instead, he followed instructions from other asylum-seekers. “My friend sent me every [piece of] information,” said Jonathan, who asked to use only his first name because his asylum c...
The pandemic upended this Latino teen's senior year. Now it's upended his politics.
July 21, 2020 21:02 - 2.22 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. The coronavirus pandemic turned Jacob Cuenca’s life upside down just before he graduated high school. “Literally everything was fine, you know, I was going to school, worrying about my math test, and all of a sudden there's no school for, like, three months,” he said. “We had no prom night, no senior brunches.”...
Trump, Biden boost efforts to reach Texas Latino voters
July 15, 2020 21:24 - 2.5 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. With four months left until Election Day in November, US presidential candidates are ramping up their campaigns — and their efforts to court Latino voters. In Texas, a key state for the presidential race, both US President Donald Trump and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, have boosted their Latino...
He's out of prison and has COVID-19. But he's still sheltering from ICE.
July 14, 2020 19:55 - 2.2 MBAfter spending almost his entire adult life in a cell, Chanthon Bun was released from San Quentin State Prison in California earlier this month. Officials dropped him off at a bus stop three miles away. Bun had not expected to go free — rather, he expected to leave prison and go straight into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Bun arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1986 after his family fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He entered the prison system ...
This young Afro Latino teacher and voter wants to be a model for his students
July 10, 2020 20:01 - 2.24 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Brayan Guevara comes from a long line of educators: His mother is a college instructor, and his grandparents were teachers in Honduras. Now, Guevara is on the same path. The 19-year-old is a sophomore at Guilford Technical Community College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and wants to become a teacher. Before ...
Universities scramble to help international students stay in US after new visa restrictions
July 08, 2020 20:47 - 1.96 MBMonday brought disappointing news for Harvard University sophomore Noah Furlonge-Walker. Due to the coronavirus, all of the university’s undergraduate classes will be held online this fall, and fewer than half of students will be allowed on campus. The same day, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that international students like Furlonge-Walker would be stripped of their student visas if their coursework is entirely online. Under the new rules, international students must l...
Visa restrictions on Chinese students will disadvantage US, says Queens College president
July 08, 2020 19:35 - 2.16 MBFor American universities, catering to international students is big business. Each year, more than 1 million come here to study. About a third are from China. But come fall, many may be absent. This week, the Trump administration announced that international students would not be allowed to enter or remain in the US if their colleges and universities are online-only this fall. The move drew swift backlash from higher education administrators and advocates. Harvard University and Massachuse...
US seafood workers fight unsafe job conditions amid pandemic
July 06, 2020 17:08 - 2.14 MBFor the past four years, Reyna Isabel Alvarez Navarro has reported to work at a crawfish processing plant in Crowley, Louisiana, bundled in two pairs of pants, two sweaters and a hat. She spent her days inside a freezing room where up to 100 employees worked elbow to elbow peeling crawfish. The cold, crowded conditions weren’t new for the 36-year-old seasonal worker from northern Mexico. But it turned out to be the perfect setting for the novel coronavirus to spread: This spring, several d...
Black Lives Matter protests are shaking up how this young Latino voter views US politics
July 01, 2020 19:42 - 2.5 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. A few weeks ago, 18-year-old Izcan Ordaz joined his high school classmates for his first protest. They called for racial justice as part of a national wave of Black Lives Matter activism. A few days later, he marched again in Keller, an affluent suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, not usually known for protests. But s...
These DACA recipients hit a ceiling in the US. So they left.
June 30, 2020 16:29 - 2.49 MBTwo years ago, after living in the United States for more than two decades, Madai Zamora headed to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, and boarded a one-way flight to Mexico. She’d been in the US since she was three years old when she crossed a checkpoint with her family at the California-Mexico border using another child’s US passport. She grew up undocumented. By the time she left the US at 26, Zamora had spent several years enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals pr...
SCOTUS rules some rejected asylum-seekers can't challenge decisions
June 25, 2020 18:49 - 2.38 MBThe Supreme Court ruled Thursday that immigrants denied asylum under streamlined proceedings cannot contest those decisions in court. The case involved a Sri Lankan farmer named Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, a member of the Tamil ethnic minority, who said he feared persecution. The justices ruled in favor of the Trump administration in its appeal of a lower court ruling that Thuraissigiam had a right to have a judge review the government's handling of his asylum bid. The ruling, written by co...
Colleges brace for steep drop in international enrollment this fall
June 24, 2020 14:36 - 1.81 MBPavithra Rajesh, a Northeastern University sophomore from India, frantically packed her bags and boarded a plane home when the college abruptly shut down in March. “I’m a very careful planner. ... So, telling me that within three days you have to figure out where you’re going to go, move things into storage, figure out how you’re going to do online classes from a country whose time zone is so different from the one I’m in right now — it was pretty nerve-wracking.” Pavithra Rajesh, sophomor...
This Latina first-time voter ‘can’t stay mute’ about racism
June 18, 2020 20:10 - 2.1 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. For the last few months, Michelle Aguilar Ramirez’s life has been consumed by the stress of the coronavirus pandemic and classes on Zoom — and more recently, the Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle and around the country. “Ever since the movement, ever since the death of George Floyd, it has been like a con...
In Ciudad Juárez, a new 'filter hotel' offers migrants a safe space to quarantine
June 18, 2020 20:01 - 2.33 MBThis story first aired on KERA Texas. Read and listen to the original here. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Hotel Flamingo in Ciudad Juárez has been filling up with guests. When they arrive, they have to go through a thorough disinfection process. First, they step inside a tray filled with diluted bleach to clean off the soles of their shoes. Then it's on to a handwashing station, where they're instructed to scrub with a generous amount of soap and follow up with a big squirt of hand sa...
SCOTUS ruled in favor of DACA. A permanent solution is still needed, advocates say.
June 18, 2020 17:42 - 3.14 MBIn a major blow to the Trump administration, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program can continue. The program was created by former President Barack Obama in 2012, and it prevents immigrants who came to the US as children, often without authorization, from being deported and gives them work permits. In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded DACA, arguing it was unlawful. Thursday’s much-anticipated ruling ended a yearslong legal battle around h...
Trump proposes harsh asylum rules disqualifying many applicants
June 11, 2020 20:31 - 1.79 MBOn Thursday, the Trump administration issued a proposal that would dramatically reshape the asylum system in the United States. The proposal includes a number of changes that would make it more difficult for applicants to gain asylum in the US — including changing which applicants would get asylum hearings in the first place. Applications based on people fleeing gangs, terrorists, “rogue” government officials or “non-state organizations” would no longer be recognized, meaning that those f...
In Georgia, a young Latina reluctantly casts her primary vote for Biden
June 09, 2020 18:46 - 2.53 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Leticia Arcila didn’t want to take any chances when it came to casting her vote in the Georgia state primary Tuesday, June 9. This year, state officials pushed back the primary twice due to the coronavirus pandemic. Then they sent absentee ballot request forms to all of the state’s nearly 7 million registered ...
Somali Americans share in the grief and pain over George Floyd’s killing
June 02, 2020 17:40 - 2.09 MBMalika Dahir, a Somali American and mother of three in Minneapolis desperately needed an outlet to talk about George Floyd’s killing and everything that has happened since. Floyd is a black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His death has sparked protests and riots in the Twin Cities and around the world. Related: 'No one is above the law,' St. Paul BLM organizer says Dahir talked after her kids had gone to sleep, and as...
The pandemic canceled her graduation. But this DACA holder still got her moment to shine.
May 20, 2020 20:31 - 2.23 MBCollege seniors are feeling especially wistful this May. For many, walking across the graduation stage would have represented the culmination of a lengthy struggle. But the coronavirus pandemic has canceled most ceremonies. Florida International University graduate Juliette Herrera, a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, was feeling especially blue after the coronavirus pandemic erased her plans for a celebration. ”When the graduation was canceled, t...
Foreign students face uncertainty as Trump administration mulls suspending training program
May 20, 2020 19:31 - 1.4 MBEarlier this spring, Renan Pereira, an international student from Brazil, was wrapping up his bachelor’s degree in finance at The University of Utah and deciding between two job offers at a bank and a startup. Then, the coronavirus pandemic changed all of his plans. “The first company called me … said, ‘Hey, we are not hiring you anymore,’” Pereira said. “The next day, the second company called me, ‘Hey ... you might not even start. We don’t know what will happen.’” Millions of workers in ...
Little Manila's 'Meal to Heal' effort brings food to Filipino health workers
May 15, 2020 18:34 - 2.33 MBPeople of Filipino descent play an outsize role in the US health care workforce. They’re 1% of the US population, but comprise 7% of health workers. And because so many Filipino Americans are on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, it has taken a devastating and outsize toll on their community. In New York City, a group of Filipinos in the Little Manila neighborhood of Woodside, Queens, is taking care of their own during the pandemic. Their mutual aid initiative, called "Meal to Hea...
Pandemic disrupts remittances, leaving immigrants' families without lifelines
May 04, 2020 21:35 - 3.1 MBFor years before the coronavirus hit, Sergio Armas hustled to support his parents back home in Nicaragua. By day, he helped manage a small housekeeping business in San Francisco. At night, he served dinners at a popular Italian restaurant with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The family breadwinner from afar, he typically wired his parents $300 every month for food, electricity and medicine. His father, 82, is blind and has heart problems. His mother, 68, has a neuromuscular disease and can...
Can Biden turn out Latinos to vote? Advocacy groups aren't sure.
April 29, 2020 21:29 - 2.68 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Last spring, Vanessa Marcano-Kelly stood in front of a chanting crowd during a rally and introduced Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa. She had spent months campaigning for the then-Democratic presidential candidate in her spare time — outside of her job running an English-Spanish interpretation an...
COVID-19 shakes up international student life — and university budgets
April 28, 2020 17:59 - 2.06 MBWhen the novel coronavirus pandemic forced US university closures in March, Julia Jing, a sophomore at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, wasn't sure if she should return home to Beijing or to stay in the US. The journalism and art design student eventually purchased a ticket home to China, but that flight was canceled. Jing has since been hunkering down in her apartment near campus and taking classes remotely. But she’s also spending a lot of her time contacting the US embassy ...
Xenophobia ‘takes its toll’ as Trump works to curb immigration
April 22, 2020 19:32 - 1.78 MBImmigration to the US often suffers when the country faces a disaster, whether it is a disaster of war, economy or public health. The novel coronavirus pandemic has already prompted the Trump administration to close borders and turn away asylum-seekers without sufficient processing. On Monday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he would suspend immigration to the US. That statement was later clarified as a plan to temporarily halt giving foreigners permanent residence in the United State...
From Mexico, tales of a Russian socialite and a small-town witch
April 21, 2020 20:59 - 2.4 MBOne of the most controversial novels of the year, “American Dirt” by author Janine Cummins, is now also one of the most successful. US-based publisher Flatiron Books paid Cummins a seven-figure advance for “American Dirt,” marketing the book as the antidote to America's misunderstanding of immigrants along the borderlands. In response, many writers pointed out the novel had, instead, caricatured and misrepresented not only immigrants but also many aspects of Mexican society. The social m...
This Latino teen voter worries about prom, graduation — and the economy
April 21, 2020 18:12 - 2.17 MBThis story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Izcan Ordaz voted for the first time in Texas’ Democratic primary on March 3, or Super Tuesday. As an 18-year-old high school senior, he was excited for this milestone in his young life. That was just before the US became an epicenter in the coronavirus pandemic. The election issues Ordaz was most concerned ab...
Caribbean community mourns Gil Bailey, 'Godfather of Reggae Radio'
April 21, 2020 15:05 - 1.55 MBBroadcast legend Gil Bailey, who brought Caribbean music to the tri-state area and whose career spanned 50 years at four different local radio stations, died of COVID-19 earlier this week at the age of 84. His grandson, Korey Faulks, posted on Facebook that Bailey died in isolation early Monday morning. “Shortly after midnight, my mom lost her father. It hurts that she wasn’t able to be by his side while he passed away, due to he contracted COVID-19 and had been isolated.” Known as the Go...
Indians stranded in the US due to coronavirus face poverty, eviction
April 17, 2020 19:19 - 2.22 MBJust before most global travel stopped and India went into lockdown because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Ujwalla Tate’s J-1 visa to work and learn hospitality services at a hotel in Florida expired. Now she’s stranded, alone, in the US, far from her family, and without a job. “The hotel where I was working gave us accommodation, where I’m living,” Tate said. “The grocery shops are like 10, 20 miles away, and we don’t have any local transportation. In the building, I have [an] American...
Detroit needs Canadian nurses. But coronavirus threatens their cross-border travel.
April 17, 2020 18:38 - 1.8 MBPatients admitted to hospitals in Detroit, Michigan, are often cared for by Canadian nurses. Some 1,600 nurses in Ontario, Canada, cross the border every day to work in the US health care sector. And some nurses work in hospitals on both sides of the border. But the pandemic could change that. As the number of novel coronavirus cases grows in Michigan, some officials in Ontario are calling for restrictions on where these nurses can work — telling them to essentially pick a side. Michigan h...
Young Latino voters in Seattle view November election through lens of pandemic
April 15, 2020 19:34 - 1.81 MBAcross the United States, people of color are likeliest to be considered “essential workers” and must still go to work despite stay-at-home orders. Blacks and Latinos are likelier than whites to be diagnosed with COVID-19 — and to die of the disease. Those experiences are shaping how people from those groups will vote in the November presidential election. Seventeen-year-old Michelle Aguilar Ramirez is a first-time voter and US citizen of Guatemalan descent who lives in Seattle. She worr...