Latino USA
467 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 3.6K ratingsLatino USA offers insight into the lived experiences of Latino communities and is a window on the current and merging cultural, political and social ideas impacting Latinos and the nation.
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Episodes
Kamala and the Latino Youth Vote
November 03, 2023 06:00 - 58 minutes - 53.3 MBMaria Hinojosa and Latino USA producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. join Vice President Kamala Harris aboard Air Force Two as the vice president makes her way to Miami, Florida, as part of her “Fight For Our Freedoms” college tour. Later, Maria sits down with Vice President Harris for a one-on-one interview where they discuss young Latino voters’ participation, reproductive rights, immigration, and more. Editorial note: This interview was recorded in September of 2023 before the current cr...
City of Oil
October 27, 2023 06:00 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBLos Angeles, you might be surprised to learn, sits on top of the largest urban oil field in the country and has been the site of oil extraction for almost 150 years. Today, nearly 5,000 oil wells remain active in Los Angeles County alone, many operating in communities of color, often very close to homes, schools, and hospitals. Latino USA visits a neighborhood in South Los Angeles, the epicenter of an anti-oil-drilling movement that is gaining momentum. We meet Nalleli Cobo, the 18...
The Art of Growing Into Yourself With Y La Bamba
October 24, 2023 06:00 - 22 minutes - 20.8 MBLuz Elena Mendoza Ramos is a Chicanx artist and musician who has been playing under the name Y La Bamba for nearly 20 years. As the child of immigrant parents, Luz Elena struggled to feel seen in the music industry, but as they’ve continued making music, they have grown into their identity as an artist. Last year, Luz Elena moved back to Mexico City to explore where they come from. That search also led to the publication of their seventh studio album — “Lucha” — and to Y La Bamba p...
My Uncle Juan, the Bracero
October 20, 2023 06:00 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBIn this episode of Latino USA, historian Mireya Loza and her uncle and former bracero Juan Loza meet at his home in Chicago to reflect on the legacy of the long-running and controversial labor Bracero Program and its impact on their family.
How I Made It: Grupo Fantasma Takes On The Wall
October 17, 2023 06:00 - 13 minutes - 12 MBWhen Austin's cumbia-funk institution Grupo Fantasma went to record their seventh album at a studio in Tornillo, Texas, they had no idea that right next door was a tent city for detained immigrant youth operated by ICE. When they found out, they decided they had to do something. So they teamed up with fellow legends Ozomatli and Locos Por Juana to create a sinister funk tune with a message about the walls that divide us. On this edition of How I Made It, members of Grupo Fantasma br...
When Alaska's Snow Crab Went Missing
October 06, 2023 06:00 - 57 minutes - 52.9 MBIn 2022, the Bering Sea snow crab season was canceled for the first time in history. Essentially 10 billion snow crabs went missing. The cause? Warming waters due to climate change. In this episode, Latino USA producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. travels to Kodiak, Alaska to see how a fishing community is trying to stay afloat as climate change disrupts their industry—and lives.
Caliber 60
October 03, 2023 06:00 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBThis week Latino USA brings you an episode of the Caliber 60 podcast. Avocado consumption has exploded in the U.S. over the past decade. But what’s rarely seen is the rotten underbelly of this industry, controlled by armed groups in Mexico who use smuggled weapons from the U.S. to keep control over this lucrative business. Meet Linda, who lives in Ixtaro, a small avocado producer town. She experienced unimaginable horrors while under the siege of narcos. You can subscribe to Calib...
Mary’s Journey
September 29, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 58.4 MBOne in four women in the United States have a family member in prison—and those carrying the resulting financial and emotional burden are disproportionately women of color. Mary Estrada is one of them. She’s been taking care of her husband Robert for 40 years, as he’s been in and out of prison throughout his adult life. Most Sundays, Mary wakes up at 3 a.m. and drives 135 miles each way from Pomona, California to San Diego to meet her incarcerated husband. In this episode of Latino ...
Portrait Of: Miguel
September 26, 2023 06:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MB“Too proper for the Black kids, too Black for the Mexicans," sings Grammy award-winning artist Miguel Pimentel. Miguel is the son of an African-American mother and a Mexican-born father. He's known for his eclectic sound, shaped by his home: Los Angeles. This year, he’ll release a deluxe version of his album, 'War & Leisure,' which will include songs in Spanish. It was inspired by a trip to Zamora, where he met his family in Mexico for the first time. Maria Hinojosa talks to the sin...
It’s My Podcast and I’ll Cry If I Want To
September 19, 2023 06:00 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBFive years ago, Latino USA producer Antonia Cereijido was only an intern and still in college when she did what a lot of people do when they're not sure what their life will look like after graduation: she cried in the bathroom. After wiping her eyes and returning to her desk, she tried to comfort herself by calculating how many other Latinos had cried at the same time she had. This led her to ask herself: do Latinos cry more than other people, on average? Thus began her strange and...
Belonging, Recruitment, and Remembrance
September 15, 2023 06:00 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MBLatino USA continues to mark its 30th anniversary and look back on its reporting throughout the decades. One topic the show has heavily reported on is Latinos serving in the military and today we take a new look at that subject. In this episode, producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. travels to Laredo, Texas on the U.S.-Mexico border. He brings us the story of Lance Corporal David Lee Espinoza, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2021 during the U.S. withdrawal from the country. Reynaldo meets...
Ballet Brothers
September 12, 2023 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBBrothers Isaac and Esteban Hernández have performed on some of the most prestigious stages in the world. But their journey to the top rank of their industry had a unique start. Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, Isaac and Esteban's first ballet teacher was their father, Héctor, and their first ballet studio was their home’s backyard. Last year, they became the first siblings to achieve the rank of principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet.
The Revolutions of Gioconda Belli
September 08, 2023 06:00 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBGioconda Belli is an award-winning Nicaraguan author. She has published novels, essays, poetry collections, and a memoir called “The country under my skin,” which recounts her time as a member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front—fighting to free her country from a dictatorship. Now, 40 years after the Sandinista victory, Gioconda finds herself living in exile and unable to return to Nicaragua. She was recently stripped of her citizenship by the person who once was her comrad...
9/11’s Immigration Legacy
September 05, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 60.6 MBThe September 11th attacks left nearly 3,000 dead, many more injured and an entire nation traumatized. The 24-hour news cycle that followed focused endlessly on the identity of the terrorists: non-citizens who had been able to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the system. The United States government responded with harsh policy changes in the name of national security, including the Patriot Act, but it also focused the weight of policymaking on curbing immigration, funding astronomical b...
At the Mercy of the Courts
September 01, 2023 06:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBIn this episode of Latino USA we partner up with Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigrants in New York City, to get a behind-the-scenes look at the experience of trying to navigate the immigration courts as an asylum-seeker under the Trump Administration. We follow the story of Wendy and Elvis, Guatemalan newlyweds who flee violent extortion threats only to find themselves in a maddening and punishing U.S. court system that is now the norm for immigrants seeking safet...
How I Made It: Rodrigo y Gabriela
August 29, 2023 06:00 - 11 minutes - 10.7 MBIn the late 90's, Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero embarked on a one-way trip to Dublin, Ireland. While they were originally heavy metal musicians back home in Mexico, they traded their electric guitars for acoustic ones and became street performers in Ireland to sustain themselves. Eventually, they started getting more recognition. In 2006, they put out their first album, which debuted at number one on the Irish Albums Chart. Their latest album "Mettavolution" has earned them ...
The Breakdown: Heavy Metal Edition
August 25, 2023 06:00 - 34 minutes - 31.8 MBThe stereotype goes that Latinos only listen to salsa or reggaeton. But one of the biggest genres of music across Latin America is actually heavy metal, with bands like Iron Maiden selling out stadiums across the region when they tour there. On today's Breakdown, we ask.... why? How did metal take over Latin America so completely? We look at the extreme fandom for metal across Latin America and discuss the story behind the groundbreaking Brazilian band, Sepultura, and how they chang...
How I Made It: Joe Kay of Soulection
August 22, 2023 06:00 - 13 minutes - 12.3 MBSoulection is a music startup, which has quickly grown to be a powerhouse with a record label, a popular radio show, and worldwide tours—bringing together an international group of music lovers. It all began as an online podcast created in a garage in Southern California. At the time, Joe Kay was a college student who was looking to bring independent artists, DJs, and producers to fresh ears. Today, co-founder Joe Kay reflects on Soulection's grassroots beginnings and its impact on ...
‘I Want to Outlive AIDS’
August 18, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 55.1 MBProducer Patricia Sulbarán embarks on a journey to learn how Latino USA covered the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as part of the show’s 30th anniversary special coverage. After reviewing hundreds of archival clips, Patricia finds a woman leading the fight against stigma in the 1990s. It was actress, lawyer and activist Ilka Tanya Payán. This episode dives into Ilka’s life and overlooked legacy, as well as the wider reality of lack of treatment for HIV-positive women back then. Tod...
Judith Baca’s Great Wall
August 15, 2023 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBMuralist Judith F. Baca is mostly known for creating one of the largest communal murals in the world: the Great Wall of Los Angeles. It extends for half a mile along the Tujunga Wash river channel in the San Fernando Valley and it tells the story of California from its pre-Columbian origins until the 1950s. The project involved more than 400 Latino and Black youth from underserved neighborhoods. They started painting in the 1970s, but in the mid-80s they ran out of money. Until now:...
Meg Medina: Let Kids Read Freely
August 11, 2023 06:00 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MBEarlier this year, award-winning author Meg Medina was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature—she’s the first Latina to occupy this position. In her role, Meg’s responsible for raising awareness of the importance of young people’s literature, something that is now more crucial than ever, as efforts to ban books in schools and public libraries are on the rise. Throughout her career, Meg has made it her mission to create and champion literature for children and young...
How I Made It: Yasser Tejeda & Palotré
August 08, 2023 06:00 - 19 minutes - 17.8 MBThe musical genres most people associate with the Dominican Republic are merengue and bachata. Yet, there's another set of rhythms that are essential to the spirit of the country, and that's Afro-Dominican roots music. That's where the band Yasser Tejeda & Palotré come in. They blend some of the country's black roots rhythms like palo, salve and sarandunga, with jazz and rock to bring a new spin to local sounds—and to reimagine what it means to be Dominican. In this segment of "How ...
Alzheimer’s In Color
August 04, 2023 06:00 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBLatino USA and Black Public Media bring you Alzheimer’s In Color. It’s the story of Ramona Latty, a Dominican immigrant, told by her daughter Yvonne, and it mirrors countless other families of color navigating a disease that is ravaging the Latino community. It’s been four years now since Ramona was diagnosed. Four years of the lonely journey, which in the end her daughter walks alone, because her mom has no idea what day it is, how old she is or where she is. Ramona lives in a nurs...
Maxwell Alejandro Frost: Leading Through Politics—and Music
August 01, 2023 06:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBMaxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida made history last year when he became the first Gen-Z elected to Congress. Latino USA producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. went to Congressman Frost’s district in Orlando to interview him and attended one of his community events.
Bilingual Is My Superpower
July 28, 2023 06:00 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBIn 2018, producer Jeanne Montalvo reported on the choices her parents made when raising her in a bilingual household. Five years later, Jeanne’s two children both command the Spanish language. But the oldest, Martin, was 2.5 years old at the start of the pandemic and never learned English. This came with a series of challenges as he entered the school system in New York. One daycare even suggested Martin was on the spectrum. In this follow-up episode, Latino USA takes a deep dive in...
Hungry for History
July 25, 2023 06:00 - 27 minutes - 25 MBThis week Latino USA brings you an episode of the Hungry for History podcast. Here’s a little-known fact you might not have known... The beer industry might be dominated by men today but women were the original brewers and played a vital role in beer’s popularity! In this episode, Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez-Rejón explore beer’s fascinating history. Plus — Carmen Velasco Favela, owner and founder of Mujeres Brew House, an all-female run/Latina-owned craft beer company in San Diego...
Immensely Invisible
July 21, 2023 06:00 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MBHow is ICE handling complaints of sexual abuse from detainees? Maria Hinojosa teams up with Zeba Warsi, two immigrant women and journalists from different generations, to look at sexual abuse in ICE detention more than a decade after Maria’s documentary film on this topic. This time, they investigate how women in ICE detention are sexually abused when they were at their most vulnerable —in a medical setting— and how ICE has done very little to stop it. A special by Futuro Investigat...
Willie Perdomo Comes Home
July 18, 2023 06:00 - 19 minutes - 17.7 MBIn the early 1990s, Willie Perdomo was a teenager growing up in East Harlem. He saw and experienced firsthand a tumultuous moment in New York City, including the crack epidemic and the consequences of the war on drugs. In his latest book of poetry, "The Crazy Bunch," Perdomo wrangles with that history and the ghosts of that time. Latino USA's Antonia Cereijido takes a walk with Perdomo through his old neighborhood of Harlem to discuss his teenage years and how memories of that time ...
Love & Walkouts
July 14, 2023 06:00 - 33 minutes - 30.6 MBToday we're bringing you an episode from our vault — a love story of student activism. We're taking you back to 1968, when thousands of students participated in a series of protests that helped spark the Chicano Movement, historically known as the East L.A. Walkouts. It's also when high school sweethearts and student organizers Bobby Verdugo and Yoli Ríos danced to a Thee Midniters song and fell in love. This story originally aired in February of 2019.
Steven Melendez on Opening Doors to Ballet
July 11, 2023 06:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBSteven Melendez thinks a lot about accessibility in the world of classical dance. Steven got his start in ballet at just seven years old, as part of an outreach program run by New York Theater Ballet. Although Steven went on to become a successful professional dancer, he always felt he had to straddle two vastly disconnected worlds: that of classical ballet and his home life in the Bronx. Now, as Steven comes full circle, becoming the artistic director of New York Theater Ballet, he...
Hector Galán: A Life Documenting Marginalized Stories
July 07, 2023 06:00 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBLatino USA continues to celebrate its 30th anniversary, bringing you conversations with some of the most influential Latinos and Latinas of the last three decades. In this episode, Maria Hinojosa catches up with pioneering filmmaker Hector Galán, who for over 40 years has been documenting our Latino communities. In this conversation, Hector shares how he got his start as a cameraman at a local TV station in West Texas in the 1970s and how the Chicano Movement gave him a sense of id...
Resistance And Loss In The Age Of COVID-19 With Edwidge Danticat
July 04, 2023 06:00 - 29 minutes - 26.9 MBAccording to Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, stories are a way of finding inspiration and comfort during the times we’re living through. Her award-winning writing portrays the immigrant experience, Haitian-American identity and loss. In conversation with Maria Hinojosa, Danticat dives into the history of resistance to the police violence that was all around her as a young adult in New York City, the loss of her own uncle who died at the hands of immigration authorities, an...
The Lone Legislator
June 30, 2023 06:00 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBIn 1919, an intrepid Texas state representative, José Tomás Canales, decided to lead an investigation into the abuse of power by the Texas Rangers. For several years, residents of South Texas had been reporting that members of the law enforcement agency were going rogue: beating, torturing, and even killing people, in the name of protecting Anglo settlers. The subsequent investigation into these abuses would illustrate the difficulties of reforming and creating oversight over polici...
Creating the Sound of Latino USA
June 27, 2023 06:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBLatino USA has cycled through quite a few theme songs in its 30 years. There was the original theme, with acoustic guitar and soft woodwinds, followed by a brassier, more Latin Jazz influenced sound. There were even a few years when Latino USA didn’t have a theme song at all, instead featuring unique scoring for each of its stories. In 2017, Latino USA teamed up with musical artist Xenia Rubinos to create a new song—and five years later, it’s the same one you hear on our show today...
En Español
June 23, 2023 06:00 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBFor years, Anita Flores carried shame: She was a second-generation half-Peruvian who barely spoke Spanish. She pretended she didn’t care; she subtly avoided her paternal family in Lima. Then, her father was diagnosed with dementia. As her dad’s memory started to falter, Anita would see him light up when she made the effort to speak in his first language. She tells the story of reassessing her relationship with her father, with her extended family, and with the language that kept th...
You Want to Talk About Hot Cheetos?
June 20, 2023 06:00 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBWe tackle the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos controversy and dive into why this story is so much more than just about a processed snack food but a story about race, culture, identity, and the stories that we choose to believe. This story originally aired in June of 2021.
No Strings Attached
June 16, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBWhat happens when people living in poverty get a stable income from the government? More than 100 guaranteed income pilot programs have launched across the U.S. and most are found in California. How is a regular income — with no restrictions on how to spend the money — making a difference for participants? In this episode, we spend a month with Martha and Micaela, two participants of a pilot program launched by the city of Los Angeles — one of the biggest guaranteed income programs ...
How I Made It: No Te Va Gustar
June 13, 2023 06:00 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBFor over 25 years, Uruguayan band No Te Va Gustar has been filling concert venues across Latin America. With their mix of pop, rock, reggae, ska, and other styles, the band has evolved over the years from its original three-member composition to its current nine members. Their album, "Otras Canciones," commemorates their 25th anniversary by featuring some of their most popular songs, performed in front of a live audience and featuring collaborations with legendary guests like Juliet...
The Clinic
June 09, 2023 06:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBLatino USA goes inside the biggest free health clinic in the country, which serves only people without insurance. There are nearly 28 million uninsured people in the United States, and for some of them, free clinics are their safety net. For undocumented people, healthcare options are very limited. For this story, we spend three days behind the scenes at CommunityHealth in Chicago, where more than half of the patients speak Spanish. We shadowed doctors and patients to observe the da...
Healing in Uvalde
June 06, 2023 06:00 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MBThis week Latino USA shares an episode of the In The Thick podcast. Maria Hinojosa and Julio Ricardo Varela reflect on the one-year anniversary of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and the lasting impacts on the community. We go deeper in our roundtable to look at how families of victims—especially mothers, both past and present, bring about change. Maria leads the discussion with Keith Beauchamp, award-winning filmmaker and producer on the film “Till,” and Monica Muñoz Martine...
Uvalde Rising
June 02, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 55.5 MBOne year after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Latino USA and Futuro Investigates explore how families in the community are dealing with grief, how they’re navigating their journey to healing, and calling for accountability. “Uvalde Rising,” tells the story of how victims’ parents and survivors are fighting for gun reform and calling for more mental health resources. Some of the reporting for this episode is based on the PBS Frontline documentary film...
Julieta Venegas’ Search for a Simple Life
May 30, 2023 06:00 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBThe Mexican singer-songwriter, Julieta Venegas, took a seven-year break before releasing her latest album, a journey of self-discovery in 10 songs that she named “Tu historia.” Now, she shares what happened during that long pause, which included making some major life decisions.
Restaurant Royalty: Zarela and Aarón
May 26, 2023 06:00 - 32 minutes - 30 MBFor mother and son chefs Zarela Martinez and Aarón Sanchez, educating others about the cuisines that make up Mexico is a family tradition. Zarela and Aarón have each opened restaurants, written cookbooks, appeared on TV shows, and won awards. In 2020, this duo decided to combine their talents for a podcast, where they discuss the recipes and ingredients that make up their favorite Mexican dishes. In this episode of Latino USA, Aarón and Zarela discuss their careers, how they made i...
José Ralat, Taco Editor
May 23, 2023 06:00 - 15 minutes - 14.3 MBJosé Ralat is the Taco Editor at Texas Monthly Magazine and consequently the only taco editor in the United States. In his book, “American Tacos: A History and Guide,” Ralat dives into the evolution of tacos in the United States and its history in the borderlands. According to Ralat, tacos were introduced into the U.S. in the late 1800s. Since then, tacos have evolved into fusions —like Korean and Cajun tacos— as cultures blended with one another and chefs across the country experim...
The Migrant Student Club
May 19, 2023 06:00 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBOver 300,000 students in the U.S. migrate every year to work in agriculture, from spring to fall. At a high school in South Texas, when these students return, they gather at the Migrant Student Club to discuss their experiences and get support from a migrant student counselor. At a special gathering of the club we met Reyes, who started picking asparagus in Michigan to help support his family when he was 9 years old. And over the course of his last semester of school, we follow him ...
Mariana Enríquez On Using Horror to Process Historical Trauma
May 16, 2023 06:00 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MBMariana Enríquez is one of the best-known writers of a growing literary trend in Latin America that uses the horror genre to denounce the violent realities of the region—past and present. Mariana was born in Buenos Aires in 1973, just a few years before a military junta took over the democratic government in Argentina, and grew up in a country under a brutal dictatorship. She retreated to books and writing to process that historical trauma. In this episode, Mariana shares how her c...
Portrait Of: Linda Ronstadt
May 12, 2023 06:00 - 34 minutes - 31.4 MBWe continue to celebrate our 30th anniversary, bringing you the voices of some of the most influential Latinos and Latinas in the last three decades. In this episode, we catch up with music legend Linda Ronstadt, known as the “First Lady of Rock.” We talk to her about her memories growing up in Tucson, Arizona, and her decision to return to the traditional Mexican music of her childhood. Linda brings us into her life after retiring from music, and her memoir “Feels Like Home: A Song...
Gangs, Murder, and Migration in Honduras
May 09, 2023 06:00 - 49 minutes - 45.5 MBWe start today’s episode at El Edén—the center in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where child migrants are processed after being deported from Mexico and elsewhere. Then, before diving into the reasons why Hondurans leave for Mexico and the United States, Maria Hinojosa and Latino USA producer Marlon Bishop talk about some of the history of Honduras. This story was produced in association with Round Earth Media. German Andino, in Honduras, co-reported this story with Marlon. This Peabod...
30 Años: An Oral History of Latino USA
May 05, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBOn May 5th, 1993, the first episode of Latino USA aired on more than 50 public radio stations across the U.S. Thirty years later, we look back at the creation of Latino USA, the struggle to showcase Latino voices in public media, and the show’s transformations throughout a changing political landscape in the country. In this oral history of our show, three former Latino USA staff join Maria Hinojosa and go behind the scenes to reflect on what it took to keep Latino USA going over th...
Colombia's Secret War Against Civilians
April 28, 2023 06:00 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MBYears ago, Gloria Martinez’s son went out to look for a job and never came back. Gloria would spend months searching for him, and she wasn’t alone—many others, mostly young men from rural and poor urban areas, also mysteriously disappeared. In 2008, the “false-positives” scandal broke—and revealed that the Colombian military had been systematically killing innocent civilians as part of a body-count policy they adopted in the conflict against the FARC, a leftist guerilla group. But o...