At the turn of the 20th century, revolution was starting to brew in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. A group of Mexican revolutionaries had fled to the United States and were working to overthrow a dictator in their home country. They were called Los Magonistas , and both the U.S. and Mexican governments put all of their efforts to spy on them and suppress their revolution. In this episode, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez tells the story of this cross-border insurgency that has been left out of most...
Nov 21, 2023•20 min
Latino USA continues to celebrate 30 years of being on the air, as well as bringing you important conversations as part of our ongoing political coverage. For this episode, Maria Hinojosa sits down with legendary labor leader and civil rights activist, Dolores Huerta. They speak about politics, the current state of organizing, sex and passion, and much more. Editorial note: This interview was recorded in September of 2023 before the current crisis in Gaza began....
Nov 17, 2023•42 min
What will the music of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley sound like 100 years from now? That’s the premise at the heart of Futuro Conjunto, a multimedia sci-fi project by artists Charlie Vela and Jonathan Leal. Futuro Conjunto is an expansive work of speculative fiction, but it also revolves around urgent issues of our present, such as climate change, technology, war, and class disparity. The multimedia project also draws from the Rio Grande Valley’s history and musical traditions, and Vela and Leal coll...
Nov 14, 2023•19 min
Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most famous and acclaimed conductors in the world. He’s been the Music and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009, when he was just 27 years old. El maestro is the best-known graduate of El Sistema, Venezuela’s national youth music education program. In the years since, Dudamel made a name for himself conducting world-famous orchestras, running his own arts charity — The Gustavo Dudamel Foundation — and founding the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles....
Nov 10, 2023•36 min
This week Latino USA brings you an episode of the podcast, Classy with Jonathan Menjivar . In this episode, we can’t talk about class without talking about race. Through eye-opening conversations with two people of color in the fashion industry, Jonathan realizes some hard truths about the ways he’s adapted in order to blend in. And he reveals how one small, but bold act is helping him to reclaim his cultural identity. You can subscribe to Classy with Jonathan Menjivar here ....
Nov 07, 2023•42 min
Maria 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 crisis in Gaza be...
Nov 03, 2023•58 min
When Gabby Rivera wrote her coming-of-age novel “Juliet Takes a Breath” in 2016, she didn't know that it would get her attention from an unusual place: Marvel Comics. They asked her to write for America Chavez, their first queer Latina superhero. Gabby said yes. But as she was writing for their superhero, she found herself swept up in #comicsgate, an online harassment campaign against the comic book industry’s efforts to include more women, people of color, and LGBTQ characters. In this "Portrai...
Oct 31, 2023•25 min
Los 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-year-old who’...
Oct 27, 2023•32 min
Luz 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 playing their f...
Oct 24, 2023•23 min
In 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.
Oct 20, 2023•37 min
When 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 break down the ...
Oct 17, 2023•13 min
In 2018, just months after Hurricane Maria, an eccentric group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts arrived in Puerto Rico. They came with big plans for the island—to help rebuild after the hurricane, and in the process create a high-tech cryptocurrency paradise in the Caribbean. They also came to take advantage of Puerto Rico’s favorable tax laws. But not everyone in Puerto Rico was on board with their vision to change everything on the island. Latino USA follows the often-bizarre story of these Bitco...
Oct 13, 2023•40 min
Omar Apollo, a rising star in the indie R&B scene, began making music on his own by teaching himself chords from YouTube videos and honing his sound in an attic in a small town in Indiana. His first breakthrough came on Spotify in 2017, with the song “Ugotme.” Four years later, Omar has amassed more than 100 million streams on the platform and has toured internationally. In this “How I Made It” segment, Omar Apollo takes us back to the days of making music on borrowed equipment, and shares h...
Oct 10, 2023•15 min
In 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.
Oct 06, 2023•58 min
This 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 Caliber 60 here ....
Oct 03, 2023•17 min
One 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 USA , we acco...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 4 min
“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 singer-songw...
Sep 26, 2023•21 min
The call for the abolition of all student debt has never been louder– but how did we get to a place where this demand is possible? Latino USA dives into the history of the student loan system in the U.S., as well as the stories of Black and Latinx organizers who have been at the forefront of the movement for student debt cancellation. We look at how their efforts have shifted the conversation and ask why abolishing student debt is an issue of racial and economic justice. This episode originally ...
Sep 22, 2023•53 min
Five 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 lachrymose j...
Sep 19, 2023•36 min
Latino 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 with those clo...
Sep 15, 2023•59 min
Brothers 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.
Sep 12, 2023•24 min
Gioconda 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 comrade: President ...
Sep 08, 2023•38 min
The 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 budgets to fur...
Sep 05, 2023•1 hr 6 min
In 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 safety. This episo...
Sep 01, 2023•54 min
In 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 their first G...
Aug 29, 2023•12 min
The 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 changed the fate o...
Aug 25, 2023•35 min
Soulection 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 the music sce...
Aug 22, 2023•13 min
Producer 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. Today, activist ...
Aug 18, 2023•1 hr
Muralist 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: Judith has r...
Aug 15, 2023•23 min
Earlier 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 adults that s...
Aug 11, 2023•40 min
