Poet and spoken word artist Denice Frohman has been performing for more than 15 years now — you may have seen some past videos of her work go viral on the early days of social media. Denice thrives onstage, bringing a musical cadence and emotional depth to work about family, language, queerness, and her Puerto Rican heritage. Her mission is to share her community’s stories in her writing and performance. On this episode of Latino USA, Denice talks about her journey as a queer, Latinx artist, and...
Sep 27, 2022•25 min
Before it was the classic dress we all know and many still love today, the little black dress was mostly worn by working-class shopgirls and domestics. Monica Morales-Garcia began to research the origins of the L.B.D. to answer: How had so much changed, yet so much had stayed the same? Listen as Monica walks us through the decline of an industry and the rise of a garment.
Sep 23, 2022•36 min
Bianca Graulau is an independent journalist who's been using TikTok and YouTube to tell you what’s going on in Puerto Rico—whether you live there or not. By explaining Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the United States in English to an audience outside of the island, she’s also gathered a huge following there as well. Her own top video has 11 million views. Continuing our 5th anniversary Hurricane Maria coverage on Latino USA, La Brega host Alana Casanova-Burgess visits Graulau in Camuy,...
Sep 20, 2022•24 min
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September of 2017, there was a complete lack of government response, highlighting the stark reality of austerity politics and colonialism. On this episode of Latino USA, we travel to the city of Caguas and follow the story of the Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico, one of the many community-led groups that would occupy an abandoned space after the storm and mobilize to meet their own needs. Five years after Hurricane Maria, they are now fighting to remain i...
Sep 16, 2022•45 min
This week Latino USA is featuring the first episode of the Rubirosa podcast, a Witness Docs production. Imagine instead of James Bond it was… Jaime Bond, Javi Bond, Bondissimo. Well, guess what, y’all? The white, British character at the center of Ian Fleming’s super-successful franchise was actually based on a Dominican man. Porfirio Rubirosa was a diplomat, a playboy who spoke five languages, an international polo champion, a race-car driver, a pilot, and he became the richest man in the world...
Sep 13, 2022•34 min
This summer, Latino USA took a trip to the West Coast for a live show in Los Angeles — and now, we’re bringing that special evening to you! On this edited version of our live show, host Maria Hinojosa is joined by actor Danny Trejo and comedian Marcella Arguello to talk about what makes Los Angeles so special — and to celebrate L.A.’s vibrant Latino community.
Sep 09, 2022•55 min
For the past decade, Armando Perez has worked as a wildland firefighter with the Eldorado, California, Hotshot crew—an elite group that works in the hottest portions of wildfires. For Armando that has meant weeks away from his family, dealing with some of the worst fires in U.S. history. Still, there’s nothing else he would rather be doing. In this episode of Latino USA, Armando recreates what a typical day is like for him and his crew to understand why, along with thousands of other wildland fi...
Sep 06, 2022•21 min
What and who do you include in a national Latino museum? That’s a question that many have been asking since late 2020, when Congress green-lit the creation of The National Museum of the American Latino. It’s a new addition to the Smithsonian Institution’s roster of national museums, many of which intend to preserve the history and culture of the United States. The fight to create The National Museum of the American Latino spans across decades. The idea was sparked by a damning 1994 report, commi...
Sep 02, 2022•42 min
We're still on summer break so we are sharing an interview from our archives with poet Yesika Salgado. She heads with Maria Hinojosa to the Hunts Point Produce Market, the largest wholesale produce market in the world, to try to identify the sexiest, most romantic fruit. Then they sit down to talk about relationships, lust, and Salgado’s book, “Hermosa.” This episode first aired on February 14, 2020.
Aug 30, 2022•27 min
Latino USA is on summer break this week so we wanted to share one of our favorite recent interviews that we originally broadcast in early 2020. In this conversation with Maria Hinojosa, legendary musician José Feliciano opens up about why he keeps the 70s alive and also describes one of his favorite relationships—the one he has with his guitar. This podcast first aired on February 12, 2020.
Aug 26, 2022•27 min
Evelynn Escobar-Thomas grew up near a state park in Northern Virginia, but she never visited it. For Evelynn, who is a Black and Indigenous Guatemalan woman, outdoor recreation felt segregated, and she never really felt welcomed in hiking trails and campsites. In 2017, after moving to Los Angeles, Evelynn decided to change that: she founded Hike Clerb, an outdoor club centering women of color. Today, more than 100 women often join their treks, dressed with a bit of style. In this episode, we go ...
Aug 23, 2022•20 min
In this continuation of Latino USA’s 2022 midterms coverage, Maria welcomes her In The Thick co-host Julio Ricardo Varela and the following two guests: Sonja Diaz , Founding Director of the Latino Policy & Politics Institute at UCLA, and Jazmine Ulloa , national reporter for The New York Times. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, they discuss the role Latinos and Latinas will play, what they are hearing from voters on the ground, the races that we should be keeping an eye on and the comp...
Aug 19, 2022•35 min
You probably haven’t met a comedian quite like Julio Torres. Julio’s work is highly visual and deeply inquisitive, often focusing on everyday objects or routine and giving it a surreal twist. After immigrating from El Salvador to the U.S. for college, Julio did the rounds in New York City’s stand-up scene before landing a gig writing at “Saturday Night Live.” After a few years, Julio decided to leave 30 Rockefeller Plaza and strike out on his own. In 2019, he released a comedy special for HBO ca...
Aug 16, 2022•23 min
For the closing of our series Genias in Music, celebrating the contributions of women in their fields, we go to Colombia, where Petrona Martínez became one of the most important Black singers in the country’s modern history. She’s known as “the queen of bullerengue”, an ancestral music tradition that goes back to times of slavery in the Colombian Caribbean Coast. But it took many years for Petrona Martínez to get recognized as an artist. She dealt with isolation, poverty and invisibility as a Bl...
Aug 12, 2022•45 min
Luna Luna is a rising four-member band from different walks of life. They’re known for mixing nostalgic sounds of the past and fusing them with elements of funk and dream-like pop. In this episode of Latino USA , we learn more about the people behind Luna Luna and hear how they say the universe and destiny have brought them together to live out their wildest dreams.
Aug 09, 2022•20 min
Last November, Robert Santos became the first Latino to be confirmed as the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Santos is no stranger to the federal agency. Before his nomination and confirmation, Santos had warned that former President Donald Trump’s interference of the census count would result in one of the most flawed census counts in U.S. history. Census counts are important because they help determine congressional representation and how billions of federal dollars are distributed. In this...
Aug 05, 2022•44 min
Here is a podcast from our Latino USA archives. Latino USA sits down with Guadalupe Rosales of [Veteranas and Rucas](http:// https://www.instagram.com/veteranas_and_rucas/ "V&R") and Map Pointz , two archival projects focused on the Los Angeles backyard party scene of the 80's and 90's that celebrate big hair, house music and endless nights. Rosales is joined by Eddie Ruvalcaba, who photographed the scene with Streetbeat Magazine and attended parties as a teenager. The two speak about the po...
Aug 02, 2022•17 min
Here is a podcast from our Latino USA archives. In 1950, a group of majority Mexican-American miners in New Mexico readied themselves for a showdown with their bosses. The miners were going on strike to demand an end to discriminatory practices at the mines. The events inspired the 1954 film "Salt of the Earth"—made by filmmakers who had been blacklisted in Hollywood for supposed leftist sympathies. Latino USA heads to Grant County, New Mexico, to uncover the history of The Empire Zinc Strike, t...
Jul 29, 2022•40 min
Latino USA is proud to feature an episode from Colorado Public Radio’s new ¿Quién Are We? podcast, which explores what it means to be Latino, Hispanic or Chicana... or however you identify. Host and journalist May Ortega shares stories about our wide-ranging identities and the beautiful things that make us who we are. This episode from the series is about Allan Benavides, who grew up in Southern California in a family that loved baseball. Despite his family’s wishes, he couldn’t be a player. Sti...
Jul 26, 2022•26 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 that 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 economic justice....
Jul 22, 2022•52 min
When the members of LADAMA met for the first time, it felt as if they already knew each other. In 2014, Lara Klaus from Brazil, Daniela Serna from Colombia, Maria Fernanda Gonzalez from Venezuela, and Sarah Lucas from the U.S. all attended a residency for socially engaged musical artists. That’s where they created LADAMA. Together, the women of LADAMA would embark on a years-long journey of sharing rhythms and creating a pedagogy aiming to empower women and girls to connect through voice, percus...
Jul 19, 2022•25 min
As part of Latino USA’s ongoing 2022 midterms coverage, Maria Hinojosa is joined by her In The Thick co-host Julio Ricardo Varela, Carlos Odio of EquisLabs, and award-winning journalist Tanzina Vega to talk about the lasting impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on Latino communities across the United States. They get into the immense losses experienced by Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities from COVID-19, and reflect on how the pandemic’s impact on the economy will affect voter turnout....
Jul 15, 2022•37 min
In the special presentation of the In The Thick political podcast produced by Futuro Media, Maria Hinojosa and Julio Ricardo Varela are joined by Ibram X. Kendi , founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, for a conversation about his new book “How to Raise an Antiracist.” They discuss the evolution of his antiracist scholarship, the rise in mass shootings and white supremacist attacks, and how Black and Brown communities can work together in solidarity. To subscr...
Jul 12, 2022•33 min
Living in the Bay Area has become a luxury that many cannot afford anymore. It’s home to the biggest —and richest— tech companies in the world. Yet at the same time, homeless encampments grow under the freeways, around empty lots and parks. Data shows that evictions went down in California during the pandemic, thanks to an eviction moratorium that protected tenants. But the housing struggles of undocumented communities aren’t being captured by authorities or mainstream media. In collaboration wi...
Jul 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Latino USA presents a recent episode of Latino Rebels Radio , also produced by Futuro Media. For the first time in its history, Colombia has moved to the left with the election of Gustavo Petro as president and Francia Márquez, the country's first Afro-Colombian vice president. Latino Rebels Radio host Julio Ricardo Varela welcomes freelance writer Christina Noriega from Bogotá to break down both the victory and the challenges ahead. To subscribe to Latino Rebels Radio, click here ....
Jul 05, 2022•25 min
Latino USA takes a look back at Disney’s relationship with Latin America. We start in the 1940s when Walt Disney and a group of animators were deployed by the U.S. government to Latin America in efforts to curb Nazi influence there. Then we hear from a Chilean writer who wrote a book called How to Read Donald Duck , critiquing Disney comics’ American imperialism in the 1970s. His book would later be burned in Chile. Finally, we talk with the directors of Coco , Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. Thi...
Jul 01, 2022•53 min
For this bonus podcast drop, Latino USA shares the latest episode of the award-winning political podcast I n The Thick , hosted by Maria Hinojosa and Julio Ricardo Varela. In this episode, Maria and Julio are joined by [Kimberly Atkins Stohr]( http://Kimberly Atkins Stohr "Boston Globe"), senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe and The Emancipator, and Jessica Mason Pieklo , senior vice president of Rewire News Group and co-host of the podcast Boom! Lawyered. They unpack the Supreme Court rul...
Jun 29, 2022•40 min
Growing up in Denver, Colorado, Kali Fajardo-Anstine did not see herself, nor her family, represented in books or television. But, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Kali is a mixed Chicana woman with Indigenous and Filipino ancestry; she brings all of that into her work in hopes of creating a space where readers feel represented and seen. Kali is also the author of “Sabrina and Corina,” a collection of short stories that explore the lives of Chicanos and Chicanas in and around Dever, and she r...
Jun 28, 2022•24 min
One year ago on June 24, a small beachside town in South Florida was asleep. It was the summer, past 1 a.m., when the section of the Champlain Towers South that pointed to the beach collapsed. Twelve stories of apartments pancaked in about 30 seconds. Ninety-eight people died; most of the victims were Latinos and Latinas. To mark the first anniversary of the collapse, we visit Surfside with producer Elisa Baena, who lives there with her Cuban grandmother. She brings us a story about memory, comm...
Jun 24, 2022•46 min
For years, McAllen, Texas, has been at the front lines in the struggle for reproductive access in the country. The city has only one abortion provider, the Whole Woman’s Health Clinic, serving more than one million people in the area. It took them seven years, but filmmakers Maya Cueva and Leah Galant documented the community’s story, trying to look past the polarizing sides of the debate, to focus on how people live in the gray areas of those two extremes. In this episode, they discuss their do...
Jun 21, 2022•22 min
