Latino USA

We continue the story of Joseph Webster, a Black man who was serving a life sentence for murder in Tennessee – a murder he says he didn’t commit. After a conviction review unit in Nashville created to address potential miscarriages of justice refused to re-investigate his case, despite uncovering new evidence, Joseph and his lawyer question whether these units can actually address the flaws in the justice system. We also explore the state of wrongful convictions across the U.S. and whether review units are helping — or not — to free people from prison. And finally, the moment Joseph and his family have been dreaming of for nearly 15 years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For 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 most recent 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 Julieta Venegas, Draco Rosa, Jorge Drexler, and Flor De Toloache. For this edition of our segment, "How I Made It," we hear from three members of No Te Va Gustar: Diego Bartaburu, Martín Gil, and Francisco Nasser.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nearly 2,800 people have been exonerated — or legally cleared — after being convicted and going to prison for crimes they didn’t commit over the last three decades. In this episode of Latino USA, we explore the case of Joseph Webster, a Black man who was serving a life sentence for murder in Tennessee – a murder he says he didn’t commit. We also learn about how the justice system is trying to right some of these wrongs through the creation of conviction review units and the long-term consequences that wrongful convictions have on people’s lives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For seventeen years, Ornella Pedrozo thought of her mom's detainment by ICE as her deepest, darkest secret. When she was four years old, her mother Violeta, who had fled the armed conflict in Peru, was abruptly detained by ICE. That separation, which lasted seven months, was something that Ornella didn't really talk about, until recently. In this episode, you'll hear fragments of a letter Ornella wrote about her complicated feelings back then, and she also sits down with Violeta to talk — at length for the first time — about how those seven months left a permanent mark. This episode originally aired in February of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Known by many as “La Reina del Rock,” the queen of Latin American rock, Alejandra Guzmán has built a legacy for herself through her soulful performances and scandalous lyrics. Her famous Mexican parents, rocker Enrique Guzmán and actress Silvia Pinal, introduced her to the industry, but it’s Alejandra’s fierce stage presence and ambition that have sold over 12 million records over three decades. In this episode, Alejandra talks to Maria Hinojosa about her rebellious roots and what the rock 'n' roll lifestyle looks like with hip replacements. This episode originally aired in February of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today’s episode of Latino USA investigative journalist Jean Guerrero speaks with Maria Hinojosa about her recent reporting on Latino social media influencers who are fanning the flames of the immigration debate. Guerrero also reflects on the dangers of misinformation and talks about why combating false narratives is personal for her.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can undocumented people get the vaccine? How much is it going to cost? And how well do the COVID-19 vaccines work around children? Or with pregnant women? Many are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after a long year like no other, as adults in the U.S. are quickly becoming eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. But some still have questions. Many Latinos — who are among those hardest hit by COVID-19 — have expressed concerns about access to the vaccine and avoiding the spread of misinformation among loved ones. Latino USA asked listeners to call in with their questions about the vaccine, and guest health experts Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo, from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and Dr. Amelie Ramirez, director of Salud America!, join us to provide some answers. Also, Maria Hinojosa checks back in with Dr. Anthony Fauci after getting her second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ten years ago, when she was at the peak of her career, Dominican writer and musician Rita Indiana announced she was leaving music. But “La Montra” is now back with a new album, Mandinga Times, a fusion of punk, rock, rap dembow, heavy metal, and reggaeton. In this episode, Maria Hinojosa speaks with Rita Indiana about her new album, her queer Pan-Caribbean identity, and why she decided to leave the music scene.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For women, losing access to contraceptives and getting pregnant without planning has long-term consequences – on their education, professional development, and economic and psychological well-being. Latino USA follows Ecsibel Henriquez, a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant, as she gives birth to her second unplanned child in Colombia. We also look at how access to birth control and other reproductive services for women in Latin America and around the world has been impacted by decisions taken in the U.S, and how it is not only a foreign issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Until recently, San Francisco Gotera prison in El Salvador was a gang prison, dedicated to holding members of the notorious MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. In 2017, nearly all the inmates inside San Francisco Gotera withdrew from their gangs and converted to Christianity. Evangelical churches came to control every part of the prison, except for one: a small isolation block where nine former gang members have chosen to live, locked in around the clock, because they are openly gay. Latino USA speaks to filmmakers Marlén Viñayo and Carlos Martinez about their award-winning documentary, Unforgivable, which documents life inside that isolation cell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Luis J. Valentín Ortiz from the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo tells a hidden story from Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, that of the micro-creditors — thousands of low-income retirees and former public employees with claims that the government may never pay, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. As a federal judge prepares to make a decision on whether they’ll get paid, this episode asks: how can the government settle its many debts — not just monetary — with its citizens?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Grammy. In this “How I Made It,” Rodrigo and Gabriela take us back to the origins of their band and tell us what keeps them going after more than 20 years. This story originally aired in December of 2019.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 of metal music forever. This episode originally aired on December of 2019.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States has long been a subject of intense debate. In 1952, Puerto Rico adopted a new status that was meant to decolonize the island. In English, we call it a “Commonwealth.” In Spanish, it’s called “Estado Libre Asociado”, or ELA. Puerto Ricans were promised for decades that this unique status meant they had a special kind of sovereignty while maintaining ties to the US. Now, a series of recent crises on the island have led many to question that promise, and to use the word “colony” more and more. In this episode, political anthropologist and El Nuevo Día columnist Yarimar Bonilla looks for those who still believe in the ELA, and asks what happens when a political project dies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite being a U.S. colony, Puerto Rico competes in sports as its own country on the world stage. Since the 70s, Puerto Rico’s national basketball team has been a pride of the island, taking home trophy after trophy. But in the 2004 at the Athens Olympics, the team was up against the odds, with an opening game against a U.S. Dream Team stacked with players like Lebron James and Allen Iverson. Futuro Media’s Julio Ricardo Varela tells the story of a basketball game that Puerto Ricans will never forget, and why he thinks now, more than ever, is a crucial moment to remember it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Photographer Chris Gregory-Rivera examines the legacy of the surveillance files known in Puerto Rico as las carpetas — produced from a decades-long secret government program aimed at fracturing the pro-independence movement. Gregory-Rivera looks at las carpetas through the story of one activist family, the traitor they believed was close to them, and the betrayal that holds more mystery than they realize.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A year after COVID-19 first shut down the United States, Latino USA looks at how the pandemic has changed the lives of Latinos across the country. We’ll check in with a domestic worker in Chicago who has lost work because of the pandemic. We'll visit a Honduran family living in Mexico after they tried asking for asylum in the U.S., but were turned away. We’ll go to the South Bronx to hear how one family saved their restaurant by turning it into a mutual aid soup kitchen. And we’ll hear from a priest in Texas who is helping his community heal from a year of tremendous loss.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A winter storm in Texas left millions with no power and water issues in February. Latino USA producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. documented his family’s experience during the storm and kept an audio diary of what happened.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Weeks after Hurricane María, the Government of Puerto Rico accepted an emphatic suggestion from officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), put it in writing as if it were its own decision, and celebrated it would be used to rebuild in a “resilient” way. On the island of Vieques — which has a very high rate of cancer — they were supposed to rebuild its only hospital, destroyed by the hurricane in 2017. Now, a young girl has died from lack of care, and a neglected community fights for their basic human right: access to quality medical services. Reporter Cristina del Mar Quiles from El Centro de Periodismo Investigativo explains how federal red tape has hindered hurricane recovery.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 collaborated with more than 30 local artists to make this project happen. Futuro Conjunto is, first and foremost, a musical album. But it’s complemented by animated clips, an interactive website, and a detailed history that imagines the events that came to pass between today and several generations into the future. In this “How I Made It” segment, Vela and Leal explain the inspiration behind Futuro Conjunto and break down how they captured the sounds of the Rio Grande Valley’s future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Even amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dudamel has been living up to his personal passion of finding creative ways to play and expand access to music, all while stressing the importance of staying in touch with his Venezuelan roots. In this episode of Latino USA, Dudamel talks about staying indoors, calling family home, and his belief that music will inspire a stronger future for all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alana Casanova-Burgess traces the history and development of Levittown, a massive suburb that was founded on the idea of bringing the American middle-class lifestyle to Puerto Rico during a time of great change on the island. Casanova-Burgess (herself the granddaughter of an early Levittown resident) traces back the story of the boom and bust of Levittown and explores what its shortcomings tell us about the promises of the American Dream in Puerto Rico.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this kick off episode, host Alana Casanova-Burgess sets out to define la brega and examine what its ubiquity among boricuas really means. A brega implies a challenge we can’t really solve, so you have to hustle to get around it. In Puerto Rico, Cheo Santiago runs a social media account called Adopta Un Hoyo, where people deal with the huge problem of potholes by painting their edges white and posting photographs of craters to the site. Because the roads are rarely fixed properly, the challenges of potholes (hoyos) and what people do to fix them or get around them is a metaphorical and literal brega in Puerto Rico. Plus, the scholar Arcadio Diaz Quiñones reflects on how this useful word has its limitations, and how la brega sometimes asks too much of boricuas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesika Salgado grew up in Los Angeles in a Salvadoran family, and she calls herself a fat, fly poet—her most recent book of poems is titled "Hermosa." Yesika and Maria start this episode with a trip to the world’s largest wholesale produce market, where they go on a quest to find the sexiest fruit. Then, they sit down to talk about how love has changed Yesika’s relationship with her body and how her literary success has shaped what she wants out of love.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every holiday season, you can't help but sing along to the infectious melody of José Feliciano's 1970 mega single, "Feliz Navidad." But aside from the holiday hit, the Puerto Rican singer boasts an almost 60-year musical career and one of his specialties is recording covers like "California Dreamin'" and "La Copa Rota"—blending them with his own sound of blues, folk, soul and Latin. In this conversation with Maria Hinojosa, José Feliciano opens up about why he keeps the 70s alive and about one of his favorite relationships: the one he has with his guitar. This story originally aired in February of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this second episode of our new podcast series, Suave, Maria Hinojosa learns more about Suave’s early life in the South Bronx and the crime Suave was convicted of as a teenager in the Badlands of Philadelphia. We explore the "tough on crime" politics of the 80's and early 90's and the ruthless tactics of prosecutors that led to Pennsylvania becoming the state that sentenced the most minors in the country to life in prison without parole. Meanwhile, Suave anxiously awaits the decision from a judge that could grant him the opportunity to finally leave prison.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Suave has been serving a life sentence at a Pennsylvania maximum-security prison since he was a teenager. In 1993, he meets Maria Hinojosa when she's invited to speak at the prison and they begin a decades-long journalist-source relationship. Now nearly 50, Suave has come to terms with the fact that he will never leave the confines of Graterford prison. That is until a Supreme Court ruling in 2016 changes everything — and suddenly grants him a second chance to fight for his freedom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Journalist Maria Garcia tells her story as she began to report on the lasting legacy of Selena Quintanilla. Maria's reporting begins not with Selena herself, but with Abraham Quintanilla: Selena's father, manager and mentor, known for guarding his daughter’s legacy with an iron fist. Maria confronts Abraham’s complicated legacy and reflects on fatherhood in Latinx cultures. Subscribe to Anything For Selena wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under seven presidents stemming back to the 1980s. He is often seen as the leading voice in combating COVID-19, which has now killed more than 440,000 people and infected over 26 million across the country. A disproportionate number of those have been Black, Latino and Indigenous people. During the past administration, Dr. Fauci at times contradicted President Trump, who would often promote unscientific or unproven cures, minimize the threat of COVID-19 or underestimate the gravity of the emergency. Today, Dr. Fauci is President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor and is back at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. On this episode of Latino USA, Dr. Fauci discusses his early childhood, similarities in combating the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the Biden administration plans on doing to eliminate inequalities that have led to Black and brown communities being heavily impacted by the virus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 how he explored everything from funk music to corridos to make his debut album, “Apolonio.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the summer of 1971, President Nixon declared a “War on Drugs.” Today, with over 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. is the world's most carceral nation. Many of those serving time are there for crimes related to drugs. Meanwhile, more than 70,000 people died last year as a result of drug overdoses. Nearly 50 years later, the so-called War on Drugs is failing. And advocates for reform have long argued that punitive policies have not reduced the flow of drugs across the country but have actually strengthened illicit drug markets, creating risky and unhealthy conditions for drug users by focusing on the criminal element of drug use instead of seeing it through a lens of healthcare access and social justice. In this episode of Latino USA, Maritza Perez from the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, DC breaks down the racial history behind the War on Drugs and why decriminalization may be the only way to end the persecution of people of color under the guise of drug enforcement.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since January 2019, nearly 68,000 asylum seekers have been ordered to wait in Mexico as their cases make their way through the U.S. courts system. The wait can take years, and it can often be deadly. After Mexico boasted its highest number of deportations ever in 2019, a group of local researchers and advocates set out to document just how extensive the cooperation has become between the U.S. and Mexico. The study concluded that Mexico violated its guaranteed constitutional protections when, under the Trump administration, the country mirrored its immigration policies after those of the U.S. In this episode of Latino USA, Maria Hinojosa talks to Alicia Moncada and Gretchen Kuhner about their findings and why President Biden should prioritize reform of the U.S. asylum in his first 100 days of office.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Goya Foods was has been on the spotlight after its CEO Robert Unanue expressed his support for former president Donald Trump. Calls for boycotts flooded social media over the summer. But that wasn’t the first time the food giant got caught in political turmoil. From labor disputes with its Latino workers trying to unionize in Miami to the Puerto Rican community in New York, three boycotts tell a “not-so-rosy” story about Goya. In this episode of Latino USA, we look into how Goya became a badge of identity for Latinos in the US, and why these boycotts were about much more than a can of beans.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This past November, Latino voters helped Joe Biden win the Presidency. He had made a long list of commitments to Latinx communities, from investing in healthcare and education and creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to cleaning up pollution in communities of color. Now, on the eve of Biden’s inauguration, Latino USA speaks with young Latinxs across the country whose lives would be directly impacted by these commitments.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maria Garcia can still remember the first time she saw Selena Quintanilla on TV: red lips, brown skin, big hoops. Maria was just 7 years old, new to the United States, and figuring out how to belong. For her and so many others, it was nothing short of a revolution, to see a Mexican-American woman, with working class roots, take pride in who she was, and have the world love her for it. And then, suddenly, on March 31st of 1995, Selena was gone. A quarter century later, Journalist Maria Garcia investigates Selena’s legacy and what Selena can tell us about race, class, body politics, and Latinx identity. This is the first episode of a new podcast called Anything For Selena — a collaboration between WBUR and Futuro Studios, available wherever you can find podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 "Portrait Of," Maria sits talked to Gabby about her beginnings as a writer, her difficult experience with #comicsgate and about returning to comic book writing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 19-year-old who’s working to shut down the oil industry, one well at a time. This story originally aired in June of 2019.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jessie Reyez sings sad songs, but it's those songs along with her soulful voice and brutally honest lyrics that have garnered her fans around the world. In this "How I Made It" segment, Jessie Reyez talks about the role of music in her childhood, how she writes through her own emotional pain, and how even when her fans sing along to her saddest songs—she feels more connected to them than ever. This story originally aired in January of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2005, a duo of Puerto Rican artists released their eponymously titled debut album "Calle 13." Their mix of reggaeton and rap took the Latinx music scene by storm and got them three Latin Grammy awards. In 2017, one half of that duo, René Juan Pérez Joglar—better known as Residente—released his first solo album. To find inspiration, he took a genealogical DNA test and traveled to every part of the world that showed up in the test, where he collaborated with local musicians. Now, Residente is working on his second solo album, which involves the brainwaves of worms. Maria Hinojosa sits down with Residente to dig into the mind of the man who has experimented with so many musical genres. This story originally aired in March of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1998, JJ Velazquez was sentenced to life for the murder of a police officer in Harlem, New York. The twenty-one-year-old father had an alibi that day, yet was placed in a lineup and identified as the shooter. Since then, identifying witnesses have recanted their testimony that JJ was the shooter and there is no evidence placing JJ at the scene. In fact, new evidence points away from JJ. The real killer is still out there and JJ has been in prison for over 20 years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christmas and the holiday season are usually a time for Latinos and Latinas to gather together and celebrate, but COVID-19 has turned those holiday celebrations upside down. Yet for many people in the Latino community, spending the holidays away from family is not new. In this episode of Latino USA we hear from Latinos and Latinas who are used to not being able to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones, and we learn some tips on how to cope with these socially distant holidays.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Gascón was recently elected as Los Angeles County’s District Attorney, and his victory was hailed as a big win for a movement of progressive prosecutors aiming to end mass incarceration. Gascón immigrated from Cuba to Cudahy, a suburb of Los Angeles, as a teenager. He spent more than thirty years as a police officer before becoming District Attorney for San Francisco in 2011. On this episode of Latino USA, Gascón talks with Maria Hinojosa about getting harassed by the cops as a teenager, how his years as a cop shaped his philosophy of law enforcement, and his vision for his new job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez was denied access to Los Angeles Police Department’s arrest records for her research on mass incarceration, she decided that she would not go down without a fight. Kelly sued the LAPD for access to this data and used the information gathered to create Million Dollar Hoods, a project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. We speak with Kelly and her students about how they are using this data to create equations for reparations and liberation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was only a few years ago that Erik Rodriguez was attending medical school in his native Cuba, following his family of careerists’ footsteps. But then, when he heard James Brown’s "I feel good," he realized that he was meant for a different path. In this segment of “How I Made It,” Erik takes us through his transformation into Afro-Cuban artist Cimafunk—a Billboard’s “Top 10 Latin Artists to Watch”—and explains how someone who had never studied music before found the confidence to listen to himself and be listened to by others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The arrival of the novel coronavirus in Munduruku territory, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, has threatened the lives of the group, and its entire culture. COVID-19 took the life of an important Munduruku leader, bringing both sadness to an embattled people and hampering language revitalization efforts. But the Munduruku are a warrior people defined by their fierceness and tenacity. They have approached this struggle as they have all their battles, whether against miners, loggers, and invaders of a different stripe: without reservations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pregnancy comes with all kinds of questions, but the journey to pregnancy and the mishaps along the way are often overlooked or taboo in the Latino community. How can we as a community help break the silences surrounding some of the more difficult aspects of pregnancy? Maria Hinojosa sits down with producer Jeanne Montalvo – who is currently pregnant – and certified birth doula Elizabeth Perez to discuss all things pregnancy: the highs, the lows, the miscarriages, the triumphs, and having babies during the COVID-19 pandemic.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ilia Calderón was still a little girl when she first experienced racism. But being rejected by part of her native Colombia's society would not deter her from following her dreams. She became the anchor of a national news network in Colombia and, after joining Univision in Miami, the first Afro-Latina to host a national newscast in the U.S. Listen to Ilia as she tells us about her debut book, her journey to becoming a prominent journalist, and what it's like to raise a mixed-race child.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cecilia Peña-Govea who calls herself La Doña, grew up in the Mission District in San Francisco. She started playing music in her family's band at just seven years old. Now, she's blazing her own musical path and keeping the city she grew up in at the heart of her work. In her debut EP “Algo Nuevo” she touches on love, heartbreak, and rising rent. In this edition of our “How I Made It” series La Doña breaks down one of her new songs “Cuando Se Van” and talks about taking her fears and turning them into a powerful anthem for a gentrifying city.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of people gather on Alcatraz Island, the famous former prison and one of the largest tourist attractions in San Francisco, for a sunrise ceremony to honor Indigenous culture and history. In 1969, an intertribal group of students and activists took over the island for over 16 months in an act of political resistance. Richard Oakes, a young Mohawk from New York, was one of the leaders in this movement dubbed the "Red Power Movement." Latino USA tells the story of Richard Oakes' life, from his first involvement in activism to his untimely death at the age of 30. This episode originally aired on November, 2018.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The summer of 2020 was filled with uncertainty as more than 20 million people in the U.S. were left unemployed — including Kate Bustamante’s parents. Bustamante is a 20-year-old student at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California. She’s always worked part-time and attended school as long as she can remember. But this summer was different. Overnight, Bustamante dropped out of classes and became her family’s breadwinner. In this personal piece Bustamante, through diary recordings and personal reflections, takes us into her world and what she went through over the summer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.