Latino USA Futuro Media and PRX
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- Society & Culture
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Latino 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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Latinos Persevering
On today’s episode of Latino USA, we meet some of the Latinos and Latinas involved with the recent and historic mission to Mars. The Perseverance rover traveled almost 300 million miles to Mars and landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, in hopes of finding traces of previous life on the planet.
This episode originally aired in May of 2021. -
Alex Padilla, From California to Capitol Hill
It was an anti-immigrant initiative in his home state of California that pushed Alex Padilla into politics, now he is making history as the first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate. In an extended interview with Padilla, Maria Hinojosa asks the senator about Prop 187, the controversial 1994 ballot measure that politicized Padilla, and many other Latinos of his generation. They also discuss the senator’s career-long focus on voting rights, and the threats they face today.
This episode originally aired in May of 2021. -
Samanta Schweblin’s Unsettling Normality
In her work, Argentine author Samanta Schweblin explores the feeling of eeriness that accompanied her childhood. Samanta was born in Buenos Aires in 1978, just after the start of a violent dictatorship. But, while violence surrounded her growing up, there was also art: her grandfather was a famous artist who began to train her as a writer when she was six years old. Together they took trips, stole books, rode the train without tickets and went to plays and museums—all in the name of artistic training. It worked. Samanta’s work has been translated into 25 languages and long-listed for the International Booker Prize.
In this episode, Samanta shares the origins of her fascination with the blurry lines between our perceptions of what’s normal and what’s strange. -
Toñita's Club Fights Erasure
When you enter the Caribbean Social Club, or Toñita’s, it feels like you could be in your grandmother’s living room. And that’s exactly what its owner, Maria Antonia Cay —better known as Toñita— was aiming for when she opened the club in the 1970s as a gathering place for the local baseball team. 50 years later, Toñita’s is still standing in Los Sures, the south side of Williamsburg—the most gentrified neighborhood in New York City. Yet over the years, Toñita has faced ever greater challenges to keep her club open. In this episode of Latino USA, we follow Toñita through her latest hurdle, a court battle, and we learn about how the Puerto Rican community in Los Sures has kept culture alive.
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The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island
This week, Latino USA shares an episode of The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island podcast.
When Annette Vega was in elementary school, she found out the man she called “dad” wasn’t her biological father. But all she knew was that her mom had had a teenage romance with a guy named Angel Garcia. Annette has searched for Angel for more than 30 years, a search that is finally coming to the end.
“The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island" is a new series from Radio Diaries that tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx is America's largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a "potter's field." Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19.
You can hear the entire series on the Radio Diaries podcast here. -
Latino Hustle: Oscars 2024
The 96th Oscars ceremony is a new opportunity for Latinos and Latin Americans in the moviemaking business to be recognized for excellence in cinema. America Ferrera has earned her first Oscar nomination and Colman Domingo has become the first Afro-Latino nominated for best actor.
And yet, representation of Latinos on the big screen has remained stagnant.
But there are several Latinos and Latin Americans nominated who you may not have heard anything about yet. We spoke to Andes survivor Roberto Canessa and actor Matias Recalt from “The Society of the Snow;” director Maite Alberdi from “The Eternal Memory;” and producer Phil Lord from “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
Editorial note: This interview was recorded in early February.
Customer Reviews
Excellent podcast
I am very lucky to have found this podcast. Excellent for Latinos and for getting our political news. Maria is in inspiration. Thank you for everything you do Maria you and your team.
Zely
This one made me proud to be Latin women or just proud to be a women Cried with those powerful words
Great Stories
The stories and information given are important to be heard and highlighted in the US. I plan to start tapping more into my community and learning more.