The Breakfast Podcast

Sometimes we forget that books do not only serve to learn how to read, but to learn how to feel, to understand others, and to imagine worlds where everything is possible. Children's literature is not a minor genre; in many ways, it is the first refuge where we discover who we are.

I don't think there is a more manipulated book than the Bible, a book riddled with violent images, which suddenly shifts to love for one's neighbor, but with parables that, even for me, are hard to understand.  It is enough to remember how much suffering the indiscriminate use of God's name has caused, from the persecution of alleged witches, to justifying slavery or wars.

Although people still say that only birds migrate, today we often see human migration as a phenomenon that is difficult to explain. However, the deep history of humanity tells exactly the opposite story. By biological and cultural definition, the human being is a species in motion.  Ever since the first hominins left Africa, the survival of our species has depended on our ability to adapt to new t...

Today I’m not going to recommend any book, but I do want to make a statement—and I say this as an English Studies student preparing to become a teacher. Perhaps out of curiosity, or perhaps as an occupational hazard, I feel that being a teacher isn't just about passing on knowledge, which itself needs to be taught properly. Being a teacher requires research. It means picking up books that aren't o...

The Francoist repression in the Canary Islands has a key distinction: there was no war front in the archipelago. Following the July 1936 coup d'état, the islands quickly fell under the control of the rebels, meaning violence was exercised systematically and unilaterally against the civilian population defending the Second Republic.

The socio-formative roots status (formerly known as roots through training) is a temporary residence permit due to exceptional circumstances in Spain that allows foreign nationals to regularize their status while undertaking regulated training or formative employment. 

In August 1914, the First World War had just broken out. In Dalkeith, a small town near Edinburgh (Scotland), James Marchbank, a boy of just 14 who worked as a delivery boy, lied about his age and enlisted in the army. His testimony was rescued by the writer Gillian Arbuthnott in the work "A Secret Diary of the First World War", transforming the cold facts of history books into a human and unforge...

In August 1914, the First World War had just broken out. In Dalkeith, a small town near Edinburgh (Scotland), James Marchbank, a boy of just 14 who worked as a delivery boy, lied about his age and enlisted in the army. His testimony was rescued by the writer Gillian Arbuthnott in the work "A Secret Diary of the First World War", transforming the cold facts of history books into a human and unforge...

Everyone has the right to their own ideas and to freedom of labor association. However, when we talk about the institutions that safeguard security and hold the legitimate use of force, political neutrality is not a secondary option: it is a fundamental democratic guarantee. In recent years, we have observed with concern how certain discourses and representative platforms within the security force...

What I am going to talk about in today's episode has already happened in Germany and Ireland: indiscriminate attacks against migrants. I haven't seen anything like this since the first migrant people arrived in Spain via the Canary Islands. I feel that something against human rights has been brewing since 2016, but migrants are taking the brunt of it due to the unprecedented violence.

"Abilities Within Me" is a wonderful children's book series and foundation created by Gemma Keir, inspired by her son with 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome. This book helps raise awareness about disabilities, celebrate diversity, and foster empathy and inclusion from childhood (for children aged 3 to 8). Its illustrated stories sensitively address conditions such as Autism, ADHD, Down Syndrome, Cyst...

Talking about La Isleta is talking about worker struggle, dignity, and the sea. But it is also remembering the harsh footprint of Francoist repression that struck hard at the residents of this emblematic neighborhood.

Let's not throw our hands up in horror: being a migrant doesn't strip you of your prejudices. We already see how they look down on other migrants, people of another ethnicity, and even those without resources

"The Diary of Piete Kuhr" aka " Diaries of the Great War "is the autobiographical testimony written by Elfriede Alice "Piete" Kuhr (1902–1989). Due to her political activism, her open opposition to persecution, and the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, she had to flee Germany to escape being sent to a concentration camp (like many of her socialist and activist friends). She took refuge in Zurich, S...

Even 94 years after the rise of the Nazis, we continue to wonder why a people as cultured as the Germans ended up falling into the clutches of hatred. Well. Not all of them. Was there opportunism or conviction?

There are always people who, being completely innocent, pay the consequences. It already happened to the Japanese population, but what about the Japanese born in the USA? Yes. They found themselves incarcerated in concentration camps, when Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, empowering the military to designate exclusion zones.

Hoda Thamir Jehad, a young Iraqi woman who was 18 years old at the time of the US-led invasion of her country in March 2003, belonging to a cultured and moderate family of lawyers, journalists, and teachers, was born on October 11, 1985, in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq.  She began writing a personal diary just as the fighting started and missiles began falling on Baghdad, hoping that putting words on...

Remembering the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Causes: the context of World War II in the Pacific and the United States' decision to force Japan's surrender. Consequences: massive devastation, hundreds of thousands of deaths from blasts and radiation, and the dawn of the nuclear age. Never again. Peace and historical memory for the world. 

In Spain, the population of migrant origin is divided as follows, according to official records and the most recent analyses: -Foreign population with legal residency: Exceeds 7.4 million people (according to the INE Continuous Population Statistics), representing the vast majority of those with a regularized administrative status in the country. If a broader count is taken of all persons born abr...

Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries, From World War I to Iraq is a critically acclaimed book co-edited by Zlata Filipović (best known for Zlata's Diary, written during the siege of Sarajevo) and writer/researcher Melanie Challenger.  

The historical significance of the street lies in the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, a landmark confrontation in which local residents, trade unionists, and anti-fascist demonstrators successfully blocked a march by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

Unaccompanied migrant minor centers are specialized facilities dedicated to the protection, basic care, and social integration of foreign children and adolescents who arrive in a country without their parents or legal guardians, focusing on legal assistance, language learning, and preparation for adult life.

"Zlata's Diary" was written by Zlata Filipović, a young girl who documented her daily life during the Bosnian War and the Siege of Sarajevo between 1991 and 1993. She began the diary at age 10, addressing it as "Mimmy." Her entries start in a normal school environment and gradually transition to loss of electricity, sheltering in basements, food shortages, and the death of close friends due to bom...

This date might mean nothing to you or sound like a Eurovision song, but for many Ukrainians, it was their "annus horribilis". But no. I am not referring to the song, but to the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars carried out by the regime of Joseph Stalin in May of that same year. For the population of Crimea and much of Ukraine, 1944 did not mean only the advance of the Soviet front against t...

Sixteen years ago—time flies—I ran a workshop in which I asked why a football player was considered a foreigner, whereas people arriving on wooden boats were labeled immigrants. The goal of the activity was to help people understand why we accept certain individuals and reject others, as was the case with Ukrainian refugees. But I will give you a clearer, more graphic example. During the Bosnian W...