Latino USA

Alexis Daria now writes love stories about Latina and Latino characters that reflect and celebrate her friends and family. In this episode of Latino USA, Daria takes us through her early morning writing process, reads an excerpt from A Lot Like Adiós, and asks us to ponder, what is so silly about a love story? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year marks the 10th anniversary since the policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was put in place. It has been described as “extraordinarily successful,” benefiting more than 800,000 people. However, it still doesn’t offer a pathway to legal permanent residency or citizenship. This instability has driven many young immigrants to return to their countries of origin, even if it...

When 8-year-old Relisha Rudd disappeared from a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. in 2014, nobody noticed. By the time police appeared at the homeless shelter where Relisha lived with her family, 18 days had passed since she’d been seen at school or in the shelter. Click here to subscribe for more episodes of Through the Cracks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the Latino USA archives, producer Marlon Bishop travels to the Dominican-Haitian border to unpack the history of what happened during the Perejil Massacre of 1937—and what are the consequences today. This episode originally aired on October 6, 2017. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a Zapotec and Maya Ch’orti’ environmental scientist, Dr. Jessica Hernandez has always found academia to be a hostile place. She had looked forward to sharing what she learned from her grandmother and father about nature as an undergraduate student, but her lived experiences and knowledge were dismissed and sometimes mocked by her professors. Now, Dr. Hernandez is working to change how we think...

If some Latinos hear "la doctora," it doesn’t evoke the image of a medical doctor. Instead, it’s that of a Cuban American attorney-turned-show host who sings her own theme song. In 2001, Doctora Polo had been practicing family law for over 20 years in Miami when she was hired to host a new court show on Telemundo that would later become "Caso Cerrado." It often aired for multiple hours a day on Te...

From Futuro Studios and Sonoro Chalino grew up surrounded by violence in a humble town in Sinaloa. But his life takes a turn for the worse when a group of men attack his sister. That day he promises to avenge her. Years later, when he is given his first pistol, Chalino is believed to have stalked one of the attackers at a party. This event gives rise to the first theory about who could have killed...

From Futuro Studios and Sonoro Narcocorrido superstar Chalino Sánchez sings to a sold-out crowd for the first time in Sinaloa. It's the best night of his career until someone hands him a note. His face turns pale and his smile slowly disappears. That night, after the show, Chalino will be executed. But who killed him and why? We begin a journey to understand Chalino's life and impact, and the theo...

Latino USA is featuring a recent Latino Rebels Radio episode where host Julio Ricardo Varela welcomes Chilean historian and journalist Camila Vergara to discuss  Chile’s historic elections  and how new political mechanisms will be required to loosen the grip of reactionary forces in an effort to radically redraft the Constitution. For more Latino Rebels Radio shows, subscribe here . See omnystudio...

It has been over seven years since 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Guerrero, Mexico, were taken by armed men in the middle of the night. They were never seen again. Their disappearance sparked mass protests, as the 43 became symbols of Mexico’s unchecked human rights abuses. In recent decades, tens of thousands of people have gone missing in Mexico, and almost no one has...

Veronique Medrano is a Tejano and Spanish Country singer from Brownsville, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Veronique finds inspiration as an artist from her experiences living on the border, her Mexican-American identity and her everyday life. On this How I Made It segment, Veronique walks us through the origins and diversity of Tejano music, being a woman in a male-dominated industry and the impo...

Two boys, Mexican-American, 1987, El Paso, Texas… and they fall in love. That’s the pitch behind Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s bestselling young adult novel, “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.” Nearly a decade later, Benjamin would release the book’s sequel, “Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World,” to wide acclaim. For both books, Benjamin drew inspiration from his...

For this special Latino USA presentation of In The Thick , Maria and Julio are joined by  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor , historian, writer and professor at Princeton University, and  Adam Goodman , professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, for a conversation about the deep-rooted history of white supremacy in this country. They discuss their chapters in a new anthology titled A Field Guide to Wh...

Juan Castillo escaped the Civil War in El Salvador and fled to the U.S. in search of freedom. He was barely a teenager when he arrived and soon fell into the wrong crowd. After being accused and convicted of a murder he denies having committed, he’s been striving to make a life in prison for the last 26 years. Now, as ICE is trying to deport him, he’s fighting to not only find freedom again, but r...

José Hernandez began modeling a couple years ago after a photoshoot of his went viral in 2018. The main image showed him holding a rooster, glammed up in a look that can only be described as Queer Chicano Chic, with glowing skin, a tight fade, cowboy boots, and a luscious mustache. Since then José has been booked and busy. He’s worked with brands such as NYX Cosmetics, Facebook, and Grindr, and wa...

While tango is usually pictured as a dance between a white man in an elegant black suit and a white woman in high heels, and a tight red dress, the reality of tango goes much deeper. Born in the brothels and dance halls of Buenos Aires’ lower caste, this music and dance is actually rooted in Argentina’s African and queer subcultures. Before it became the defining music of Argentina, tango was actu...

Chicago is a breeding ground for diverse sounds: it is the birthplace of house music and has a thriving indie hip-hop scene. One of the city's up-and-coming artists is Kaina Castillo. Known simply as KAINA, the 23-year-old singer-songwriter blends genres like soul and rock, creating dreamy soundscapes. A Latina of Venezuelan and Guatemalan descent, she writes about struggling with her identity, al...

Armando Christian Pérez —better known as Pitbull— is a rapper, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, brand ambassador and has a whole host of other job titles. As his nearly two-decade-long career has diversified, his image and brand have solidified. He rose to prominence off bilingual records hits like "Culo" and "Toma" in the early 2000s and became a household name thanks to wedding and quinceañer...

The musical genres most people associate with the Dominican Republic are merengue and bachata. Yet, there's another set of rhythms that are essential to the spirit of the country, and that's Afro-Dominican roots music. That's where the band Yasser Tejeda & Palotré come in. They blend some of the country's black roots rhythms like palo, salve and sarandunga, with jazz and rock to bring a new sp...

Latino USA and Black Public Media bring you Alzheimer’s in Color, a 2021 Gracie Awards winner. It’s the story of Ramona Latty, a Dominican immigrant, told by her daughter Yvonne, and it mirrors countless other families of color navigating a disease that is ravaging the Latino community. It’s been four years now since Ramona was diagnosed. Four years of the lonely journey, which in the end her daug...

When vocalist, composer and multi-media performance artist Stefa Marin Alarcon — also known as STEFA  — takes the stage, it feels like walking through a portal into somewhere that is both past and future. Born and raised in Queens, NY to Colombian immigrant parents, STEFA ’s music explores themes such as reconnecting with their ancestors and falling in love under capitalism. On this How I Made It...

Mexico is the most dangerous place for journalists in the world. And Lydia Cacho —a Mexican investigative journalist who worked in the country for over 30 years— knows this first hand: in 2005, she was kidnapped and tortured after uncovering an international child trafficking network. But that didn’t stop Lydia; she continued working, denouncing violence against women and children. Those after her...

For this special Latino USA presentation of In The Thick , Maria and Julio are joined by  Al Letson , host of Reveal and the new podcast series , “Mississippi Goddamn: The Ballad of Billey Joe.” Billey Joe Johnson Jr. was a Black high school football star who was found dead in Lucedale, Mississippi in 2008 after being pulled over by a white cop. They get into his story, the problematic history of...

Lupe Salazar is a grandmother in Chimayó, northern New Mexico on a mission to disrupt the cycle of opioid addiction and the trauma caused by it in her rural community. The region has long been an epicenter of drug overdose deaths – long before the national opioid epidemic was declared a national emergency. After her son began using heroin in jail when he was 18, Lupe realized the systems in place...

In the late 2010s, dreamy, nostalgic music produced from the homes of young, independent artists became hugely popular, especially online. This style of music would be called bedroom pop, and today, a quick search on streaming sites comes up with hundreds of hits. Even bedroom pop is a new term for you, chances are you might recognize songs or artists in this genre—including a lot of the young Lat...