Latino USA

Alejandra Ghersi, the experimental musician from Venezuela known as Arca, has been at the forefront of a movement that has pushed the boundaries of the pop music landscape. Since dropping her first mixtapes in 2011, she has produced album after album of boundary-defying music, and has been tapped as a producer for Kanye West, Bjork and FKA twigs. In this episode Arca talks with Maria Hinojosa abou...

Growing up as a Nuyorican kid in the Bronx, Bobby Sanabria first watched "West Side Story" in the movie theaters, on the 10th anniversary of the film's release. "I was mesmerized," said the Latin Jazz drummer and composer. In 2017, the Broadway classic celebrated its 60th anniversary and to honor this milestone, Sanabria re-envisioned what Latino New York City actually sounds like. The result was...

In the early 70s, Miguel Angel Villavicencio was focused on making his most ambitious dream possible: to become a famous singer in Bolivia and across the world. And he was halfway there—his love songs were on the radio and he was appearing on TV. But to take his singing career truly international, he needed money. So he decided to work for Bolivia's most powerful drug cartel in the 80s—a major sup...

Brazil recorded its first death from COVID-19 on March 17th and by mid-June the country was the world leader in daily deaths. Overall, Brazil is only behind the United States both in the number of cases and deaths due to coronavirus. But Jair Bolsonaro, the country's right-wing nationalist president, continues to be dismissive about the threat posed by the virus. In this episode, we find out why B...

On Thursday, June 18th, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that upheld the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. This comes over two years after the Trump administration moved to eliminate the program. About 700,000 people are currently enrolled in DACA, which grants temporary stays of deportation to undocumented immigrants who moved to the U.S. as children. As DACA recipients an...

According to Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat, stories are a way of finding inspiration and comfort during the times we're living through. Her award-winning writing portrays the immigrant experience, Haitian American identity, and loss. In conversation with Maria Hinojosa, Danticat dives into the history of resistance to the police violence that was all around her as a young adult in New Y...

In 1919, an intrepid Texas state representative, José Tomás Canales, decided to lead an investigation into the abuse of power by the Texas Rangers. For several years, residents of South Texas had been reporting that members of the law enforcement agency were going rogue: beating, torturing, and even killing people, in the name of protecting Anglo settlers. The subsequent investigation into these a...

The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked worldwide protests against racism and police brutality. To many, this moment seems inevitable — and for the Latinx community, it's bringing up complex conversations on identity, race, and allyship with the Black community. In the first of several conversations we will be having on Latino USA, we're joined by Afro-Puerto Rican a...

In late February, the government of Puerto Rico was in denial over COVID-19. Top health officials were saying that the coronavirus would not reach the island—but the pandemic did arrive in early March. With hospitals that are still recovering from hurricanes and earthquakes, there was concern that the spread of COVID-19 would overwhelm a fragile health system. To prevent that from happening, a gro...

In the early 1990s, Willie Perdomo was a teenager growing up in East Harlem. He saw and experienced firsthand a tumultuous moment in New York City, including the crack epidemic and the consequences of the war on drugs. In his latest book of poetry, "The Crazy Bunch," Perdomo wrangles with that history and the ghosts of that time. Latino USA's Antonia Cereijido takes a walk with Perdomo through his...

It's been over a week since the death of George Floyd – a black man in handcuffs who died after being suffocated under the knee of a white officer in Minneapolis. Since Floyd's death, protests have erupted all over the country, calling for an end to police brutality on black citizens. One of the cities where residents have taken to the streets is Atlanta. The hometown of Martin Luther King, Jr. th...

Today we're bringing you an episode from our vault — a love story of student activism. We're taking you back to 1968, when thousands of students participated in a series of protests that helped spark the Chicano Movement, historically known as the East L.A. Walkouts. It's also when high school sweethearts and student organizers Bobby Verdugo and Yoli Ríos danced to a Thee Midniters song and fell i...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a moment in which our broader food supply chains have been challenged—dairy farmers dumping unused milk, farmers plowing over produce, meatpacking plants closing, and grocery store shelves running empty. In some communities, that means people are now turning to smaller, local farms for their produce. One of those farms is run by the Hernández family in Edinburg, Texas. Ami...

In Part 2 of The Moving Border, we visit Tapachula, Mexico in search of a young man whose life is in danger. And we find a new frontier where refugees trying to make it to the U.S. are increasingly stuck, thanks to an international effort to make Mexico a destination state for asylum. The Moving Border series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, with additional support provided by...

As the coronavirus spread in New York City and reached its peak in April, some disturbing statistics were revealed: Black and Latino patients were disproportionately affected by the disease, and they were dying at twice the rate of other patients. Even after the peak of the outbreak in New York, intensive care units in hospitals across the city are still busy caring for COVID-19 patients. In this...

In this two-part investigation, "The Moving Border" from Latino USA, we delve into the increasing pressure put on refugees seeking safety in the United States via its southern border. It reveals the surprising support the Trump administration has received to create an impenetrable policy wall that pushes asylum seekers south, away from the U.S. In episode one, "The North," we visit Juárez and tell...

For our latest episode of Latino USA, we partnered up with Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigrants in New York City, to get a behind the scenes look at the experience of trying to navigate the immigration courts as an asylum-seeker under the Trump Administration. Maria Hinojosa sat down with co-founders of Documented, Max Siegelbaum and Mazin Sidahmed, to talk about what they obse...

In this episode of Latino USA we partner up with Documented, a nonprofit news site that covers immigrants in New York City, to get a behind the scenes look at the experience of trying to navigate the immigration courts as an asylum-seeker under the Trump Administration. We follow the story of Wendy and Elvis, Guatemalan newlyweds who flee violent extortion threats only to find themselves in a madd...

The COVID-19 shutdown has changed the lives of many across the country, including small business owners who are struggling to pay their rent, meet their payrolls and stay afloat. Texas has one of the highest rates of Latino-owned businesses in the country. Maria Hinojosa checks in with entrepreneurship reporter Paul Flahive of Texas Public Radio, who has been covering this story across Texas. He s...

Felipe Coronel, aka Immortal Technique, is a legendary underground hip-hop artist known for his skills on the mic and his raw, highly political lyrics. Today, Immortal Technique spends his time working on philanthropic causes. Much of his work has been centered in Harlem, especially in the past two months of the coronavirus pandemic. Along with donating to various charity organizations, he is goin...

Enrique Bunbury is a rock legend in Spain and Latin America, and he's been touring in the United States for years. A pioneer of the "rock en español" movement, Bunbury's eclectic solo career spans decades. During this time he has taken his loyal fans on a musical journey from cabaret to electronic music, all driven by his rock and roll ethos. In this episode Bunbury sits down with Maria Hinojosa t...

New York City continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, but the state with the third most coronavirus cases —after New York and New Jersey— is Massachusetts. And just across the river from Boston is a city that has the highest per capita rate of infection in that state. It's the city of Chelsea. For generations, its residents have been primarily Latino or newly-arrived immigrants...

The 1970s were a golden age for soccer in Peru, one that producer Janice Llamoca only heard about growing up in Los Angeles in the '90s. The Peruvian soccer team went to three World Cups in that era. But after that, the team did poorly for decades — failing to qualify for the World Cup year after year. Then, in 2017, Peru qualified for the World Cup after 36 years — giving the Llamocas the opportu...

In recent weeks, many of us have had to adjust to living and working remotely. It's a necessary precaution to keep yourself and your community safe during the coronavirus pandemic — but it's not always easy to do. John Paul Brammer, author of the popular advice column "Hola Papi," gets it. He's been getting lots of questions from readers about how to make it through life in self-quarantine, from n...

The 2020 census is underway, which counts everyone living in the U.S. and its five territories including Puerto Rico. The form consists of questions like name, age, sex and race, but some of these answers are complicated. One example is the race question. In Puerto Rico, residents choose "Puerto Rican" to describe their Hispanic origin, but historically residents have overwhelmingly identified as...