Paseo Podcast: Sharing Puerto Rican Stories

Puerto Rico residents are PISSED over consistent power outages happening in Puerto Rico since LUMA Energy - a private Canadian-American company - took over la Isla's electricity on June 1, 2021. We welcome Nicole Acevedo, NBC News and NBC Latino reporter, and Carlos Berríos Polanco, a freelance independent journalist focused on covering extremism, political corruption and civil unrest in Puerto Ri...

The Puerto Rican Festival begins today through September 26! It’s been going strong for 39 years, but was once at risk of not happening in 2019 due to the unethical stewardship of the committee in charge at the time that ended in the organization filing bankruptcy. The group of community leaders we have on today’s show actually stepped up during that time to organize the fest successfully within l...

Being a small business owner can be tough, and the pandemic has only made things harder, especially for BIPOC owners. On today's episode, we welcome Boricua small business owner, Rachel Diaz, to the show. She is the owner of a Puerto Rican Bakeshop called Borinken Cakes. She’s a working mother of two, who - before getting into the baking business - had a career in product design with products appe...

What’s up everyone! It’s good to be back in action. In today’s episode we get the Paseo Podcast team together to talk about a ton of Puerto Rico news that we either missed or wanted to talk about while we were on break. We’re going to talk about Puerto Rican athletes, Jessica Camacho-Quinn and Amanda Serrano, Puerto Rico as a tax haven through the lens of Jake and Logan Paul, climate change and Pu...

On today’s show we welcome Nicole Alvarez. She's the Co-Founder & Coordinator of Actívate PR, which is a collective dedicated to bringing awareness to the importance of Puerto Rican independence from a present day lens. We’re going to discuss predatory gentrification in Puerto Rico today. There’s been a number of news stories over the years bringing attention to the policies contributing to the pu...

On today’s show we welcome Dr. Sara Awartani. We're going to talk about settler colonialism and armed struggle within the context of Puerto Rico and Palestine, examples of Puerto Rican and Palestinian solidarity, and hear some of her literary suggestions on where people can begin to educate themselves on Puerto Rico and Palestine independence. She is a Global American Studies Postdoctoral Fellow a...

On today’s show, we welcome Ali Six. He is a multi-medium artist from Chicago. Among other things, in today’s episode we’re going to discuss the role Aladdin & Michael Jordan played in his name, his 3 key takeaways for aspiring artists he’s learned in his career, what getting arrested meant for his trajectory in the Chicago art scene and where in the diaspora the Jibarito was first created. Host,...

On today’s show we welcome returning guest, Federico A. de Jesús. He is an advisor for the Center for American Progress. You may remember him from the last time we had him on the show to discuss the PR Self-Determination Act and his work with Power 4 Puerto Rico. We also welcome Laura Rodriguez, she’s the Vice President for Government Affairs at the Center for American Progress. She’s worked for m...

On today’s show we welcome the Executive Director of the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, Omar Torres Kortright. The cultural center is the longest serving Latinx cultural center in Chicago and this year they are celebrating their 50th Anniversary, so we invited Omar on the show to talk about the center’s namesake, what initiated its founding in the 1970s - hint the Young Lords played a role -...

We welcome Monica Cruz. She's a labor reporter with BreakThrough News and host of the weekly podcast, On the Picket Line. She's a 3rd generation Afro-Boricua raised in New Jersey and an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We discuss the PRO Act, a major labor legislation that could transform the lives of working class people and labor organizing, and what that means for Puerto R...

We welcome Dr. Lisa Calvente to the show. She is a Communications and Black studies scholar. We’re going to discuss her connection to the Notorious B.I.G., her work and research, her connection to Puerto Rican culture after her father’s passing, a lawsuit she’s filled against DePaul University stemming from her tenure process and a whole lot more. Plus, we share details on the Paseo Podcast and 42...

We welcome Victoria Leandra to the show. She's the Editorial Director for The Americano and Floricua, a news outlet for and by Latinas in the US. Prior to becoming the Editorial Director for The Americano/Floricuas, Victoria worked for VICE News and Bloomberg and you might have seen her bylines in outlets like Refinery29, Oprah Magazine, Bustle, and Remezcla. We’re going to talk about her work at...

Melissa DuPrey joins the show this week. She’s a Black Puerto Rican performer, storyteller, & comic. She’s been on shows, such as Empire and Chicago PD, and in films, like Cherry on Apple TV. She’s also had success on stage with shows like SUSHI-frito and currently has a recurring row on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Sara Ortiz. We’re going to talk about her experience on Grey’s Anatomy, projects she’s wo...

Jessie Fuentes returns to the show! She’s an activist, the Co-Chair of the Puerto Rican Agenda Chicago Chapter and the new Director of Policy and Youth Advocacy for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago. If you want to learn more about Jessie and her work, give episode 4 of the podcast a listen. Today we’re going to discuss the systemic issues facing youth in the Puerto Rican & wider BIPOC c...

This week was the first-ever National Borinqueneers Day! On today's episode, we answer the question - Who were The Borinqueneers? Host, Joshua Smyser-DeLeon's Twitter ★  https://twitter.com/jsdeleon Podcast Website ★  https://www.paseomedia.org YouTube Channel ★  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiErkggr7eqspgCfR9jUOZA Facebook ★  https://www.facebook.com/paseopodcast Twitter ★  http://twitter.com...

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing 2 separate, but related, interviews. We speak to Federico A. de Jesús, Senior Advisor for Power 4 Puerto Rico and a Former Obama-Biden Official, about the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, including misconceptions of the bill, how it came to be, how it seeks to address Puerto Rico’s status, and how it compares to the The Puerto Rico Statehood Admissions Act...

For this week’s episode, we welcome César Rosado Marzán. He’s a labor and employment law scholar and professor in the University of Iowa’s College of Law. We invited him on the show today because there’s been some big unionization news in the media recently. In case you haven’t seen it, there is a vital election going on to unionize an Amazon Warehouse in Alabama and a lot of eyes are paying atten...

For this bonus episode, we welcome Congressman Jesús "Chuy" García to the show. We talk to him about the role he’s playing in legislation at the federal level that can impact Puerto Rico’s colonial, financial and environmental status, his views on the future of the Democratic Party, his relationship with The Squad and more! Host, Joshua Smyser-DeLeon's Twitter ★  https://twitter.com/jsdeleon Podca...

We welcome NBC News and NBC Latino reporter, Nicole Acevedo, to the show. In the past, Nicole has published stories for MSNBC, Telemundo 47 and NPR’s Latino USA. She’s done a lot of reporting on Puerto Rico, so we’re going to talk about her recent reporting on two opposing bills in congress that are trying to address the issue of Puerto Rico’s status, and we’ll also talk about her personal journey...

We’re making history by welcoming our very first Missourican guest to the show! Daniela Velázquez joins us today. She is the Senior Manager of Public Relations at Elasticity, a St Louis-based digital marketing and advertising firm, and sits on the leadership board for VozKC, a Missouri-based PAC focused on building the power of Latinos across the state. We discuss what life was like for her growin...

We welcome two returning guests to the podcast this week. Today we welcome back IL State Senator Cristina Pacione-Zayas and Managing Director of Corps Member Leadership at Teach for America, Jason Dones. We’re going to discuss the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading standards that Illinois state lawmakers recently adopted, which will elevate the training teachers receive statewide to better...

We welcome Dr. Melissa Lewis to the show. She’s the principal of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School located on Paseo Boricua in Chicago. We’re going to discuss the high school and how it differs from Chicago Public Schools, her experience as an Afro-Boricua in the education field, what it has been like leading the high school through the pandemic and a whole lot more. Host, Joshua Sm...

We welcome back to the show, City Bureau journalist, Justin Agrelo. Justin reports on housing for City Bureau and he and their housing team published a report on Chicago’s looming housing crisis. They spoke with Chicago residents facing eviction to better understand the impacts the pandemic is having on their ability to keep a roof over their heads. We’re going to talk about Chicago’s eviction cri...

Naomi Bonafoux joins the podcast this week and we’re taking a trip across the pond to London’s Puerto Rican Diaspora. She holds a few hats, but on top of being a part of the Puerto Rican community in London, she’s also an activist and actress. We’re going to talk about why she left Puerto Rico for London, the struggle of trying to find a job in a new country, how she’s navigated the pandemic as a...

Julio Ricardo Varela joins the podcast this week. He's the founder of the independent media outlet, Latino Rebels, Co-host of the show, In The Thick, and Vice-President of New Business for Futuro Media, which produces the nationally syndicated public radio program, Latino USA. We’re going to talk about how why he founded Latino Rebels, how Latino Rebels became a part of Futuro Media, speaking trut...