El Podcast de El Profe Palacios

In this episode, I’m joined by Professor Rafael “Rafa” Solórzano—social movements scholar and organizer. We talk about his childhood, activism, and how the places he has lived and made community have shaped his work. Rafa takes us from growing up Chicano in Santa Ana, Orange County during the era of Proposition 187, 209, and 227, to organizing with MEChA, and multiracial youth coalitions in the Bay Area, and defending Ethnic Studies through the 1999 TWLF hunger strike at UC Berkeley. We also talk about why he chose to build and study migrant movements in the U.S. South, how he sustains himself through community, and his current projects—Migrant Refusal about migrant youth activism.

Music

Jazzaddict’s Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

In this “Thanks-taking” special, I talk about being thankful despite all the MAGA pendejadas. I talk about labor shortages, growers voting against their interests, and ICE’s ongoing cruelty toward immigrant communities. And I share what I’m personally grateful for this year—from my family to my students to the immigrant workers who keep this country running.

Music

Jazzaddict’s Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

In this episode, I break down Zohran Mamdani’s powerful victory speech after winning the New York City mayoral race. I have to say, I really needed this win. His victory gives me hope in our future. Mamdani’s campaign was grounded in affordability, and inclusion. As a Democratic Socialist, he is unapologetically pro-worker and pro-immigrant. Mamdani’s win is more than NYC’s victory — it’s also a reminder for all us, that we can win on a politics rooted in economic justice and standing up to the oligarchs, a politics driven by compassion and solidarity for EVERYONE. It’s a big win for working people, for immigrants, for those on the left who will not give up.

Music

Jazzaddict’s Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

In this episode I am joined by Dr. Alexandro J. Gradilla, professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, for a plática about his life, his schooling, his journey through academia, and becoming an activist-scholar. Gradilla reflects on growing up in 1970s San Diego in a Mexican immigrant household, the impact his teachers and professors made on him, and what it was like living near the US-Mexico border. He traces a winding academic path from Hoover High to UC Berkeley, including academic probation, transformational mentors, and the courses that reoriented his intellectual work. Dr. Gradilla also reflects on abolitionist pedagogy, collective care, and futurism. We close with an urgent discussion of HSI funding cuts and why this moment is not only one of crisis, but also of opportunity.

* Origins, schooling, and politicization

* San Diego childhood in a Mexican immigrant family; city dynamics, Chicano aesthetics, and gentrifying City Heights.

* K-12 snapshots: ESL gatekeeping, a Black Power–influenced teacher, and classroom encounters with war-displaced refugee peers.

* Border rhythms with Tijuana, Catholic Sunday-school “help others” ethos, and an early moral vocabulary for justice.

* Academic journey and formation of an intellectual project

* Tracking into advanced classes, crucial AP English mentorship, and the narrow escape that sent him to UC Berkeley.

* Academic probation to recovery through EOP counseling, MEChA, and pivotal courses with Pedro Noguera and Mario Barrera.

* Shift from psychology to Chicana and Chicano Studies and anthropology; graduate training, mentorship, and lessons from cutthroat departmental cultures.

* Activist-scholar praxis, pedagogy, and the HSI moment

* Case for “activist-scholar” in corporatized universities; pushing policy and practice toward humanizing, abolitionist frameworks.

* Classroom practice: experiential learning, collective over individual “self-care,” validation theory, and futurism to imagine and build alternative futures.

* HSI funding cuts as opportunity for community-controlled, grassroots models that center Latina/o/x leadership and refuse performative DEI.

Music

Jazzaddict’s Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

Education is never neutral, and as Howard Zinn reminds us, “you cannot be neutral in a moving train.” Schools can either reproduce inequality or serve as spaces for critical thinking and transformation. In this episode, I talk about our responsibility as educators to foster class consciousness as we teach about capitalism and wealth inequality. We urgently need to teach class consciousness if we want our students to defend our democracy and create the world we want to see.

Books mentioned in this episode:

* James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me

* Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States

* Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed

* Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities

* Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs

I also mentioned Richard D. Wolff’s podcast Economic Update

Music

Jazzaddict’s Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

In this episode of El Podcast del Profe Palacios, I reflect on the start of a new semester, on how I am incorporating AI into my teaching as well as in-class writing. I am going both old-school and new school. I am assigning more group project in my online classes, and using tools like Padlet to encourage participation and cooperation. I also talk about how I refuse to be a cop, and I am trying to stay away from policing AI in student work. Along the way, I ask: How do we maintain a balance between AI and old and proven teaching methods? Why AI will never replace good educators? And finally, what the hell is the point?

Book Recomedation

Win Every Argument, by Mehdi Hasan.

Music Video

Chase & Status - Alive (Official Music Video) ft. Jacob Banks

Music

Jazzaddict's Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

This episode is not polite, balanced, or nice—it’s a rant. I rant about MAGA, especially Latino MAGA. I talk about the pinche ICE budget (bigger than the military of entire nations), about Mexican American migra who are deporting people just like their own parents. I take jabs at MAGA’s fake obsession with “protecting children” while ignoring child deaths at the border and in Gaza.

I rant about:

1. La pinche migra, ICE, with obscene funding.

2. Children of immigrants who become ICE.

3. Mexican Americans in ICE selling out their people.

4. MAGA’s fake “save the children” cabal obsession.

5. The myth that Trump and the Republican Party are separate.

6. The lazy “but Biden” or “but Obama” defense.

7. The “law and order” fraud.

8. Denying racism while advancing racist policies.

9. The push to enforce Christianity in schools and workplace.

10. And the annoying Latino Trump voters who now regret it.

If you’re MAGA—especially Latino MAGA—you’re not going to like this one.

I start the song with “Sabado” by Snow Tha Product. I love this song.

Background Music

Music

Jazzaddict's Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

Hola bienvenidos to another episode of El Podcast de el Profe Palacios. I am your host, El Profe Palacios. Today, I have the honor to sit down with the one and only Carlos-Manuel. He is an accomplished playwright, director, and professor at Contra Costa College. In our plática we talk about his childhood, his family’s migration story, the teachers who shaped his path, and how he became the chingón teatrista that he is. Carlos Manuel opens up about his identity as a gay immigrant from Mexico, and about the power of representation and theater.

Toward the end of our plática, Carlos Manuel also talks about his upcoming projects, including a play he wrote and will be directing this fall about the life of Frida Kahlo, Viva la Vida. His story is one of resilience and determination, He tells his story with humor, and I’m so excited for you to hear it.

Links

Carlos Manuel @ carlosmanuel.com

Contra Costa College’s Drama Department (Productions)

Music

Jazzaddict's Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library

In this capirotada-style episode of El Podcast de el Profe Palacios, I provide some commentary on the current state of affairs—from ICE recruitment, to the Superman’s immigrant story, and Miss Rachel’s activism for Palestine. And hey, I had a visitor; a hummingbird came to my window!

In this episode, tengo el gusto de compartir una plática I had with my colleague and neighbor, Dr. Dani Ahuicapahtzin Cornejo. Dani is the Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at Diablo Valley College.

In this plática, Dani reflects on his life, his complex heritage that includes Chile, Mexico, and a Quaker grandfather. He talks about growing up in a primarily Black neighborhood in Denver, Colorado; and also being raised partly in Chile. Dani grew up at the intersection of a diverse world, surrounded by activists, musicians, and exiles. Dani also shares about the time he spent with the Movimiento Sin Terra en Brazil, which actually inspired him to become an Ethnic Studies professor.

I had a good time talking to Dani and getting to know his story, and I am sure you will enjoy listening to the plática. Asi que ponganse las pilas, y síganme los buenos!

Book Recommendation

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi.

Music

Jazzaddict's Intro by Cosimo Fogg (201) https://soundcloud.com/cosimo-fogg Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/jazzaddicts-intro Music promoted by Audio Library