Historias Unknown

Berta Cáceres was a Lenca indigenous leader, an environmental activist, and a human rights defender. But she was also so much more than that: a beauty pageant queen, a revolutionary (she joined the FMLN during the Salvadoran Civil War), and a mother. In part three, Cristina tells Carmen about the conditions that led to the Agua Zarca Dam Project.

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Sources

Who Killed Berta Caceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet by Nina Lakhani 
https://archive.ph/BsiZB#selection-3399.94-3399.248
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-02/berta-caceres-and-the-resistance-that-was-born-under-an-oak-tree.html
https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/04/planeta_futuro/1457113234_162700.html
https://www.gaipe.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Represa-de-Violencia-ES-FINAL-.pdf
https://www.internationalrivers.org/news/remembering-river-defender-berta-caceres/
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/honduras-berta-caceres-killed
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Zelaya's_detention_and_exile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_Lobo_Sosa#U.S._drug_trafficking_case_against_Fabio_Lobo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Orlando_Hern%C3%A1ndez


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Berta Cáceres was a Lenca indigenous leader, an environmental activist, and a human rights defender. But she was also so much more than that: a beauty pageant queen, a revolutionary (she joined the FMLN during the Salvadoran Civil War), and a mother. In part two, Cristina talks about Berta Cáceres' early activity with COPINH, leading up to the PPP plan, which would ultimately be their most dangerous fight. 

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity.

This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now! https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources

Who Killed Berta Caceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet by Nina Lakhani 
https://archive.ph/BsiZB#selection-3399.94-3399.248
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-02/berta-caceres-and-the-resistance-that-was-born-under-an-oak-tree.html
https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/04/planeta_futuro/1457113234_162700.html
https://www.gaipe.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Represa-de-Violencia-ES-FINAL-.pdf
https://www.internationalrivers.org/news/remembering-river-defender-berta-caceres/
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/honduras-berta-caceres-killed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_and_Tribal_Peoples_Convention,_1989
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempira_(Lenca_ruler)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Miranda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerica_Project
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier



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Berta Cáceres was a Lenca indigenous leader, an environmental activist, and a human rights defender. But she was also so much more than that: a beauty pageant queen, a revolutionary (she joined the FMLN during the Salvadoran Civil War), and a mother. In part one, Cristina talks about Berta Cáceres' family, early life, her time with the FMLN, and her work leading up to the cofounding of COPINH in 1993.

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity.

This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now! https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources

Who Killed Berta Caceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet by Nina Lakhani 
https://archive.ph/BsiZB#selection-3399.94-3399.248
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_C%C3%A1ceres
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-02/berta-caceres-and-the-resistance-that-was-born-under-an-oak-tree.html
https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/04/planeta_futuro/1457113234_162700.html
https://www.gaipe.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Represa-de-Violencia-ES-FINAL-.pdf
https://www.internationalrivers.org/news/remembering-river-defender-berta-caceres/
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/honduras-berta-caceres-killed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Honduras_(1932%E2%80%931982)


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The birth control pill revolutionized women’s independence in the US and so many places, but came at the cost of Puerto Rican women, who were experimented on without consent in the birth control trials of the 1950’s. One third of the island’s women were sterilized during these trials. And one woman stood out in the fight against this injustice, she was Dr Helen Rodriguez Trias

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Tr%C3%ADas
https://massivesci.com/articles/helen-rodriguez-trias-science-heroes/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447119/
https://web.archive.org/web/20031016140115/
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_273.html
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1122157
/https://archive.ph/qzv60
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/9/28/the-bitter-pill/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-puerto-rico-pill-trials/
https://medium.com/the-lily/how-puerto-rican-women-were-used-to-test-the-birth-control-pill-7453a3b6ab73 
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/gregory-pincus-1903-1967/ 
https://womanisrational.uchicago.edu/2022/09/21/margaret-sanger-the-duality-of-a-ambitious-feminist-and-racist-eugenicist/ 
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-dr-john-rock-1890-1984/ 
https://remezcla.com/culture/birth-control-testing-puerto-rico/ 
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/05/24/oral-contraceptives-history-puerto-rico-testing-massachusetts-ethics 
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10029088/puerto-rico-sterilization-abortion-reproductive-rights-history

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For years, she was considered to be the only woman to have been legally hanged in the state of Texas, but today, this is not the case. And yes, she was Mexican. Her name was Josefa (Chipita) Rodriguez. Cristina tells Carmen about Chipita and then they do an update about El Salvador. 

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity.

This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now!  https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipita_Rodriguez
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/rodriguez-josefa-chipita
https://www.caller.com/story/news/columnists/2017/10/16/chipita-rodriguezs-unjust-hanging-haunts-texas/769883001/
https://www.tshaonline.org/texas-day-by-day/entry/1035
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-patricio-tx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean-to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Santander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution
https://www.southtexasnews.com/san_patricio_county/news/entertainment_and_society/chipita-s-ghost-lingers-on-in-san-patricio-on-156th-anniversary-of-hanging/article_82f2857c-0722-11ea-8bd4-13166f2a723d.html
http://www.americancowboychronicles.com/2020/02/josefa-chipita-rodriguez-texas-bandit.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_of_the_Americashttps://beta.elfaro.net/el-salvador/hermanos-bukele-compran-tres-nuevas-propiedades-en-el-centro-historico-por-1-25-millones

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Joe Arpaio was the Maricopa County Sheriff from 1993 to 2017. During his tenure, he enacted the worst racial profiling against Latinos, ruled over the county jails with abuse, misused funds, which led to numerous lawsuits, cost taxpayers millions of dollars and eventually led him to be convicted of criminal contempt of court. This is a behind the bastardos episode, Carmentells Cristina about her biggest opp and a true terror to the Latine community in AZ, Joe Arpaio.

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity.

This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

Follow on social media:
Instagram: https : //www.instagram.com/historiasunknown/
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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now!  https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-arpaio-timeline-20170801-story.html 
https://web.archive.org/web/20150117161910/http://www.mcso.org/JailInformation/TentCity.aspx 
https://web.archive.org/web/20121023032303/http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1997-09-18/news/human-plights/2/
https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/chain-gangs/ 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Seagal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Ferrigno 
https://www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/blind-refugee-abandoned-by-border-patrol-is-dead/ 
https://www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/26/timeline-burmese-refugees-arrest-to-death/ 
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/27/nurul_amin_shah_alam 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120505072757/http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/sheriff_arpaio_oversaw_worst_r.php 
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348061-trump-pardons-arpaio/
https://www.aclu.org/cases/ortega-melendres-et-al-v-arpaio-et-al

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One of the largest school boycotts took place in NYC on Feb 3, 1964, almost half a million participated, calling for quality schools for Black and Latino students. It was called freedom day and despite being one of the largest civil rights protests of the 1960s, it has been left out of our history books.

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity. This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now!  https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

sources
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/nyc-school-children-boycott-school/
https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/topics/boycotting-ny-schools/1964-boycotts/why-the-school-boycott/
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/03/jim_crow_must_go_thousands_of_new_york_city_students_staged_a_one_day_boycott_to_protest_segregation_and_it_barely_made_the_history_books/
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4/black-organizing-twentieth-century/boycott-cripples-city-schools-1964
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_school_boycott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Galamison#Activism
https://observer.com/2018/06/new-york-city-public-school-segregation/
https://themetropole.blog/2017/11/29/the-new-york-times-and-the-movement-for-integrated-education-in-new-york-city/
https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/resource/1964-nyc-school-boycott
https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/the-largest-civil-rights-protest-you-ve-never-heard-of/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Ricans_in_New_York_City#World_War_II_and_The_Great_Migration

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Now I Surrender radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” In the contested borderlands between Mexico and the United States, a woman flees into the desert after a devastating raid on her dead husband’s ranch. A lieutenant colonel in service to the fledgling Republic, sent in pursuit of cattle rustlers, discovers he’s on the trail of a more dramatic abduction. Decades later, with political ambitions on the line, the American and Mexican militaries try to maneuver Geronimo, the most legendary of Apache warriors, into surrender. In our own day, a family travels through the region in search of a truer version of the past.

Part epic, part alt-Western, Now I Surrender is Álvaro Enrigue’s most expansive and impassioned novel yet. It weaves past and present, myth and history into a searing elegy for a way of life that was an incarnation of true liberty—and an homage to the spark in us that still thrills to its memory.

Preorder the book now, it releases March 3, 2026!

Carmen and Cristina had the opportunity to read Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrigue and talk with him about his new book. 

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity. This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Marcos Xiorro was an enslaved Black man who led an uprising against sugarcane plantation owners in 1821 Puerto Rico. Cristina tells Carmen about Marcos Xiorro and a brief history of slavery in PR. Then, they do Latin American news segment, with news about El Salvador, Chile and Costa Rica. 

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity. This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now!  https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources for this episode: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcos_Xiorro
https://web.archive.org/web/20141228151319/
http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=slave-resistances-in-latin-america
https://guides.loc.gov/world-of-1898/abolition-slavery-puerto-rico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_plantations_in_the_Caribbean
https://talkafricana.com/marcos-xiorro-the-african-slave-who-led-an-unsuccessful-revolt-in-puerto-rico-in-1821/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro%E2%80%93Puerto_Ricans#First_Africans_in_Puerto_Ricohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_settlement_of_Puerto_Rico#Landing_and_first_settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Garrido

Sources for news segment:

https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-chile-cecot-bukele-kast-3bbd44ff2c51ec0d54c8315e07e88cf0
https://apnews.com/article/election-chile-kast-jara-boric-trump-05f915fd5eda909c13fd283f90f8d8e5
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/15/who-is-jose-antonio-kast-chiles-newly-elected-far-right-leader
https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/el-salvador-president-speaks-at-national-prayer-breakfast-about-crackdown-on-gangs/5191994
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-09/el-salvadors-attorney-general-freezes-a-moneylaundering-investigation-into-venezuelan-oil-funds-that-implicates-nayib-bukele.html



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Xica Manicongo was one of the first to be targeted by the Brazilian inquisition and a trans woman. At least, today she is seen as a trans woman. She’s also known as Franscisco or Fransisca . She was kidnaped from Congo in the 16th century and trafficked to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

If you have topic suggestions, feel free to email [email protected] or use the contact us form on the website https://www.historiasunknown.com/contact/

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By joining, you can help Historias Unknown donate 20% funds to charity. This month's donation went to CLEAN, carwash worker center, an org that has been helping car wash workers who are unable to leave their homes due to increasing ICE raids in LA county, by providing groceries to over 200 car wash workers. Follow @carwasherxs on instagram

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Historias Unknown is on YouTube now!  https://youtube.com/@historiasunknown?si=_rmuVXrSQhs5R1bg

Sources for this episode: 

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/slavery-brazil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_Brazil#Abolitionist_campaignhttps://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-2/african-slavery/
https://www.casaum.org/quem-foi-xica-manicongo-considerada-primeira-travesti-brasileira/
https://biblioteca.fflch.usp.br/xicamanicongohttps://35.bienal.org.br/en/participante/xica-manicongo/
https://capiremov.org/en/experience/xica-manicongo-transness-takes-the-floor/
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorie


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