Latino USA

By Futuro Media and PRX

Society & Culture

What's Latino USA about?

Latino USA offers insight into the lived experiences of Latino communities and is a window on the current and merging cultural, political and social ideas impacting Latinos and the nation.

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Portrait Of: Miguel

09.26.2023

“Too proper for the Black kids, too Black for the Mexicans," sings Grammy award-winning artist Miguel Pimentel. Miguel is the son of an African-American mother and a Mexican-born father. He's known for his eclectic sound, shaped by his home: Los ...

Latino USA episodes:

09.26.2023 Portrait Of: Miguel “Too proper for the Black kids, too Black for the Mexicans," sings Grammy award-winning artist Miguel Pimentel. Miguel is the son of an African-American mother and a Mexican-born father. He's known for his eclectic sound, shaped by his home: Los ...
09.22.2023 The Growing Call to Abolish Student Debt The call for the abolition of all student debt has never been louder– but how did we get to a place where this demand is possible? Latino USA dives into the history of the student loan system in the U.S., ...
09.19.2023 It’s My Podcast and I’ll Cry If I Want To Five years ago, Latino USA producer Antonia Cereijido was only an intern and still in college when she did what a lot of people do when they're not sure what their life will look like after graduation: she cried in ...
09.15.2023 Belonging, Recruitment, and Remembrance Latino USA continues to mark its 30th anniversary and look back on its reporting throughout the decades. One topic the show has heavily reported on is Latinos serving in the military and today we take a new look at that ...
09.12.2023 Ballet Brothers Brothers Isaac and Esteban Hernández have performed on some of the most prestigious stages in the world. But their journey to the top rank of their industry had a unique start. Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, Isaac and Esteban's first ballet ...
09.08.2023 The Revolutions of Gioconda Belli Gioconda Belli is an award-winning Nicaraguan author. She has published novels, essays, poetry collections, and a memoir called “The country under my skin,” which recounts her time as a member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front—fighting to free her country ...
09.05.2023 9/11’s Immigration Legacy The September 11th attacks left nearly 3,000 dead, many more injured and an entire nation traumatized. The 24-hour news cycle that followed focused endlessly on the identity of the terrorists: non-citizens who had been able to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the ...
09.01.2023 At the Mercy of the Courts 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 ...
08.29.2023 How I Made It: Rodrigo y Gabriela In the late 90's, Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero embarked on a one-way trip to Dublin, Ireland. While they were originally heavy metal musicians back home in Mexico, they traded their electric guitars for acoustic ones and became street performers ...
08.25.2023 The Breakdown: Heavy Metal Edition The stereotype goes that Latinos only listen to salsa or reggaeton. But one of the biggest genres of music across Latin America is actually heavy metal, with bands like Iron Maiden selling out stadiums across the region when they tour ...
08.22.2023 How I Made It: Joe Kay of Soulection Soulection is a music startup, which has quickly grown to be a powerhouse with a record label, a popular radio show, and worldwide tours—bringing together an international group of music lovers. It all began as an online podcast created in ...
08.18.2023 ‘I Want to Outlive AIDS’ Producer Patricia Sulbarán embarks on a journey to learn how Latino USA covered the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as part of the show’s 30th anniversary special coverage. After reviewing hundreds of archival clips, Patricia finds a woman leading the ...
08.15.2023 Judith Baca’s Great Wall Muralist Judith F. Baca is mostly known for creating one of the largest communal murals in the world: the Great Wall of Los Angeles. It extends for half a mile along the Tujunga Wash river channel in the San Fernando ...
08.11.2023 Meg Medina: Let Kids Read Freely Earlier this year, award-winning author Meg Medina was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature—she’s the first Latina to occupy this position. In her role, Meg’s responsible for raising awareness of the importance of young people’s literature, something that is ...
08.08.2023 How I Made It: Yasser Tejeda & Palotré 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 ...
08.04.2023 Alzheimer’s In Color Latino USA and Black Public Media bring you Alzheimer’s In Color. 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 ...
08.01.2023 Maxwell Alejandro Frost: Leading Through Politics—and Music Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida made history last year when he became the first Gen-Z elected to Congress. Latino USA producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. went to Congressman Frost’s district in Orlando to interview him and attended one of his community ...
07.28.2023 Bilingual Is My Superpower In 2018, producer Jeanne Montalvo reported on the choices her parents made when raising her in a bilingual household. Five years later, Jeanne’s two children both command the Spanish language. But the oldest, Martin, was 2.5 years old at the ...
07.25.2023 Hungry for History This week Latino USA brings you an episode of the Hungry for History podcast. Here’s a little-known fact you might not have known... The beer industry might be dominated by men today but women were the original brewers and played ...
07.21.2023 Immensely Invisible How is ICE handling complaints of sexual abuse from detainees? Maria Hinojosa teams up with Zeba Warsi, two immigrant women and journalists from different generations, to look at sexual abuse in ICE detention more than a decade after Maria’s documentary ...
07.18.2023 Willie Perdomo Comes Home 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 ...
07.14.2023 Love & Walkouts 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 ...
07.11.2023 Steven Melendez on Opening Doors to Ballet Steven Melendez thinks a lot about accessibility in the world of classical dance. Steven got his start in ballet at just seven years old, as part of an outreach program run by New York Theater Ballet. Although Steven went on ...
07.07.2023 Hector Galán: A Life Documenting Marginalized Stories Latino USA continues to celebrate its 30th anniversary, bringing you conversations with some of the most influential Latinos and Latinas of the last three decades. In this episode, Maria Hinojosa catches up with pioneering filmmaker Hector Galán, who for over ...
07.04.2023 Resistance And Loss In The Age Of COVID-19 With Edwidge Danticat 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 ...
06.30.2023 The Lone Legislator 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 ...
06.27.2023 Creating the Sound of Latino USA Latino USA has cycled through quite a few theme songs in its 30 years. There was the original theme, with acoustic guitar and soft woodwinds, followed by a brassier, more Latin Jazz influenced sound. There were even a few years ...
06.23.2023 En Español For years, Anita Flores carried shame: She was a second-generation half-Peruvian who barely spoke Spanish. She pretended she didn’t care; she subtly avoided her paternal family in Lima. Then, her father was diagnosed with dementia. As her dad’s memory started ...
06.20.2023 You Want to Talk About Hot Cheetos? We tackle the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos controversy and dive into why this story is so much more than just about a processed snack food but a story about race, culture, identity, and the stories that we choose to believe. This ...
06.16.2023 No Strings Attached What happens when people living in poverty get a stable income from the government? More than 100 guaranteed income pilot programs have launched across the U.S. and most are found in California. How is a regular income — with no ...
06.13.2023 How I Made It: No Te Va Gustar For over 25 years, Uruguayan band No Te Va Gustar has been filling concert venues across Latin America. With their mix of pop, rock, reggae, ska, and other styles, the band has evolved over the years from its original three-member ...
06.09.2023 The Clinic Latino USA goes inside the biggest free health clinic in the country, which serves only people without insurance. There are nearly 28 million uninsured people in the United States, and for some of them, free clinics are their safety net. ...
06.06.2023 Healing in Uvalde This week Latino USA shares an episode of the In The Thick podcast. Maria Hinojosa and Julio Ricardo Varela reflect on the one-year anniversary of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and the lasting impacts on the community. We go ...
06.02.2023 Uvalde Rising One year after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Latino USA and Futuro Investigates explore how families in the community are dealing with grief, how they’re navigating their journey to healing, and calling for accountability. “Uvalde ...
05.30.2023 Julieta Venegas’ Search for a Simple Life The Mexican singer-songwriter, Julieta Venegas, took a seven-year break before releasing her latest album, a journey of self-discovery in 10 songs that she named “Tu historia.” Now, she shares what happened during that long pause, which included making some major ...
05.26.2023 Restaurant Royalty: Zarela and Aarón For mother and son chefs Zarela Martinez and Aarón Sanchez, educating others about the cuisines that make up Mexico is a family tradition. Zarela and Aarón have each opened restaurants, written cookbooks, appeared on TV shows, and won awards. In ...
05.23.2023 José Ralat, Taco Editor José Ralat is the Taco Editor at Texas Monthly Magazine and consequently the only taco editor in the United States. In his book, “American Tacos: A History and Guide,” Ralat dives into the evolution of tacos in the United States ...
05.19.2023 The Migrant Student Club Over 300,000 students in the U.S. migrate every year to work in agriculture, from spring to fall. At a high school in South Texas, when these students return, they gather at the Migrant Student Club to discuss their experiences and ...
05.16.2023 Mariana Enríquez On Using Horror to Process Historical Trauma Mariana Enríquez is one of the best-known writers of a growing literary trend in Latin America that uses the horror genre to denounce the violent realities of the region—past and present. Mariana was born in Buenos Aires in 1973, just ...
05.12.2023 Portrait Of: Linda Ronstadt We continue to celebrate our 30th anniversary, bringing you the voices of some of the most influential Latinos and Latinas in the last three decades. In this episode, we catch up with music legend Linda Ronstadt, known as the “First ...
05.09.2023 Gangs, Murder, and Migration in Honduras We start today’s episode at El Edén—the center in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where child migrants are processed after being deported from Mexico and elsewhere. Then, before diving into the reasons why Hondurans leave for Mexico and the United States, ...
05.05.2023 30 Años: An Oral History of Latino USA On May 5th, 1993, the first episode of Latino USA aired on more than 50 public radio stations across the U.S. Thirty years later, we look back at the creation of Latino USA, the struggle to showcase Latino voices in ...
05.02.2023 How I Made It: Maná The rock en español group, Maná, is one of the most successful Spanish-language rock bands of this generation. They've sold over 40 million records worldwide, and this year their "Rayando El Sol" tour broke records previously held by the Eagles ...
04.28.2023 Colombia's Secret War Against Civilians Years ago, Gloria Martinez’s son went out to look for a job and never came back. Gloria would spend months searching for him, and she wasn’t alone—many others, mostly young men from rural and poor urban areas, also mysteriously disappeared. ...
04.25.2023 Motive This week Latino USA brings you an episode of the Motive podcast, from WBEZ Chicago. Chicago gangs: Real people. Real stories. A way forward. The new season of Motive explores violence on the streets of Chicago and the former gang ...
04.21.2023 Head Down: Part II At the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last year, President Joe Biden outlined his plan to reduce the number of migrants seeking asylum at the Southern border. His administration, Biden said, would help “American farmers bring in seasonal ...
04.18.2023 The Pulso Podcast This week Latino USA brings you an episode of The Pulso Podcast. Texas 1951. Farmworker Pete Hernandez walks into a bar with a rifle and shoots another man. He is taken to court for murder, but when the state refuses ...
04.14.2023 Head Down - Part 1 In 2018, Diego and Mario joined the U.S. government-sponsored H-2A visa program, leaving their families in their home country of Mexico to harvest blueberries at a farm in North Carolina for six months. They had no idea they were about ...
04.11.2023 Kate's Summer The summer of 2020 was filled with uncertainty as more than 20 million people in the U.S. were left unemployed — including Kate Bustamante’s parents. Bustamante is a 20-year-old student at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California. She’s always ...
04.07.2023 Portrait Of: Gloria Estefan Gloria Maria Milagrosa Fajardo Garcia was a shy, quiet young woman who joined a band named the Miami Latin Boys. Although she had no plans of international fame, and intended to continue her studies, life had different plans for her. ...

Older episodes

Latino USA

What's Latino USA about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Latino USA episodes:

Portrait Of: Miguel

The Growing Call to Abolish Student Debt

It’s My Podcast and I’ll Cry If I Want To

Belonging, Recruitment, and Remembrance

Ballet Brothers

The Revolutions of Gioconda Belli

9/11’s Immigration Legacy

At the Mercy of the Courts

How I Made It: Rodrigo y Gabriela

The Breakdown: Heavy Metal Edition

How I Made It: Joe Kay of Soulection

‘I Want to Outlive AIDS’

Judith Baca’s Great Wall

Meg Medina: Let Kids Read Freely

How I Made It: Yasser Tejeda & Palotré

Alzheimer’s In Color

Maxwell Alejandro Frost: Leading Through Politics—and Music

Bilingual Is My Superpower

Hungry for History

Immensely Invisible

Willie Perdomo Comes Home

Love & Walkouts

Steven Melendez on Opening Doors to Ballet

Hector Galán: A Life Documenting Marginalized Stories

Resistance And Loss In The Age Of COVID-19 With Edwidge Danticat

The Lone Legislator

Creating the Sound of Latino USA

En Español

You Want to Talk About Hot Cheetos?

No Strings Attached

How I Made It: No Te Va Gustar

The Clinic

Healing in Uvalde

Uvalde Rising

Julieta Venegas’ Search for a Simple Life

Restaurant Royalty: Zarela and Aarón

José Ralat, Taco Editor

The Migrant Student Club

Mariana Enríquez On Using Horror to Process Historical Trauma

Portrait Of: Linda Ronstadt

Gangs, Murder, and Migration in Honduras

30 Años: An Oral History of Latino USA

How I Made It: Maná

Colombia's Secret War Against Civilians

Motive

Head Down: Part II

The Pulso Podcast

Head Down - Part 1

Kate's Summer

Portrait Of: Gloria Estefan

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