What does it mean to be Latino/Latina/Latinx in 2025?

Is Latinidad a fiction?

Should Latino be considered a race?

On this episode of Latino USA, Maria Hinojosa asks those questions in a conversation with Jean Guerrero, journalist and columnist, and Julissa Arce Raya, author and activist.

They also speak about colorism, recent headlines, and how simply existing as a Latino today can make you a target.

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We’re doing something different! Today, Maria Hinojosa joins listeners for a special message announcing something new from Futuro. Been dreaming of immediate full season access, and behind the scenes chisme from your favorite shows at Futuro? We have too! Listen to hear more about what’s next for Futuro. To help us grow the future of journalism go to: futuromediagroup.org/joinplus

The Futuro Plus team includes producer Sam J Leeds, production managers Francis Poon and Jessica Ellis, marketing manager Luis Luna, development manager Danetsy Len, and engineers Gabriela Baez and Stephanie Lebow.

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This week Latino USA shares episode 1 of the podcast Don't Cross Kat.

Kat Torres shows an Instagram-perfect life to her large following. She’s a Brazilian supermodel turned life coach who seems harmless but is hiding a secret. And when one of her followers goes missing in the U.S., one woman sets out to bring back her best friend. Paty won’t stop until she gets her friend out from under Kat’s spell. Listen to this special episode from a new series from Futuro Studios and Wondery and hear from the creator of “Don’t Cross Kat.”

You can listen to more episodes of Don't Cross Kat here. 

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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 start of the pandemic and never learned English. This came with a series of challenges as he entered the school system in New York. One daycare even suggested Martin was on the spectrum. In this follow up episode, Latino USA takes a deep dive into bilingual education history as Jeanne looks for solidarity in the ghosts of New York City’s past.

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This episode originally aired in 2023.

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“What the Trump administration is trying to do to Mr. Khalil is a blueprint, and if they are able to get away with it, then they will replicate it.”

On March 8th, Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was taken by immigration agents to a detention facility in Louisiana—without charges. He was taken because of his pro-Palestine activism on campus. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States with a valid green card. Maria Hinojosa talks with his lawyer about the case and the chilling implications for free speech and the right to due process in the U.S. today.

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On the first days of his migration journey, “Juan” posed for a photo outside a bus terminal to remember the moment. Two years and two thousand miles later, it landed him in the crosshairs of a recently-elected Trump administration determined to wage an all out war on immigrants, and on a plane to Guantánamo Bay.

Today, the story of how one Venezuelan migrant ended up inside one of the world's most infamous prisons, and what he experienced while he was there. Plus, a conversation with one of the lawyers of Mahmoud Khalil about what Trump’s crackdown on migrants means for us all.

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Before it was the classic dress we all know and many still love today, the little black dress was mostly worn by working-class shopgirls and domestics. Monica Morales-Garcia began to research the origins of the L.B.D. to answer: How had so much changed, yet so much had stayed the same? Listen as Monica walks us through the decline of an industry and the rise of a garment.

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This episode originally aired in 2022.

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Bella Lugosi's leading role in the creepy 1931 film Dracula made him a horror icon. But there's another, even better version of Dracula that was shot in Spanish using different actors on the same sets. We try to figure out why the Spanish movie ended up so much scarier— and sexier— than the original.

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This episode originally aired in 2018.

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In the news this week: We discuss Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s unprecedented and controversial offer: to jail U.S. citizens in El Salvador. 

Maria Hinojosa sits down with journalists Roman Gressier, editor of El Faro English and host of the podcast “Central America in Minutes,” and Lilia Luciano, CBS News correspondent, to discuss Bukele’s attempts to ally with Trump and the parallels between the two administrations.

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In this week’s news and reporting, we discuss the links between the booming business of human smuggling and U.S. immigration policies and much more.

Maria Hinojosa sits down with renowned anthropologist and author Jason De León to discuss his latest book “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope on the World of Human Smuggling.” Human smugglers are often hired by migrants to help them through inhospitable and dangerous routes on their way to the United States. But how do human smugglers, also known as coyotes or polleros, get into the business in the first place?

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