Latino USA

After Elián’s rescue he was released to relatives in Miami. Just a day later the Cuban government sent a note: the boy’s father and Fidel Castro wanted Elián back. Tensions between the two countries had long been high, and relations were about to be tested to the extreme as the Thanksgiving miracle became an international custody battle. Just over a week after his rescue, on Dec. 6, 1999, Elián turned six years old. That same day Fidel Castro sent an ultimatum to the U.S. to return the boy to his father within 72 hours.

“Chess Piece: The Elián González Story” is a new podcast from Futuro Studios and iHeartMedia’s My Cultura Podcast Network, hosted by investigative journalist Peniley Ramírez. 

More episodes available now on the Chess Piece feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks to These Archival Sources:

Miami Dade College's Wolfson Archives

Original Material Appeared In:

Miami Dade College's Wolfson Archives, Vanderbilt Archives: ABC, CBS News Report, CNN's "Elián: The Remarkable Story of A Cuban Boy's Journey to America," RTVE Telediario, AP Archive, CBS Early Show, Universal Newsreel / Courtesy National Archives, Accessed via C-SPAN, BBC Panorama, NPR and Action News.

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It was Thanksgiving of 1999 when two Florida fishermen rescued a little boy from the sea. His name was Elián González—a Cuban 5-year-old who had survived a journey across the ocean. His mother and others drowned.

His survival made global headlines, and soon Elián would be put in the middle of a dramatic battle for his custody between members of his family and two nations: Cuba and the United States.

“Chess Piece: The Elián González Story” is a new podcast from Futuro Studios and iHeartMedia’s My Cultura Podcast Network, hosted by investigative journalist Peniley Ramírez. 

More episodes available now on the Chess Piece feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks to These Archival Sources:

Miami Dade College's Wolfson Archives

Original Material Appeared In:

AP Archive, Belly of The Beast Cuba, CBS Early Show, CBS Evening News, CNN, CNN's "Elián: The Remarkable Story of A Cuban Boy's Journey to America," C-SPAN, Cubavisión, Good Morning America, ITN Archive, Univision, and 7 News At 5pm.

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In 1945, 20-year-old Anthony Acevedo was held in captivity with other American soldiers inside a Nazi concentration camp called Berga. There, the soldiers were used as slave laborers, building tunnels for underground fuel factories. It was during this time that the Mexican-American medic kept a secret diary and documented the horrors he witnessed inside the camp.

Acevedo held on to his war diary until 2010, when he donated it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. That same year, he registered as a Holocaust survivor with the museum—the first and only Mexican-American to do so.

This episode originally aired in May 2018.

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Rubén Blades is a singer, songwriter, actor, lawyer, and politician, born in Panama and a New Yorker since 1974. After four decades in the public eye, 17 Grammy Awards, and some of the best-selling records in salsa history, his unique storytelling across music styles has kept him relevant to this day. He’s worked with a wide range of musicians including Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Sting, Michael Jackson, and Calle 13. He has also kept a presence back home - he ran for president in Panama in 1994 and was appointed as minister of tourism in 2004. Latino USA sits down with the author of the song Pedro Navaja to discuss highlights of his monumental career.

This story originally aired in October of 2018.

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A few weeks from the November 2024, Maria Hinojosa brings together three super-star Latino journalists for a roundtable; John Quiñones, Maria Elena Salinas, and Paola Ramos. All four of these legends combined, have over 100 years of journalistic experience– they have seen it all. Amongst each other, they get frank and talk about the state of journalism, partisan politics, and which 2024 Presidential candidate will capture the Latino Vote.

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Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent with The New York Times, where he covers the U.S. midwest. He’s also the author of a new book named “Trippy: The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics.”

In this episode of Latino USA, Ernesto talks about his healing —and journalistic— journey with psychedelics and discusses the hopes and concerns the therapeutic use and industry of these substances generate.

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Latino USA brings you the launch of In The Thick’s new popup season—to help you break down this unprecedented political moment and what it means for our communities and our futures. 

In this episode Maria Hinojosa is joined by her fellow co-hosts political scientist Dr. Christina Greer, journalist Paola Ramos and actress Judy Reyes. Together they help you decode this week’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

You can subscribe to In The Thick on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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In recent years, rising grocery prices have shocked many of us, changing how we discuss inflation. For economists, inflation measures how quickly prices increase over a set period, but for most consumers, it’s a matter of affordability. 

We all have prices we track, like milk, pizza, and tacos. For our host Maria Hinojosa, a good taco tops that list. In San Diego, one of the U.S. cities hit hardest by inflation, she spoke with local taqueros and families about the rising cost of goods, and its implications for the upcoming election.

Editorial note: Interviews were recorded in late April and May. 

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Irene Vallejo never imagined she would become a global literary sensation. In 2019, the Spanish author and academic published an essay about a somewhat obscure topic: the ancient history of books. After a short literary career, she thought it would be the last book she published. Instead, “Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World” has become an international bestseller since then. It was translated into 38 languages, connecting Irene with millions of readers across the world.

In this episode, Irene opens up about the difficult circumstances in which she wrote this book, the ways she managed to make ancient history come to life, and the unwelcome consequences of global success for a female author.

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In Part 2 of The Moving Border, we visit Tapachula, Mexico in search of a young man whose life is in danger and we find a new frontier where refugees trying to make it to the U.S. are increasingly stuck thanks to an international effort to make Mexico a destination state for asylum. 

The Moving Border series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, with additional support provided by the Ford Foundation.

This episode originally aired in 2020.

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