Latino USA

For the past decade, Armando Perez has worked as a wildland firefighter with the Eldorado, California, Hotshot crew—an elite group that works in the hottest portions of wildfires. For Armando that has meant weeks away from his family, dealing with some of the worst fires in U.S. history. Still, there’s nothing else he would rather be doing.

In this episode of Latino USA, Armando recreates what a typical day is like for him and his crew to understand why, along with thousands of other wildland firefighters, they continue to risk their lives under increasingly difficult and record-breaking fires.

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What and who do you include in a national Latino museum?

That’s a question that many have been asking since late 2020, when Congress green-lit the creation of The National Museum of the American Latino. It’s a new addition to the Smithsonian Institution’s roster of national museums, many of which intend to preserve the history and culture of the United States.

The fight to create The National Museum of the American Latino spans across decades. The idea was sparked by a damning 1994 report, commissioned by the Smithsonian itself, which concluded that the institution had a pattern of systematically excluding Latinos and Latinas from its programming and its staff. One of its top recommendations? To create a museum highlighting Latinos and Latinas in this country.

Now, in 2022, the museum is making moves. Even though there’s no building to house it yet, the National Museum of the American Latino has appointed a board, hired an inaugural director, and has even debuted its first show in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. In the midst of all this, many are beginning to wonder what the vision of this museum will be, and how it plans to capture the wide diversity of Latino history and culture in the United States.

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We're still on summer break so we are sharing an interview from our archives with poet Yesika Salgado. She heads with Maria Hinojosa to the Hunts Point Produce Market, the largest wholesale produce market in the world, to try to identify the sexiest, most romantic fruit. Then they sit down to talk about relationships, lust, and Salgado’s book, “Hermosa.”

This episode first aired on February 14, 2020.

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Latino USA is on summer break this week so we wanted to share one of our favorite recent interviews that we originally broadcast in early 2020. In this conversation with Maria Hinojosa, legendary musician José Feliciano opens up about why he keeps the 70s alive and also describes one of his favorite relationships—the one he has with his guitar.

This podcast first aired on February 12, 2020.

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Evelynn Escobar-Thomas grew up near a state park in Northern Virginia, but she never visited it. For Evelynn, who is a Black and Indigenous Guatemalan woman, outdoor recreation felt segregated, and she never really felt welcomed in hiking trails and campsites. In 2017, after moving to Los Angeles, Evelynn decided to change that: she founded Hike Clerb, an outdoor club centering women of color. Today, more than 100 women often join their treks, dressed with a bit of style.

In this episode, we go on a hike with Evelynn and some of the women of Hike Clerb, talk about the benefits of being in nature and how these women of color are reclaiming and enjoying the outdoors.

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In this continuation of Latino USA’s 2022 midterms coverage, Maria welcomes her In The Thick co-host Julio Ricardo Varela and the following two guests: Sonja Diaz, Founding Director of the Latino Policy & Politics Institute at UCLA, and Jazmine Ulloa, national reporter for The New York Times. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, they discuss the role Latinos and Latinas will play, what they are hearing from voters on the ground, the races that we should be keeping an eye on and the complexity and richness of the Latino community.

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You probably haven’t met a comedian quite like Julio Torres.

Julio’s work is highly visual and deeply inquisitive, often focusing on everyday objects or routine and giving it a surreal twist. After immigrating from El Salvador to the U.S. for college, Julio did the rounds in New York City’s stand-up scene before landing a gig writing at “Saturday Night Live.” After a few years, Julio decided to leave 30 Rockefeller Plaza and strike out on his own. In 2019, he released a comedy special for HBO called, “My Favorite Shapes.” That same year, he also co-created the hit television show, “Los Espookys,” which he also writes, produces, and acts in. And this year, he took an unexpected turn into children’s literature with his new picture book, “I Want To Be A Vase.”

On this episode of Latino USA, Julio Torres talks about developing his own comedic style, his journey in the industry, and how he enjoys challenging audiences to look at the world from a different perspective.

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For the closing of our series Genias in Music, celebrating the contributions of women in their fields, we go to Colombia, where Petrona Martínez became one of the most important Black singers in the country’s modern history.

She’s known as “the queen of bullerengue”, an ancestral music tradition that goes back to times of slavery in the Colombian Caribbean Coast. But it took many years for Petrona Martínez to get recognized as an artist. She dealt with isolation, poverty and invisibility as a Black woman from rural Colombia. Latino USA Producers Patricia Sulbarán and Jeanne Montalvo tell the story of this music legend.

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Luna Luna is a rising four-member band from different walks of life. They’re known for mixing nostalgic sounds of the past and fusing them with elements of funk and dream-like pop.

In this episode of Latino USA, we learn more about the people behind Luna Luna and hear how they say the universe and destiny have brought them together to live out their wildest dreams.

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Last November, Robert Santos became the first Latino to be confirmed as the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Santos is no stranger to the federal agency. Before his nomination and confirmation, Santos had warned that former President Donald Trump’s interference of the census count would result in one of the most flawed census counts in U.S. history. Census counts are important because they help determine congressional representation and how billions of federal dollars are distributed.

In this conversation with Maria Hinojosa, Santos shares the census’ complicated history, his efforts to rebuild trust among communities, his love for his hometown of San Antonio and more.

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