
Hosted by My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts · EN
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S. centering Latino stories, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Hinojosa Every week, the Peabody winning team brings you revealing, in-depth stories about what’s in the hearts and minds of Latinos and their impact on the world.
Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for exclusive episodes, sneak peaks and behind-the-scenes chisme on Latino USA and all our podcasts. www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus

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.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage.

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.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. This episode originally aired in 2022.

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.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. This episode originally aired in 2018.

In early February, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele made an unprecedented and controversial offer: to jail U.S. citizens in El Salvador. The move came as President Donald Trump is ramping up his mass deportation plans.In this episode, host 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.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage.

Human smugglers are oftentimes 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? Are they more hurtful than helpful? What is fueling their industry?Renowned anthropologist and author Jason De León tries to answer these questions in his latest book “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope on the World of Human Smuggling.”Jason sits down with Maria Hinojosa on this episode of Latino USA to discuss the links between the booming business of human smuggling and U.S. immigration policies and much more.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage.

In the late 1800s, Teresa Urrea was a superstar. She was a ‘curandera,’ or healer, a revolutionary, and a feminist. At only 19 years old she was exiled from Mexico by dictator Porfirio Diaz, who called her the most dangerous girl in the country, and moved to El Paso, Texas. She also had a miraculous power: she could heal people through touch. Her vision of love and equality for all people regardless of gender, race, and class inspired rebellions against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, earning her the title the Mexican Joan of Arc. In this episode, we follow Teresa Urrea’s life, and honor the legacy of a revolutionary woman decades ahead of her time.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. This episode originally aired in November 2021.

For Ayodele Casel tap dancing is magic. As a young high school student, she dreamed of one day dancing like Ginger Rogers as she recreated Ginger’s moves in her bedroom But it wasn’t until Ayodele Casel was a sophomore at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts that she took her first tap dancing class. That was her entry point into the art form which would eventually lead to a more than 20 year career as a professional tap dancer. As a Black and Puerto Rican woman, Ayodele Casel didn’t see herself reflected in the mainstream image of tap dancers because the form has been largely whitewashed through systematic racism. For that reason, she works tirelessly to remind her audiences that tap is deeply rooted in Black art and culture.In this episode of “How I Made It” Ayodele takes us through her tap journey, and reclaims tap dancing as a Black art form.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. This episode originally aired in 2021.

With DACA and the Dreamers poised to be back in the center of the national conversation, Latino USA revisits this episode about what it means to be young and undocumented in the United States today. In 2013, a group of young undocumented activists known as the Dream 9 staged one of the riskiest protests in the history of the immigration rights movement. They willingly left the U.S. to Mexico, and then demanded to be let back into the country despite lacking legal status. Their efforts landed them in detention—and in the national spotlight.This episode originally aired in October 2015.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 ArchivesOriginal 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.Follow us on TikTok and YouTube.Subscribe to our newsletter by going to the top of our homepage. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.