Latino USA

Tango usually evokes images of a very regal couple: a man in a suit and a woman in a tight red dress, embraced in sensual moves. But the reality of the quintessential Argentinian music genre is strikingly different. Tango, in fact, was born in the brothels and dance halls of Buenos Aires’ lower cast and is rooted in Argentina’s African and queer subcultures. In this episode we’ll take you on a journey through tang...

Hello Latino USA Listeners! We’re excited to share a special episode from our friend, Honey German from Gracias, Come Again.

Honey sits down with the legendary Maria Hinojosa - an award-winning journalist whose career began in 1993 with one clear mission: to make Latinos visible. From her early days in radio to founding Futuro Media and leading Latino USA, Maria has spent decades amplifying our stories and holding power...

A farmworker opened fire at two farms in Half Moon Bay, California, in January 2023. He killed seven men, six co-workers and a supervisor, all immigrants. He also shot an eighth man —five times— but he survived.

The physical recovery for Pedro Romero Pérez has been a long one, but his emotional healing has been even longer. José, Pedro’s older broth...

Reggaeton is full of myths and legends, but this story is true: El General arrived in Brooklyn in the mid-80s and began performing in the dancehall scene, which was booming. He began working with Jamaican producers who were recording and promoting Panamanian artists. Around the same time, a Spanish-language hip-hop revolution was also taking place, as mixtapes flew back and forth between NYC and Puerto Rico.

New York became the cro...

She was in labor, fainted, and woke up in handcuffs.

In El Salvador, nearly 200 women have been incarcerated in the last 26 years after having obstetric emergencies, like miscarriages and stillbirths. Maria Hinojosa and producer Monica Morales-Garcia travel to the country to speak with women who have been incarcerated under El Salvador's anti-abortion laws, some of the strictest in the world.

Through interviews, documents, and arch...

When Texas passed its six-week abortion ban in 2021 and Roe v. Wade was overturned, some local abortion clinics considered moving to the neighboring state of New Mexico to grant abortion and female care access to women from both states. However, some residents in New Mexico opposed it. Now, Texas has passed a law further restricting access to abortion by targeting abortion pills, and its measures are also affecting eastern New Mexi...

Bad Bunny’s residency in Puerto Rico reveals grown-up Benito, an evolved artist whose love for his homeland shines through in everything he does. So let’s talk about his shows!

Together in San Juan (a 6 millas de la casita de Benito) Alana Casanova-Burgess, Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino, Laura Pérez, and Maria Garcia share their reflections on the residency a...

This is the tale of the young people from Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico and beyond who beat the odds, refused to be quiet and created an irresistible musical culture that has kept the world dancing.

We bring you a special episode from our own Futuro Studios hit show “LOUD: The History of Reggaeton.” We meet three Afro-Panamanian friends —all descendants of West Indian canal workers— who start translating Jama...

There are more than 4 million American kids with at least one undocumented parent, and their summer break this year was unlike any other. They told us things like: “My family's worried when they go outside because of ICE,” or “I dreamed about the police coming to our house and they got our parents.”

As increasingly aggressive ICE raids sweep the country, Latino USA follows the stories of young Latinos with u...

Activist and organizer Cristina Jiménez, co-founder of United We Dream, joins Maria Hinojosa on Latino USA. Listen in on the conversation, as Cristina reflects on growing up undocumented in Queens, the experience of finding her voice among other undocumented people, and how she transformed her fear into power. For Cristina, migration is not just a story about borders and legislation, it's also a story about love. Her story i...

In this intimate reflection, Colombian-American producer Tasha Sandoval takes listeners with her as she returns to her native Colombia, after a lifetime of living in the United States, first as a Latina immigrant and then as a US citizen. For a few years, Tasha has had a growing desire: to find out what life would be like if she relocated to the country her parents left, her homeland. And she’s not t...

The 9/11 terrorist attacks left nearly 3,000 people dead and it traumatized the nation. It also reshaped U.S. immigration policy forever. Today, as the Trump administration targets non-citizens in unprecedented ways, we revisit some of the major changes and events that over the past 20 years altered the U.S. stance towards immigrants through the lens of this one catastrophic day.

Latino USA is the longest-...

Is the Addams family Latino?

Maria Hinojosa embarks on a quest to unravel this mystery. She interviews actor Luis Guzmán, who plays Gomez Addams in the hit Netflix show “Wednesday,” to discuss his character, the family values in the show and to get answers about the true origin of this iconic family.

They also discuss Luis’ upbringing in New York City, why Latino men shifted toward...

Chisme is the Spanish word for gossip. It happens when you speak about someone in their absence, sharing information that’s supposed to be private and not necessarily factual. But foremost, it is an ancestral tongue that has connected and bonded Latinos for generations.

In this episode of Latino USA, producers Monica Morales-Garcia and Elisa Baena travel deep into a chismosa’s universe with the...

Eddie Palmieri’s genius couldn’t be categorized. His music was a mix of salsa, rumba, guaguanco, and jazz, and made anyone who listened to it get on the dance floor. Eddie was the first Latino artist to win a Grammy award and is credited with being a major force behind the Latin jazz boom that hit New York in the 1970s.

Eddie passed away earlier this month at the age of 88. To celebrate his bri...

Light your candles and schedule your limpia because today's episode is all about the power of intuition. First, we talk to scientist Galang Lufityanto about his research into intuitive decision-making. Then, we head to the Brooklyn Brujería festival and learn about how intuition has been part of a growing Latina feminist movement. Finally, we learn about Reporter Cindy Rodriguez’s journey to e...

Latinas took over the latest season of "Love Island USA" and one won the hearts of millions: “Amaya Papaya.” The massively popular show had many Latina contestants, some found love, and others found themselves in hot water after resurfaced problematic social media posts went viral for the wrong reasons. The cast just finished taping the reunion, which drops Aug. 25, so for this episode we bring...

The musical adaptation of "Real Women Have Curves" was praised by the Tony Awards and across the country for its timeliness as it leaned heavily on one major topic: immigration. Still, the show closed after just two months on Broadway. In this episode, host Maria Hinojosa speaks with two of the lead actresses —Florencia Cuenca and Tatianna Córdoba— about what it takes to keep up with the...

After experiencing the complexity of migrating to the U.S. “the right way,” comedian Felipe Torres Medina set out to write a book that was informative but also fun. His goal: to help “remove the weight around the subject of immigration.” The writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert published "America Let Me In," which breaks down the serpentine world of visas and legal migratio...