Latino USA

This summer, after serving a nine-year sentence in a notorious Texas men’s prison, Estrella was released but wasn’t free. First she was put in immigration detention facilities and then deported. She’s an undocumented trans woman from Mexico caught up in the United States’ criminal and immigration systems. In this episode –reported over a decade–we go to Mexico to document her release, look back on her story, her evolving relationship with host Maria Hinojosa, and what it means to finish serving a criminal sentence when you’re an undocumented immigrant whose freedom is tenuous and bittersweet   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This spooky season we get an extra treat from one of the masters of horror. On October 9th, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s seminal fantasy horror classic, Pan’s Labyrinth, returns for a 20th-anniversary theatrical re-release. Running until October 15th, the anniversary release includes a 3D conversion and the 4K restoration. In a conversation with Guillermo del Toro anticipating the re-release, we dive into the film's themes of fascism, machismo, and violence against women and girls – themes which unfortunately still speak to our current times two decades later.   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before the Venezuelan migrant Nixon Azuaje-Pérez was arrested, a PR firm reached out to national media outlets and told them that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado. A local politician said the organization was also taking over entire swaths of the city. After that shocking claim, the politician got a call from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He was coming to town. The game of telephone that started with spent bullet casings ends with Nixon on a plane headed to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before 86-year-old Luis Valdez directed the play Zoot Suit and the film La Bamba, he was staging theater in the back of a flatbed truck in the fields of California for farmworkers  on strike. His work in teatro campesino  would eventually make its way to Broadway and then Hollywood, paving the way for Chicano stories to be told with dignity and nuance in American culture. Now, he’s the subject of a new documentary: “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez.”  On this episode, host Maria Hinojosa talks with Luis Valdez and director David Alvarado, the documentary’s director. They talk about making history, the importance of sharing archival footage from the past, and about artistic inspiration.  Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, reporter Jack Herrera traveled the length of the Rio Grande basin – from its source in Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. He found that the water crisis in the region is worse than anyone imagines. ”It's not a metaphor, it's not a hyperbole, we're in a water war,” he tells Maria Hinojosa. In today's episode, we explore the consequences of that crisis for the region and its people. As well as the bitter dispute for control of that water between citizens and their governments, and even between the United States and Mexico.   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guadalupe Rosales is an artist and the creator of the popular Instagram accounts “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” which focus on the fashion, the music, and certain latino subculture of the ‘80s and '90s in Los Angeles. She was part of the so-called party crews of the time and has kept the moment alive in history on social media and now in her new memoir East of the River: A Memoir of Los Angeles Girlhood. She writes about her adolescence living in this unique moment: the parties, the vibrancy, as well as the dangers of the time, and how sisterhood played a role in her survival.   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

September 11, 2001 was a paradigm shift. The terrorist attacks reshaped U.S. immigration policy forever and this year marks the 25th anniversary. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and an entire nation was traumatized. Today, as the Trump administration targets non-citizens in unprecedented ways, we revisit some of the major changes that over the past 25 years altered the country’s stance on immigrants through the lens of this one catastrophic day. Listen to an updated episode from a few years ago here.    Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for ad-free listening, early-access and exclusive bonus episodes with the chisme behind Latino USA and all our podcasts: www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A few months ago, Maria Garcia was watching the Benito Bowl when an unexpected artist came on: the one and only Ricky Martin. Maria knew this was a touchstone moment — the artist who most represented the ‘90s Latin Boom was singing a song of resistance, in Spanish. And then Maria’s 11-year-old son said, “Who’s that???”  Today, in an exclusive listen to the first episode of “Muy Excited with Maria Garcia,” our new podcast from Futuro Studios and iHeartRadio, Maria revisits the importance of Ricky Martin, the queer icon’s career and life, and how he had to live “La vida loca” so that Bad Bunny could do “Lo que le da la gana.” Watch this episode on YouTube.   Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. Follow the show to get every episode. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for exclusive episodes, sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes chisme on Latino USA and all our podcasts. Follow us on TikTok and YouTube. Subscribe to our newsletter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.