Latino USA Folgen

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. This episode originally aired in November 2021.

Daniel Suárez made history in 2022 when he became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race, but the road to this feat has been anything but smooth. On this episode of Latino USA, Daniel Suárez talks about breaking barriers, the role his family played along the way, and how he’s trying to bring more Latinos to NASCAR.

For this week’s Latino USA, we’re bringing you an episode from the newly released podcast series from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, La Brega, The Puerto Rican Experience in Eight Songs. Created by Nuyorican street kids in the mid-80s, freestyle music became the sound and story of second-generation Boricuas. Hip-hop and pop, Latin Caribbean rhythms and instruments, all came together in freestyle. The sound was ubiquitous in New York and later in Orlando, FL. Young Puerto Rican women became the face of the genre. They sang about love, heartbreak, and their sexual desires. In Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” —a huge hit in the genre— a young woman sings about that on her own terms and without shame, opening up mother-daughter conversations that weren’t happening. You can subscribe to La Brega here.