Latino USA Folgen

How does technology affect labor? How are tech corporations like Uber and Lyft redefining what it means to be a worker in the United States? California has been ground zero for cementing the “gig work” business model of these companies into law. A year ago this month, the state passed Proposition 22 to allow app-based firms like Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as contractors instead of employees. In this episode of Latino USA we follow a group of drivers who are mobilizing across California – and using their own technology to take on Big Tech. Their fight is not only about their own labor protections as drivers, but a battle to prevent this labor model from spreading to other sectors of the U.S. economy.

Before winning not one or two, but 15 Emmy’s for television writing, and before she became one of the first Latinas on television when she took on the role of “Maria” on Sesame Street in 1971, Sonia Manzano was a curious and imaginative little girl growing up in the South Bronx, a working class neighborhood in New York City. On this “How I Made It” segment, Sonia talks about discovering her love for television writing, and her new animated show: “Alma’s Way.”

In the 1960s and 70s, a community of Latinx poets in New York City created a movement. They called themselves the Nuyorican poets. Together, they broke barriers and built a cultural institution: the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The Nuyorican Poets Café began as an informal literary salon in Miguel Algarín’s apartment living room, one of the movement’s founding poets. But soon after, Miguel and his fellow writers realized that they needed to expand to accommodate the growing roster of artists who frequented the space. They moved into a new venue nearby, and by 1981 they relocated again to the Nuyorican’s current location in New York City’s Alphabet City. Today, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe is a haven for Black and Latinx writers and performers. In this episode of Latino USA, we stage a spoken history of the cafe featuring several artists from its storied past. We hear from poets Poet Jesús “Papoleto” Meléndez and Caridad de la Luz, known as “La Bruja,” playwright Ishmael Reed, and artist and archivist Lois Elaine Griffith.