Puerto Rico is often depicted as a “racial democracy” in which a history of race mixture has produced a racially harmonious society. In Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico (Duke University Press, 2015), Petra R. Rivera-Rideau shows how reggaeton musicians critique racial democracy’s privileging of whiteness and concealment of rac ... Show More
Today
Renata Keller, "The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War" (UNC Press, 2025)
Despite twenty-first-century fears of nuclear conflagrations with North Korea, Russia, and Iran, the Cuban Missile Crisis is the closest the United States has come to nuclear war. That history has largely been a bilateral narrative of the US-USSR struggle for postwar domination, ... Show More
37m 12s
Nov 13
Mila Burns, "Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, and the South American Cold War" (UNC Press, 2025)
Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, and the South American Cold War (UNC Press, 2025) offers a groundbreaking perspective on the 1973 Chilean coup, highlighting Brazil’s pivotal role in shaping the political landscape of South America during the Cold War. Shifting the foc ... Show More
46m 27s
Nov 8
Vania Smith-Oka, "Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
In Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals (Rutgers University Press, 2021), Vania Smith-Oka follows a cohort of interns throughout their year of medical training in hospitals to understand how medical students become medical doctors. She ethnographically tracks thei ... Show More
49m 5s
Dec 2023
Trent Masiki, "The Afro-Latino Memoir: Race, Ethnicity, and Literary Interculturalism" (UNC Press, 2023)
Despite their literary and cultural significance, Afro-Latino memoirs have been marginalized in both Latino and African American studies. Trent Masiki remedies this problem by bringing critical attention to the understudied African American influences in Afro-Latino memoirs publi ... Show More
35m 6s
Jul 2023
Vivian Nun Halloran, "Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
In Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging (Ohio State University Press, 2023), Vivian Nun Halloran analyzes memoirs, picture books, comic books, young adult novels, musicals, and television shows through which Caribbean Americans recount and celebrate their contributions to c ... Show More
1h 20m
Dec 2023
Trent Masiki, "The Afro-Latino Memoir: Race, Ethnicity, and Literary Interculturalism" (UNC Press, 2023)
Despite their literary and cultural significance, Afro-Latino memoirs have been marginalized in both Latino and African American studies. Trent Masiki remedies this problem by bringing critical attention to the understudied African American influences in Afro-Latino memoirs publi ... Show More
35m 6s
May 2023
Rebeca L. Hey-Colón, "Channeling Knowledges: Water and Afro-Diasporic Spirits in Latinx and Caribbean Worlds" (U Texas Press, 2023)
Water is often tasked with upholding division through the imposition of geopolitical borders. We see this in the construction of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo on the US-Mexico border, as well as in how the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean are used to delineate the limits of US terr ... Show More
38m 55s
Apr 2023
La Linea Latin music festival special with Francisco Carrasco, N. Hardem and Chapulines
Francisco Carrasco and N. Hardem are joined by Graciela Zaera Moraña and Beto Robledo Zaragoza of the band Chapulines to discuss creativity and the songwriting process. These four Latin American artists, who are on the line-up of this year’s La Linea Festival in London, UK, talk ... Show More
25m 18s
Apr 2022
[BEST OF] Critical Race Theory and Black Liberation w/ Zoé Samudzi
<p><em>[Originally released Oct 2017]</em></p> <p>Zoe Samudzi is a black feminist writer whose work has appeared in a number of spaces including <em>The New Inquiry</em>, <em>Warscapes</em>, <em>Truthout</em>, <em>ROAR Magazine</em>, <em>Teen Vogue</em>,<em>BGD</em>, <em>Bitch Me ... Show More
1h 9m
Jul 2022
Puerto Rico is decolonizing - with food
Sandy beaches, amazing wildlife, Caribbean blue seas—Puerto Rico is known as the Island of Enchantment for a reason. But it’s also one of the oldest colonies in the world. And as a U.S. territory, Puerto Ricans have very little say in the U.S. government. The island has a complic ... Show More
33m 15s