Historias Unknown

Episodes

May 11, 2023

The History of Chicano Park

The 1960s were a time of revolution, with many movements co-occurring across the United States. Inspired by these movements, one neighborhood made history. Barrio Logan in San Diego, California came together to stop the const...

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May 4, 2023

Camilo Torres Restrepo

Camilo Torres Restrepo was a Colombian Roman Catholic priest and sociologist, who abandoned the priesthood for the revolution and became a guerrillero. Camilo is often referred to as “the revolutionary priest,” and during his...

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April 27, 2023

The Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s

In the 1980s, a network of religious congregations became known as the Sanctuary Movement. It started with a Presbyterian church and a Quaker meeting in Tucson, Arizona. They began legal and humanitarian assistance to Salvado...

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April 20, 2023

La Gran Marcha

On December 15, 2005, the House of Representatives passed HR 4437, also known as the Sensenbrenner Bill. This bill sought to criminalize undocumented people, give the government extraordinary powers to detain non-citizens wit...

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April 13, 2023

Diane Rodriguez

In 2017, Diane Marie Rodriguez Zambrano was the first trans person to be elected to the National Assembly of Ecuador. Additionally, she made history in Ecuador by setting legal precedent that paved the way for trans people to...

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April 6, 2023

Chico Mendes

If you’re a Mana fan, you’ve probably heard the Cuando Los Angeles Lloran song, which is about Chico Mendes, but maybe you’ve never learned about Chico’s story beyond Mana’s song. Chico was a rural workers’ rights activist an...

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March 30, 2023

Celestina Cordero

By the mid 1800s, the population pf Puerto Rico increased to half a million. Despite the increasing population, literacy rates for all of Puerto Rico were about six percent. Only six percent of the population on the island co...

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March 23, 2023

Comandanta Ramona

Comandanta Ramona was born in 1959. She was a Tzotzil Mayan woman & a revolutionary Zapatista who championed indigenous women’s rights. In this episode, Carmen tells Cristina about Comandanta Ramona’s legacy and Cristina has ...

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March 16, 2023

Juana La Avanzadora

Juana Ramirez was born in 1790, she was a soldier, a heroine of the Venezuelan war for independence and a formerly enslaved Afro-Venezuelan. She earned the name La Avanzadora (the Advancer) , a title earned because she was th...

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March 9, 2023

Maria Remedios del Valle, the Mother of the Homeland

Maria Remedios del Valle is an Afro-Argentine woman, born in 1766 in Buenos Aires and through her brave fighting in the war for independence, she earned the title of "Mother of the Homeland", la madre de la patria. She had …

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March 2, 2023

Azucena Villaflor & Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo

In 1976, Azucena Villaflor's seemingly normal life, changed forever. Her son Nestor, and his girlfriend disappeared, during a time when many people were disappearing in Argentina. She looked for him and when she was ignored b...

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Feb. 23, 2023

Toña la Negra

One woman, one Black Mexican woman, made history singing Boleros and in Mexican music. She had a voice like no other. She was Toña la Negra. She was a Black Mexican woman, of Haitian ancestry, performing, singing, dancing, i...

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Feb. 16, 2023

A Brief History of The Young Lords and Denise Oliver-Velez

The Young Lords started as a street gang in the Lincoln Park in Chicago, but not long after, they became a political organization, working with the Black Panthers and other groups in the Rainbow Coalition. They still fight to...

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Feb. 9, 2023

Gaspar Yanga

Usually when discussing the enslavement of Africans, the United States immediately comes to mind and many, don't even think about Latin America. The trafficking of enslaved Black people in Mexico was thriving, especially from...

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Feb. 2, 2023

Protests Against Bukele

Despite numerous human rights violations, fraud, authoritarianism, and corruption, the Salvadoran President, Bukele, has immense support from Salvadorans, but even among intense oppression, there are also brave dissidents who...

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Jan. 26, 2023

Hero Dogs That Made History

During chaos, disasters and loss, it seems that you can look and always see a furry friend, there to help. Hero dogs like Frida, who rescued many after earthquakes, but also unofficial rescue dogs like Citla, who was known to...

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Jan. 19, 2023

The History of Gum and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Gum or forms of gum have been used by people for the longest time, but the commercialization of gum is relatively new, in terms of history. In the Americas, indigenous peoples have been chewing gum for, well, forever. In the …

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Jan. 12, 2023

El Salvador: Bukele and the State of Exception

On March 25, 2022, until the 28th, 87 homicides took place in El Salvador. These 3 deadly days led President Nayib Bukele to enact a State of Exception. The state of exception is temporary, to address emergency situations, bu...

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Jan. 5, 2023

El Salvador: the History of Bukele

A democratic two party government was put in place after the long Salvadoran civil war. These parties were the FMLN and ARENA, but throughout the years, both parties have seen a number of corruption scandals. From these scand...

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Dec. 15, 2022

El Mozote Massacre

On December 11, 1981, the US trained Atlácatl battalion descended on the village of el Mozote (and surrounding villages) and enacted one of the worst human rights violations in Latin America. They murdered women, children and...

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Dec. 8, 2022

The Ponce Massacre

A peaceful Palm Sunday parade turned deadly in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1937. 21 Puerto Ricans were killed and more than 200 wounded, all at the hands of US funded Insular Police. In this episode, Cristina tells Carmen about thi...

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Dec. 1, 2022

The History of International Adoption in Chile

Thousands of Chilean Children were stolen from their mothers during the Pinochet regime. They were sent abroad, to adoptive parents, to countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany and the United States. T...

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Nov. 24, 2022

El Cri-Cri

El Cri-Cri is a fictional cricket created by Francisco Gabilondo Soler. El Cri-Cri is arguably the most famous Spanish singing character, at least for the generation of millennials and above. His more than 200 songs hold a sp...

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Nov. 17, 2022

Prudencia Ayala

Prudencia Ayala was an indigenous woman, writer, social activist and in 1930, she dared to run for president, in a time when women couldn't even vote in El Salvador (or in all of Latin America). In today's episode, Cristina t...

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