Historias Unknown

Episodes

Oct. 5, 2023

Myrna

Myrna Mack Chang was a Guatemalan anthropologist whose research brought to light the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan government against the Maya. She also fought for better treatment for the Maya; unfortunately, she wa...

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Sept. 14, 2023

A Brief History of the Guatemala Civil War

The roots of Guatemala’s civil war can be tied back to June 27, 1954, when the CIA orchestrated a coup against president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman to protect the profits of the infamous United Fruit Company. Over the next 40 years...

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Aug. 31, 2023

The Bath Riots

On January 28, 1917, seventeen year old Carmelita Torres refused to exit the trolley on the Santa Fe Bridge and follow US health officials to a chemical bath. 30 women followed after her. Soon, that 30 became hundreds and the...

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Aug. 17, 2023

Santos Rodriguez: The March of Justice

On July 24, 1973, twelve year old Santos Rodriguez was brutally murdered by Dallas Police Officer Darell Cain, but the murder pushed the Mexican American community of Dallas to demand justice. On today's episode, Carmen tells...

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July 27, 2023

The Unknown Hispano History of the Manhattan Project

During opening weekend, Oppenheimer, raked in$80.5 million, second to Barbie. While the film Oppenheimer is about physicist Robert Oppenheimer and his efforts to create the atomic bomb, what many movie goes do not know, is th...

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July 13, 2023

Luisa Moreno

Luisa Moreno was Guatemalan labor movement activist, she unionized workers, led strikes, and brought together first national Latino civil rights assembly in 1939. She paved the road for future labor movements like the United ...

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June 29, 2023

Pedro Zamora

Pedro Zamora gained notoriety as a cast member in season four of the Real World. As a Real World cast member, Pedro touched many lives and humanized AIDS/HIV. Prior to the Real World, Pedro was an AIDS educator and he even te...

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June 22, 2023

Jose Sarria

Did you know, the first openly gay candidate to run for a public office in the United States was a Latino man and a drag queen? Jose Sarria was an instrumental activist to the LGBTQ+ community, he was a veteran, a drag queen ...

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June 8, 2023

Jessie Lopez De La Cruz

Jessie Lopez De La Cruz was a Mexican America Farm worker and activist. She was the first women to work as a recruiter for the United Farm Workers and she was responsible for the signing up the highest amount of new members. ...

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June 1, 2023

The West High Walkout

On March 20, 1969, students of West High in Denver, CO walked out of their classes to protest racism. This became one of the most violent student protests in US history. The students were demanding bilingual classes, the firi...

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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 to...

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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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