Introducing Ms. M Gives Context

0:17 Hi everyone, this is Carmen. And Christina. And this is Historias Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history, sometimes it's horrible, and just with heavy topics like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's also about resistance, power. And community. And we will be back next episode with the Mexico BCA journey that we have been on. But today we wanted to tell you about a new podcast from our friend Marisa Maldonado. It's called Miss M Gives Context. And if you're listening to this podcast, I think you would like her podcast. Marisa Maldonado is a social studies teacher and a public historian. And in this podcast, she is tackling the misconception that all Latinos are immigrants. Because so many of us were here since before the inception of the United States. And in the first episode, she talks about Juan Rodriguez, a Dominican who was also the first New Yorker. This is stuff I had no idea about.

1:15 And I think that you would also enjoy it. This is only the first 10 minutes of the episode. If you liked it, the link to the show is in the show notes. What does the average American think of when they picture someone who is Latino? Probably an immigrant. Or maybe, as the New York Times recently called us, the new swing voters. This isn't the whole story. I'm broadcasting from New York City, where Dominicans are now the largest foreign-born group. Dominican immigrants have contributed so much to our society, from the beauty of Oscar de la Renta's fashion to even the practice of neuroradiology. We'll get more to that later. But Dominicans have been around for much longer, since before the Dutch quote-unquote bought Manahatta Island from the Lenape in 1626, and well before the British changed the name of the settlement from New Amsterdam to New York. In fact, it was a Dominican who first peacefully coexisted with the Lenape who had lived here for thousands of years. In recent decades, historians have uncovered the journey of a 17th century businessman, Juan Rodriguez, and this story shows that Latinas have been part of the fabric of New York City and our country since before its inception. In fact, you could say he was the first in a long line of immigrants to New York City.

2:59 Could flourish in the place where he was. Juan Rodriguez is an inspiration not just for Dominicans, but for anyone who's had to hustle when they came to the city. But who was he? Was he just an intrepid businessman? Or did he conduct diplomacy like some scholars believe? And why don't more New Yorkers know who he is? Welcome to the Ms. M Gives Context podcast, where we uncover hidden history and make the past relevant to the present. I'm your host, Marissa Maldonado, and this is Season 1, Pre-Inception. Latinos in Early American History, episode one, Juan Rodriguez. Before we get started, let me introduce myself and go over the purpose of the podcast. I'm a high school social studies teacher, public historian, and freelance writer. But really, at the heart of all of this, I'm a lifelong learner, a complete history nerd. I'm lucky enough to teach social studies in the most diverse place, Queens, New York, and I get to learn from people from all over the world.

3:52 And hopefully this podcast will reflect that diversity someday. But right now, 2026, we just celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And I've been looking at who gets to be written into the story of our nation's founding. Who's in? Who's out? One thing becomes glaringly obvious. Spanish speakers, those who would be considered Latino or Latine today, aren't considered vital to the making of our country. Yes, we sometimes hear about Latino contributions to the United States. You hear about people like the Young Lords in the 1960s and 70s. Or if you go back further, you hear about people like the bibliophile Arturo Schomburg. But Latinas have been around much longer. Spanish was spoken in the continental 48 states before English. And we wouldn't have won the Revolutionary War without the help of Spain and its colonists in places like Cuba and Nueva Mexico. If we knew this history, the xenophobia we see against Latinas wouldn't make sense. It would be harder for people to argue that Latinas are just coming here to take the jobs of the quote-unquote real Americans, or that we're just a voting block for Republicans and Democrats to compete over every few years. So let's get started.

5:03 This podcast starts at the story of Juan Rodriguez. His tale is central to my journey in exploring how Spanish speakers, those shaped early American history. I didn't know about Juan Rodriguez until four years ago. I was teaching U.S. history for this first time, sitting in my classroom, eating lunch, and I picked up a book I'd taken out from the New York Public Library. The book was African Founders, How Enslaved People Shaped American Ideals by David Hackett Fisher. Juan Rodriguez was in there, but Juan Rodriguez was not enslaved. He was free. Here's what we know about Juan Rodriguez. Juan Rodriguez was a man born on the island of Hispaniola, originally called Aidi by the Taino. He was the son of an African woman and a European man. In the documents, he's referred to as a mulatto. Other scholars call him a Creole, and he was a rebel. Someone who would not settle for the circumstances life had given him. This fact in particular is very important to Dr. Ramona Hernandez.

6:07 This man had a vision that was longer, right? Doctora Hernandez is the director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at City College. The institute has been a leader in investigating Juan Rodriguez's story. In 2013, the institute published a monograph about their findings by the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. This team of scholars was spread out through three countries, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Dominican Republic, all searching for the story of who this man was. The monograph talks in depth about how Juan Rodriguez was a man of his time. To understand this, we need to dig into the history of what is now called Hispaniola. The Taino were the original occupants of the island, of course. Christopher Columbus encountered the island in 1492, and the Spanish started their settlement a year later. It was one of the first places to be colonized in the Spanish Empire. However, by 1600, the Spanish had become distant owners. Places like Mexico and Peru were reaping more profits for the Spanish Empire. Hispaniola was just not profitable. In fact, a side note for my fellow history teachers, this is the whole reason that Spain transfers the western half of the island to France.

7:32 friendship started circling the island in the 1620s looking for profits. But let's back up. In the year 1613, where our story begins, the Dutch were seeking trade. Do you think Spain was going to let its colonists trade with the Dutch? Of course not. But the Spanish weren't giving their colonists much of a choice. They were ignoring Hispaniola. They weren't providing economic opportunities. And the colonists of Hispaniola were left with no choice but to smuggle. Smuggling, trading with Dutch ships, became a family business. Both men and women participated. So this is Juan Rodriguez. He lived in a multicultural world where he might have had regular interactions with people from all over, including the Dutch. And the Dutch weren't just in the Caribbean.

8:20 And the Dutch were employing people who could speak the language. And they were not Just doing business in one piece of the Hudson. They were doing business everywhere in this area. They had been exploring what we call the Hudson Valley area since the early 1600s. But they had been in and out. They would pop in to explore and then leave. Nobody stayed. Juan Rodriguez was different. In this sense, Rodriguez's story is very similar to the stories of Dominican immigrants who migrated in massive waves. In the 1960s and 1970s, from 1961 to 1986, 400,000 men, women, and children legally emigrated from DR to the United States. The number of total immigrants, of course, is likely larger. Before this wave, a small number of people fled each year due to political persecution from the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. But most of the immigrants who left after 1961 ran from poverty.

9:19 Because while people like Trujillo and his allies got rich, most Dominicans didn't even have enough to live on. We were the poorest one in the world. For Doctora Hernandez, this legacy is incredibly personal. In Rodriguez, she sees her parents who immigrated from the Dominican Republic. They were just like Rodriguez in that they were fleeing economic poverty and looking for something better. I leave because of political issues. We didn't leave because we came to school here. We did not because we were looking for better horizons. No. My father and my mother left because they couldn't survive in the Dominican Republic.

10:02 At the time when we came in massive numbers, they told me, eight and ten women. who came in 1970 did not have a high school diploma. So these are people who couldn't accumulate through methods and demands of the productive market and the labor market. Because the only things they had was their hands. So it is this mass and this group of people, a good proportion of them who don't know how to write and read. It is this group of people who work in the most undesirable jobs in the world. Right. This will cover such a huge historical figure.

10:52 OK, and again, that was just the first 10 minutes of the episode, but the whole episode is like 20 something minutes long. Perfect for a short commute and you will learn about Juan Rodriguez. So make sure you subscribe to Miss M Gives Context. And again, we'll be back next episode with our Mexico CIA El Pri journey that we have been on. Bye. Bye. Historias Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at historiasunknown.com and in our show notes. Creating the podcast is a lot of work, so if you want to help us out financially, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon at patreon.com slash historiasunknownpodcast.