Latino USA Folgen

George Gascón was recently elected as Los Angeles County’s District Attorney, and his victory was hailed as a big win for a movement of progressive prosecutors aiming to end mass incarceration. Gascón immigrated from Cuba to Cudahy, a suburb of Los Angeles, as a teenager. He spent more than thirty years as a police officer before becoming District Attorney for San Francisco in 2011. On this episode of Latino USA, Gascón talks with Maria Hinojosa about getting harassed by the cops as a teenager, how his years as a cop shaped his philosophy of law enforcement, and his vision for his new job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez was denied access to Los Angeles Police Department’s arrest records for her research on mass incarceration, she decided that she would not go down without a fight. Kelly sued the LAPD for access to this data and used the information gathered to create Million Dollar Hoods, a project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. We speak with Kelly and her students about how they are using this data to create equations for reparations and liberation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was only a few years ago that Erik Rodriguez was attending medical school in his native Cuba, following his family of careerists’ footsteps. But then, when he heard James Brown’s "I feel good," he realized that he was meant for a different path. In this segment of “How I Made It,” Erik takes us through his transformation into Afro-Cuban artist Cimafunk—a Billboard’s “Top 10 Latin Artists to Watch”—and explains how someone who had never studied music before found the confidence to listen to himself and be listened to by others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.