Episode 71: The Honeycomb Network Creates a BIPOC Collective Care Sanctuary + PC1003 Becomes Law - What That Means For Puerto Rico’s Pensions, Education & Public Services
It's a packed episode today! First, we welcome Denise Ruiz and Cristina Guitirrez to the show. They are the founders of The Honeycomb Network - a holistic co-working and co-creating collective care sanctuary centered and focused on the BIPOC community. We learn more about their organization, and we cover a lot of ground on things like knowing your worth, opening their space during the pandemic, creating spaces for people to address their generational trauma and personal healing. They also share a story of dealing with people in the neighborhood, who don’t take too kindly to what they do and their mission, which has led to the repeated vandalization of their space.
Then we welcome returning guest, freelance journalist from Puerto Rico, Carlos Berrios Polanco, to discuss the controversial bill known as PC1003 that recently became law in Puerto Rico. It’s basically a law that takes care of La Junta and vulture capitalists and takes away from pensions, education, and public services that working people benefit from so deeply.
Episode 70: An Offshore Dilemma: Puerto Rico & The Pandora Papers
In a historic leak, the Pandora Papers revealed that wealthy people have billions of dollars hidden beyond reach in tax havens around the world - AND Puerto Rico banks, celebrities & more are involved. Journalist Luis Valentín has been doing some great reporting on this story for Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, so we invited him on the show to help us make sense of it all.
Episode 69: LUMA Energy & Blackouts in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico residents are PISSED over consistent power outages happening in Puerto Rico since LUMA Energy - a private Canadian-American company - took over la Isla's electricity on June 1, 2021. We welcome Nicole Acevedo, NBC News and NBC Latino reporter, and Carlos Berríos Polanco, a freelance independent journalist focused on covering extremism, political corruption and civil unrest in Puerto Rico, to the show to discuss what the heck is going on.
Episode 68: Chicago’s Puerto Rican Fest & Creating Community Events for Us, By Us
The Puerto Rican Festival begins today through September 26! It’s been going strong for 39 years, but was once at risk of not happening in 2019 due to the unethical stewardship of the committee in charge at the time that ended in the organization filing bankruptcy. The group of community leaders we have on today’s show actually stepped up during that time to organize the fest successfully within less than 2 months.
They had to be scrappy then and they needed to be scrappy this year, not just because of the pandemic, but because they are starting from square one. They're showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, so we're happy to welcome them to the show to talk about how they are elevating the experience for festival gowers compared to previous years, what you should keep in mind if you want to start a community event of your own for your neighborhood, and their thoughts on what it means to be Puerto Rican.
Episode 67: Puerto Rican Desserts, the Baking Industry & Starting a Small Business with the Owner of Borinken Cakes
Being a small business owner can be tough, and the pandemic has only made things harder, especially for BIPOC owners. On today's episode, we welcome Boricua small business owner, Rachel Diaz, to the show. She is the owner of a Puerto Rican Bakeshop called Borinken Cakes. She’s a working mother of two, who - before getting into the baking business - had a career in product design with products appearing on the shelves of retailers like Target, Michael's, and Joann Fabrics. When she entered the baking industry, she went from baking at home, to operating out of a mall kiosk to now owning two storefronts. We’re going to talk with Rachel about what it took for her to start her own business, the challenges she faced as a small business owner, and of course, the wonderful world of Puerto Rican desserts!
Episode 66: What Did We Miss??? Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, The Pauls & Act 60, Climate Change x Puerto Rico, Lin-Manuel Miranda & More!
What’s up everyone! It’s good to be back in action. In today’s episode we get the Paseo Podcast team together to talk about a ton of Puerto Rico news that we either missed or wanted to talk about while we were on break. We’re going to talk about Puerto Rican athletes, Jessica Camacho-Quinn and Amanda Serrano, Puerto Rico as a tax haven through the lens of Jake and Logan Paul, climate change and Puerto Rico, and Lin-Manuel Miranda and our responsibility as BIPOC folks to tell our stories.
Episode 65: Predatory Gentrification in Puerto Rico
On today’s show we welcome Nicole Alvarez. She's the Co-Founder & Coordinator of Actívate PR, which is a collective dedicated to bringing awareness to the importance of Puerto Rican independence from a present day lens. We’re going to discuss predatory gentrification in Puerto Rico today. There’s been a number of news stories over the years bringing attention to the policies contributing to the pushing out of Boricuas on the island in favor of affluent individuals, mostly white, to move to Puerto Rico. Some examples include the Jones Act, la Junta, privatization, tax laws like Act 60 and others. So, we’re going to talk to Nicole about some of these policies and how they are impacting the island as well as what the Puerto Rican government is doing to combat gentrification...HINT - NOT MUCH!
Episode 64: Puerto Rican & Palestinian Solidarity w/ Dr. Sara Awartani
On today’s show we welcome Dr. Sara Awartani. We're going to talk about settler colonialism and armed struggle within the context of Puerto Rico and Palestine, examples of Puerto Rican and Palestinian solidarity, and hear some of her literary suggestions on where people can begin to educate themselves on Puerto Rico and Palestine independence. She is a Global American Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. An interdisciplinary U.S. social movement historian, her research, publications, and teaching interrogate twentieth century Latinx and Arab American radicalism, interracial solidarities, policing, and American global power.
Episode 63: Multi-Medium Artist, Ali Six
On today’s show, we welcome Ali Six. He is a multi-medium artist from Chicago. Among other things, in today’s episode we’re going to discuss the role Aladdin & Michael Jordan played in his name, his 3 key takeaways for aspiring artists he’s learned in his career, what getting arrested meant for his trajectory in the Chicago art scene and where in the diaspora the Jibarito was first created.
Episode 62: 8 Actions the Executive Branch Should Take to Aid Puerto Rico
We’re going to discuss a recent essay from the Center for American Progress, titled An Urgent Rescue Plan for Puerto Rico. In the piece, one section was dedicated to the 8 actions the executive branch should take to aid Puerto Rico. We’re focusing on that part of the article in this episode. Make sure you stay tuned till the end when we discuss obsessions and favorite PR food spots. We don’t know how we managed to do it, but we got a Bennifer mention in there.
Episode 61: 50 years of Promoting Afro-Latin Arts & Culture in Chicago
On today’s show we welcome the Executive Director of the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, Omar Torres Kortright. The cultural center is the longest serving Latinx cultural center in Chicago and this year they are celebrating their 50th Anniversary, so we invited Omar on the show to talk about the center’s namesake, what initiated its founding in the 1970s - hint the Young Lords played a role - and how they plan to celebrate and serve Chicago for another 50 years.
We also welcome author and poet, Luis Tubens, as well as dancer and choreographer, María Luisa-Torres. Maria and Luis are the creators of a production called Raíces to Roots, which will have a number of showings in the coming weeks at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center as part of the 50th anniversary celebration. We’re going to talk about their production, what they want people to take away after experiencing it and what partnering with the cultural center today means for them.
Episode 60: Why Go Mainstream When You Can Breakthrough?
We welcome Monica Cruz. She's a labor reporter with BreakThrough News and host of the weekly podcast, On the Picket Line. She's a 3rd generation Afro-Boricua raised in New Jersey and an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We discuss the PRO Act, a major labor legislation that could transform the lives of working class people and labor organizing, and what that means for Puerto Ricans, the wider BIPOC community and the working class as a whole.
We also talk about why it’s so hard to make a good Mofongo, where mainstream media is lacking in their reporting on labor and her labor reporting for BreakThrough news, especially what she experienced during the Amazon Warehouse unionization efforts in Alabama.
Episode 59: I'm A F***ing Intellectual: Being Puerto Rican in Higher Ed
We welcome Dr. Lisa Calvente to the show. She is a Communications and Black studies scholar. We’re going to discuss her connection to the Notorius BIG, her work and research, her connection to Puerto Rican culture after her father’s passing, a lawsuit she’s filled against DePaul University stemming from her tenure process and a whole lot more.
Plus, we share details on the Paseo Podcast and 42 other independent media outlets coming together to save Chicago media.
Episode 58: The Murder of Keishla Rodríguez & The University of PR's Budget Cuts
We welcome Victoria Leandra to the show. She's the Editorial Director for The Americano and Floricua, a news outlet for and by Latinas in the US. We’re going to talk about her work at Floricua, the fiscal oversight board's proposed cuts to the University of Puerto Rico’s budget and how that is affecting the student population, and the murder of Keishla Rodríguez and her unborn child at the hands of Puerto Rican Boxer, Félix Verdejo, who was charged with her murder by a federal grand jury.
Episode 57: From Humboldt Park to Grey's Anatomy
Melissa DuPrey joins the show this week. She’s a Black Puerto Rican performer, storyteller, & comic. She’s been on shows, such as Empire and Chicago PD, and in films, like Cherry on Apple TV. She’s also had success on stage with shows like SUSHI-frito and currently has a recurring row on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Sara Ortiz. We’re going to talk about her experience on Grey’s Anatomy, projects she’s worked on and what she has in store for the future, how her life as a live performer was impacted by the pandemic and more.
Episode 56: Adam Toledo & The Investments We Have Yet To Make
Jessie Fuentes returns to the show! She’s an activist, the Co-Chair of the Puerto Rican Agenda Chicago Chapter and the new Director of Policy and Youth Advocacy for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago. If you want to learn more about Jessie and her work, give episode 4 of the podcast a listen. Today we’re going to discuss the systemic issues facing youth in the Puerto Rican & wider BIPOC community, how these issues relate to the Adam Toledo killing, and what investments need to be made in order to prevent what happened to Adam from happening to others & more.
Episode 55: The Borinqueneers
This week was the first-ever National Borinqueneers Day! On today's episode, we answer the question - Who were The Borinqueneers?
Episode 54: The Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act
For this week’s episode, we’re sharing 2 separate, but related, interviews. We speak to Federico A. de Jesús, Senior Advisor for Power 4 Puerto Rico and a Former Obama-Biden Official, about the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, including misconceptions of the bill, how it came to be, how it seeks to address Puerto Rico’s status, and how it compares to the The Puerto Rico Statehood Admissions Act.
We also speak to Giovanni Pagan Velez & Andrésb Rodriguez Brauer, members of the research team responsible for a recent study released by Data for Progress on Puerto Rican Status Preferences. They polled likely voters in Puerto Rico to see what their preferences were on Puerto Rico’s status by simulating a ranked choice voting scenario. We’ll learn about their findings, what status questions they asked Puerto Ricans, and more when we take the deep dive into their research.
Episode 53: The Jones Act, Workers' Rights, & Unionizing Your Workplace
For this week’s episode, we welcome César Rosado Marzán. He’s a labor and employment law scholar and professor in the University of Iowa’s College of Law. We invited him on the show today because there’s been some big unionization news in the media recently. In case you haven’t seen it, there is a vital election going on to unionize an Amazon Warehouse in Alabama and a lot of eyes are paying attention to what will happen at this warehouse, including 1,000s of Amazon workers nationwide.
This story got us thinking about labor and employment law, but in addition to talking about the Amazon Warehouse story, we’ll also discuss the Jones Act and its impact on Puerto Rico, workers’ rights, and Joe Biden’s statement showing support for unionization efforts, which - btw - is not something you see often from a sitting president.
BONUS: Puerto Rico Policy, The Squad & The Democratic Party's Future w/ U.S. Rep. Chuy García
For this bonus episode, we welcome Congressman Jesús "Chuy" García to the show. We talk to him about the role he’s playing in legislation at the federal level that can impact Puerto Rico’s colonial, financial and environmental status, his views on the future of the Democratic Party, his relationship with The Squad and more!