The De Los Podcast

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Sam Quinones, journalist, former L.A. Times staff writer and one of the first reporters to write about Chalino Sánchez in the U.S., to talk about the man who looms large over Mexican-American music and the legend that outlived him. They start with who Chalino was: an immigrant from Sinaloa who wrote corridos in Los Angeles, sang them “like battery acid,” and became a star in the Southeast cities before he was killed in Culiacán in 1992. Sam explains how he reported a biography on a man with almost no paper trail, from the polleros of Tijuana to the engineer who recorded his first album, and why he’s comfortable with a story where the myth is part of the record. Then they dig into why Chalino connected. Sam talks about the Southeast L.A. cities as one big rancho, the cowboy hats, belt buckles and brick cell phones at El Parral, and how a singer who sounded like his audience closed the gap between star and fan. They trace how he got famous without radio, selling tapes at bakeries, car washes and swap meets and blasting them from truck stereos, and compare it to punk and early hip-hop. They also talk about why Sam sees the murders of corrido singers after Chalino as vengeance, not censorship, and how the corrido went from a poor man facing power to propaganda for the powerful. Plus: how Chalino made the tuba cool, and Sam’s latest book, a photo project on the Virgen de Guadalupe murals of Los Angeles, with an interactive map where you can add your own. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with Sam’s lesson from Chalino: don’t copy the hat, find your own way. Produced by Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times Studios, and Sonoro. 🎙 De Los Podcast drops new episodes every week on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Guadalupe Nuñez, a licensed therapist who works with Latinos in Los Angeles, for a conversation about Latinos and mental health. Guadalupe shares what she’s seeing in her clients as ICE raids, discrimination and the pressure to “blend in” weigh on the community, and how the clash between cultures at home and at school takes a toll on young Latinos. Then they ask why Latinos are less likely to get mental health treatment, from the belief that you don’t air the dirty laundry outside the household to the classic Latino parent comebacks: “You have God” and “I had it worse.” Then they get practical. Guadalupe explains how to find a therapist who’s the right fit, from asking for a free consultation to saying you want to speak Spanglish, and why you have permission to switch therapists or ask for a specialist. Suzy tells the story of the first therapist she ever fired, and she and Fidel share what finally worked for them. Guadalupe also breaks down EMDR, a therapy where you don’t have to retell your trauma in detail. They also dig into the barriers: language, cost, stigma and machismo. Plus: Fidel and Suzy’s Goldilocks search for the right therapist, and why some people love therapy homework while others don’t. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with a reminder: you’re allowed to change therapists. Produced by Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times Studios, and Sonoro. 🎙 De Los Podcast drops new episodes every week on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Alex Rivera, writer and director of the cult classic Sleep Dealer, professor at Arizona State University and co-founder of the Borderlands Cinematic Arts lab, to talk about sci-fi, the border and what it means to make Latino films in Hollywood. Alex traces his path to filmmaking, from meeting Pete Seeger as a teenager to a first short film about his Peruvian father and the potato that premiered at an open mic night in NYC and ended up at MoMA. He walks them through Sleep Dealer, a 2008 film set in a world of open internets and closed borders, where workers plug into machines that do their labor across the border while their bodies stay behind. Fidel shares what the borderlands looked like from South Texas, and Suzy and Fidel ask why the film feels more relevant every year, from delivery apps to AI. Then Alex tells the story of the tech CEO who told a filmmaker friend he got the idea for his company from Sleep Dealer, and they get into why Silicon Valley keeps treating cautionary tales as instruction manuals. Alex shares what he thinks AI should look like instead: a “patrimony of humanity” owned by the people it was built from, with farmworker guilds, platform co-ops and robots that pick the oranges. He also explains why he calls the border a time machine, and how a place with fewer rights becomes a laboratory for surveillance technology that gets rolled out to everyone else. Plus: what it took to get a film like Sleep Dealer made, and why Alex says Latinos are still only about 3% of writer-directors in Hollywood. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with a plea: save the puppets. Produced by Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times Studios, and Sonoro. 🎙 De Los Podcast drops new episodes every week on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times columnist and their resident Latino voter guru, to ask where the Latino vote stands ahead of the midterms and why we’re still the last true swing voters. They start with Gustavo’s column on the taco stand Karen, a Santa Clarita woman who went viral for berating taqueros and then felt abandoned by the conservatives she expected to defend her. From there, they look at Latino Trump voters with buyer’s remorse, from South Texas to the gas pump, and why Gustavo argues that shaming them is no way to win them back. Then they rewind. Gustavo explains how Prop 187 in 1994 turned a generation of Latinos into Democrats while teaching Republicans that anti-immigrant politics work. He also breaks down how the Democrats’ “demographics as destiny” playbook, and the “professional Latinos” behind it, fumbled the vote, from Hillary’s “10 ways she’s like your abuelita” to Bernie’s rallies in Latino neighborhoods. Then they go state by state: Texas, where a gerrymander built on a Latino shift to the right may be backfiring; Miami, where Rep. María Elvira Salazar is distancing herself from Trump; and California, from the governor’s race to the tight L.A. mayoral race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, where Latino voters are split by generation. Plus: why politicians keep showing up at lowrider shows, the time Gustavo took Steve Hilton to King Taco with his dad, and how much Spencer Pratt voters could matter in L.A. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with Gustavo’s prediction: we’re going to disappoint everyone. Produced by Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times Studios, and Sonoro. 🎙 De Los Podcast drops new episodes every week on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation. Hosts: Fidel Martínez Suzy Exposito Producer: Rodrigo Crespo Recording Producer: Nick Milanés Associate Producer: Katerina Portela Associate Producer & Audio Engineer: Jordan Patterson Video & Audio Editors: Clivia Torres J.A. Gómez Supervising Engineer: Carter Wells Camera Operators: Josh Summers Daniel Flesher Key & Art Design Direction: Martina Ibañez-Baldor & Diana Ramirez Set Design: Zoe-Zoe Lighting: Jamie Parslow Original Music: Chaboi Marketing Manager: Bryn Jura General Counsel at L.A. Times: Jeff Glasser Director of Post-Production: Patrick Steward Senior Sound Recording Engineer: Nick Norton Executive Producers: Camila Victoriano & Joshua Weinstein for Sonoro Darius Derakshan & Angel Jennings for The L.A. Times De Los Podcast is co-created by: L.A. Times Studios President Anna Magzanyan and Darius Derakshan Special thanks to President and Chief Operating Officer of The Los Angeles Times Chris Argentieri and Executive Editor of The Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito are joined by Gabriela González, host of the Spanish Sin Pena Cafecitos, a conversation group where Latinos learn Spanish in community. Suzy, Fidel and Gabriela sit down for a conversation about what it means to be Latino in the U.S. when your Spanish isn’t “perfect.” Gabriela traces how she lost the language, switching from Spanish to English at age four after a babysitter called her stupid for not understanding her, and what it took to get it back. Suzy shares her own story, from wanting to sound like a cool California teen raised on Daria to a Cuban grandmother whose nuns smacked the Spanish out of her. Fidel wonders if shame is the most reliable marker of Latinidad, and the three get into who’s allowed to shame whom. Then they zoom out. Fidel breaks down how many Spanish speakers live in the U.S. (spoiler: it’s a lot), and they talk about how English and Spanish were both imposed through shame and violence. They also ask why so many of us treat Spanish as private and English as paperwork, and why today’s teenage música mexicana stars write poetry in Spanish but give interviews in English. Plus: is Spanglish a Miami dialect or just how we live? Fidel defends “troca” with a K, Suzy brings “el tiki-tiki” (the remote, the key fob, the garage clicker) and Gabriela explains why she’s now saying “buen provecho” to strangers. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with a new name for the cafecitos: Spanish Con Joy. Produced by Los Angeles Times, L.A. Times Studios, and Sonoro. 🎙 De Los Podcast drops new episodes every week on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.