The De Los Podcast

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.

Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito kick off spooky season with a simple question: why do Latinos show up for horror like it's a religious obligation? They start with the data. According to UCLA's 2026 Hollywood Diversity Report, Latinos made up 29.1% of theatrical horror audiences. Fidel and Suzy get into what's behind the numbers, from Fidel's South Texas childhood and an out-of-print bilingual folklore collection called Stories That Must Not Die, to the Latino families (toddlers included) filling the Academy Museum's horror exhibit. Then they follow the stories. La Llorona has crossed borders and decades, and Fidel and Suzy discuss what the legend might say about motherhood and shame. They also debate what the Chupacabra actually looks like, how a millennial cryptid became a sensation after Primer Impacto, and why "Chupacabra versus everybody" was a playground game in Miami. They also take on Obsession, the breakout horror hit of the year, and ask who gets to tell these stories and why it matters. Suzy explains why slashers aren't for her (vampires are another story). And they ask whether Catholicism, with all its demons, fear and salvation, was our first horror education. And because this is De Los Podcast, they end with one request: let Latino filmmakers cook. 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 Paterson 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 sit down with Cheech Marin —comedian, actor, filmmaker, and one of the foremost champions of Chicano art in the world— for a conversation that spans Vietnam draft resistance, topless improv theaters in Vancouver, the birth of an era-defining comedy act, a film that was made in the 80s and could be filmed this afternoon, and a museum founded on a sign from the universe: 66,420 square feet. Cheech traces the full arc. Growing up in South Central LA with a father who spent 30 years in the LAPD. Turning in his draft card at Cal State Northridge. Getting tipped off that the government was coming for him and boarding a Greyhound to Canada. The broken leg skiing that got him a 4-F. It was in Vancouver that he met Tommy Chong, recruited into an improv group performing at a topless bar owned by Tommy's family, where they honed their act every night in front of bikers, loggers, and people who genuinely wanted to beat them up. He also talks about Born in East LA — a movie that started with a story he read in the Los Angeles Times about a kid who got swept up in an immigration raid and couldn't prove he was American — and why that film, made in 1987, describes exactly what is happening today. About buying his first three pieces of Chicano art and the journey that turned a personal collection into a traveling exhibition that set attendance records at 14 major museums in 7 years, including the Smithsonian. About landing the Cheech Museum in Riverside after walking through the building and asking how many square feet it had. Plus: his first record, made at age 5. His Dodgers prediction. And why weed always finds him, even in Russia. 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 Alice Bag, founding member and frontwoman of The Bags, one of the pioneering bands of the LA punk scene for a wide-ranging conversation about five decades of fighting for space, staying loud, and refusing to ask anyone's permission to belong. Alice traces the arc from attending the Chicano Moratorium at age 10 with her father, being laughed off by a MEChA recruitment table for looking "too weird," and eventually deciding she didn't need anyone's permission to call herself a Chicana, a resolution that became the foundation for everything that followed. She talks about what it felt like to grow up in East LA and walk into the punk scene knowing she belonged there; about the Hillside Stranglers creating a climate of fear in the late 70s that forced the punk community –particularly its women– to protect each other in ways that showed what the scene was really made of; and about how seeing Patti Smith perform taught her that a woman could seduce an audience entirely with her mind. Chicana rock star Alice Bag addresses the revisionist narrative that punk was a white male invention and that others joined in — because, as she tells in her memoir “Violence Girl,” she was there from the beginning. She also talks about her recent inclusion in the Great Wall of LA, her band’s last show with Bikini Kill and her work with the youth summer camp Chicas Rockeras Plus: how a TV gig for a Peacock show filmed in Puerto Rico led to Juanita and Juan, her musical collaboration with Kid Congo; why she applied for Mexican citizenship after a phone call from her aunt in Mexico City; and what she saw at her final LA show opening for Bikini Kill that made her believe the next generation of punk is in very good hands. 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.