Click here to download this week’s show. Image courtesy of Amazon.

 Angela Garcia is a Professor at Stanford University. A central theme of her work is the disproportionate burden of addiction, depression and incarceration among poor families and communities. Garcia’s book, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along The Rio Grande (Universityof California Press, 2010) received the 2012 Victor Turner Prize and a 2010 Pen Center USA Award. The Pastoral Clinic explores the relationship between intergenerational heroin use, poverty and colonial history in northern New Mexico.

The post WHEN ADDICTION HITS HOME appeared first on Latino USA.

Click here to download this week’s show. Image courtesy of Just Write. See Carlos Contreras performing another poem here.

 Carlos Contreras is a twenty-six-year-old poet who competed on the team that brought the National Poetry Slam Championship home to his native Albuquerque. His many other awards include the New Mexico Hispanic Entertainers Award for Poet of the Year in 2007. As a high school student, Carlos was accepted into the Voces program at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, a month-long workshop in poetry composition and performance. The next year he returned as an intern and mentor. Today, with a degree in English and Sociology from the University of New Mexico, he is the lead coordinator of the program. He has published poems in several anthologies, and a book, A Man in Pieces: Poems for My Father. Contreras performs solo and in groups around the state and the nation. Bio and headshot care of El Palacio.

The post A PIECE OF A FALLING STAR appeared first on Latino USA.

Click here to download this week’s show.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has lived the American dream. Born to a Puerto Rican family, she grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. Her judicial service began in October 1992 with her appointment to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. President Clinton appointed Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998. She was the first Latina to serve on that court, and participated in over 3000 panel decisions, authoring roughly 400 published opinions.

Over a distinguished career that spans three decades, Judge Sotomayor has worked at almost every level of our judicial system, eventually becoming the first Hispanic, and only the third woman, to ever be appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

The post SONIA’S BELOVED WORLD appeared first on Latino USA.

Click here to download this week’s show.

Frank Bardacke was active in the student and anti-war movements in Berkeley in the 1960′s. He moved to California’s Central Coast in 1970, worked for six seasons in the Salinas Valley fields, and taught at Watsonville Adult School for twenty-five years. He is the author of Good Liberals and Great Blue Herons: Land, Labor and Politics in the Pajaro Valley, and a translator of Shadows of Tender Fury: The Letters and Communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

The post VINTAGE CHAVEZ appeared first on Latino USA.

Click here to download this week’s show. Bio image courtesy of Ray Santisteben.

Sandra Cisneros is the founder of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, the Elvira Cisneros Award and the Macondo Foundation, all of which work on behalf of creative writers. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a MacArthur. Her writings include novels: THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET and CARAMELO; short stories: WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK; and poetry collections: MY WICKED WICKED WAYS and LOOSE WOMAN and a children’s book, HAIRS. She is currently at work on several writing projects including TANGO FOR TONGELE, a book of essays, WRITING IN MY PAJAMAS, writing tips; HOW TO BE A CHINGONA, life tips; INFINITO, stories; CANTOS Y LLANTOS, poems. Her most recent books are a children’s book, BRAVO, BRUNO with artist Leslie Greene, to be published in Italy, and the forthcoming HAVE YOU SEEN MARIE?, an illustrated book for adults with artist Ester Hernández, to be published in the US in October,
2012.

The post THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SANDRA AND MARIE appeared first on Latino USA.