Speaker 1: Lok at Our Radio is a radiophonic novela.
Speaker 2: Which is just a very extra way of saying a podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fiosa fem.
Speaker 2: And I am ma la munios. We're podcasting through another
Speaker 2: Trump election year. We've been podcasting through election years, a
Speaker 2: global pandemic, civic unrest, political controversies, the Me Too movement,
Speaker 2: the rise of TikTok, and we are still here. We're
Speaker 2: not done telling stories.
Speaker 1: We're still making podcasts. We're older, we're wiser, We're even
Speaker 1: podcasting through a new decade of our lives.
Speaker 2: Since twenty sixteen, we've been making Loca to Our Radio
Speaker 2: independently until we joined iHeartMedia's Michael Gura Network in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two.
Speaker 1: From our Lips to your ears, Fall in love with
Speaker 1: Loka to a radio like you never have before.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Season nine. Love that first Listen.
Speaker 1: Ola la Loka Morees. Welcome to Season nine of lok
Speaker 1: at Dora Radio. I'm Theosa and I'm Mala. Lok A
Speaker 1: Dora Radio is a podcast dedicated to archiving our present
Speaker 1: and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning into Capitolo Doos
Speaker 1: two twenty.
Speaker 2: Last time on locatora Radio. We answered listener questions during
Speaker 2: our Oya Loka segment. You guys submitted some really really
Speaker 2: good questions. It was a very fun episode. We laughed,
Speaker 2: we cried, we told stories the whole thing. There were
Speaker 2: literal tears, literal tears in the studios.
Speaker 1: All right, Next question, what made you finally prioritize yourself?
Speaker 1: Was it a breaking point with people?
Speaker 2: Have we prioritized ourselves?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think we were doing better at it.
Speaker 2: I think you're doing better at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think you are too. I think I
Speaker 1: think you moving was a way of you like prioritizing
Speaker 1: yourself and like a new phase of your life, like
Speaker 1: giving yourself that.
Speaker 2: Like, so go ahead and tune into that. Capitula leave
Speaker 2: us a review, and today we have a very special
Speaker 2: guest with US journalist Penni le Ramirez.
Speaker 1: Benni Leira Meires is an award winning investigative journalist and author.
Speaker 1: She serves as co CEO and executive director of Futuro Media,
Speaker 1: leading news and investigations Latino USA and Futuro Investigates. She
Speaker 1: writes a weekly column in Mexico for Reforma, and she
Speaker 1: is also the host of a new podcast called Chess
Speaker 1: Piece the Elian Gonzalez Story. This show that recently launched
Speaker 1: on our network in collaboration with Futuro Studios, launched last
Speaker 1: month and highlights Elian's journey from Gouba and being found
Speaker 1: on the Floridian coast with people who lived it first hand.
Speaker 2: This is an incredible interview. If you don't remember the
Speaker 2: Elian Gonzalez story, this is a really good intro not
Speaker 2: only to what happened to Elian Gonzalez when he was
Speaker 2: just a little boy at five years old, but it's
Speaker 2: a conversation about family separation, about immigration, about the Cuban
Speaker 2: American experience, and about the election season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. Well, thank you for joining us again.
Speaker 1: Let's get started by if you can just introduce yourself,
Speaker 1: tell us who you are and a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3: Well, my name is Penny Letter Medz and the reason
Speaker 3: why I have this strange name is because I'm Cuban
Speaker 3: and my parents fell in love with this some by
Speaker 3: the Beatles called Penny Lane, so they made a tropical
Speaker 3: version of it. So you will spell it as you
Speaker 3: will spell. You pronounce it in Spanish, So Penny Lay
Speaker 3: and I work as an im an investigative reporter, and
Speaker 3: I have been working mostly on investigative reporting all my career,
Speaker 3: but now I do other things. I'm the head of
Speaker 3: News and Investigations at Futuro Media and I'm also the
Speaker 3: co CEO and executive director.
Speaker 1: Amazing. We are so grateful that you can join us today,
Speaker 1: and we want to talk to you about the new
Speaker 1: podcast that you made with Studios and my Coltura podcast.
Speaker 1: Before that, we want to ask you about your background
Speaker 1: and what led you to journalism. How did you get
Speaker 1: your start?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think I always knew I wanted to
Speaker 3: be a journalist, but I always knew I wanted to
Speaker 3: do like fight against injiustices in general. So when I
Speaker 3: left Cuba when I was fourteen years old, I went
Speaker 3: to Mexico and then to the United States. So I
Speaker 3: have been living mostly between Mexico and the US since
Speaker 3: two those and one. I always have this desire to,
Speaker 3: you know, investigate what's going on in the world. I
Speaker 3: have two kids and a third one coming in about
Speaker 3: a month and a half. I'm very pregnant these days.
Speaker 3: I'm very happy about it, but also exhausted, and I
Speaker 3: have been working a lot since the last two years,
Speaker 3: and I have been working for Futuro, and before that
Speaker 3: I moved to New York to complete my masters at
Speaker 3: Cumbia University. So I have been enjoying the life in
Speaker 3: New York so much. But I also have a lot
Speaker 3: of roots in Miami because as a good Cuban family.
Speaker 3: These days, I have more relatives in Miami than in Cuba,
Speaker 3: which is something that we discuss a lot in the podcast.
Speaker 3: And as most of my career has been as an
Speaker 3: investigative reporter, I'm really not used to talk about myself
Speaker 3: that much because I'm more used to investigate like corrupt
Speaker 3: politicians or people hiding their money. I was part of
Speaker 3: the investigation of the Panama Papers, for example, So I
Speaker 3: feel way more comfortable interviewing an artcolord than talking about myself.
Speaker 3: And this is why also this project has been a
Speaker 3: huge challenging for me, not just because I'm pretty emotional
Speaker 3: these days because I'm pregnant, but also because it's a
Speaker 3: pretty emotional issue to talk about myself, to talk about
Speaker 3: my Cuban roots, and also talk about something that I
Speaker 3: never discussed it publicly before, which is family separation impacting
Speaker 3: my family on my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you mentioned the challenge of immersing
Speaker 1: yourself in the story, because you're fully immersed in this
Speaker 1: new podcast chess piece, the Elian Gonzalez story. So can
Speaker 1: you tell us more about your approach with merging this
Speaker 1: journalism right this very beautiful narrative piece that's highly researched,
Speaker 1: highly produced, but also immersing yourself in the story and
Speaker 1: your own narrative.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think something that I think is like part
Speaker 3: of the brand of the house in put to the studios,
Speaker 3: is that we do a lot of journalism with heart,
Speaker 3: as or funder Marino also likes to say a lot.
Speaker 3: And I don't conceive one of our podcasts being just
Speaker 3: telling this straight story, just the fact, without really understanding
Speaker 3: why it matters, you know, how it is impacting our
Speaker 3: communities and the communities that we report on. So Elean Gonzalez,
Speaker 3: also known as El Valcerito, is a boy that is
Speaker 3: a little younger than me, like five years younger than me,
Speaker 3: but he was big news at the end of the nineties.
Speaker 3: A lot of people in the US when you mentioned
Speaker 3: Elian Gonzales, they remember some of the case. They remember
Speaker 3: a specific picture that was so important in the case,
Speaker 3: but we haven't talked about him in a while. But
Speaker 3: this year, this November, we're turning twenty five years of
Speaker 3: that case, and that case in that moment, I know
Speaker 3: that we're all talking these days about the Menandez brothers
Speaker 3: and Okay Simpson. But added to that combo, the Lean
Speaker 3: case was one of this headlines news story that was
Speaker 3: twenty four seven all over the news in the late nineties.
Speaker 3: So the case started Thanksgiving of nineteen ninety nine, but
Speaker 3: for months it was like twenty four seven in the
Speaker 3: news cycle, and we were coming in the US from
Speaker 3: these two big other cases that were like moving the
Speaker 3: media a lot. So what we're doing right now is
Speaker 3: we're retelling the case. We're doing deep research. We have
Speaker 3: been investigating a lot. We have been interviewing people who
Speaker 3: were like part of the case directly and indirectly. But
Speaker 3: we're also taking the case beyond the particular story of
Speaker 3: Elian Gonzalez, and we have been telling it in a
Speaker 3: way that explains why family separation is social an issue
Speaker 3: for Cubans, as you know, you know, as being part
Speaker 3: of an immigrant community is family separation is always an issue,
Speaker 3: regardless if your Cuban or not Cuban, but we Cube
Speaker 3: us specifically because there is so much neopolitics into what
Speaker 3: happens with our lives. Family separation is a big issue,
Speaker 3: so it was kind of natural to emvent my story
Speaker 3: on it because when we started the project, I remember
Speaker 3: one of the conversations with our executive producers, Marlon Bishop
Speaker 3: and Maria Garcia, and I told them, yeah, actually, I
Speaker 3: was also separated from my father and we spent eight
Speaker 3: years separated. So my father left Cuba in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 3: a year before a Lean case, the Lians case started,
Speaker 3: and he was living in Miami while this case was happening,
Speaker 3: and I was living in Cuba. And the funny thing,
Speaker 3: not that funny, is that while the Cuban government was
Speaker 3: fighting so hard to reunite Alian Gonzalez with his father
Speaker 3: in Cuba, the same government, the same Cuban government, was
Speaker 3: preventing my father to be reunited with me and my brother.
Speaker 3: So we thought that, you know, telling my case, interviewing
Speaker 3: my father for the first time in my life, which
Speaker 3: was again more difficult than interviewing the old clerks. It's
Speaker 3: been given the series another toush, another level of proximity
Speaker 3: with people who well to also relate to this final
Speaker 3: separation and this Cuban experience, and in this I will
Speaker 3: say this immigrant experience in general. So the podcast is
Speaker 3: a story of aliens, the story of what happened and
Speaker 3: why it had such a big impact in the US
Speaker 3: back in the day, but also what happened to me,
Speaker 3: what happened with my father, my brother, and why family
Speaker 3: separation is social an issue among Cubans that it was
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety nine and that is stilled today, even
Speaker 3: twenty five years later.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, locomotives.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back, and we're back with more of
Speaker 2: our episode. It's incredible, and I'm wondering your reflections twenty
Speaker 2: five years later. I remember being a child and seeing
Speaker 2: all of the commotion on the news, like the morning news,
Speaker 2: especially before school, And I wonder what you think now
Speaker 2: about why it was such a big deal. Was it
Speaker 2: because it was Cuba, Was it because he was a
Speaker 2: little boy? Was it because of the politics at the time.
Speaker 2: And do you think that that story We're talking a
Speaker 2: lot more these days about unaccompanied minors, right, and so
Speaker 2: do you think that Elian Gonzalees story today would have
Speaker 2: that same effect and reach and focus or was it
Speaker 2: something of the time period.
Speaker 3: I think, first, I think it's an amazing question, and
Speaker 3: I also recall the case, like you know, from those days.
Speaker 3: I was a pre teen when the case started, and
Speaker 3: I think we are now talking way more about family separation,
Speaker 3: about on a company child, et cetera. But something I
Speaker 3: have been thinking is like, even now the case will
Speaker 3: be even more viral because one thing that one of
Speaker 3: the people I interviewed, and I think it's it's kind
Speaker 3: of key to understand the issue is like, you know,
Speaker 3: geopolitics are complicated, but it's pretty easy to explain the case.
Speaker 3: In this case was a child who came to the
Speaker 3: United States with her his mother. I don't want to
Speaker 3: spoiler a lot of it for those who doesn't know
Speaker 3: the story, but he ends up without his mother in
Speaker 3: Miami and the father in Cuba is claiming that he
Speaker 3: wants him back. So it's pretty straightforward. Should the boy
Speaker 3: remain in the United States with his relatives in Miami,
Speaker 3: or the boy should go back to Cuba to be
Speaker 3: with his father. So one of the people we interview
Speaker 3: said is pretty straightforward and it's pretty easy to have
Speaker 3: an opinion. Should the boy stay in the United States
Speaker 3: in freedom with the relatives, you know, enjoy all the
Speaker 3: benefits of living in the US, getting asylum, etc. Or
Speaker 3: the boy should go back to Cuba to be with
Speaker 3: his father. Even knowing all the problems that Cuba had
Speaker 3: back in the day and has today, imagine that today
Speaker 3: in TikTok days, with everybody posting videos having opinions about it.
Speaker 3: It was such a passionate issue for Cubans. Especially if
Speaker 3: you see the footage from those days, you will see
Speaker 3: that the front of the house of the family of
Speaker 3: Lian Gonzalez in Miami was packed with people. Of course
Speaker 3: a lot of media there from all over the world.
Speaker 3: We put in about the case every day, but also
Speaker 3: like random people that were just going there to see
Speaker 3: the boy. Some of the people we interview said that
Speaker 3: he was like the pope, you know, he was coming
Speaker 3: out of the house and everybody was like trying to
Speaker 3: see him, try to touch him. So imagine Dad and
Speaker 3: the craziness of today's viral posts or vital stories. So
Speaker 3: I think that something that remains after twenty five years
Speaker 3: is that the geopolitics of relationships between Cuba and the
Speaker 3: US are still very complicated. You have seen in the
Speaker 3: news what's been happening in Cuba in recent days. Situation
Speaker 3: in Cuba's is still pretty bad. It's getting worse these days,
Speaker 3: with no electricity, no food, no medicines, people protesting. But
Speaker 3: at the core of it, there is still a lot
Speaker 3: of famal separation. There is still a lot a lot
Speaker 3: of people who are able to leave Cuba, but only
Speaker 3: part of the family is leave in Cuba, the other
Speaker 3: parties remaining in Cuba. So I think it's still a
Speaker 3: pretty controversial issue, and that's partly why we wanted to
Speaker 3: revisit the case after twenty five years, because we don't
Speaker 3: think it's just a story from the past. We think
Speaker 3: it's a story that is pretty current in terms of
Speaker 3: what is happening with panel separation, with Cuba US relationships,
Speaker 3: and also with the amount of kids coming to the
Speaker 3: United States even today with out their parents.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the similarities between then and now and
Speaker 1: family separation and asylum seeking. What similarities do you see
Speaker 1: between Elian's experience and his story reflected in the current
Speaker 1: issues with immigration, especially as we see elections coming up
Speaker 1: and immigration continues to be, like the quote hot topic,
Speaker 1: it continues to be the factor in a lot of
Speaker 1: public debate and private conversations as well. So how do
Speaker 1: you see those related, especially as we approach election season.
Speaker 3: Well, that's another reason why we think it is relevant
Speaker 3: to tell this story today, which is because immigration is
Speaker 3: a top issue for US voters today. We have seen
Speaker 3: that in every pole, what's happening with the border, what's
Speaker 3: happening with immigration in generalistic still a top issue for voters.
Speaker 3: And I think something that is important to understand is
Speaker 3: that this case had an impact especially among Cubans living
Speaker 3: in Miami, among those borders of South Florida. That's the
Speaker 3: remain until today. So if you think that today we
Speaker 3: have a lot of polarizing issues regarding election, regarding this
Speaker 3: proposal for example, from the Trunk campaign about master deportations,
Speaker 3: this proposal from the Harrist campaign regarding what are the
Speaker 3: kinds of things that they should be doing too, as
Speaker 3: she has been saying, correct this through this bill, et cetera.
Speaker 3: There is still a lot to be work on regarding
Speaker 3: what's happening with immigration. The border is still a big issue,
Speaker 3: a big source of misinformation and disinformation we have been
Speaker 3: also reputting in the media. So bringing back to a
Speaker 3: case that is so sensitive regarding what should be done
Speaker 3: to fix a system that is not working. It was
Speaker 3: not working back then and it's not working today. And
Speaker 3: what is beautiful about this podcast is that we do
Speaker 3: from a very personal perspective. So we have data, and
Speaker 3: we have you know, the narrative of what happened, and
Speaker 3: we have a lot of explanation about the context, but
Speaker 3: we also have a very human stories, not just my
Speaker 3: own story and the story of my separation with my
Speaker 3: dad from my dad, but other stories of panel separations.
Speaker 3: What I think is key about telling these kind of
Speaker 3: stories today is because beyond the political noise, we need
Speaker 3: to remind ourselves that every immigrant story is a story
Speaker 3: about a human being, and we need to remain I
Speaker 3: think as journalists, I think there is a big responsibility
Speaker 3: on remaining very human in our covers and I think
Speaker 3: what the story does. The feedback that we have been
Speaker 3: receiving from listeners is listeners is amazing. A lot of
Speaker 3: the people saying that they cannot stop crying and when
Speaker 3: they listen to the podcast, or that they can relate
Speaker 3: to their own lives, their own experiences, their own emotions.
Speaker 3: Is because we need to keep bringing the human experience
Speaker 3: at the center of our covers because it is a
Speaker 3: polarizing issue. For sure, it is a political issue, but
Speaker 3: it's an issue immigration that involves real lives or real people,
Speaker 3: and in this case, a pretty sensitive part of it,
Speaker 3: which is what happens with a child separating from his
Speaker 3: father or his mother. What are the consequences of that?
Speaker 3: You know. One of the most difficult parts of the
Speaker 3: podcast for me was when our amazing team of producers
Speaker 3: and editors asked me what it meant to me when
Speaker 3: I needed to write, you know, what happened with my
Speaker 3: life after being separated from my dad for eight years?
Speaker 3: What changed with How I could have been different if
Speaker 3: that experience haven't been part of my life. And I
Speaker 3: think a lot of us can relate to that. You know,
Speaker 3: pause for a sec and think, you know, what my
Speaker 3: immigrant story is telling about myself or about who I
Speaker 3: am or who I am not how I am different
Speaker 3: because of this experience. And I think it is a
Speaker 3: big opportunity and I feel really honored to be able
Speaker 3: to tush on an issue that is pretty political in
Speaker 3: a moment that is pretty polarizing, but explaining it from
Speaker 3: this place that is deeply human and deeply emotional.
Speaker 1: We hope you're enjoying this interview.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned, We're back, and we hope you enjoy the
Speaker 2: rest of the interview. How involved has Elian Gonzalez himself
Speaker 2: been in the telling of his story, especially he's an
Speaker 2: adult now and in the years since the incident, and yeah,
Speaker 2: how involved is he not only in the podcast, but
Speaker 2: I think in general just in this story and understanding
Speaker 2: it all these years later.
Speaker 3: Well, as you said, eleanis an adult now when so
Speaker 3: in the podcast, what we explain is when everything happened.
Speaker 3: When he came to the US, he was five years old,
Speaker 3: and then he turned six while living in Miami, so
Speaker 3: he was everything. Everybody was talking about him, but he
Speaker 3: was not really saying almost anything. He was a kid.
Speaker 3: And then he went back to Cuba and we talked
Speaker 3: about We talked about this in the podcast a lot,
Speaker 3: and he became kind of the favorite kid of the revolution.
Speaker 3: So he was in these public events with Phileel Castro.
Speaker 3: Philel Castro was attending his birthday parties some years so
Speaker 3: he became like a pretty symbolic figure for the Cuban Revolution.
Speaker 3: As of course, Miami Cubans were expecting and fearing when
Speaker 3: he was in my still in Miami. But through the
Speaker 3: years he had been giving some interviews and he had
Speaker 3: been saying saying things that are pretty concerning for Miami Cubans, like,
Speaker 3: for example, he once said that he believed that he
Speaker 3: didn't believe in God, but if he had a God,
Speaker 3: that God would be that God would be filed Castro,
Speaker 3: or saying that he had a true sign since their
Speaker 3: friendship with Fiel Castro saying that he felt like he
Speaker 3: owed the Cuban revolution to stay there and be in
Speaker 3: Cuba because the Cuban people fight for his return. So
Speaker 3: I don't want to overspoil what is in the podcast,
Speaker 3: but we touched a lot on what happened when Elean
Speaker 3: started giving interviews and explaining himself and explaining his reasons,
Speaker 3: his reasons to remain in Cuba even as an adult.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us more about the politics at the
Speaker 1: time and maybe even now, how they look for Cubans
Speaker 1: in Miami and Cubans on the island.
Speaker 3: Yes. I think something else that the podcast does really
Speaker 3: well is that explains what's the difference between being a
Speaker 3: Cuban in Cuba and being a Cuban in Miami. We
Speaker 3: have an entire episode when we detail and explain what
Speaker 3: is that something up, something called the exile ideology, and
Speaker 3: why Miami Cubans are, you know, so reluctant to give anything,
Speaker 3: any credit back to the revolution because they have lost
Speaker 3: a lot. So we explain a lot that the US
Speaker 3: politics around Cuba since the beginning of the revolution have been,
Speaker 3: you know, granting asylum to many Cubans. For US Cubans
Speaker 3: is relatively easy to get, you know, asylum, a green card,
Speaker 3: and citizenship in the United States, unlike many other immigrants
Speaker 3: from many other countries. So that put us in a place,
Speaker 3: in a privileged place with regards of other immigrants. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, the fact that many Cubans came
Speaker 3: to the United States with the idea that they are
Speaker 3: just going to be here for a couple of months
Speaker 3: or maybe just a short period of time, because they
Speaker 3: are not immigrants to our exiles and they are gonna
Speaker 3: go back. We have a beautiful episode that is anchored
Speaker 3: by our associate producer Tasha Sandoval, and she speaks with
Speaker 3: her grandmother who came to the United States in the
Speaker 3: early sixties, and she even says that she thought it
Speaker 3: was going to be for a couple of months and
Speaker 3: she hasn't never returned. So the difference between immigration when
Speaker 3: you're a Cuban versus in another country is that you
Speaker 3: know you're not going back. If you're Mexican, for example,
Speaker 3: I have spent many years of my life in Mexico.
Speaker 3: If you're a Mexican immigrant going to the United States,
Speaker 3: you have this hope of sending money, then your casitaing
Speaker 3: back in your town, retiring back in your town, going
Speaker 3: back for the holidays. So you think that you have
Speaker 3: a rut back. Sometimes you don't do it, but you
Speaker 3: have this feeling of belonging and I can go back
Speaker 3: to my land, I can live in my homeland, I
Speaker 3: can build my house there. But in Cuba it's a
Speaker 3: pretty definitive decision. So if you leave Cuba, you leave
Speaker 3: and there is no coming back. And on the other hand,
Speaker 3: but the Cubans that remain in Cuba, there's been so
Speaker 3: much propaganda against the Cuban exiles. So the fact that
Speaker 3: even today the Cuban government calls guzanos to those Cubans
Speaker 3: in Miami. So worms so use these terms to relate
Speaker 3: and to define other people who are your same nationalities.
Speaker 3: Sometimes there are even your relatives. So we get a
Speaker 3: really good sense in the podcast about what are the
Speaker 3: difference of the Cuban experience in both size of the
Speaker 3: Florida Straits and what are the things that are really
Speaker 3: affecting you know, regular people. Sometimes a member of the
Speaker 3: of the same family, like the gonzalez of Miami and
Speaker 3: the Gonzalezes of Cuba. So the fact that this family
Speaker 3: was torn apart by the case of Ilian explains a
Speaker 3: lot of what's happening with other Cuban families separated by
Speaker 3: this strait of ocean. That is pretty it is only
Speaker 3: ninety miles, but it's like an entire different universe if
Speaker 3: you are in one place or in the other place.
Speaker 3: And one good thing about you know, my experience as
Speaker 3: the as a host of the podcast is I was
Speaker 3: living in Cuba when everything happened, so I had this
Speaker 3: Cuban experience of the case. But then I moved to
Speaker 3: the US. My entire most of my family lives in Miami.
Speaker 3: Therefore I have this good sense of the Miami Cuban
Speaker 3: experience as well.
Speaker 2: Historically, Cuban Americans, it's an election year it's twenty five
Speaker 2: years since Elian Gonzalez. You've mentioned Trump and commentary about
Speaker 2: mass deportations, and historically Cuban Americans have been known to
Speaker 2: be Republican voters. Do you think that the same will
Speaker 2: be true this election cycle or what is it that
Speaker 2: you predict or are observing as far as Cuban Americans
Speaker 2: and voting this election.
Speaker 3: Well, apart from this podcast, we have been doing a
Speaker 3: lot of reporting on Futro Media. I'm also leading the
Speaker 3: Latino USA team, and something that we have been reporting
Speaker 3: a lot on the ground, even in Florida, is that
Speaker 3: there is a lot of you know, Republican voting intention.
Speaker 3: We see that in the polls, and there is a
Speaker 3: lot of as well, misinformation targeting Latinos, especially Latinos who
Speaker 3: are informing themselves in Spanish. That doesn't mean, of course,
Speaker 3: that any person voting for Republicans is because they're they're
Speaker 3: they're reading misinformation, but it is true that a lot
Speaker 3: of the things that we have been hearing on the
Speaker 3: ground are informed on. For example, a narrative that is
Speaker 3: really prevalent these days that Kamala is Kamala Harris is
Speaker 3: is a communist or is a Marxist or wants to
Speaker 3: to turn the US into Venezuela. So a lot of
Speaker 3: what's happening today in US politics, really related to Cubans
Speaker 3: in particular, is really infused with the fear of the
Speaker 3: past of you know, the fear of communism, the fear
Speaker 3: of Marxism, the fear of the things that many of
Speaker 3: US Cubans dealt with in Cuba. And it's most of
Speaker 3: the same of the reasons why we left the country.
Speaker 3: So a lot of the boat right now is informed
Speaker 3: by the fears. A lot of the vote it's informed
Speaker 3: by the kind of things that they will wanted to see.
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that all Cubans are voting Republican,
Speaker 3: but that's what we have been hearing from all reputting
Speaker 3: for those who have said that they are voting Republican,
Speaker 3: but the ones that are voting or saying that they're
Speaker 3: going to vote Democrat, I think they expect to see
Speaker 3: something that we kind of saw during the Obama administration
Speaker 3: that was like getting another approach to the Cuban US
Speaker 3: relations with trying to relate to the Cuban government, or
Speaker 3: approach the Uran Cuban government government, or try to alleviate
Speaker 3: the big economical struggles that Cubans in Cuba are dealing
Speaker 3: with these days, and specifically about something that's been in
Speaker 3: place for decades now, which is the US sanctions in
Speaker 3: Cuba that have been a key part to explain, you know,
Speaker 3: the you know, what's been happening with the economy of
Speaker 3: Cuba for all these decades. So I think it is
Speaker 3: important to talk about Ilian today because Elian happened in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine and two thousand, and a lot of
Speaker 3: people that we have interviewed with this podcast think that
Speaker 3: the Liang case defined the US election in two thousand because,
Speaker 3: as you might remember, that election was defined by the
Speaker 3: vote of Florida, and there was something that happened that
Speaker 3: it was called Elboto Castillo, So the punishment vote for
Speaker 3: those Cubans, some of them tend to be republic tend
Speaker 3: to be Democrats before the Elian case, but then they
Speaker 3: moved republican. We found even some people saying that they
Speaker 3: remembered people saying, remember Elian vote Republican. So in some
Speaker 3: parts of the Cuban American community you still can hear
Speaker 3: that Elian represented a switch for those who were Democrats
Speaker 3: and started voting Republican, that that's a switch that is
Speaker 3: maintained even today, and also that as far as twenty
Speaker 3: five years have passed. Elian also explains partly that part
Speaker 3: of the Cuban population that is willing to vote for
Speaker 3: Trump again this election year.
Speaker 1: Wow, there's so much there and how wild that it's
Speaker 1: also an electioneer again, and that the story is I'm
Speaker 1: sure intentionally timed in that way, but that's just so
Speaker 1: wild because there are these cases that can really sway
Speaker 1: a voter to go one way or the other. So
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about Elian's story, the podcast
Speaker 1: and what you hope listeners will walk away with after
Speaker 1: listening to this new series.
Speaker 3: Well, I hope they understand better the Cuban experience. I
Speaker 3: think that is a good thing of this podcast is
Speaker 3: that it's a really nuanced podcast that explains that not
Speaker 3: everything is black and white. That you know that even
Speaker 3: if you thought that the Elian should remain in the
Speaker 3: US or should go back to Cuba, I think that you,
Speaker 3: as a listener will get a good sense of why
Speaker 3: people were thinking one way or the other way, where
Speaker 3: why people were so passionate about this case, why people
Speaker 3: like as I said, like why random people will go
Speaker 3: and pray outside of the Miami House of Alien's Relatives,
Speaker 3: why people in Cuba were going to be we're out protesting,
Speaker 3: like thousands of people protest insane bringing lean back, But
Speaker 3: also why this case is not unique. So I hope
Speaker 3: that you can relate to your own experience, if you
Speaker 3: have an experience of immigration in your own family, and
Speaker 3: if you don't, that you can understand better the overall
Speaker 3: experience of how difficult family separation it is, how difficult it
Speaker 3: was back in the day, and how difficult it is
Speaker 3: still today, and you get a sense of what's happening
Speaker 3: right now. I think it is one of those cases
Speaker 3: that you really understand the present by looking at the past.
Speaker 3: And I hope that they feel some of my emotions
Speaker 3: as well, because it's been quite a challenge to explain
Speaker 3: how something that was, you know, a high political case
Speaker 3: impacted that life of someone like me that now I'm
Speaker 3: a journalist, but back then I was just a girl,
Speaker 3: you know, missing my dad, and how you can get
Speaker 3: a sense that journalism also works in that sense, also
Speaker 3: helps you to understand that behind every political, big story
Speaker 3: there is the lives of someone and the experiences and
Speaker 3: emotions of a family that could be your family one day.
Speaker 3: So I hope that the listeners get the sense of
Speaker 3: how much we put our heart into this story, but
Speaker 3: also how much you can learn about what happened and
Speaker 3: what's happening today.
Speaker 2: Penny Lay, thank you so much for coming on look
Speaker 2: At Radio and talking about your work and the podcast.
Speaker 2: Can you let our listeners know where they can tune
Speaker 2: in to Chess Peace, the Eli and Gonzalez story.
Speaker 3: Yes. So, Chess Peace is a production of Futura Studios,
Speaker 3: so you can listen to it in the Futura Studio's website,
Speaker 3: but it is in partnership with Iheartsmichael Tuda podcast network,
Speaker 3: so that's through Michael Tura you can also access You
Speaker 3: can listen to the new episodes every Wednesday, and we
Speaker 3: have a total of ten episodes and you can listen
Speaker 3: to it wherever you get your podcast, and you can
Speaker 3: follow us. We have been posting a lot about and
Speaker 3: I would love to hear from listeners. You know how
Speaker 3: you relate to this story, what kind of emotions the
Speaker 3: story is bringing to you, And I hope you'll listen,
Speaker 3: and I hope you followed along with us in on
Speaker 3: this journey because the intention is that we are going
Speaker 3: to be ending the season with the anniversary, the actual
Speaker 3: anniversary of the moment when Elian was found at See
Speaker 3: and Thanksgiving of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Pennile, this has been incredible. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing your story and all the work that
Speaker 1: goes into making an exceptional podcast. So thank you. Look
Speaker 1: at Our Radio is executive produced by Yosa Fam and
Speaker 1: Mala Munios.
Speaker 2: Stephanie Franco is our producer.
Speaker 1: Story editing by me viosa.
Speaker 2: Creative direction by me Mala.
Speaker 1: Look at a Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Michael
Speaker 1: Gura podcast Network.
Speaker 2: You can listen to look at Radio on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Leave us a review and share with your Prima or
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Speaker 2: And thank you to our local motives, to our listeners
Speaker 2: for tuning in each and every week.
Speaker 1: Besite us
Speaker 2: Loga Loui