Please support our programs

Powerlands (Encore)
Nov15

Powerlands (Encore)

On this week’s Making Contact, we bring you a special encore of an episode that first aired in June. We’ll hear an extended interview with Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a queer Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning documentary Powerlands. Powerlands traces how multinational energy corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows...

Read More
Mexicans Confronting Racism: Aztec myths to modern stereotypes
Aug23

Mexicans Confronting Racism: Aztec myths to modern stereotypes

There’s an idea in Mexico that racism doesn’t exist, that all Mexicans are “mestizo” – a homogenous blend of Spanish and indigenous. But cultural worker José Antonio Aguilar says racism is lived by Black and brown Mexicans in many ways.  He founded Racismo MX, an organization which seeks to dismantle racism, after coming to terms with his own racial reality as a “prieto” – a brown man.  We also hear from anthropologist...

Read More
Powerlands
Jun21

Powerlands

On this week’s Making Contact, we feature an extended interview with Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, a queer Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning documentary Powerlands. Powerlands traces how multinational energy corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows Indigenous activists in Navajo Nation, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines who...

Read More
The Way Home (Encore)
Nov23

The Way Home (Encore)

  We visit two distinct projects working with food to revitalize identity and ancestry: Part one: In many Indigenous communities, there’s a gap in knowledge about growing and cooking traditional foods. On the Blackfeet Nation in rural Montana, Mariah Gladstone and Kenneth Cook are trying to change that. They launched an online cooking show called Indigikitchen and in this episode, we follow them into the field as they...

Read More
The Way Home
Aug17

The Way Home

    We visit two distinct projects working with food to revitalize identity and ancestry: Part one: In many Indigenous communities, there’s a gap in knowledge about growing and cooking traditional foods. On the Blackfeet Nation in rural Montana, Mariah Gladstone and Kenneth Cook are trying to change that. They launched an online cooking show called Indigikitchen and in this episode, we follow them into the field as...

Read More
The Response: Fighting Misinformation in the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake
Dec10

The Response: Fighting Misinformation in the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake

Misinformation in the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake The Response travels to Mexico City and puts the focus on the 2017 Puebla Earthquake — a magnitude 7.1 quake that toppled over forty buildings and killed over 350 people. In the aftermath of a disaster, information can mean the difference between life and death. After the earthquake hit in Mexico City, it wasn’t just buildings that collapsed, the normal lines...

Read More
70 Million: Locals Divided Between Diversion and Border Security
Sep12

70 Million: Locals Divided Between Diversion and Border Security

In Pima County, where Tucson is located, formerly incarcerated individuals and local government officials have joined efforts to send fewer people to jail. Meanwhile, a federal program designed to stop drug and human trafficking at the border is also sending people to jail for months over traffic violations and minor drug offenses. Reporter Jesse Alejandro Cottrell explores just how complicated it can be to reform a local criminal...

Read More
Fallen Heroes of 2017
Dec26

Fallen Heroes of 2017

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks! Thousands of local social justice organizers, activists and other leaders passed away this year. People doing crucial work in their communities, whose deaths didn’t make the headlines. On this edition of Making Contact, as we do every December, we’ll hear about some of the fallen heroes of 2017. Special thanks to...

Read More
States of Censorship: Journalism Under Attack
Apr28

States of Censorship: Journalism Under Attack

Imprisonment, oppressive laws, and harassment of journalists – these are just a few means of censorship around the world. The use of these repressive tactics threaten freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. On this edition, we hear from journalists in Ecuador and Mexico, and learn about the most censored countries from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Featuring: William Morocho, Page Designer with...

Read More

Harvest of Empire (Part 1)

Many Latin Americans were brought, or forced to come to the US by conditions our government had a role in creating We hear excerpts of “Harvest of Empire” a documentary film narrated by Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez. Part 1 traces the history of Guatemalan, Dominican, and Mexican migration to the U.S.

Listen