Capítulo 220: Storytelling Is Personal with Peniley Ramirez
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From the producers who brought you Princess of South Beach comes a new podcast, The Setup. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator, but when the perfect man walks into his life... Well, I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you to get the Delano painting. We can do this together.

Listen to The Setup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? Owl goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. ♪

Listen to The Hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Are you hungry? Colleen Witt here, and Eating While Broke is back for Season 4 every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. This season, we've got a legendary lineup serving up broke dishes and even better stories. On the menu, we have Tony Baker, Nick Cannon, Melissa Ford, October London, and Carrie Harper Howey turning Big Macs into big moves. Catch Eating While Broke every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network iHeartRadio app.

Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your favorite shows. Come hungry for season four.

Welcome to My Legacy. I'm Martin Luther King III, and together with my wife, Andrea Waters King, and our dear friends, Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives. Join us for heartfelt conversations with remarkable guests like David Oyelowo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Billy Porter. Listen to My Legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is My Legacy.

Locatora Radio is a radiophonic novela. Which is just a very extra way of saying... A podcast!

I'm Diosa Femme. And I am Mala Muñoz. We're podcasting through another Trump election year. We've been podcasting through election years, a global pandemic, civic unrest, political controversies, the Me Too movement, the rise of TikTok, and we are still here. We're not done telling stories. We're still making podcasts. We're older. We're wiser. We're even podcasting through a new decade of our lives.

Since 2016, we've been making Locatora Radio independently until we joined iHeartMedia's My Cultura Network in 2022. From our lips to your ears, fall in love with Locatora Radio like you never have before. Welcome to Season 9, Love at First Listen.

Hola, hola, Locamores. Welcome to Season 9 of Locatora Radio. I'm Diosa. And I'm Mala. Locatora Radio is a podcast dedicated to archiving our present and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning in to Capítulo 220.

Last time on Locatora Radio, we answered listener questions during our Oye Loca segment. You guys submitted some really, really good questions. It was a very fun episode. We laughed, we cried, we told stories, the whole thing. There were literal tears. Literal tears in the studios. All right, next question. What made you finally prioritize yourself? Was it a breaking point with people?

Have we prioritized ourselves? I don't know. I think we're doing better at it. I think you're doing better at it. Yeah. Oh, I think you are too. I think you moving was a way of you like prioritizing yourself and like a new phase of your life, like giving yourself that like... So go ahead and tune into that capitulo, leave us a review. And today we have a very special guest with us, journalist Penile Ramirez.

Penny Ley Ramirez is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. She serves as co-CEO and executive director of Futuro Media, leading news and investigations Latino USA and Futuro Investigates. She writes a weekly column in Mexico for Reforma, and she is also the host of a new podcast called Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story, this show that recently launched on our network in collaboration with Futuro Studios.

This is an incredible interview. If you don't remember the Elian Gonzalez story, this is a really good intro, not only to what happened to Elian Gonzalez when he was just a little boy at five years old, but it's a conversation about family separation, about immigration, about the Cuban-American experience, and about the election season. ♪

Yeah, let's do it. Well, thank you for joining us again. Let's get started by if you can just introduce yourself. Tell us who you are and a little bit about yourself. Well, my name is Penilei Ramirez. And the reason why I have this strange name is because I'm Cuban.

And my parents fell in love with this song by the Beatles called "Penny Lane." So they made a tropical version of it. So you will spell it as you will spell it. You pronounce it in Spanish, so "penny lay." And I work

I'm an investigative reporter, and I have been working mostly on investigative reporting all my career. But now I do other things. I'm the head of news and investigations at Futuro Media, and I'm also the co-CEO and executive director.

Amazing. We are so grateful that you can join us today and we want to talk to you about the new podcast that you made with Futuro Studios and My Cultura podcast. But before that, we want to ask you about your background and what led you to journalism. How did you get your start? Well, I don't think I always knew I wanted to be a journalist, but I always knew I wanted to do like journalism.

fight against injustices in general. So when I left Cuba, when I was 14 years old, I went to Mexico and then to the United States. So I have been living mostly between Mexico and the US since 2001. I always have this desire to investigate what's going on in the world. I have two kids.

and a third one coming in about a month and a half. I'm very pregnant these days and very happy about it, but also exhausted. I have been working a lot since the last two years and I have been working for Futuro and before that, I moved to New York to complete my master's at Columbia University.

So I have been enjoying the life in New York so much. But I also have a lot of roots in Miami because as a good Cuban family, these days I have more relatives in Miami than Cuba, which is something that we discuss a lot in the podcast. And as most of my career has been as an investigative reporter, I'm really not...

used to talk about myself that much because I'm more used to investigate corrupt politicians or people hiding their money. I was part of the investigation of the Panama Papers, for example. So I feel way more comfortable interviewing a narco lord than talking about myself. And this is why also this project has been a huge challenge for me, not just because I'm pretty emotional these days because I'm pregnant,

but also because it's a pretty emotional issue to talk about myself, to talk about my Cuban roots, and also talk about something that I never discussed publicly before, which is family separation impacting my family and my life. Yeah, I love that you mention family.

the challenge of immersing yourself in the story because you're fully immersed in this new podcast chess piece, the Elian Gonzalez story. So can you tell us more about your approach with

Merging this journalism, right, this very beautiful narrative piece that's highly researched, highly produced, but also immersing yourself in the story and your own narrative. Yes, I think something that I think is like part of the brand of the house in Futuro Studios is that we do...

a lot of journalism with heart as our founder mariano also likes to say a lot and i don't conceive one of our podcasts being just telling this straight story just the fact without really understanding why it matters you know how it is impacting our communities and the communities that we report on so elian gonzalez also known as el valcerito

is a boy that is a little younger than me, like five years younger than me. But he was big news at the end of the 90s. A lot of people in the US, when you mention Elian Gonzalez, they remember some of the case, they remember a specific picture that was so important in the case.

But we haven't talked about him in a while. But this year, this November, we're turning 25 years of that case. And that case in that moment, I know that we're all talking these days about the Menendez brothers and OJ Simpson, but added to that combo, the Leanne case was one of this

headlines news story that was 24/7 all over the news in the late 90s. So the case started Thanksgiving of 1999, but for months it was like 24/7 in the news cycle. And we were coming in the U.S. from these two big, big other cases that were like moving the media a lot.

So what we're doing right now is we're retelling the case, we're doing deep research, we have been investigating a lot, we have been interviewing people who were part of the case directly and indirectly, but we're also taking the case beyond the particular story of Elian Gonzalez, and we have been telling it in a way that explains why family separation is such an issue for Cubans.

As you know, you know, as being part of an immigrant community, family separation is always an issue, regardless if you're Cuban or not Cuban. But with Cuba specifically, because there is so much geopolitics into what happens with our lives, family separation is a big issue.

So it was kind of natural to embed my story on it because when we started the project, I remember one of the conversations with our executive producers, Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. And I told them, yeah, actually I was also separated from my father and we spent eight years separated. So my father left Cuba in 1998, a year before Elian's case started.

And he was living in Miami while this case was happening, and I was living in Cuba. And the funny thing, not that funny, is that while the Cuban government was fighting so hard to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his father in Cuba, the same government, the same Cuban government, was preventing my father to be reunited with me and my brother. So we thought that, you know,

telling my case, interviewing my father for the first time in my life, which was, again, more difficult than interviewing drug lords. It's been given the series another touch, another level of proximity with people who also relate to this family separation and this Cuban experience. And in this, I will say, this immigrant experience in general. So the podcast is a story of Elian. It's a story of what happened and why it had...

such a big impact in the U.S. back in the day, but also what happened to me, what happened with my father, my brother, and why family separation is such an issue among Cubans that it was in 1999 and that is still today, even 25 years later. Don't go anywhere, Locamores. We'll be right back.

These days, it feels like everyone is talking about how the American dream of owning a home is dying. That so many hardworking Americans have been locked out of home ownership. Hi guys, this is Chiquis from the Chiquis and Chill podcast. And if you are one of the millions yearning to own your home, Rocket is here to give you back the keys. They're working to lower down payments to lift us up. Giving first-time buyers a head start on their starter homes.

and fighting for homes for those who fought and served so we can have ours. The American dream isn't dying. It's just been out of reach. Everyone in this country deserves to own a piece of it. And Rocket isn't going to stop until everyone can. Own the dream. Visit rocket.com or call 800-4ROCKET.

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Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How? Go slower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm.

Mmm, pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out-of-his-element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And, as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup.

Take a big whiff, my bra. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there?

We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and birds. But what if there's something else? Something much more ominous that appears under the cover of night. Silent. Unseen. Watching. They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home.

Or are they? We used the word drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there and one minute it wasn't. Oh, that is beyond creepy. Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscurem, Invasion of the Drones, on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. It's your girl, Cheeky's, and I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheeky's and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys next week.

And I know a lot of people are going to attack me. Why are you going to go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm going to tell you guys right now. I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom. Like that, like yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh, and I thought, what did I do wrong?

And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies. So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years. In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do?

Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me. Listen to Cheekies and Chill season four as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back with more of our episode. It's incredible. And I'm wondering your reflections 25 years later. I remember being a child and seeing all of the commotion on the news, like the morning news, especially before school.

And I wonder what you think now about why it was such a big deal. Was it because it was Cuba? Was it because he was a little boy? Was it because of the politics at the time? And do you think that that story, we're talking a lot more these days about unaccompanied minors, right? And so do you think the Elian Gonzalez story today would have that same effect?

affect and reach and focus? Or was it something of the time period? I think first, I think it's an amazing question. And I also recall the case like, you know, from those days I was I was a preteen when when the case started. And I think we are now talking way more about family separation, about unaccompanied child, etc.,

But something I have been thinking is like, even now the case will be even more viral.

Because one thing that one of the people I interviewed said, and I think it's kind of key to understand the issue, is like, you know, geopolitics are complicated, but it's pretty easy to explain the case. In this case was a child who came to the United States with his mother. I don't want to spoiler a lot of it for those who doesn't know the story. But he ends up without his mother in Miami. And the father in Cuba is claiming that he wants him back.

So it's pretty straightforward. Should the boy remain in the United States with his relatives in Miami or the boy should go back to Cuba to be with his father? So one of the people we interviewed said it's pretty straightforward and it's pretty easy to have an opinion. Should the boy stay in the United States in freedom with their relatives, you know, enjoy all the benefits of living in the U.S., getting asylum, etc., or stay

the boy should go back to Cuba to be with his father, even knowing all the problems that Cuba had back in the day and has today. Imagine that today in TikTok days with everybody posting videos, having opinions about it. It was such a passionate issue for Cubans especially. If you see the footage from those days, you will see that

the front of the house of the family of Elian Gonzalez in Miami was packed with people. Of course, a lot of media there from all over the world reporting about the case every day, but also random people that were just going there to see the boy. Some of the people we interviewed said that he was like the pope. He was coming out of the house and everybody was trying to see him, trying to touch him. Imagine that,

in the craziness of today's vital posts or vital stories. So I think that something that remains after 25 years is that the geopolitics of relationships between Cuba and the US are still very complicated. You have seen in the news what's been happening in Cuba in recent days. Situation in Cuba is still pretty bad. It's getting worse these days with no electricity, no food, no medicines, people protesting.

But at the core of it, there is still a lot of family separation. There is still a lot of people who are able to leave Cuba, but only part of the families live in Cuba. The other part is remaining in Cuba. So I think it's still a pretty controversial issue. And that's partly why we wanted to revisit the case after 25 years, because we don't think it's just a story from the past. We think it's a story that is pretty controversial.

current in terms of what is happening with family separation, with Cuba-US relationships, and also with the amount of kids coming to the United States even today without their parents. So you mentioned the similarities

between then and now and family separation and asylum seeking. What similarities do you see between Elian's experience and his story reflected in the current issues with immigration, especially as we see elections coming up and immigration continues to be like the quote hot topic. It continues to be

the factor in a lot of public debate and private conversations as well. So how do you see those related, especially as we approach election season? Well, that's another reason why we think it is relevant to tell this story today, which is because immigration is a top issue for U.S. voters today. We have seen that

in every poll, what's happening with the border, what's happening with immigration in general is still a top issue for voters. And I think something that is important to understand is that this case had an impact, especially among Cubans living in Miami, among those voters of South Florida that remain until today.

So if you think that today we have a lot of polarizing issues regarding election, regarding this proposal, for example, from the Trump campaign about mass deportations, this proposal from the Harris campaign regarding what are the kind of things that they should be doing to

as she has been saying, correct this through this bill, etc. There is still a lot to be worked on regarding what's happening with immigration. The border is still a big issue, a big source of misinformation and disinformation as we have been also reporting in Futuro Media.

So bringing back to a case that is so sensitive regarding what should be done to fix a system that is not working, it was not working back then and it's not working today. What is beautiful about this podcast is that we do it from a very personal perspective. So we have data and we have the narrative of what happened and we have a lot of explanation

about the context, but we also have a very human stories, not just my own story and the story of my separation with my dad, from my dad, but other stories of family separations. What I think is key about telling this kind of stories today is because beyond the political noise, we need to remind ourselves that every immigrant story is a story about a human being.

And we need to remain, I think, as journalists, I think there is a big responsibility on remaining very human in our coverage. And I think what the story does, the feedback that we have been receiving from listeners is amazing. A lot of the people saying that they cannot stop crying when they listen to the information.

to the podcast or that they can relate to their own lives, their own experiences, their own emotions is because we need to keep bringing the human experience at the center of our coverage because it is a polarizing issue for sure. It is a political issue, but it's an issue in migration that involves real lives of real people. And in this case, a pretty sensitive part of it, which is

What happens with a child separated from his father or his mother? What are the consequences of that? You know, one of the most difficult parts of the podcast for me was when our amazing team of producers and editors asked me what it meant to me.

When I needed to write, you know, what happened with my life after being separated from my dad for eight years, what changed with how I could have been different if that experience haven't been part of my life. And I think a lot of us can relate to that.

you know, pause for a sec and think, you know, what my immigrant story is telling about myself or about who I am or who I am not, how I am different because of this experience. And I think it is an a big opportunity and I feel really honored to be able to touch on an issue that is pretty political in a moment that is pretty polarizing, but

explaining it from this place that is deeply human and deeply emotional. We hope you're enjoying this interview. Stay tuned.

These days, it feels like everyone is talking about how the American dream of owning a home is dying. That so many hardworking Americans have been locked out of home ownership. Hi guys, this is Chiquis from the Chiquis and Chill podcast. And if you are one of the millions yearning to own your home, Rocket is here to give you back the keys. They're working to lower down payments to lift us up. Giving first-time buyers a head start on their starter homes.

and fighting for homes for those who fought and served so we can have ours. The American dream isn't dying. It's just been out of reach. Everyone in this country deserves to own a piece of it.

And Rocket isn't going to stop until everyone can. Own the dream. Visit rocket.com or call 800-4ROCKET. Running our small family business, Three Farm Daughters in North Dakota, isn't easy. We get a lot of help from Amazon. They don't make our homegrown pastas, but they do handle all of our shipping and logistics, which makes a big difference. Learn more about how Amazon supports small businesses at aboutamazon.com.

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? Ow goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend.

And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out-of-his-element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived investigative hookups.

Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And, as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup. Take a big whiff, my brah. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. ♪

Hey y'all, it's your girl Cheeky's and I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheeky's and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys. And I know a lot of people are going to attack me. Why are you going to go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm going to tell you guys right now, I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth.

I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom. Like that, like yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh, and I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheeky's.

Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough because if he loved you, he'd be faithful.

It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me. Listen to Cheekies and Chill season four as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there?

We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and birds. But what if there's something else? Something much more ominous that appears under the cover of night. Silent. Unseen. Watching. They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home.

Or are they? We used the word drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there and one minute it wasn't. Oh, that music. Beyond creepy. Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscurum, Invasion of the Drones, on the iHeartRadio app,

We're back and we hope you enjoy the rest of the interview. How involved has Elian Gonzalez himself been in the telling of his story, especially he's an adult now and in the years since the incident? Yeah, how involved is he not only in the podcast, but I think in general, just in this story and understanding it all these years later?

Well, as you said, Eliane is an adult now. So in the podcast, what we explain is when everything happened, when he came to the US, he was five years old, and then he turned six while living in Miami. So everybody was talking about him, but he was not really saying almost anything. He was a kid.

Then he went back to Cuba. We talked about this in the podcast a lot. He became the favorite kid of the revolution. He was in these public events with Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro was attending his birthday parties some years. He became a pretty symbolic figure for the Cuban Revolution as of course Miami Cubans were expecting and fearing when he was still in Miami.

But through the years he had been given some interviews and he had been saying things that are pretty concerning for Miami Cubans. Like for example, he once said that he believed that he didn't believe in God, but if he had a God, that God would be Fidel Castro. Or saying that he had a true, sincere

friendship with Fidel Castro, saying that he felt like he owed the Cuban Revolution to stay there and be in Cuba because the Cuban people fight for his return.

So I don't want to overspoil what is in the podcast, but we touch a lot on what happened when Elian started giving interviews and explaining himself and explaining his reasons to remain in Cuba, even as an adult. Can you tell us more about the politics at the time and maybe even now how they look for Cubans in Miami and Cubans on the island? Yes, I think something else that the podcast does really well is that

explains what's the difference between being a Cuban in Cuba and being a Cuban in Miami. We have an entire episode when we detail and explain what is something called the exile ideology and why Miami Cubans are so reluctant to give anything, any credit back to the revolution because they have lost a lot.

So we explain a lot that the US politics around Cuba since the beginning of the revolution have been granting asylum to many Cubans. For us Cubans, it's relatively easy to get asylum, a green card, and citizenship in the United States, unlike many other immigrants from many other countries. So that put us in a privileged place with regards of other immigrants.

But at the same time, the fact that many Cubans came to the United States with the idea that they are just going to be here for a couple of months or maybe just a short period of time because they are not immigrants, they are exiles and they are going to go back. We have a beautiful episode that is anchored by our associate producer Tasha Sandoval and she speaks with her grandmother who came to the United States in the early 60s.

And she even says that she thought it was going to be for a couple of months and she has never returned. So the difference between immigration when you're a Cuban versus in another country is that you know you're not going back.

If you're Mexican, for example, I have spent many years of my life in Mexico. If you're a Mexican immigrant going to the United States, you have this hope of sending money, building your casita back in your town, retiring back in your town, going back for the holidays. So you think that you have a roof back. Sometimes you don't do it, but you have this feeling of belonging and I can go back to my home.

land. I can live in my homeland. I can build my house there. But in Cuba, it's a pretty definitive decision. So if you leave Cuba, you leave and there is no coming back. And on the other hand, for the Cubans that remain in Cuba, there has been so much propaganda against the Cuban exiles. So the fact that even today the Cuban government calls gusanos to those Cubans in Miami, so warrants, so use these terms to

relate and to define other people who are your same nationality. Sometimes they are even your relatives. So we get a really good sense in the podcast about what are the difference of the Cuban experience in both sides of the Florida Straits, and what are the things that are really affecting regular people, sometimes member of the same family, like the Gonzaleses of Miami and the Gonzaleses of Cuba.

The fact that this family was torn apart by the case of Elian explains a lot of what's happening with other Cuban families separated by this strait of ocean,

that is pretty is only 90 miles but it's like an entire different universe if you are in one place or in the other place and one good thing about um you know my experience as the as a host of the podcast is i was living in cuba when everything happened so i had this cuban experience of the case but then i moved to

to the U.S. My entire most of my family lives in Miami. Therefore, I have this good sense of the Miami Cuban experience as well. Historically, Cuban-Americans, it's an election year. It's 25 years since Elian Gonzalez. You've mentioned Trump and commentary about mass deportations. And historically, Cuban-Americans have been known to be Republican voters.

Do you think that the same will be true this election cycle? Or what is it that you predict or are observing as far as Cuban Americans and voting this election? Well, apart from this podcast, we have been doing a lot of reporting on Futura Media. I'm also leading the Latino USA team and something that we have been reporting a lot on the ground, even in Florida.

is that there is a lot of Republican voting intention. We see that in the polls. And there is a lot of, as well, misinformation targeting Latinos, especially Latinos who are informing themselves in Spanish. That doesn't mean, of course, that any person voting for Republicans is because they're reading misinformation. But it is true that a lot of the things that we have been

hearing on the ground are informed on, for example, a narrative that is really prevalent these days that Kamala Harris is a communist or is a Marxist or wants to turn the US into Venezuela. A lot of what's happening today in US politics related to Cubans in particular,

is really infused with the fear of the past, of the fear of communism, the fear of Marxism, the fear of the things that many of us Cubans dealt with in Cuba. And it's most of the same of the main reasons why we left the country. So a lot of the vote right now is informed by

the fears. A lot of the vote, it's informed by the kind of things that they will want to see. And that doesn't mean that all Cubans are voting Republican, but that's what we have been hearing from or reporting for those who have said that they are voting Republican. But the ones that are voting or saying that they're going to vote Democrat, I think they expect

to see something that we kind of saw during the Obama administration that was like getting another approach to the Cuban-U.S. relations with trying to relate to the Cuban government or approach the Cuban government or try to alleviate

the big economical struggles that Cubans in Cuba are dealing with these days, and specifically about something that's been in place for decades now, which is the U.S. sanctions in Cuba that have been a key part to explain what's been happening with the economy of Cuba for all these decades. So I think it is important to talk about Elian today because

Elian happened in 1999 and 2000. And a lot of people that we have interviewed for this podcast think that the Elian case defined the U.S. election in 2000, because as you might remember, that election was defined by the vote of Florida. And there was something that happened that it was called El Voto Castigo, so the punishment vote for those Cubans who

Some of them tend to be Democrats before the Elian case, but then they moved Republican. We found even some people saying that they remembered people saying, remember Elian, vote Republican.

So in some parts of the Cuban American community, you still can hear that Eliane represented a switch for those who were Democrats and started voting Republican, that that's a switch that is maintained even today. And also that as far as 25 years have passed, Eliane also explains partly that part of the Cuban population that is willing to vote for Trump again this election year.

Wow, there's so much there and how wild that it's also an election year again. And that this story is, I'm sure, intentionally timed in that way. But that's just so wild because there are these cases that can really sway a voter to go one way or the other. So I want to ask you about Elian's story and the podcast and what you hope listeners will walk away with after listening to this new series.

Well, I hope they understand better the Cuban experience. I think that is a good thing of this podcast is that it's a really nuanced podcast that explains that not everything is black and white. That, you know, that even if you thought that Elian should remain in the U.S. or should go back to Cuba,

I think that you as a listener will get a good sense of why people were thinking one way or the other way, why people were so passionate about this case, why people, like, as I said, like, why random people will go and pray outside of the Miami house of Elian's relatives, why people in Cuba were going to be, were out praying.

protesting, like thousands of people protesting, saying bring Eliane back, but also why this case is not unique. So I hope that you can relate to your own experience if you have an experience of immigration in your own family. And if you don't, that you can understand better the overall experience of how difficult family separation is.

is how difficult it was back in the day and how difficult it is still today. And you get a sense of what's happening right now. I think it is one of those cases that you really understand the present by looking at the past. And I hope that they feel some of my emotions as well, because it's been quite a challenge to...

to explain how something that was, you know, a high political case impacted the life of someone like me that now I'm a journalist, but back then I was just a girl, you know, missing my dad. And how you can get a sense that journalism also works in that sense, also helps you to understand that

Behind every political big story, there is the lives of someone and experiences and emotions of a family that could be your family one day. So I hope that the listeners get the sense of how much we put our heart into this story, but also how much you can learn about what happened and what's happening today.

penile thank you so much for coming on locatora radio and talking about your work and the podcast can you let our listeners know where they can tune in to chess piece the ellian gonzalez story yes so chess piece is a production of futuro studios so you can listen to it in the futura studios website but it is in partnership with i i hearts michael tuda podcast network so that's

Through My Cultura, you can also access, you can listen to the new episodes every Wednesday. And we have a total of 10 episodes and you can listen to it wherever you get your podcast and you can follow us. We have been posting a lot about, and I would love to hear from listeners, you know, how you relate to this story, what kind of emotions stories bring into you.

And I hope you'll listen and I hope you follow along with us on this journey because the intention is that we are going to be ending the season with the anniversary, the actual anniversary of the moment when Elian was found at sea on Thanksgiving of 1999. Thank you so much, Penile. This has been incredible. Thank you for sharing your story and all the work that goes into making an exceptional podcast. So thank you.

Locatora Radio is executive produced by Diosa Femme and Mala Munoz. Stephanie Franco is our producer. Story editing by me, Diosa. Creative direction by me, Mala. Locatora Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's My Cultura podcast network. You can listen to Locatora Radio on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a review and share with your prima or share with your homegirl. And thank you to our Locamores, to our listeners for tuning in each and every week. Besitos.

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