The Colombian journalist Santiago Rivas spoke out against a law that threatened public television. The decision was to silence him. Accusations against governments for censoring those who think differently are common; what is unusual is finding evidence that proves how it happened. In this episode, a...
What happened to Marco Antonio Molina Theissen? Minutes after receiving one of the best news of their lives, the Molina Theissen family’s world fell apart. Almost forty years later, their case is emblematic of a conflict that Guatemala has never fully dealt with. You can read the Spanish transcript of...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: Ambulantes who speak English and live in the United States, the research team at NPR needs your voice. They want to test how precise the algorithms that convert speech to text are, when they’re used by people with different accents and from...
A book causes outrage in Chile. Pilar Quintana, a Colombian writer, never imagined that her book "Little Red Riding Hood Eats the Wolf" —a collection of short stories with explicit sexual content —would be read by children. But almost 300 copies of the book ended up...
[Lupa]: Surely this has happened to you: you listen to an episode of this wonderful podcast and you think, “Oh my god, Randy would love this”. Or Joanne or Connie or Matthew. And then, “Ay, caramba! But with his two semesters of Spanish, my gringuito...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: Hello, Ambulantes, happy new year! If you follow this podcast, you’ve probably heard of Lupa, our new Spanish learning app. With Lupa, intermediate-level students have just the right technology assistance to train their ears. This app helps you listen, so you can learn...
A Martian invasion arrives in Quito, Ecuador. On February 1949, Radio Quito broadcasted an adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. The story of the supposed Martian invasion turned the Ecuadorian city upside down, and would have tragic and unexpected results. You can read the Spanish transcript of the...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: A little over three years ago, we published the first episodes of Radio Ambulante on NPR. We knew that being a part of American public radio would give us a big push. And we weren’t wrong. We’ve grown as a team —back...
Writer Gabriela Wiener never felt pretty. At different stages in her life her looks have tormented her, inspired her, enraged her, opened doors and closed others. How does a woman define her value in a Latin American country where her appearance can seem to be...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: Before we start, a warning: this episode contains a very broad sampling of foul Argentinian language. Discretion is advised. Welcome to Radio Ambulante from NPR. I’m Daniel Alarcón. It all starts with a video: two women, about 60 years old, Argentinian, smiling, they’re sitting...
A few missteps and everything goes to hell. Claudia and Mónica López are a pair of inseparable sisters. They are retired and use their free time to travel and visit places that are different from their hometown of Buenos Aires. Last August they visited Tucumán, a...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: We often get this question: What can we do to support the podcast? Well, we have a membership program, we have an app to learn Spanish, and, for Ambulantes in the US, you can also support NPR. If you like what we...
An island rises up. A secret chat, an anonymous source, a daring protest, and a barricade in the streets of Old San Juan that became a symbol of resistance. In this episode, we tell three short stories about the unprecedented protests that shook Puerto Rico during...
[Daniel Alarcón, host]: Welcome to Radio Ambulante from NPR. I’m Daniel Alarcón. (ARCHIVAL SOUNDBITE) [Alberto Fujimori]: We’re twenty kilometers from Lima, ten kilometers from Callao (laughs). Finally, we made it! [Daniel]: We’re listening to Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru, in a video he recorded on November 6th,...
Alberto Fujimori thought he had the perfect plan to return to Peru. On November 6, 2005, an immigration agent in Santiago, Chile, came across a passport with a name that seemed vaguely familiar: Alberto Fujimori. It was the controversial former president of Peru, who had been...
To complement our previous episode — “Me Girl” — we spoke with Radio Ambulante listeners who don’t identify with the sex they were born with. They are the ones who can best describe how complex it is to be trans in Latin America. What are...