The death of eight-year-old Marco Gabriel La Torre Riquero y los eventos that led to his death have displayed the dire consequences of language barriers faced by Latino patients en los Esatdos Unidos. Marco’s case sheds light en la conversación acerca de inadequate communication and care, prompting important questions about healthcare providers and systems’ responsibilities.

According to the US Census Bureau, Spanish accounts for nearly 62-percent of languages spoken in the US other than English — 12 times greater than the next four languages; more than half of Spanish speakers are US born.

We explore the goals for some Midwest Latino community service organizations in 2023, and some goals of individual Latinos. In exploring this, we’ll also learn about what people need in 2023.

Esta temporada queríamos ver if Latinos knew their rights and how their rights could be violated due to language barriers. Esperábamos que entendieras tus derechos, what your rights are regardless of your status, y la importancia of equal representation.

En este episodio, collaborator Angela Gervasi takes a look at how well the rights of Latinos are observed in health care, with an emphasis en los cambios por la pandemia. Ella explora language access en el cuidado de la salud and the negative outcomes if it is denied.

For this episode we hear from a new collaborator, April Alonso, a multimedia journalist from Cicero, Illinois and co-founder of Cicero Independiente. Cicero Independiente publica in print both in Spanish and English para asegurarse que su trabajo is accessible to all Cicero and Berwyn, IL residents.

En este episodio, contributor Jon Orbach explores the challenges Latinos face in getting an equal education in Schuyler, Nebraska.

En este episodio, we hear la historia de cómo la inmigración de Latinos ha afectado a los pueblos del medio oeste. Collaborator Jon Orbach visits the majority Latino immigrant community of Schuyler, Nebraska.

This season hablamos de how informed Latinos are about their rights and how they can be violated. Hablamos del Bill of Rights and la Constitución. By the end of this season esperamos que entiendas tus derechos, what your rights are regardless of your status, y la importancia of equal representation.

For this episode, we recap algunas de las historias we told and update you on other ones. How is your recovery coming along? ¿Tienes una situación similar a algunas de estas historias? ¿Haz aplicado para Medicaid Or did you already receive the vaccine?

En este episodio, we visit the vaccine clinic at a church we talked about in our previous episode - and talk more about the importance of getting everyone informed acerca del virus y los cambios que continúan ocurriendo con la vacuna.

We’re going to tell you a story about local Latinos addressing the deficiencies in the US healthcare system magnified by the pandemic. Los Latinos are bridging the language gap, this time translating crucial information about the pandemic.

A recent poll conducted by Voto Latino and Media Matters For America found that almost 4 in 10 Latinos respondents report having seen material or information that makes them think the COVID-19 vaccines are not safe or effective.

A solo tres días de haber llegado desde Oaxaca, México Sergio Chavez recibió la vacuna. He’s been coming to the United States for years to work in the farms and says this pandemic affected farmworkers.

Since the pandemic, a lot of things have changed the education landscape. Undergraduate Latino enrollment decreased by more than 5 percent, de acuerdo al National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

I want you to meet Mayra Ramirez. Mayra contracted the virus and ended up in the ICU on life support. She was 28. The virus had severely damaged her lungs and doctors concluded she would not survive without a double-lung transplant.

In season 6 we explore how Latinx in the Midwest are recovering from Covid-19 - en varias areas. This will resonate with many parents caught up in the need to work while also caring for their children forced out of school by the pandemic.

Season 6 of ¿QPM? explores how Latinx in the Midwest are recovering from Covid-19 en muchas areas; including economic recovery, salud física y mental, education, unemployment, y mucho más.

As ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? se estaba preparando para expandirse into a bilingual regional reporting network, the team recibió noticias that they had won a Region 7 Murrow for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for their reportaje on Season 6.

The sun shines down on a large mural that sits at Carpenter and 18th Streets in Pilsen, a neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side. Pilsen is a community that has overcome hardship long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a community whose hope is as essential as its workers.

Host Judith Ruiz-Branch, contributor Karli Goldenberg, and producer Mareea Thomas reflect on the season and the year so far. Tienen una conversación not as journalists but as people, human beings who have been affected in every way by the current state of our country.

Conversamos con la activista Kim Wasserman, residente de la Villita Antonia Quiñones Peña y el abogado John Hazinski about the implosion and continued demolition en la Villita, environmental justice and what community members would like to see.

En este episodio contributor Karli Goldenberg talks to Chef Benoit Angulo via Zoom about how COVID-19 has brought La Cocinita Restaurant back to its food truck roots and allowed for them to donate over 7,000 meals to date across Chicagoland.

Before the U.S. declared a national emergency and Illinois issued a “Stay-at-Home Order,” Karli attended a community conversation about wellness hosted by Northwestern University’s Multicultural Student Affairs. Dr. Asif Wilson, Associate Dean of Instruction at Harold Washington College in Chicago, talked about collective care for people of color.

Host Judith Ruiz-Branch habló con Shammrie Brown, Senior Outreach Director of New Life Covenant Church Southeast. Hablaron sobre cómo los miembros de la iglesia continue to help la comunidad.

Host Judith Ruiz-Branch habló con Dr. Marina Del-Rios, an emergency room doctor, assistant professor, and research coordinator. They discussed the need for helpers in the medical field para Latinos en su comunidad, y Dr. Del-Rios shares las soluciones that she’s working on.

Our new contributor, Karli Goldenberg, talks to Dr. Juan Carlos Caicedo about how he challenges existing healthcare access and created the Northwestern Medicine Hispanic Transplant Program, a culturally competent transplant center dedicated to Latino patients.

Latinos are historically undercounted in the census, but an Illinois woman we met in Season 4 is determined to change that, despite the coronavirus. Dona Chuy, the long-standing community activist and volunteer in Chicago, continues her work to get Latinos counted for the 2020 Census.

This season is about the coronavirus, but we aren’t sharing the latest statistics and news. Instead we set out (virtually) to find the helpers (like Mr. Rogers) in the Midwest. Paola is working with regional and national collaborations to translate and share coronavirus información in Spanish across el medio oeste and the country.

As the ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? team was preparing to produce Season 5, the coronavirus was declared a pandemic. Under stay-at-home orders, the team decided to postpone Season 5 production and focus on finding ways to serve our community and the nation during this time.

Este año que viene mas personas de color van a ser elegibles para el voto que en años pasados. According to the Pew Research Center, the 2020 election will mark the first time that Hispanics will be the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the electorate.

Aqui una historia desde Chicago. Our collaborator Judith Ruiz-Branch talks about how although Chicago is a very liberal city with a diverse population that breeds inclusividad, there are still some Latino families, many undocumented, that have completely disconnected themselves from the current political landscape.

This episode comes from outside the Midwest pero decidimos hacerlo because everything that happens at the US-Mexico border affects the entire country, incluyendo el medio oeste.

With 2020 around the corner, many Latino Journalists find themselves making the decision to cover or not the elections. Many decide to become activists while others don’t share their personal opinions on politics.

En este episodio, we explain how the census count can affect the elections with gerrymandering. También, hablamos con Roberto Arroyo, a Tex Mex Billennial living in Indiana who feels passionate about voting.

In this episodio, our co producer Mareea Thomas and I thought we would dive right into the census. Many millennials haven’t filled the census either so for this episodio we’ll fill out the 2020 census sample questionnaire we found on census.gov.

En nuestro primer episodio, we talked about why the census was important, why some immigrantes didn’t want to respond to the citizenship question on it, about the millions of dollars that are allocated every year based on the census count.

Este año the debate of the citizenship question being on the census form filled our news feeds. Escuchamos que era algo bueno por que it would have given us an accurate count of Hispanos and Latinos that needed help with things like legal aid or language assistance.

Este es nuestro ultimo episode of season 3. This season was all about música. We talked about mental health, the border wall, voting, new and old Latino music, instruments, racism and more.

Through their music, Making Movies tell many stories but their latest album, in collaboration with many artists including Rubén Blades, encourages everyone to speak their truth, vote and actively help their own community.

In this episodio we talk to music expert and artist Brick Briscoe about his radio show The Song Show, about how he was introduced to Spanish language music and how his experience playing in English in Paris was a revelation of how music unites us.

The month of May is Mental Health Awareness Month and what better way to create conciencia acerca de la estabilidad mental than to talk to an artist about how his journey to finding stability and balance within his mental health has taken him through dark moments and to seek professional help.

In a phone conversation with Music Journalist Catalina Maria Johnson we learned how to identify Latinx music, how nuestra música has influenced and changed over the years, how some music genres are being revisited by the artists of the newer generation, and more.

Reggae prodigy, Zion, talks about his childhood in the West Indies and the Virgin Islands donde vivio mucho tiempo without electricity or running water, how that struggle was an inspiration to write the música he writes today and how living between two religions, Christianity and Rastafarianism, made him question his identity.

This season is all about Música! And in this episode we go back to our interview with the Grammy-winning all-female Mariachi Flor de Toloache in 2015, where las chicas shared how they stay in touch with their culture while living in the US.

This season it’s all about música SO be ready to move your hips to artistas como Making Movies, the Grammy winning all female Mariachi Flor de Toloache, Migrant Kids, Reggae prodigy Zion, the multilingual band The Brazilionaires and Appalatin.

It’s been a great season for us and we hope that it has been for you too. Esperamos que hayas disfrutado de los temas que tocamos esta temporada.

“if you go to the emergency room, you know that the one thing that they ask for is insurance. Do you have insurance? A good portion of the Latinos that I deal with don’t qualify for insurance.”

Every ten years, the government of the United States of America issues a mandatory census to count the population. The results of the census determine the number of seats that each state gets in the House of Representatives, the distribution of federal funds, and enforcement of voting rights laws.

In this episode, co-producer Mareea Thomas talks to Paola about her experience when living in a house where domestic violence was present, about fleeing to New York and on how her family finally left.

En este episodio hablamos de la importancia de la educación en familias Latinas. Getting a degree is not easy for a lot of immigrants, first generation graduates and for low income families.

The experience of 1.5 generation immigrants, a term used to describe people who arrived in the U.S. as children and adolescents, is a unique one. Unlike their first-generation parents or U.S.-born siblings, their identity is split. That in between.

Aquí la historia de Janeth Vazquez. She grew up in Liberal Kansas and her father was deported when she started her first year of college. Ella dice que su vida cambió en todo el sentido de la palabra.

After not being able to talk to my family for six days, my mom finally called me from the Island. Hurricane Maria had just passed. I didn't know what had happened during that time so she started sending me pictures of what I thought was another country.

Why did Alfonso come to the Midwest? It had something to do with the FARC - las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - una alianza en contra del gobierno since 1964.

Non-Latinos are not the only ones confused about why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated. I’m from the Dominican Republic, and I have to admit that I didn’t know for a long time that this celebration was not the Mexican Independence Day I was misled by the celebraciones en Estados Unidos about este festejo.

It was a great season! Listen to our top five episodes and a sneak peek of next season in our last episodio. Share with us the topics you want us to cover next and recommend our podcast to a friend.

Duolingo schools no son nada nuevo. There are many of them around the country and they’re certainly not new in the state of Indiana. En Fort Wayne, Lindley Elementary ha tenido un programa similar al de Parkview, por más de veinte años.

After an abusive childhood in Mexico, Amy's grandfather started telling people he was Italian. He says, “nothing good comes out of Mexico. Nothing." His identity is his business, but Amy knows she's not Italian.

In this episode, our host Paola Marizán shares with co-producer Mareea Thomas how moving from her home country at age 6 made her feel displaced, how domestic violence lead her and su mama to be refugees and how now that she's older tiene que encarar and deal with depression.

An Immigration Center proposed to be built in Elkhart, Indiana, a city big on agriculture, mainly built on manufacturing and close to big areas with large Latino populations, represented a clear threat to Latinos in the area.

Last year, Cuba announced that next month, en Marzo del 2018, they will have elections to choose new members of the National Assembly. See this is historico because after that the new parliament will choose the country’s next president.

A casual conversation about Latino art and culture and its influence the Midwest and how it's celebrated where it's people may not feel welcomed.

Para despedir el año, ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? programmer Mareea Thomas and host Paola Marizán shared their favorite songs of 2017 and some of what's coming up next for the podcast.

Amalia got caught by border patrol and in a split second she had to make the decision; give her baby to the coyote and hope he’ll get the infant safe to her relatives in the U.S. or take her four-month-old back home, to El Salvador.

Celebrating Christmas as a Latino, today means that celebrations pour over borders and become part of our own traditions. Is not just about celebrating a native tradición but celebrating the traditions we took from our neighboring countries.

Imagine establishing a life in a foreign country that then becomes home - mi casa- even more than where you come from. That’s how twenty one year old Laura Ayala feels.

Finding the ingredients to feel close to home is always a hassle. Here's my journey finding achiote for my Puertorican Sofrito in the Midwest, how that becomes part of my identity and why Latino-owned businesses matter.

After Trump's election, Lydia got punched in the face at the mall because of her dark skin and afro-like hair. En este episodio, exploramos lo que significa identidad -we talk to Lydia about being Mexican and African American in the Midwest.

Because Pedro is a U.S. citizen, he was able to sign up for eight years of service and in return, his parents can stay in this country after living undocumented for almost twenty years.

Pulque, an ancient Mexican drink, is milky, slightly foamy and somewhat viscous. The Aztecs made this drink by fermenting the nectar of a cactus plant, llamada Maguey, para curar todos los males.