Shame on American Public Media, Marketplace, and the entire APM ecosystem for continuing to contribute to the circumstances that made the ICE raids possible.
It has been over a year since the raids began, and your individual and collective newsrooms still make Latinos largely invisible. Public radio and the broader media industry — including streamers and podcasts — have repeatedly chosen either to erase Latinos from the narrative or to generally portray them narrowly as criminals or victims.
When I say Latinos, I am specifically referring to those of Indigenous descent primarily from Central America and Mexico. Their Indigenous features make them easily identifiable, which is precisely why ICE agents are able to target them so easily.
So the question is simple: why does the APM ecosystem continue to refuse to hire Latinos behind the mic as journalists and broadcasters? Yes, there are a few scattered here and there, but overwhelmingly Latinos are absent from the very platforms that claim to represent the public.
Why?
Is it because they are of Indigenous descent?
Is it because most are Catholic or Christian (Evangelical)?
Is it because they are culturally and economically powerful?
Meanwhile Catholic and Christian children are living with their parents in concentration style immigration detention centers — facilities funded by tax dollars that everyone in the United States contributes to. No one lives tax-free in this country. Undocumented people pay taxes too.
Marketplace and other economy focused shows should already have produced multiple episodes examining the importance of the Latino community to the U.S. economy. A starting point would be the research produced by the Latino Donor Collaborative.
Yet despite being based in Los Angeles — one of the largest Latino population centers in the world — Marketplace almost never centers Latinos in positive economic stories. Most glaringly, the show still has no Latino broadcasters behind the mic, even while repeatedly asking the public to become sustaining members and support the program.
For more than a year, Latino communities in the Los Angeles region have faced raids, violence, and fear. The economic consequences for Los Angeles, California, and the entire country have been enormous. Yet this reality is rarely addressed.
The pattern is unmistakable: Latinos are rarely hired, and stories almost never focus on the Latino community as one of the most powerful drivers of the U.S. economy.
Prove us wrong that APM, and Marketplace in particular, do not despise the Latino community because it looks like you do.
Change course. Hire Latinos behind the mic as journalists and broadcasters. Center stories on the economic importance of the Latino community and on how these attacks harm not only Latinos but the entire country.
Because they do.
Side note: hiring people with Latino sounding names who are not actually Latino does not solve the problem.
Because of the continued refusal to address the economic importance of Latino communities — and the refusal to acknowledge how the economy suffers when Latinos are under attack — people are increasingly boycotting Marketplace and other American Public Media shows.
After such a long year of abuses and killings of innocent people, continuing to ignore the Latino community is unacceptable.
Shame on you.
