LATINO USA

About the Show

Latino influences and contributions continue to have an increasingly important impact on the evolving identity, life, and reality of the U.S. Designed to promote cross-cultural understanding and to develop a forum for Latino cultural and artistic expression, Latino USA provides a unique perspective on U.S. Latinos. Hosted by the award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, the program is a weekly mix of news and public affairs recaps, features on cultural and musical trends, and compelling personal portraits. Latino USA acts as a forum for connections and reflects the experience of a changing population from a Latino viewpoint. Produced by a partnership between KUT and the Center for Mexican American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, it’s the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.

Since its launch in 1993, Latino USA has won 15 prestigious national awards from the communications industry for its excellence in fulfilling its mission:

• To provide diverse audiences with multiple perspectives on issues affecting Latinos
  
• To foster cross-cultural understanding
  
• To enhance relationships among Latino communities
  
• To illuminate the richness of Latino cultural and artistic expression
  
  

About the Host

Award-winning journalist and author Maria Hinojosa is managing editor and host of Latino USA; she is also the senior correspondent for the Emmy Award-winning PBS newsmagazine NOW. Before joining NOW, Hinojosa was the urban affairs correspondent for CNN and spent the previous six years as a New York-based correspondent for NPR. During that time, she also hosted Visiones, a public affairs talk show on WNBC-TV in New York.

In 1999, Working Mothers Magazine named Hinojosa one of the 25 “Most Influential Working Mothers,” and she was named of the 100 most influential Latinos in the United States by Hispanic Business Magazine three times since 1995. She received the 1995 Robert F. Kennedy award for her NPR story “Manhood Behind Bars,” which documented how jail has become a right of passage for men of all races. In 1993, she was honored with both the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Radio Award and the New York Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Award for her NPR report, “Kids and Guns.” In 1991, she won a Unity Award and the Top Story of the Year Award from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for Crews, her NPR story on gang members.

Hinojosa is the author of Crews: Gang Members Talk with Maria Hinojosa (1995), which was based on her award-winning NPR report. Her second book, Raising Raul: Adventures Raising Myself and My Son, a memoir about raising a Latino child in a multicultural society, was published by Viking-Penguin in 2000.

Born in Mexico City, Hinojosa is a magna cum laude graduate of Barnard College, where she majored in Latin American studies, political economy and women’s studies.

Visit the Latino USA web site.