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99% Invisible

La Brega in Levittown

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.827.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What the presence of a Levittown in Puerto Rico tells us about the promises of the American Dream in Puerto Rico

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is a 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

0:04.0

On the show this week, we're bringing you an episode of a new podcast called La Brega.

0:10.0

And to tell us about this series is Alana Kacanova Burgess.

0:13.6

Host and co-creator and producer of La Brega,

0:18.6

stories of the Puerto Rican experience,

0:20.7

co-production from WNYC Studios and Futura Studios. I say that in my dreams now.

0:27.0

The name of the show La Brega is a word in Puerto Rican Spanish that doesn't really have a great English translation.

0:33.7

But to illustrate the concept, we're going to start with a cell phone video that was taken in the

0:38.0

aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when the people of Puerto Rico were living in the dark.

0:44.0

Some Puerto Ricans were without electricity for months on end

0:48.0

and everyone had to find ways to cope.

0:50.0

And in the video, two people are standing in a carport.

0:54.0

And so a woman is recording her father and they're showing off this invention. They've got

1:05.0

got the body, the drum of a washing machine.

1:09.0

Okay.

1:10.0

And then in the middle, what do you call that, the like spoke that comes out of the middle of the

1:14.1

The agitator, the spinner or something?

1:16.4

The agitator, that is correct.

1:18.2

I think I had Google that at one point.

1:20.6

The agitator has bicycle handlebars attached to it.

1:24.0

And this woman's father is a bicic lavadura.

1:30.0

And this woman's father is so excited to show off this Bissi Labadora.

...

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