La Brega: Who Are Our Puerto Rican Champions?
Latino USA
My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It was January 24, 2022. The King of Spain was coming to Puerto Rico. But everyone woke up to unexpected news: the statue of the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León in Old San Juan had been toppled. When the mayor promised to restore it that same day, it raised questions: Who deserves to be put up on a pedestal? Who are our champions?
Today, we bring you the first episode of the newest season of La Brega, a podcast from our own Futuro Studio. This season looks at Puerto Rico through the people who represent boricuas and asks: What does it take to champion Puerto Rico?
Original episode art by Tania M. González. You can find her Instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/petupetin/
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Futuro |
| 0:02.0 | 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. |
| 0:10.1 | America is in crisis. |
| 0:11.8 | And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. |
| 0:14.6 | These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, |
| 0:17.7 | locked up the members of the board of trustees, |
| 0:20.2 | including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King's |
| 0:22.1 | senior. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never |
| 0:27.2 | forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in a lick Lamouba. Listen to the A building on the IHeart |
| 0:32.4 | radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. |
| 0:43.4 | Segregation and the day integration at night. |
| 0:46.5 | It was like stepping on another world. |
| 0:49.0 | Was he a businessman? A criminal. A hero. |
| 0:53.1 | Charlie was an example of power. |
| 0:56.0 | They had to crush him. |
| 0:57.7 | Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. |
| 1:01.3 | Listen to Charlie's Place on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:08.1 | La Brega is back. |
| 1:09.6 | This season, we're spending time with the people and symbols that represent Puerto Rico. |
| 1:13.8 | We're proud Boricuas. |
| 1:15.4 | And what does that mean? |
| 1:16.8 | And we are still in the fight. |
... |
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