I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 7th.

So in mid-March, New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nidio Velasquez,

along with New Jersey's Bob Menendez in the Senate,

introduced a bill that would create a process for Puerto Ricans to decide to what extent the island

will be a part of the United States. It's called the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2021.

The question of Puerto Rico status has been on the ballot in

Puerto Rico a number of times in the past. Most recently, just this past November, when 52%

of voters said yes in a referendum about joining the U.S. as a state. But that vote was non-binding.

Now these members of Congress want to give the people of

Puerto Rico more of an official say. Puerto Rico's political status is one of the topics covered

in WNYC's new bilingual podcast, LaBrega. So joining me now to discuss the topic and to take phone calls

from Puerto Rican listeners are Alana Casanova Burgess, the host of

Labrega, and a reporter and producer for WNYC's on the media the rest of the time, and Yami Mar Bonilla,

Professor of Puerto Rican Studies and Anthropology at the City University of New York,

also a monthly columnist at El Nuevo Dia, an incoming director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.

They will also be in discussion with several other big thinkers on this topic tomorrow.

You can make a note of this right from the start.

Tomorrow night at 7, an event you can attend virtually by heading to tiny URL.com slash sancocho two.

We'll give you that again at the end.

Alana, welcome back to the show.

And Professor Bruneo, welcome back to WNYC.

Hi, Brian.

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