New York, NY (September 10, 2026) – The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO) has announced a new podcast, CENTRO Out Loud. Its first season, “The Unheard Tapes of Frank Espada,” highlights never before heard interviews recorded by photographer, community organizer, educator, and activist Frank Espada (1930-2014) from 1979 to 1981 as he traveled across the United States photographing Puerto Ricans living in the diaspora.
Titled “The Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary Project,” Espada’s work was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and resulted in over 4,000 photos and 130 interviews which led to the 2007 publication The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Themes in the Survival of a People. After decades, the full collection of these interviews have been digitized and transcribed and will join the collections at the Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora at CENTRO in 2027.
From the experiences of mushroom farmers in Pennsylvania to the second generation of Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, a multitude of stories now come to the fore – illuminating the complex and poignant experiences of Puerto Ricans in the diaspora. The season will consist of five episodes highlighting four of the 130 interviews conducted by Frank Espada:
- Episode One
Frank Espada: For the Record
with Dr. Yomaira Figuera-Vásquez, Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies and Alana Casanova Burgess of La Brega
“Nobody wants to see pictures of Puerto Ricans.” This is what photographer, activist, and teacher Frank Espada was told. However, this dismissal served as a catalyst for his federally funded project titled Documenting the Puerto Rican Diaspora. In addition to over 4,000 photos he took traveling across the country, Frank also conducted interviews with over 130 members of the communities he visited. In this episode Dr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, and Alana Casanova Burgess of La Brega discuss Frank’s legacy and the impact of the interviews he preserved and left for us to learn from.
- Episode Two
Farming in the Dark
with Yuleysy Ortiz and Alana Cordero-Montesinos
Less than 40 miles away from El Centro de Oro in Philadelphia is a town with a deep and fraught history for Puerto Rican migrants & undocumented workers: Kennett Square…aka The Mushroom Capital of the World. In this episode, we hear the gripping testimony of Margarita who reflected on her experience waking at 3am each night to help her husband fill his quota as a mushroom worker facing appalling conditions during the growing season. - Episode Three
Healing with the Spirits
with Ariana Costales del Toro and Olivia Ramirez
Where the healthcare industrial complex failed, El Centro Lazaro in Hartford, CT arose as a sanctuary for therapy, wellness, and healing for the local Puerto Rican community. In this episode, we hear from Marta who opened the center on Park St in the 80s as a place prioritizing espiritismo, bodily autonomy, and community care during ongoing health care crises facing Puerto Rican women. - Episode Four
Lo que le pasó en Hawaii
with Nicole Hernandez, Jaden Morales, and Melly Gonzalez
Have you ever yearned for a distant ancestral homeland? That is the experience of Solomon, whose parents were 2 of the nearly 6,000 laborers who migrated to Hawaii after Huracán San Ciriaco in 1899. Nearly half of the first migrants headed for Hawaii never made it. Those who survived faced exploitative work conditions, familial separation, and several other injustices perpetuated by U.S. Sugarcane Corporations. On these plantations, Puerto Ricans encountered division from other migrant workers from across the world. Despite these experiences, they built community and created a new musical genre that still tells their story today.
- Episode Five
Returning Home
with Imaida Duran Mariñez and Yafrainy Familia
While many Puerto Ricans migrated to New York in the mid-20th century for better work opportunities, Ada did so to escape her abusive husband. After separating from him and supporting her family as a single mother, she eventually returned home to be with her community. Upon their arrival, they encountered multiple challenges and gained a new perspective that made them question their return home.
“It’s so rare to find the voices of real Puerto Ricans in archives, much of what is available are recordings of other people narrating a warped view of Puerto Rican history. But these unheard tapes from Frank Espada highlight the richness of the real lived experience of so many Boricuas from across the country. They’re a treasure, and this series highlights that” said podcast writer & editor Alana Casanova-Burgess, co-producer of the acclaimed podcast La Brega.
“Over the last eight years, I have had the immense honor of studying, teaching, and preserving Frank Espada’s work and archival collections. Frank’s legacy extends beyond his beautiful photos. As a community organizer and activist, he knew that bearing witness to struggle and fighting for change also meant documenting the quotidian ways that Puerto Ricans migrated, moved, and survived often hostile environments. His oral history archive exemplifies the care he took in documenting the breadth of the Puerto Rican community and reveals the foresight he had to preserve our multitude of stories for generations to come. This premiere season of our new podcast serves as an introduction to Frank’s lifework, focusing on uplifting the stories of everyday Puerto Ricans in the 1970s and 1980s, which in many ways is a reflection of our own time. Beyond these five episodes which we envision as activating Frank’s archive and sharing it with a broad audience, we can’t wait to make the remaining 126 interviews and transcripts accessible to researchers, writers, historians, and community members in 2027 at the CENTRO Archives!” said podcast creator and CENTRO Directora, Dr. Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez.
The first season of CENTRO Out Loud, “The Unheard Tapes of Frank Espada,” was made possible with support from the Diaspora Solidarities Lab Projects, the Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Projects, Michigan State University, Johns Hopkins University, Hunter College at CUNY, and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, with special thanks to the Espada Family for their support.
All episodes are available now for streaming and can be found on the CENTRO website, Apple Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and YouTube.