Catching up with Radio Bilingüe's Hugo Morales

The intellectual life at UC Davis School of Law is going strong. Last week, the Aoki Center for Race and Nation Studies hosted Hugo Morales via Zoom. He talked on "The Essential & The Unprotected: Safeguarding Latino Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis"

Morales is the co-founder and director of Radio Bilingüe, one of the first community-based, bilingual public radio stations in the United States.

Latinos continue to make up a sizable portion of California’s essential workers, who make it possible for many of us to remain at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. These individuals — including thousands of Latino and Indigenous farmworkers — risk their health, and their families’ health, to keep the state fed, supplied, and looked after. Yet these people are also the ones with the fewest financial and health resources, and many are ineligible for most of COVID-19-related resources.

Morales discussed the severe gaps in service and programming for low-income Latino workers, especially the thousands of farmworkers in California’s San Joaquin Valley. In addition to explaining how Radio Bilingüe has been working to provide vital information on health and safety, as well as on resources available to these vulnerable populations, Morales highlighted some of the ways government, nonprofits, and grantmakers can ensure these communities are able to access the resources they need to survive this pandemic and the current economic crisis.

The focus of Morales' work is to encourage pride in Mexican culture, disseminate information on the rights and responsibilities of immigrants and migrant workers, advocate for better education for farm-working children, and strengthen the farm-worker community. Morales co-founded Radio Bilingüe in 1976, and over the next four years, secured financial backing to launch the station on July 4, 1980; it is now broadcasting on a network of five community radio stations. In 1993, under his leadership, a 24-hour-a-day satellite network, Satélite, was created, making Radio Bilingüe’s Spanish-language programming available nationwide. The network serves more than half a million listeners with its daily national talk show, Línea Abierta, its independently produced news service, Noticiero Latino, and a wide array of Spanish-language folk music.

What a wonderful event. Having a legend at a King Hall event was awesome!