Week # Air Date

Latinos in the new year. Hopes, realities, and fears in the post 911 landscape. Now that most us have returned to work after the holiday season, the prospect of a new year is now a reality. For many the dramatic events of 2001 are still lingering with us in many different ways. Early in January Latino USA sent its producers to several us cities to gage how people feel about the new year and their Latino reality.

Political detainees in a Mexican prison. January 1, 2002 marked the eighth anniversary of the official implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. It also marks the beginning of the political uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. NAFTA was supposed help Mexico develop into a true democracy. Something analysts say culminated with the 2000 election of President Vicente Fox and ending 71 years of one party rule in Mexico. But the issue of human rights continues to hinder Mexico's democratic transition. In southern Mexico a group of indigenous men have been in jail for 5 years, accused of being leftist guerillas. International rights organizations say the men are innocent and are demanding their release.

Juan Garcia Esquivel was called the undisputed king of space age bachelor pad music. He died of a stroke at his Jiutepec, Morelos home in Mexico on January 3. He was 84. In the 1950s the self-taught composer, musician, and arranger pioneered a genre of music that reflected his innovative fusion of big band and Latin rhythms. His musical contributions were largely unrecognized until a musical revival in the early 1990s. It was in the last decade of his life that Juan Garcia Esquivel was rediscovered by music aficionados and critics, including Variety magazine who named him the Mexican Duke Ellington. In 1999 Latino USA spoke with Esquivel. Here is an excerpt from that conversation.