Kaina's Story

This program aired on January 4th, 2022. This episode covers the story of Kaina Castillo, a Venezuelan
and Guatemalan singer-songwriter who lives in Chicago. Her music tells the story of her identity and how she struggled with trying to fit into one specific culture. Her song, “House” is about immigration- she wrote it in high school, but she did not feel comfortable enough to share the song with the world until recently. She states that it almost “feels like a prayer to [her]” (Castillo, 4:22). The song was very personal to her, a first generation citizen, so she feels like it is her most poetic piece. 

Venezuelan-Americans 

I liked how she incorporates her personal and familial history into her work. This makes it sacred to her and more meaningful to the people she shares it with. Her songs tell a story of her life and pays tribute to the struggles that her parents went through in order to provide her the life that she was able to live. The only thing I didn’t like was actually not about the topic, but about the episode itself. I thought that the way the audio clips were constantly being played took away from the focus, which was Kaina speaking. It often distracted me, so I would have appreciated less of the audio clips being played. I think it would be interesting for the radio show to cover more artists with diverse family histories that have shaped their songwriting. I feel like Kaina’s story caused her songwriting to develop into something truly meaningful, so seeing people who have been similarly influenced would be interesting.

Venezuelans immigrating to the United States to seek Asylum

I found a news article, “Amid Slowdown, Immigration Is Driving U.S. Population Growth” which was written by Miriam Jordan and Robert Gebeloff in 2022 which can be found here. This news article states that the population is not increasing as expected. Due to deaths from the pandemic and a declining birthrate, the United States’ population is historically low, however, immigrants are creating a more steadily increasing population. In the first paragraph, the article states that “2021 will go down as the year with the slowest population growth in U.S. history” (Jordan and Gebeloff, 2022). At the height of the pandemic, immigration was at an all time low, however in more recent months, it has started to pick us back up again, giving us a much needed boost in population. A majority of those who immigrate to the United States are Hispanic and/or Latino, much like Kaina’s parents who came from Venezuela and Guatemala. 

Guatemalan-Americans

Overall, I found that Kaina’s story really resonated with me. As someone who is also the daughter of an immigrant, and who happens to create art, I found her inspiring. This episode made me realize that it is okay to use my parents’ story as an inspiration for my work. As I am writing about my theme, which focuses on how technology shapes the creation of art, I will greatly benefit from this article because it provides me with my first focus, which is finding Hispanic and Latino artists who I will then use to identify how technology has shaped their careers and influenced their work.

Works Cited:

Jordan, Miriam, and Robert Gebeloff. “Amid Slowdown, Immigration Is Driving U.S. Population Growth.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Feb. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/us/immigration-census-population.html. 

“Audio.” Latino USA.