“The Out Crowd” Podcast

The portions of this podcast which mostly impacted me would be the parts where the immigrants are giving their personal stories.

The first of these was a story of a woman who was staying at a migrants camp, right outside the US/Mexico border. The narrator told of the horrid living conditions that the people had in that camp — thousands of people living in that camp with little to no access to running water. Many of the people there take baths in a nearby river or lake. However, the problem is that people travel up into the mountains and forest areas to urinate and defecate. When it rains, the water washes all the bodily waste into the only water sources that these people have, causing anyone who gets in contact with it to get horribly sick. This is reoccurring because they have no choice but to bathe and drink to survive. The woman who was talking about all of this also mentioned that some women get contraceptives to keep on their person, just in case they get sexually assaulted. That way, they can at least ask the assaulter to wear it. I can’t imagine sexual abuse and rape being to prevalent to the point where it becomes common place among everyone and it becomes normal behavior for women to bring contraceptives with them FOR their abusers.

The story about David and his son’s kidnapping with also stick with me forever. It was very alarming that they departed from the US border and within hours they were kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo. The kidnapping problem seems to be extremely commonplace as well. The men who run these kidnapping “organizations” run them like legitimate businesses. They keep track of everyone that they kidnap, how much their families have paid, their pictures and who they’ve released. It has become such a huge issue that the United States seems to turn a blind eye to.

I think they let listeners hear the Spanish speaking individuals for authenticity purposes. These stories seem so extremely outlandish, that many wouldn’t believe what was being told, unless they heard it straight from the mouths of the victims. It is also to capture the real emotions of these victims. Although I don’t speak any Spanish, I am still able to pick up on the tones that these victims speak with, and it gives me a better idea of how dreadful the situation currently is.

I think they won the Pulitzer Prize because they weren’t afraid to tell the true unabridged stories of these people. This is something that is so easily covered up by our government, but they were able to give people a glimpse into the truth.