In 2012, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention, Julián Castro described the American Dream as a relay. In the first episode of Our America, we dig into the Castro family’s backstory. We follow the baton passing from one generation to the next, starting with Julián’s grandmother immigrating to the US nearly 100 years ago. Julián and his twin brother, Congressman Joaquin Castro, talk about their journey from the segregated West Side of San Antonio to the national stage. We also meet their mom, Rosie, an activist in her own right, who highlights raising her sons with a strong sense of Mexican-American identity and how that helped shape their life’s trajectory.

Below the iconic Las Vegas Strip, another reality exists in stark contrast to the gambling and entertainment excesses. This week, Louis Lacey of HELP of Southern Nevada paints the picture of homelessness in the city’s drainage tunnels, and how his personal experience with homelessness has influenced his community outreach work. We also talk with Emily Paulsen of the Nevada Homeless Alliance about solutions to homelessness and the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

With the presidential election at the forefront of everyone’s minds, we’re unpacking the 2020 election results and Latino voter turnout with Joaquin Castro, who recently won his own reelection to Congress. We talk about what the Democratic win actually means for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and what still needs to happen to restore and sustain democracy in our country and around the world.

After nearly a decade in the military, Jason Kander had grown accustomed to the demands of deployment in Afghanistan — but it was his return to civilian life that presented the biggest challenges for him and his family. Today, Kander talks about life during and after service, the career shift into politics that led him to seek treatment for his PTSD, and the dangers of thinking of trauma as “unearned.” 

Stacey Abrams and Angela Lang are no strangers to voter suppression. In their respective states of Georgia and Wisconsin, they have seen communities of color disproportionately silenced time and again by restrictive voting measures. This week we sit down with each of them to talk about knocking on doors, getting out the vote, and what it means to have representation in positions of power, particularly in this moment in history. With less than a week left, we consider how our collective voting power will  determine the fate of the country for the next four years and beyond.

Description In 2018, MSNBC journalist Jacob Soboroff was among the select few to visit Casa Padre, one of the detention