The National Museum of the American Latino may be years away from officially opening, but it's already caught in America's culture wars. The attack has been led in part by Latino Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, having proposed legislation to pull funding for the museum.

"I'm okay with you criticizing how you view history. But do you have to vote to defund it?" said, Julio Ricardo Varela, president of Futuro Media Group. "Seriously, like, you can't even stand up for our community? You have to go down the 'woke politics' side?"

Diaz-Balart has since said funding would not be pulled, but only after a meeting with Smithsonian leadership: “What we did is we cut the funding, and immediately [the Smithsonian] responded, and then we had a very positive meeting."

Gov. Maura Healey announced a state of emergency this August due to the surge in migrant families arriving in the state and in need of shelter. A total of 20,000 people, made up of over 5,000 families with children, are currently living in state-funded shelters.

And last month the long debated driver's license law for undocumented immigrants went into effect. The state saw roughly 100,000 requests for learner's permit appointments in the first three weeks of July.

"They don't want to be in the shadows. They don't want to work under the shadows. They don't want to have to drive without a license," Marcela García, an opinion columnist at the Boston Globe, told Under the Radar. "What I've noticed is that for immigrants, this has been very symbolic, too, because it is giving them a sense of belonging, a sense of inclusion."

That and more on our Latinx News Roundtable.

GUESTS

Julio Ricardo Varela, president of Futuro Media Group, co-host of the “In The Thick” podcast, founder of Latino Rebels, and MSNBC opinion columnist

Marcela García, an opinion columnist and associate editor at the Boston Globe

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Under the Radar Podcast

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A national Latino museum project gets caught in the culture wars