Episodes - In The Americas with David Yetman

202 – In the Shadow of the Volcanoes: Chile’s Melting Pot

Southern Chile is a land of forests, rivers, lakes, and volcanoes. It is also home to Native American and immigrant communities. We visit Mapuche Indians and German and Italian immigrant communities and the vast landscapes they inhabit.

203 – The Rainforest Nisei: Japanese Immigrants in the Amazon

In the early 1920s, a small group of Japanese peasants received a land grant deep in the vast forests of the Amazon. Today their descendents have become prosperous farmers, raising tropical crops and pepper, all the while protecting large tracts of primary tropical forest.

204 – Two Millennia of Mayas: Guatemala’s Cultural Legacy

Archaeologists have only recently begun to restore the important Maya city of Ceibal, situated along the Passion River deep in the Petén forest of Guatemala. We travel to the site with scientists directing the latest excavations and visit the homes of the Maya workers who are restoring the site.

205 – Ice, Rock, and Water: The Sierra Nevada

California’s Sierra Nevada is the largest and highest mountain range in the continental United States and, until recently, a geological puzzle. The source of colossal wealth in the form of gold and, now, water, it was a formidable roadblock to settlement of the state. Wevisit the range with renowned tectonic...

206 – Fiesta in the Yucatán: Maya Traditions

Each year on January 6, pilgrims travel to the ancient Maya city of Tizimín in the Yucatán peninsula to celebrate Epiphany. The festival of the Day of the Kings combines pre-Columbian and modern themes, all of them gilded with the touch of the Mayas.

207 – Panama: A City and a Canal

Panama City has been a pivotal shipping port for hundreds of years-over water and over land. Today it has become an economic powerhouse, the Hong Kong of the Americas, thanks to its booming canal. But the canal cannot function without the services provided by the huge rainforest that envelopes it.

208 – Bahia: Brazil’s African Connection

African-Brazilians provided Brazil with internationally renowned cultural symbols: samba and carnival. The center of African-Brazilian culture is the city of Salvador in the state of Bahia. Its connection to Africa—physical and cultural–helps us to understand the distinct cultural and culinary contributions from this vibrant repository of African influence, and to...

209 – Winter in the Caldera: January in the Yellowstone Hotspot

Yellowstone National Park is our first, and one of the most visited national parks. In winter, access is limited, and visitors and wildlife are challenged by deep snow and fierce cold. The frozen landscape is utterly transformed from summertime, and its explosive potential is even more evident.

210 – Whistles in the Mist: Whistled Speech in Oaxaca

The Chinantecan people of mountainous northern Oaxaca, Mexico, speak by whistling as well as by talking. We visit their isolated community and see for ourselves how they use whistled speech to supplement—and sometimes replace—spoken speech.

301 – ABC Islands: The Dutch legacy in the Caribbean

The last vestiges of the once-mighty Dutch empire live on in the Caribbean in the ABC Islands–Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Islanders speak four languages, one of which is their very own, as they explain. We visit Curaçao, now independent, and wander the streets of Willemstad, its capital city. In its...

302 – Bahian Reconcavo of Brazil: Quilombos, Candomblé, and the Mata Atlântica

Across the All Saints’ Bay from Brazil’s huge city of Salvador in Bahia state, the region known as the Reconcavo supports a distinct culture and heritage. Over the centuries slaves escaped their owners and founded their own towns. They, along with other colonists, shaped the local society and exploited its...

303 – Colombia: Capital and Coffee

Bogotá, Colombia, is the nation’s capital and its social, cultural, and economic center. At 8,600 feet elevation, its air is thin and with eight million residents its air is dirty. To help decrease traffic congestion and air pollution Bogotans have created a dramatically effective mass transit system instituted Cyclovía: each...