Hey there! I’m Nico Raquel [he/him]— multi-media storyteller, musician and writer. El Salvador and so-called Massachusetts are places where I have familial history. I’m a bilingual audio producer, oral history facilitator, and storytelling consultant committed to justice-based and community-building storytelling with an emphasis on recording alongside queer, trans, gender-expansive and Latine communities. I will be starting in the Master of Social Work program at The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice this fall. I am currently looking for freelance audio storytelling, producing, story editing, or non-profit opportunities in the meantime!
Emmett Marsh
Previously, I was the Senior Managing Producer for podcasts created in collaboration with iHeart Media’s My Cultura Podcast Network, including a show I pitched called Date My Abuelita, First! — a dating podcast hosted by Vico Ortiz (Our Flag Means Death) and a real life Abuelita, and Essential Voices— a one-on-one interview podcast highlighting the stories of trans, indigenous, formerly incarcerated, and undocumented essential workers, among others. The podcast culminated in group discussions with pioneering activists like Dolores Huerta and ground-breaking journalists like Maria Hinojosa that provided broader sociopolitical context to the essential workers’ stories.
I volunteer with This Way Out, the longest-running international LGBTQIA2S+ radio program, as well as with the Oregon Queer History Collective.
When the tape stops rolling, catch me sharing pupusas slathered in curtido with loved ones, listening to cassettes on my glitchy boombox, using greasy hands to wrench on rickety old mopeds, cold plunging in the ocean, cooking for friends and neighbors, contributing to mutual aid efforts with BEANS (Bringing Eats Across Neighborhood Streets.)
I was the Senior Producer of The Golden Queers podcast from the Outwords LGBTQ+ Archive, an interview show that elevated the voices of trans elders at the intersection of politics and activism, made possible by a grant from the California State Library’s Oral History Project. I have been a long-time collaborator on storytelling/audio/oral history projects for StoryCorps, where I have recorded over 400 oral histories which are archived in the Library of Congress.
