Ep. 162 - Subversive Cartography

The Commonweal Podcast · Jun 2, 2026 · 51m

For as long as humans have been able to write, they’ve made maps.

Sometimes maps show paths to the sacred. More often, they depict borders and boundaries, becoming tools of exclusion and control.

Not so for Sandy Rodriguez, a third-generation Chicana artist based in Los Angeles.

Her work, made with traditional indigenous paper and pigments, offers a pointed alternative to the map of the United States of America as we know it.

On this episode, Rodriguez speaks with Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan and Griffin Oleynick.

She shows how the land—la tierra insurgente—can rise up and resist the…