Conexión Migrante spoke with Craig Whitney, director of La Nota Roja, about the podcast’s examination of femicides in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and how the series situates this violence within broader social, economic, cultural and criminal forces. The article also includes reflections on the border context and how the production team approached the complexity of the phenomenon. (La Nota Roja is released in English as The Red Note.)
The Conexión Migrante article describes Ciudad Juárez in the early 1990s as a place where thousands of women, predominantly young and economically marginalized, began to disappear or be found murdered along the Mexico–United States border. These deaths later became known internationally as part of a crisis of femicides and institutional impunity. La Nota Roja examines this history through oral testimony, archival material, and field reporting across ten episodes, each of which builds on voices from affected families, journalists, investigators and specialists.
In the Conexión Migrante interview, Whitney explains why the podcast examines social and structural dimensions rather than isolated crimes. He says that understanding femicides in Ciudad Juárez requires situating violence within intersecting forces, including gender inequality, criminal activity, corruption and broader economic change. In the article, Whitney states, “This problem is very complicated. To understand it, it is important to understand the connection between machismo, criminal groups, corruption, globalization, arms trafficking, human trafficking… even infrastructure in Ciudad Juárez. All of this is part of the problem.”
The article situates Juárez as a “border space” with overlapping cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic dynamics. Whitney is quoted explaining how his perspective as someone from the United States differs from Mexican experiences of the city’s culture and history of violence. He says that the everyday reality of Juárez is distinct from life in the U.S. and from other parts of Mexico, and that this complexity influenced how the podcast was structured.
Conexión Migrante notes that the podcast integrates voices from families who lived through the disappearance or killing of loved ones, including foundational cases that drew early attention to gender-based violence in the 1990s. These stories are layered with commentary from specialists and local journalists who have spent years tracking patterns of impunity. The series aims to document how femicides have been embedded in the city’s fabric, reflecting not only criminal activity but also systemic social inequities and institutional weakness.
Although the Conexión Migrante article focuses primarily on its conversation with Whitney, it places the podcast within a larger context of efforts to record and preserve the history of femicides in Juárez. It references how, over twenty-five years after the first documented cases, thousands of women and girls have been killed or disappeared in the region, and how these deaths have remained a site of activism, memory and public debate.
La Nota Roja utilizes oral history as a method to foreground the voices of those most affected by violence and marginalization, while also weaving in commentary from journalists and investigators who have worked locally and internationally on femicide and gender-based violence. By structuring the podcast around testimony and expert insight, the series contextualizes individual tragedies within patterns of economic restructuring, criminal networks, and social inequality that have shaped life along the border.
The Conexión Migrante article reflects that the podcast not only recounts individual cases but also frames these events as part of a broader social history. It situates the narrative in the economic changes that have shaped Ciudad Juárez over decades, including maquiladora growth and increased transnational economic activity, and it suggests that understanding femicides requires attention to how these forces intersect with law enforcement, governance and cultural norms.
Released in both Spanish and English, La Nota Roja is available on major platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Its use of narrative reporting and oral testimony aims to preserve a historical record of gender-based violence and to provoke discussion about accountability, justice and memory in a city long associated with femicides.