Keeping the Past Alive: ReCurrent Season Two Explores How Culture Builds Belonging Across Time

Back for a second season, ReCurrent, explores how culture unites, strengthens, and creates space for community.

In Season two of ReCurrent: Stories about What We Gain by Keeping the Past Present, host Jaime Roque explores how culture builds community—how a camera passed from mentor to student, a long-lost record, or a familiar icon screen printed onto a jersey can bind people across time.

In each episode, Jaime delves into the collaborations, memories, and reimagining’s that shape who we are. He shows how something as simple as a photograph, a song, or a familiar icon can unlock a world of connection and meaning. Join Jaime as he uncovers the profound impact of keeping the past alive in the present—and discover what it opens for our future.

“Made in the wild—in the streets, archives, and neighborhoods where Getty stories are also found—ReCurrent shows how cultural heritage keeps us close while making room for who we’re becoming,” says host, Jaime Roque.

Check out the trailer and listen to ReCurrent on the Getty website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episodes will be released weekly and include:

Episode 1: The Virgin Mary in the Americas

When Alma López’s digital Our Lady reimagined the Virgin of Guadalupe, it reignited an old question: who owns the sacred icon: church, artists, or the people who carry her? From Tepeyac to L.A. murals, this episode traces how faith, art, and identity keep Guadalupe alive in roses, spray paint, and pixels.

Episode 2: The Photography of George Rodriguez

Photographer George Rodríguez moved between two L.A.s—red carpets by day, the Chicano movement by night. From Hollywood sets to East L.A. protests, his lens captured both glamour and struggle. This episode explores how his archive, now at the Getty, keeps a people’s history in focus.

Episode 3: Las Fotos, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Intergenerational Mentorship

An all-female Las Fotos Project cohort learns to slow down with María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s Behold. Through touch, memory, and mentorship, the students turn photography into dialogue—and bring their stories home to Boyle Heights, where meaning matters more than momentum.

Episode 4: Thelonious Monk’s East Palo Alto Performance

In 1968, a teenager booked Thelonious Monk for a high school concert that nearly didn’t happen. Half a century later, the lost Palo Alto recording resurfaces—proof that sometimes history’s biggest sounds come from the smallest stages.

Episode 5: The Search for Dootone Records

Before Motown, there was Dootone—the Black-owned L.A. label behind “Earth Angel” and Redd Foxx’s comedy records. This episode traces Dootsie Williams’s rise, the label’s fall, and the lasting mark it left on American music and Black entrepreneurship in mid-century Los Angeles.

Episode 6: Central American Art, Archives, and the Sanctuary Movement

In 1980s Los Angeles, Central American activists turned art into both weapon and refuge. Writer-musician Rubén Martínez and artist Jackie Amezquita reflect on that legacy—how protest became memory, and how today’s archives keep a culture’s sanctuary alive.

If you’re new to ReCurrent, check out Season One to discover the origins of the series—where host Jaime Roque first began uncovering the ways people and places carry history forward. Then dive into Season Two for fresh stories, new voices, and even deeper reflections on what we keep, share, and reimagine.