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Get to know our story producer, Louise Van Assche! You can find Louise on Instagram at @whereareyoureallyfrom.
This interview was originally aired on Austin Signal in November 2025.
Special thanks to Jerry Quijano and Kristen Cabrera of the Austin Signal for having us on the show!
From the Austin Signal on KUT 90.5, : Tacos of Texas podcast is nearing the completion of its fifth season – “El Cinco.” The team behind the podcast join us to talk about the work that’s gone into this season and their upcoming Taco Party.
Austin Signal and Tacos of Texas is made possible by listeners like you. You can support our work by making a donation at supportthispodcast.org
The full transcript of this episode of Tacos of Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Mando Rayo [00:00:00] Hey, this is Mando Rayo from the Tacos of Texas. We’re busy cooking up season 6, but in the meantime, here’s a segment from my interview on the Texas Standard and Austin Signal. You can hear me every month talking about tacos and taco culture and get ready for a 6, premiering on August, 2026. The Tacos Of Texas is produced by Identity Productions in partnership with KUT and KUTX Studios. Listen on KUT.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:44] This is Austin Signal, welcome back, thanks for spending part of your Thursday here with us. The Tacos of Texas podcast is nearing completion of its fifth season, El Cinco, and joining us now is Mando Rayo, host of the show, as well as Luis Van Assa, producer of Tacos Of Texas. Mando, Luis, thank you for being with us, how are y’all doing today?
Mando Rayo [00:01:03] Awesome work.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:04] We’re great.
Mando Rayo [00:01:04] You know, I mean, this is like my second home now. It is.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:07] It is really, you know, you were working out in a little corner, you know, doing your work in between appearances on Austin Signal and Texas Standard today. So I really appreciate you hanging around. I want to ask as we’re nearing the completion of season five, but just about your thoughts about the season, what has it been like making this this season of the show?
Mando Rayo [00:01:24] Well, you know, I thought you know this season it was crazy because yes, we were leading up to season five And um, you, know we dug into the stories a little bit more A little bit like more of the hook of tacos starting, you Know as as the trojan horse, I guess, you Know as we always say pero, you Know we went we definitely went deep, you Know, especially in this political climate, right?
Jerry Quijano [00:01:47] Yes, yes. We wanted to talk about that for sure because your stories always range. Sometimes you start at middle schools with salsa clubs and then you go, you have these really tough conversations. It really runs the gamut. It’s not just about tacos. It’s like you said, it’s a starting point in a jumping off conversation.
Mando Rayo [00:02:02] But you know, you know you can’t have just like a good tortilla. You can’t a good taco with a good. You need a really good story producer.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:10] That’s right. So Louise, what is it like? You like that setup? I was just about to say, what a setup there for you, Louise. So what is like working with this guy? For the listener at home, Mando is waving his cell phone around, getting video of everything. So I’m guessing it’s a pretty lax environment working with him now the phone is pointing at me. What is it working with? Them.
Louisa Van Assche [00:02:30] Well, this is this is my second year as a story producer and my second year of working with Mando and it’s actually really fun. Yeah, the atmosphere is also is always pretty good. We banter a lot and but but it’s fun in a fun way.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:45] Yeah, and I think that comes across through the the topics that you cover in your in your stories Like I said, sometimes they’re very heavy. Sometimes they’re a little bit lighter I wanted to talk about a recent episode that you did with a community archivist. Uh, alan garcia He is behind the atx body archive account. Uh you spent a little Bit of time with him. Uh what did you learn? You spent a lot of time on the scene here What did you learned from him?
Mando Rayo [00:03:09] Yeah, no, I think, you know, part of the process is understanding kind of, you know, Austin is such a hotbed of great food, right? Um, but digging into the layers and going into the history of it, a lot of people don’t know that history, right. And so how did we get here? Right. And so for me, it was about, uh, acknowledging the history of, of Mexicanos and, and restaurant owners and business owners. That have been here since day one, to be honest, right? And so for me, it was kind of this idea around understanding kind of where we’ve been and how did, you know, when were the first, you know the first community of Mexicans that were initially in West downtown in Republic Square Park, right. And then after the 1928 master plan, when people were displaced and you know now known as the East side and what happened then? And then what, you know. What were the ramifications of displacing people, but also like what are some of the businesses that started to thrive, you know, in the 40s and 50s and 60s, and that the timeline continues, right? And it’s like this resurgence of, or this kind of like explosion of the food trailers and trucks. And for me, it was about also, cause like I was here, I was hear for that, right, in the 90s. And there’s a whole idea around like, you know, the city was trying to shut down taco trucks because of, you now, just the stereotypes that are out there about like, well, are taco trucks clean and safe?
Jerry Quijano [00:04:44] Yeah, that can be associated with those kinds of restaurants exactly
Mando Rayo [00:04:48] And so for me, uh, I wanted to dig into some of that, some of those layers of like, well, all of a sudden, you know, you have like these white truck owners and trailers and, and, uh and the city was okay with that, you know what I mean?
Jerry Quijano [00:05:02] It can change really quickly. Yeah.
Mando Rayo [00:05:03] Yeah. And so for me, it was like when I talked to Alan and he’s with the ATX Barrio Archive, he’s like, you know, this breadth of history and information and knowledge and recognition to those families that have been here, the Mexicanos that have been here and you know and he is trying to save some of those stories.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:25] And Louise, I just wanna bring you in here. Are you from Austin, Texas?
Louisa Van Assche [00:05:29] No, no, no. I’m from Belgium. You’re from Belgium
Jerry Quijano [00:05:30] You’re from Belgium, so how do you work to, you know, taking these stories that are really localized and really connected to certain communities as a producer of a show, like, how do work to build out those stories, to have a broader appeal to an audience who maybe is not familiar with those kinds of stories?
Louisa Van Assche [00:05:48] Well, so I have a documentary background and so storytelling is one of my all time favorite things to do. And I think, like, you know, like what Mando just said, that tacos is a great way to pull people in. And I, think, you, know, when I came here, I didn’t I never even had a taco.
Mando Rayo [00:06:08] It’s okay, we didn’t hold that against her. Yeah, that’s right.
Louisa Van Assche [00:06:10] So now I’m here working as a story producer, right? So I think my job is to kind of, or one of my tasks is to make sure that this is not only stories for people who love tacos, but like to find the story, like the unique stories behind every, so what I do is I just do a bunch of research, we do like pre-interviews, I discuss it with Mando, we like outline some stuff, we discuss it some more and then yeah, then we dig into it.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:36] Yeah, does that make for good discovery for somebody who is like really deeply in the taco game and then somebody who doesn’t really know? You know, sometimes I think in journalism we can assume that people have a certain level of knowledge, right? But how does that work, the connection between you two, to kind of take a lack of knowledge and an abundance of knowledge and make it accessible for the listener?
Louisa Van Assche [00:06:57] That’s a good question, because I know that I have a lot of questions that Amanda is like, I mean, what the heck, how do you not know this? But yeah, how do we work around that? I don’t know. We just discuss it.
Mando Rayo [00:07:11] Yeah, so we’re very collaborative, you know? And so for me, it’s really good to have somebody that’s, in a sense, not an insider, you know? And so because what Luis does is ask, like, really good questions and the hard questions for us to understand, like OK, you, know, those of us that are embedded in this taco world and culture, like how can we look outside of that? And what are the connecting points to the stories? So, you know, like tacos, I mean, there’s lots of tacos, you know in every city in Texas and what have you and the stories as well, but what makes them stand out? What makes them unique? And really kind of that’s at the core. You know, I’ll come up with like, maybe a big idea. We do have like a feedback session. We do, Dennis Burnett, obviously, the podcast is through our production company, Identity Productions. So Dennis and. And Nick and Elizabeth here at KUT and Tina, we kind of come together and do a brainstorm because I’m like, oh, I really, I’m interested in this topic. What do you all think and how do we do that? So it’s kind of this big idea topic. And then, Louise kind of digs into that and is like, okay, is it, how unique is it? Have we told this story in a different way already? And if so, then what’s a direction for that?
Jerry Quijano [00:08:39] Well, one thing I wanted to note about this season, you had an episode called Uncertain Times, Dreamers, MAGA Latinos, and Taco Politics, and you talked to somebody, you know, you talked a little bit about the division or about these communities that sometimes you can be feel like an insider versus an outsider. Why was it so important to you to get a different perspective? You had the fifth season of your show, you could have done literally any other story, right? But you wanted to have somebody. Who is an opposite voice, I’m assuming, getting to hear from it. What were the reasons that you wanted to expand and interview that man?
Mando Rayo [00:09:10] Yeah, no, you know, so we interviewed Daniel Estrada who identifies as a maga latino. And so for me, it’s been a long time for me because it’s always been kind of like this conversation that I’ve wanted to have to try to understand it, right? And ultimately, ask the question, how do you feel when an immigrant makes your food when you want immigrants out of this And so I was trying to understand that and and and kind of dig deep into that and and you know go outside of you know outside of my comfort zone for sure so it was and it was i don’t know if you can you know if you listen to it i don’t t know if he can tell but you know usually i’m pretty confident but i was i was pretty uh nervous about it but yeah what do you think uh
Louisa Van Assche [00:09:59] We kind of like we kind of had a discussion about should we do this episode or not? And in my opinion, you know, you know, in my background, I felt like we cannot not talk about this because this is really going on right now. And then Mando had also told me about his personal story, which like touched me a lot. And I kind of, like, pushed him to tell his personal story because not a lot of people know this about you. Right.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:19] Yeah, yeah.
Louisa Van Assche [00:10:19] And I know Amanda was a little bit uncomfortable about that, but I’m actually very proud of this episode.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:24] Yeah, it’s a really great episode. Lots of great episodes on this season five, El Cinco. You can find more information at KUT, KUTX Studios. So we are not quite nearing the completion, but we are coming up on it and to mark the season, the end of the season. You always throw a big pachanga, big party. Season five, how are we wrapping that up in style?
Mando Rayo [00:10:46] Yeah. You know, we’re going to have a rap party over here in Austin, Texas, obviously, at Paprika ATX. They have a new brick and mortar traditional style taqueria. It’s going to be great. We’re going actually have a live podcast session there. And yeah, so it’s going be on Sunday, November 16th. From 4 to 7 p.m. Up at Paprika. First 100 tacos free. And yeah, you’ll get to meet us and listen to our interview and we’ll have some great vibes in music too.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:21] Yeah, it’s gonna be a great party. First 100 tacos are free, but don’t let that stop you from going because these parties are always a great community event and a great time to spend a little bit of time. We’re always trying to build community. We talked about that earlier with the KUT Festival and everything we do here is community-powered public radio, so make it on out. Next Sunday, we have been talking with Luis Van Asa and Mando Rayo, the team behind the Tacos of Texas podcast. You’re great at name pronunciation, by the way. Well, you know, I practice. And I think maybe that’s why they gave me the job, because I can nail at least the pronunciations. I don’t always do it like we were saying. Live radio is kind of messy, but you all made it look beautiful. So thank you for your time today. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you so much. And thank you out there for tuning in to Austin Signal. We are listener-powered public radio. We are live on the radio every weekday at 1 p.m. And yeah, we are a podcast too, so please subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And there’s more information at kut.org slash signal. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. Reyna Sevilla is our technical director. And I’m your Austin Signal host, Jerry Quijano. Thank you for always making us part of your day. Take it easy out there. Have a good one.
Mando Rayo [00:12:42] You can find Tacos of Texas on KUT.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
