Launched in 1947 by the Colombian government, Radio Sutatenza was a publicly broadcast radio school that educated farmers and peasants living in the outer, undriveable mountainous regions of the capital city, Bogota. (Perhaps fearing a political peasant rebellion), the cultural arm of the Colombian government hoped Radio Sutatenza (la “escuela radiophonica”) could teach peasants how to read and write Spanish by organizing literary listening groups and informal schools. Radio Sutatenza taught peasants how to “vivir mejor”-- or, have a better life -- and, over the next 40 years, Radio Sutatenza broadcast hundreds of shows on literacy, hygiene, western medicine, gender roles, family planning and others to the masses at the edges of “civilization.” Used as a tool for nation building, Radio Sutatenza was considered a great success for transitioning Colombia and its people into the modern era.

Jenni(f)fer Tamayo's work VIVIR MEJOR- a brief, poetic history of Radio Sutatenza is a lyric radio poem that satires and critiques the colonial project that undergirds the central mission of Radio Sutatenza. Interspersed throughout the broadcast are lyric reflections that depict Tamayo's family’s personal connections to the radio show. How might have Radio Sutatenza and its mission to “vivir mejor” influenced their family’s choice to emigrate from Colombia in the early 1980s? What does it really mean to “have a better life” under settler colonialism and capitalism? And, how has the broadcast and its aim to “civilize” continued to haunt the artist and other Colombian migrants?

Jenni(f)fer Tamayo is a poet, performer and visual artist whose works reimagine the narratives about and politics of undocumented figures in the contemporary U.S. In their books, performances, and digital media, the “illegal” immigrant is recast as a punk figure that queers the norms of personhood and citizenship. They are the author of the hybrid poetry collections [Red Missed Aches, Read Mistakes] (Switchback Books), YOU DA ONE (Noemi Books), to kill the future in the present (Green Lantern Press) and their most recent collection, bruise/bruise/break, explores the enduring colonial legacies of American poetics, migrant futurity, the power of creative kinship. Their writing is widely published and has been anthologized in Best American Experimental Poetry, New Latin@ Writing, and HarperCollins. They were born on Muisca territory (Bogota, Colombia) and are currently building a home/skool on the unceded lands of the Yesah Confederacy (Piedmont region of North Carolina).