Generations of US leftists have looked to Latin America for inspiration and to express solidarity, from the Mexican Revolution to Salvador Allende’s socialist project to the pink tides of recent years. Continuing this tradition, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and a group of left elected officials recently traveled to Colombia, Brazil, and Chile to meet with some of their counterparts in Latin America.

On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 US-backed coup against Allende, Ocasio-Cortez spoke with Daniel Denvir on Jacobin Radio’s The Dig podcast. In a wide-ranging conversation, they talked about building solidarity across the Americas, the delegation’s (successful) push for declassification of documents related to the Chilean coup, the devastating toll of US intervention in the region, what’s driving migration from Venezuela, and one Brazilian movement’s “awe-inspiring” melding of committed radicalism and hard-headed pragmatism. “The absolute rejection of cynicism,” Ocasio-Cortez says, “was astounding.”

You can listen to the full conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity and condensed, here.