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Security Challenges Threaten Elections In Guerrero, Mexico
In late 2014 and early 2015, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI) faced violent protests and demands for his resignation after the disappearance of 43 student teachers in the town of Iguala in Mexico’s southwestern Guerrero state. The turbulence led some academics, such as John Ackerman, to hastily predict the … Read more
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AQ Interview: Robert Muse on U.S. Ferry Service to Cuba
The last ferry between Cuba and the United States left Havana for Key West at 3pm on October 31, 1960. Operated by the West India Fruit and Steamship Company of West Palm Beach, the SS Havana City was just one of many commercial ferries bringing American travelers (and their cars) to Cuba. The U.S. trade … Read more
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AQ Video: Entrevista con el Sr. Alcalde Pedro Edmunds Paoa
Americas Quarterly conversó con el Alcalde Pedro Pablo Petero Edmunds Paoa, el alcalde de la Isla de Pascua, conocido como Rapa Nui en el idioma nativo, durante su visita a Nueva York en diciembre del año 2014. De origen rapanui, Edmunds Paoa ha desarrollado su carrera política en la Isla de Pascua, donde ha llevado … Read more
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Undocumented in the Ivy League
Sitting in one of New Haven’s trendy coffee shops, Yale freshman Alejandro Sánchez has exciting news. Along with some of his classmates, he was conditionally accepted into a prestigious summer program to study economics abroad. But unlike his friends, it isn’t guaranteed that he can ever come back. Alejandro is an undocumented immigrant, one of an estimated … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: Central American Migrants Protest in Mexico
On April 18, as the sun rose high into the sky, a group of several dozen Central American migrants marched along with the Viacrucis Migrante (Migrant Stations of the Cross) towards the Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. The group, led by migrant outreach activist Padre Alejandro Solalinde, sought to draw attention to the problems … Read more
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A New Era for U.S.-Cuba Relations, with an Old Ideological Divide
Before it even began, the 7th triennial Summit of the Americas was considered a success by many, based simply on the invitation list. Cuba, attending for the first time, did not disappoint as the star of the show. On day one of the Summit, Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama gave us the historic handshake … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: Mexicans Protest On Ayotzinapa Anniversary
On March 26, several hundred protesters gathered around the Angel of Independence in Mexico City to mark the six-month anniversary of the disappearance and apparent massacre of 43 students in the town of Iguala in Guerrero state. Diego Martínez, a skinny 24-year-old medical student standing at the top of the stairs of the monument explained, … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: El Bote at Cambalache: Life at a Landfill
“El Bote” is a fitting name for a large, now-defunct landfill in the community of Cambalache, along the Orinoco River in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. The Indigenous people known as the Warao rely on El Bote—often translated as “the can” or “throw away”—for their livelihood. The Warao once lived far up the Amazon River, but years … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: Climbing Aconcagua, the Summit of the Americas
Mila Marlina is the unlikeliest of mountaineers. At 4’9” and 82 pounds, she is about the size of a large backpack. The 42-year-old is from coastal Indonesia, where the climate is tropical and the culture doesn’t encourage a wife and mother to disappear for weeks into the mountains. Yet this season, Marlina was one of … Read more
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AQ Video: Entrevista con Sergio Dahbar
Americas Quarterly habló con el periodista venezolano-argentino Sergio Dahbar durante su visita a Nueva York sobre el estado de la libertad de expresión en Venezuela. Nacido en Argentina, Dahbar trabajó en el diario venezolano El Nacional durante 20 años, donde sigue siendo columnista. Es además fundador de la revista El Librero y de los sellos editoriales … Read more
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Incumbents Aren’t Latin America’s Problem
It’s been an exceptionally good year for incumbents in Latin America. Since June, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff each won their respective presidential contests. Rousseff’s late October re-election will give her center-left Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) a fourth consecutive term in office. As it turns out, it’s been an exceptionally … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: The People’s Climate March in New York City
Photos courtesy of David Mark Erickson and Daniel Edelman. Homepage photo by David Mark Erickson. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of New York City on Sunday to demand that world leaders take concrete steps to address climate change and its consequences. Just two days before government, business, and civil society leaders met … Read more
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AQ Video: An Interview with Lilian Tintori
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López was just one of several political leaders—including current Mayors Daniel Ceballos of San Cristóbal and Enzo Scarano of San Diego—arrested after a wave of peaceful student protests that began in Venezuela on February 12, 2014. The protests soon turned deadly as demonstrators flooded the streets to protest high inflation, rising … Read more
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Beyond the Blame Game: Visualizing the Complexity of the Border Crisis
Much has been written and discussed in the last month about the causes of the migration of thousands of undocumented minors and women with young children from Central America’s Northern Triangle region (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) to the United States.[1] The debate has ranged from analyzing the so-called “pull factors” in the U.S. to … Read more
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Trailblazers: First-Generation College Students Tell Their Stories
In honor of Americas Quarterly‘s launch of its Summer 2014 issue on higher education and competitiveness, we asked first-generation college graduates from around the hemisphere to describe how they defied the odds to get their college degrees. The six former students featured below—the first in their families to graduate from college—have since gone on to … Read more
