Easter Island’s Tapati Rapa Nui
Most visitors to Easter Island are lured by the Moai — the mysterious stone heads scattered around this remote speck in the southeastern Pacific. But for two weeks every February, the monoliths take second billing to a festival honoring the culture of those who erected them. Easter Islanders, many of whom can trace their ancestry … Read more
Health Education in the Amazon? Go to the Movies
In a scene from Parente, a documentary short about sexually transmitted diseases in the Amazon, indigenous Yanomami woman giggle during a sex education class as they pass around and examine an unwrapped condom. For all the sensitivities and complexity behind the foreignness with which they approach the idea of safe sex, the portrait of the … Read more
Rediscovering the Chile – California Connection
Paperback, 336 pages Californians are breezily indifferent to their own history. The narrative of the future, not the past, fuels the state’s fixation with the ephemeral — with youth, beauty, fortune, fame. California is thus a place where origins are lost or discarded, and often reinvented. It’s no coincidence that we know screen actors by … Read more
The Perverse Justice of São Paulo’s Slums
Paperback, 192 pages Graham Denyer Willis doesn’t go as far as calling Brazil a failed state in his book The Killing Consensus, but anyone looking to support such a claim would find plenty of evidence in this examination of a São Paulo crime syndicate and the underpaid and often corrupt homicide investigation unit tasked with … Read more
A Colombian Recipe for Peace and Reconciliation
This article is adapted from the Fall 2015 print edition of Americas Quarterly. To subscribe, please click here Elcielo, in Medellín, stands out for more than the quality of its food. One of Latin America’s top 50 restaurants, it has also become a symbol of Colombia’s efforts to return to normalcy after more than five … Read more
10 Things to Do in Quito, Ecuador
Ecuador has embarked on a strategic campaign to draw international visitors, spending a record $60 million on tourism in 2014. Rising from the remains of the Inca empire, with a newly opened airport and a subway in the works, Ecuador’s capital blends colonial history, Andean culture and contemporary infrastructure. 1. Go colonial Quito’s historic center, … Read more
Corona Capital
Eighty thousand people trudging around a rain-lashed muddy field may sound like a scene from a bleak World War I docudrama, but it’s actually a pretty fair description of last year’s Corona Capital music festival in Mexico City. The perseverance of the fans in the face of a meteorological wet blanket says something about the … Read more
Film Review: Dólares de Arena
This article is adapted from the Fall 2015 print edition of Americas Quarterly. To subscribe, please click here “I like your body, did you know?” Anne tells Noelí as they lie in bed with the sun shining through the windows. “How much does it cost?” The scene occurs toward the beginning of Sand Dollars, a … Read more
The Food World’s Hottest Ingredient Has “Roots” in Seduction
This article is adapted from the Fall 2015 print edition of Americas Quarterly. To subscribe, please click here What began as an aromatic oil used by indigenous tribes in the art of seduction has quickly become one of the Brazilian Amazon’s most popular exports. At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the priprioca, a grass-like … Read more
Books
A train through the Amazon, what could possibly go wrong? Plus: the perverse justice of São Paulo’s slums; the disappearing Chile – California connection.
A Train through the Amazon…What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
This article is adapted from the Fall 2015 print edition of Americas Quarterly. To subscribe, please click here Mad Maria, by the Brazilian author Márcio Souza, is not a new book. But 35 years after its publication, this historical novel about building a railway through the Amazon feels more relevant than ever. Brazil, Peru and … Read more
Festival: Tango Buenos Aires Festival y Mundial
Tango is loved the world over, but if you’re looking for a city to host a competition for the world’s greatest dancers, there’s really only one candidate: Buenos Aires. Every August, Argentina’s capital draws thousands of dancers, musicians and enthusiasts from around the world for the Tango Buenos Aires Festival y Mundial from August 17 … Read more
Film Review: Vestido de Novia
One warm Havana afternoon, Rosa Elena checks up on a transgender friend, Sissy, who is suffering from the complications of a black-market breast augmentation. Rosa’s husband, Ernesto, expresses his disapproval of Sissy, and she pleads with him to understand and sympathize with transgender people—a plea that is secretly for her as well. Later, Ernesto will … Read more
10 Things to Do: Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Walk in Columbus’ footsteps. Just outside the present-day port, Christopher Columbus founded La Isabela, one of the earliest European settlements in the Americas, in 1494. Visitors can see the ruins of the explorer’s first house and a reconstruction of El Templo de las Américas, where the first recorded Catholic mass in the New World was … Read more
Is Brazil’s World Cup Next on the List?
The U.S. Justice Department accused more than a dozen people this week of being involved in a massive FIFA corruption scandal that spanned more than two decades. Several high-level officials were arrested in a luxury Zurich hotel Wednesday, including former Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Football Confederation—CBF) President José Maria Marin. “Our investigation revealed that … Read more
