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
Free College in Chile! So What Are Students So Mad About?
On Tuesday, 80,000 university students in Chile received the good news that they were eligible for tuition-free education as part of a new program enacted by President Michelle Bachelet. The moment should have been a high point for the country’s vocal – and powerful – student movement, which for years has been protesting for better … Read more
AQ Top 5 Corruption Busters: Sérgio Moro
This article is adapted from our 1st print issue of 2016. For an overview of our Top 5 Corruption Busters, click here. “Brazilian of the Year.” “Personality of the Year.” One of Brazil’s “Most Influential People.” Sérgio Moro is a star, and it’s no mystery why. The young Brazilian judge pried the lid off a … Read more
Brazil’s Impeachment: Who Are the Swing Voters in Congress, And What Do They Want?
Proceedings to oust Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff have been underway for a week, and the battle lines are becoming clear. Rousseff appears to have enough support among the 28 parties in Congress to block impeachment over her alleged misuse of public funds. But that could change. Rousseff’s fate will ultimately rest in the hands of several … Read more
Sexual Harassment in Brazil Starts at Age Nine. Here’s What One Group Is Doing About It.
Nine years old. That’s the average age that, according to Brazilian NGO Think Olga, Brazilian females are first subjected to sexual harassment. Think Olga uncovered the startling number as part of a Twitter campaign called #primeiroassedio (#firstharassment), which encourages women to use social media to recount their first experience of sexual assault or harassment. To … Read more
A Scenario Under Which Rousseff Gets Impeached in Brazil
In Brazil a few weeks ago, I asked a former official from Dilma Rousseff’s government whether his old boss would be impeached. “Forgive me for being politically incorrect,” he said, “but only if the poor take to the streets.” Ah, Brazil, where even in moments of high political drama, the class divide reigns supreme. But … Read more
Brazil, Heaven and Hell in the Same Day
Last Thursday began beautifully, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, with a walk through a lush city park. I strolled among bougainvillea and castanha do Pará and samaúma trees. I saw a large red and blue macaw ambling down the sidewalk, and had just sat down to take a selfie with him when the little jerk … Read more
How Former Protesters Are Leading the Next Generation of Chilean Politics
As student leaders in 2011, they mobilized some of the largest protests Chile had ever seen. They frustrated authorities, inspired millions of young people and earned a fair share of international attention. In 2013, before the age of 30, they were elected to Congress in a national election that many considered proof of the Chilean … Read more
A Batalha Pela Amazônia
Nosso barco deslizava calmamente sobre o rio Tapajós, quando, de forma inesperada, a monotonia hipnótica da Amazônia foi quebrada por pequenos corpos saltando na água. Um punhado de crianças da tribo local Munduruku havia se pendurado em árvores ao longo da margem do rio. Ao nos ver chegando, elas pularam na água escura, subiram a … 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
Garbage Is Choking the Amazon’s Biggest City
Maria da Conceição Peixote has lived in a floating house on the Igarapé do Quarenta, one of the two longest waterways in Manaus, for most of her life. “I can’t afford to move,” says the 63-yearold housekeeper. “But it’s hard.” Da Conceição and her husband, Natanel Baima de Oliveira, 60, a produce vendor, are among … 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
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
Turning a Slash-and-Burn Capital into One of the Amazon’s Greenest Places
In 2007, the Brazilian government named the municipality of Paragominas, in Pará state, one of the biggest culprits for deforestation of the Amazon. Ranchers there were responsible for the loss of 156 square miles of forest per year. But just a few years later, Paragominas was being hailed as a model for sustainable development in … Read more
