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Inequality
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Recent Articles
Oppression Disguised as Aid: The Colonial Legacy Behind Haiti’s Struggling Healthcare System
In rural communities in the United States, it takes an average of 34 minutes to reach the nearest hospital. In rural Haiti, the average is two hours. Infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and HIV/AIDS go untreated due to the lack of basic healthcare infrastructure and the violence disrupting the provision of health services.
Inside Peru’s Lurigancho Prison
Lurigancho Prison in Lima, Peru, is the largest and most overcrowded prison in the country. With a prison overpopulation and overcrowding of 9,735 inmates (August 2024 Statistical Report from the National Penitentiary Institute, INPE), despite having an actual capacity for only 3,204, and with a ratio of more than 100 inmates per security officer (compared to six inmates per officer in the United States, it stands as a grim giant.
A Review of The Lettered Indian: Race, Nation, and Indigenous Education in Twentieth-Century Bolivia
Brooke Larson’s book on the history Indigenous education in Bolivia is a masterpiece. It is deeply researched, beautifully written, a pleasure to read and a gift to historians of Bolivia, education, Indigenous movements and so much more.
From Our Current Issue
Weaving Memory through Fashion: The Magical Genesis of Equihua
Growing up in California, I spent so much time gazing at the sky, often losing myself in its vastness.
Unsubmissive Images
Hemetério José dos Santos (1858-1939), a Black grammarian and teacher at Rio de Janeiro's most important schools suffered racist attacks in the press because of the way he dressed.
Transnational Fashion on the Frontier: Migration and Modernities in the Brazilian Amazon
When you think of fashion, you might not think of politics.
Spotlight
Perspectives in Times of Change
Check out these reflections on social, economic, cultural and political transformations in Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinx communities in the United States.
Community-based Healing in Latin America
Growing up in Latin America can be quite tough, especially when it comes to mental health
Tearing Down the Walls of Education: The Maya Struggle against Colonialism
Students at the Chan Santa Cruz program in Mexico are getting their degrees in Bilingual Education (Maya/Spanish) and Historical and Cultural Heritage in Mexico.
Remembering Pope Francis
The world has lost one of the most charismatic pontiffs of the last century with the passing of Pope Francis, the first Latin American prelate of the church’s 1.3 billion Catholics. Francis was a reformer who made himself available to the faithful, and traveled to 66 countries, including eleven in Latin America.
StudEnt Views
“Yoltajtol. A Word from the Heart”: The Nahuatl Worldview Comes to Harvard
On February 28th, the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project held the inaugural Nahuatl Workshop “Yoltajtol, A Word from the Heart.” The workshop had the twofold goal of offering an introduction to the Nahuatl language and showing to the participants that Nahuatl is a constitutive part of present-day indigenous peoples’ worldview.
CPR Ambassador Journey
English + Español
One of the simplest yet most effective ways of saving a life in the case of sudden cardiac arrest is cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It’s an accessible procedure to be trained on, as almost anyone of any age can learn it. Knowing this, and that performing CPR right after cardiac arrest increases survival chances two to three times, why hasn’t everyone been trained on CPR at some point in their lives? (American Heart Association).
Decriminalizing ‘Colonial’ Laws in the Anglophone Caribbean – ‘Buggery’
The moment I stepped foot back on the island, I was no longer the 14-year-old boy who once proudly wore his school uniform to Wolmer’s Boys High School—the oldest school in the Caribbean—and to Maranatha Gospel Hall, my local church. I had become something else entirely in the eyes of the state: a criminal. An illegal presence.
Book ReviewS
A Review of Immigration, Policy, and the People of Latin America: Seven Sending Nations
No one truly wants to leave their homeland.
That’s a saying I’ve heard countless times in two decades of reporting on immigrants and immigration policy in the United States for the Boston Globe and other newspapers. It’s almost conventional wisdom by now — a quiet, often-ignored truth that sits beneath the headlines and political slogans.
A Review of Afrocentroamérica: Entre memoria y olvido
In graduate school at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, I knew that I wanted to work on Central America, on U.S. involvement there, and on social or labor history. What I knew about Central America came from the news, from the Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees whom I worked with as a volunteer with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, and from local solidarity events, visiting speakers and documentaries.
A Review of The Amazon in Times of War
Marcos Colón’s book The Amazon in Times of War offers a compelling collection of essays exposing the physical, economic and institutional violence that devastates the Amazon. He argues that much of this destruction stems from deliberate state policies enacted under former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023). Colón not only documents the struggles of Indigenous and other traditional communities but also critiques the role of profit-driven industries such as logging, mining and cattle ranching in the ongoing exploitation of the Amazon and its peoples.
DRCLAS Podcast: Faculty Voices
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