What Leaders Are Saying

• Bill Rhodes:
  "It will play a unique role in shaping the political and economic debate for years to come.”
  David Rockefeller:
  "This new journal, I believe, will give that community [in the Americas] a strong voice.”
  Eliot Engel:
  “… A key resource for myself and members of the Subcommittee.”
  Richard Feinberg:
  "We can look to Americas Quarterly to provide fresh, compelling ideas...”
  Albert Fishlow:
  “This is a journal that everyone interested in the Americas will want to follow.”
  Arminio Fraga Neto:
  “Americas Quarterly is a wonderful and timely initiative…”
  Jerry Haar:
  “. A journal that tackles timely and relevant hemisphere issues . with clear reasoning, thoughtful analysis and cogent writing.”
  Richard Lapper:
  "...Americas Quarterly can help the search for solutions.”
  Chappell Lawson:
  "Americas Quarterly will be an incubator of new ideas about Latin American political economy... ”
  Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty:
  “… A great asset in improving inter-American understanding, awareness, and dialogue.”
  Guillermo Perry:
  “…A great instrument to debate diverging views and to attempt to bring them closer….”
  Dani Rodrik:
  "This journal promises to provide a fruitful forum for discussion.”
  Riordan Roett:
  "...a frank, independent forum will offer an opportunity to analyze and predict new policy trends...”
  Susan Segal:
  "Americas Quarterly promises an important impact on policy in the region.”

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Frustration Mounts (Spring 2008 Preview)

by Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat*

If the new Cuban government has a remarkable  resemblance to the old, that’s because they are one and the same.No real change has taken place in Cuba. Yet. The same group that accompanied Fidel and Raúl Castro since their days in the Sierra Maestra—all
now senior citizens—remains firmly at the helm of government. They represent the quintessence of the Cuban military-industrial complex. Below them, however, lies an entity often observed but not very well understood: the Cuban people.

Recent polls by Gallup (2006) and the International Republican Institute (2007) indicate that a majority of Cubans are unhappy with their level of personal and economic freedom. Cubans increasingly cry out for greater personal autonomy, and that also includes questioning of the political structure. That unhappiness has largely been expressed in a withdrawal from the political involvement that has been crucial to the government’s ability to keep the population in check. According to the government’s own figures, over 1.4
million Cubans did not participate in the one-party, single-candidate electoral process that culminated with the selection of Raúl Castro as president this year. That’s a noteworthy decline from the 823,171 who absented themselves from the previous “elections” held in 2003. Considering that the Cuban government uses a wide array of persuasive and coercive measures to pressure citizens to participate, it is a highly significant figure.

*Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat teaches Political Theory at Florida International University and is the National Secretary of the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Full article to be available in the Spring 2008 issue. Subscribe.

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Santiago's Children: What I Learned about Life at an Orphanage in Chile (Spring 2008 Preview)

by Steve Reifenberg

Reviewed by Pablo Bachelet*

In Chile’s tumultuous recent history, it is tempting to fast-forward through the 1980s. They seem like a gray and forgettable interlude between two decades marked by dramatic events and iconic figures. During the 1970s, Salvador Allende’s ballot-box-driven socialist revolution
was ended by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who led the country into a period of brutal political repression and economic reforms served up without anesthesia. In the 1990s, an equally dramatic shift thrust into power the soothing centrist Patricio Aylwin. Moderate socialists Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet completed the healing process of a divided nation.

But as Steve Reifenberg demonstrates in Santiago’s Children: What I Learned about Life at an Orphanage in Chile, the 1980s were crucial to the country’s eventual regeneration. He seems an unlikely witness. In his early 20s, Reifenberg knew little about the country when he quit a high school teaching job in Cañon City, Colorado. Much to the chagrin of his parents, he left a comfortable middle-class life in the U.S. in 1982 to spend a year as a volunteer in an orphanage. He found himself in the gritty working-class neighborhood
of La Granja in south Santiago, sleeping in a shed converted into a bedroom. As he struggled with a new language and overcoming cross-cultural obstacles like finding size-12 shoes, Reifenberg began a youthful voyage of self-discovery. It turned into a unique ground-level perspective on a country that was sowing the seeds of its own recovery.

*Pablo Bachelet is the Latin American diplomatic correspondent for The Miami Herald in Washington.

Full review to be available in the Spring 2008 issue. Subscribe.