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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
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Hedgefund Education
In both the U.S. and Latin America, the forces of technology and entrepreneurship are on the cusp of fundamentally reshaping the higher education sector. Increased demand and the changing nature of the labor market have led to new players and new models entering the higher ed market. The combination of sustained economic growth, a region-wide … Read more
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How Guatemala Is Tackling Its Social Issues
One year ago, Americas Quarterly’s 2013 Social Inclusion Index gave Guatemala the lowest total score of all countries evaluated, with a total of 14.8 points out of a possible 100. The index ranked 16 countries, including the United States and 15 countries from Latin America. The comments in the evaluation for Guatemala indicated that “Poverty … Read more
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Argentina’s Economy and the 2015 Presidential Elections
There’s more than a year to go until Argentina’s October 2015 presidential elections, but campaign season unofficially kicked off last October when the headquarters of National Deputy Sergio Massa (Frente Renovador, or Renewing Front party) and current Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri (Propuesta Republicana, or Republican Proposal party—PRO) erupted in joy upon hearing the results … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: Colombia Preserves San Andrés and Old Providence Archipelago’s Seaflower Marine Protected Area
April 25, 2014 marked the completion of a very successful scientific endeavor undertaken by more than 20 Colombian institutions committed to broadening the knowledge of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve and Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the San Andrés, Old Providence and Santa Catalina Archipelago, in the western Caribbean. View a slideshow of the Seaflower Biosphere … Read more
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AQ Slideshow: The Least Colombian Department in Colombia
The Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina is a Colombian department located 137 miles (220 km) east of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, and 482 miles (775 km) away from mainland Colombia. Even though the archipelago is closer to Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama and shares cultural similarities with other Caribbean islands, the Colombian … Read more
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In Aftermath of Venezuela’s Protests, Whither Chavismo?
The wave of social unrest that hit several cities in Venezuela in February and March is nothing new for a country that has been deeply polarized politically since Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1998. What is different this time is that Chávez—who died of cancer in March 2013—is no longer around, and the protests … Read more
