Politics, Business & Culture in the Americas
Andres

AQ Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs: Andrés Moreno

This article is adapted from our AQ Top 5 feature on young Latin American entrepreneurs. To see the rest of our list, click here. Leer en español It’s almost misleading to call Open English a Latin American startup. The initial funding that turned it into one of the most widely used online language-learning services in … Read more

Moises Kaufman

Cómo un director de teatro venezolano conquistó Broadway

Read in English Una tarde de septiembre pasado, sentado en un taxi en los alrededores del centro de Manhattan, Moisés Kaufman recibió una llamada en la que le avisaban que había sido seleccionado para recibir la Medalla Nacional de las Artes, la máxima distinción artística de los Estados Unidos. “Lo primero que dije fue: ‘¿estás … Read more

Kaufman

How a Venezuelan Playwright Conquered Broadway

Leer en español One evening in September, while sitting in a cab in midtown Manhattan, Moisés Kaufman got a phone call telling him he’d been selected to receive the National Medal of Arts, the U.S.’ government’s highest artistic honor. “The first thing I said was ‘Are you sure you got the right number?’” Kaufman told AQ … Read more

morales

The Senator Behind Colombia’s Gay Adoption Fight

With negotiators hurriedly trying to salvage Colombia’s rejected peace deal, one legislator is stirring up conflict of a different sort. For more than a year, Viviane Morales has been pushing a bill that, if passed by Congress and approved in a referendum, would prevent anyone not in a heterosexual marriage from adopting children. Not surprisingly, … Read more

VZ

Los Venezolanos y la pregunta del millón: ¿Qué va a pasar?

Read in English Incertidumbre, temor, esperanza. Betsimar, una caraqueña de 55 años, viene de manifestar contra el gobierno en la multitudinaria concentración que se celebró este miércoles en la ciudad, la llamada “Toma de Venezuela.” Mientras camina de vuelta a su casa recapitula: “Volvimos a las calles y allí vamos a seguir.” En menos de … Read more

VZ

Venezuela’s Million Dollar Question: What Now?

Leer en español At each new turn, Venezuela’s political crisis appears headed for climax. But amid political maneuvering and demonstrations by both the government of President Nicolás Maduro and his opposition, the mood on the ground in Caracas remains one of uncertainty – and determination. Betsimar, a 55-year-old woman from Caracas, was one of the … Read more

maduro

Venezuela’s Odd Transition to Dictatorship

Venezuela proved last week that it can still defy regional trends. By suspending the process to carry out a recall referendum on President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela became the only country in Latin America since the late 1970s to experience the transition to a full dictatorship. When I started studying Venezuela in the early 1990s, the … Read more

Embrace of the Serpent

Understanding Indigenous Identity through Film

Anthropology and film have cohabited since the early days of cinema. The blending of artful narrative with scientifically grounded ethnography was pioneered as a genre – dubbed “ethnofiction” – by Jean Rouch, one of the foremost documentary filmmakers of the 20th century. Rouch’s films focused on social life and rituals in Niger and Mali and, … Read more

Ceballos

AQ Top 5 Jóvenes Políticos: Patricia de Ceballos

Read in English Patricia de Ceballos podría haber hervido de la rabia después de que su esposo, Daniel Ceballos, el alcalde de la ciudad venezolana de San Cristóbal, fue encarcelado tras una protesta nacional en 2014. Pero decidió no ser, dijo a AQ, “la esposa del prisionero que se queda en la casa y sólo … Read more

Soledad Chapeton

AQ Top 5 Jóvenes Políticos: Soledad Chapetón

Este artículo ha sido actualizado. Read in English Cuando Soledad Chapetón derrotó el año pasado al alcalde de turno para convertirse en la primera alcalde mujer de El Alto, Bolivia, le dio un gran golpe al establecimiento político en lo que muchos consideran la ciudad más influyente de Bolivia. La joven ciudad de más o … Read more

Veronika Mendoza

AQ Top 5 Jóvenes Políticos: Verónika Mendoza

Read in English Verónika Mendoza había sido congresista en Perú por menos de un año cuando decidió alejarse del Partido Nacionalista Peruano que estaba entonces en el poder y que ella había ayudado a construir por casi una década. El entonces presidente Ollanta Humala había enviado a la policía a pueblos de los Andes para … Read more

gina_parody

Did an Anti-LGBT Panic Help Defeat Colombia’s Peace Deal?

When thousands of Colombians protested on August 10 to demand the resignation of the country’s openly gay education minister, few saw any greater political significance. But as the world struggles to understand why Colombians voted “No” on Sunday to a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group, the seemingly unrelated … Read more

Skulls

Bolivia’s Fiesta de las Ñatitas

Praying to a shrine featuring a real human skull may seem macabre to some. But since pre-Columbian times, inhabitants of what is now the Bolivian Altiplano have made the veneration of human skulls a central element of their spiritual life. The tradition continues to this day with an annual celebration on November 8 called Fiesta … Read more

Peace

Six Reasons Colombia Said “No” to FARC Peace Deal

It was a shock result. But a reexamination of why Colombians voted “no” to a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) by a margin of just 54,000 votes on Sunday sheds some light on why almost all pundits got it wrong – and what might happen next. Here are six reasons … Read more

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