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Is Costa Rica Different?
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Recent Articles
Sustainability in Nuance
I used to imagine the Amazon Rainforest as a big piece of flat land with trees growing on top of it, farmers and ranchers grabbing land while Indigenous people fought off the invaders.
The Inca Emperor’s New Clothes
Fashion is a relatively modern concept, most often associated with Euro-American histories of dress. However, well before the European invasions of the Americas, Indigenous American societies developed sophisticated approaches to garment making and cultural attention to dress every bit as nuanced as those of societies from the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps the greatest material legacy of this rich costume history survives in the Andes region of South America.
A Review of Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War
Violence has always been a fundamental aspect of human life. We have fought to survive, to defend, and to acquire. States are meant to have a monopoly on the use of violence in order to maintain peace and security in their territory and defend their founding ideology. All countries have had this history of political violence and revolution, but few can match the history of violence as it has happened in Colombia.
From Our Current Issue
Youth Unemployment Crisis in Costa Rica: A Call to Action
As a Costa Rican student at Harvard, I discovered an alarming situation back home when I returned to my country for winter break: youth unemployment.
Yes, Costa Rica is Different: A Successful Experience at Risk
Everyone knows her as “Doña Nena.” At 75 years old, she has been a leader for half a century in the community of Luzón, in Matina—one of the poorest counties in Costa Rica—on the Caribbean coast, 84 miles northeast of the capital: San José.
Voices of the Caribbean: Afro-Costa Ricans Move Towards Empowerment and Equality
Dawn begins to appear on the coast of Cocles in the Costa Rican Caribbean and the first rays of the sun reflect on the sea. With an invitation from the Brown Hudson family, local residents who are proud Afro-Caribbeans, I am on my way to a journey of discovery and connection
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.
On Settler Colonialism: From Adam Kirsch to Latin America
In school, we may have learned that Simón Bolívar proposed expansion into northeastern Colombia in his quest for regional unification. What we may not have learned is that he blithely suggested that “the savages who live there would be civilized and our possessions increased,” using what we call today explicitly settler colonial terms, Indigenous peoples there perceived Colombian intruders as “Spanish” throughout the 19th century, and the return of Catholic missions at the end of the century followed the logic of state-sponsored religious “Hispanicization.”
What Donald Trump's Possible Re-election Could Mean for the Amazon and Its Peoples
In 2018, just before Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil, I wrote about the dire consequences of his presidency for the rainforest and its Indigenous peoples, which I called “environmental fascism.”As we approach the U.S. election and the potential re-election of Donald Trump, we must recognize that a similar threat is now haunting the United States, threatening to set a perilous global agenda.
The DNC Misses a Beat: A Political History of Migration through Latinx Pop Songs
For three short days this past August, Chicago danced ‘til dawn at the Democratic National Convention, where Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were elected as the party’s 2024 Presidential ticket. It was not the first time that the Windy City had hosted the event, yet it was quite novel in one significant way: the music Democrats put front and center during their festivities.
StudEnt Views
Grieving for a Lost Self
At 7:20 a.m. on July 26, 2024, I landed at Galeão, Rio de Janeiro’s international airport.
Seeing Health Equity Through Homeless Eyes
It was at the end of 2022, during a school project led by the beloved teacher Aline Arruda, that we read the book “Blindness” by José Saramago.
Gentrification in Puerto Rico: The Impact on Displacement and Local Livelihoods
Walking through the cobbled streets of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, I admired the colonial architecture, the ocean’s faint smell and the smell of alcapurrias, bacalaítos, and various other fried foods.
Book ReviewS
A Review of The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History
One afternoon in 2014, driving along a dirt road that snaked through countryside several hours outside of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, I came across an ancient woman on foot, carrying a load of firewood on her back. I pulled up alongside her and asked her if she wanted a lift. She didn’t seem to comprehend at first, whereupon I explained that was offering her a ride to her destination. She smiled and shook her head. She would carry on walking, she said, but said that if I had some alms—she used that term, limosna, in Spanish—she’d accept them.
A Review of The Brazil Chronicles
In the late 1940s, a young aspiring journalist Stephen G. Bloom was having trouble finding work at any stateside newspaper. After a stint at his college newspaper, the University of California Daily Californian, Bloom worked as a waiter at a Berkeley eatery, got arrested in Canada with his girlfriend for trying to bring pot across the border and got turned down for a reporter’s job by a raft of newspapers. The opportunity came up for a vague promise of a job in the Brazilian English-language language newspaper the Brazil Herald.
A Review of The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis
On March 19, 2010, two graduate students at the Tec de Monterrey, Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Francisco Arredondo Verdugo, were killed by members of the Mexican Army inside the university campus. To cover up the murder, the Army and Mexican authorities initially claimed the victims were armed sicarios—hitmen— with organized crime connections. An investigation later revealed that Jorge and Javier were engineering students who did not belong to any criminal group and were unarmed when the perpetrators shot them.
DRCLAS Podcast: Faculty Voices
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