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Fashion in the Americas
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Recent Articles
From European Union to the Dominican Republic: A Case for Humanizing Environmental Policy in Latin America
I read these words as I gaze from a car window, looking out at colorful, animated drawings of smiling elephants, toucans, and parrots, outside of a school building in San Francisco de Macorís, the Dominican Republic’s primary cocoa-producing region.
“Bukelismo,” A Deceptive, Illiberal Model of Peace: Spreading from El Salvador to the United States
On January 1, 2025, a viral post on the social media platform X touted the alleged reduction in homicides in El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele from 6,656 in 2015 (which equated to a world-leading homicide rate per person) to 114 in 2024 (the lowest rate in the Western Hemisphere).
A Review of Latin American Comics in the Twenty-First Century: Transgressing the Frame
While writing this review, I visited a big bookstore in Los Angeles, where I live in, and I observed that the comic and graphic novel section was put aside in a little corner, somehow hidden from the main and “serious” areas. During the hour or so I spent there, all the people who visited the section were kids and teenagers and I couldn’t help feeling as if I didn’t belong there. The logic which excludes adults as part of the natural public for comics reflects a long-time stigmatization that points them out as banal or childish.
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.
The Martyrs of Louisiana
On the 18th of June 1842, in a doctor’s office on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, a French poet and playwright named Auguste Lussan died of a surgical operation meant to relieve yellow fever. The attending physician was Jean François Beugnot, a prominent doctor who had immigrated from France, and who would soon present and publish his approach to treatment of yellow fever in a regional medical journal, research which would later be recognized by Napoleon III with the award of the Legion of Honour.
Affirmative Action and Discrimination: A Look at Brazil
We believe that education is a means to overcome inequalities and improve the quality of life. However, if you are Black and poor in Brazil, even if you manage to access a good education, you must still be cautious.
Dear reader, I am Winnie Santos, a Black woman from Brazil, and I want to discuss something not particularly pleasant but very important to share, as we can think together about ways to overcome this challenge.
Affirmative action policies in my country have enabled a significant number of Black people to access universities, including the most prestigious ones.
Danza Azteca Guadalupana: Beyond Borders
Natalie Navarro, 29, the lead drummer, anchors the circle with precision and grace. Her hands strike the drum rhythmically, summoning the energies of heaven and earth. Her sister Samantha, 26, along with her husband, Eduardo Galarza, 29, join in dancing with dynamic movements embodying the vibrancy of life. Eduardo serves as both lead dancer and instructor. He reflects, “This dance is for the water, fire, wind, spirit, and Mother Earth. Through our steps, we call upon a higher power—with flowers, through songs, and in the sound of the drums’s heartbeat. Flowers symbolize our humanity and the beauty of creation. Yet, we often forget that the earth is our home, and we’re causing its destruction.”
StudEnt Views
A Call to Action for the U.S.-Mexico Binational Community
When I think about Mexico, my family’s home country, I think about Jalpa, Zacatecas, where my family migrated from so many years ago.
A Brazilian Summer: Contrasts and Blends
As I boarded a flight from São Paulo to Brasília at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday, full speed toward the Brazilian Congress, I reflected on my past few weeks spent in Brazil.
Cayo: Meaning and the Monkey Island
The image begins in my mind with the Old Man, sitting, legs crossed, eyes shut and his head bowed to his chest. The way he sat most mornings (and how he could be found most other times of the day).
Book ReviewS
A Review of The Creation of Modern Buenos Aires. Football, Civic Associations, Barrios, and Politics, 1912-1943
Every time I travel back to Buenos Aires, my hometown, I immediately text my dad, “Can you get tickets to go to La Bombonera?” La Bombonera is Boca Juniors’ stadium, and Boca is our football team—just as it was my grandfather’s and as it is my nephew’s. When I was younger, before moving to the United States to pursue my Ph.D., I used to go on Sundays with friends to la popular—the standing terraces, akin to those in old British stadiums. Now, when I return, we need to get seats, as my father no longer wants to stand for three hours, and my nephew is still too young for the chaos of la popular.
A Review of The Collapse of Panama: The History of the U.S. Invasion and The End of the Dictatorship
Panama has been in the news recently as the target of intimidating and ill-informed remarks by President-elect Donald Trump. Around Christmastime, Trump first accused Panama of charging “exorbitant” fees to U.S. commerce that transits the Panama Canal, which, according to him, was “foolishly” given away to a country that has been shown “extraordinary generosity” by the United States. “If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question“, threatened Trump, without explaining how he intends to force Panama into surrendering its most beloved asset, one that is at the very heart of its national identity.
A Review of The Other Border Wars: Conflict and Stasis in Latin American Culture
I remember reading with emotion during my adolescence “Juan López and John Ward,” the poem that the great writer of fantastic literature Jorge Luis Borges dedicated to the Falklands War of 1982. What moved me, I think, was the idea that two young men who could have been friends (united by their love of literature, in addition to belonging to the same generation and sharing the same name) saw each other face-to-face only once, but since that one encounter was during a war, each became both Cain and Abel.
DRCLAS Podcast: Faculty Voices
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