Making a Difference: The Cartonera Comes to Mexico
Chalco is one of Mexico City’s poorest neighborhoods, far enough away from the center along the traffic-clogged highway to Puebla to feel isolated as well as arid. There, migrants from…
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Author: Doris Sommer
A Green Classroom
“Aula Verde” is the name of an ecological park and science center for school children in Puerto Rico. It was an appropriate visit for the third Puerto Rico Winter Institute, dedicated to water and…
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Dancehall Democracy: Social Space as Social Agency
“¿De dónde es usted?”, I asked the best Latin dancer I had ever followed around a dance floor. It was several summers ago in “centrally isolated,” as the locals say, Ithaca, New York, where a friendly gay club went Latin on Wednesday nights. Once a week we broke up the bucolic boredom that helps to make Cornell University so intellectually restless. “Sorry I don’t speak Spanish,” said my partner. “Where are you from, then?” I …
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Thinking on Children: A Literary Look at Childhood
When William Wordsworth formulated this reversal of parenting, putting children first and parents later, he followed through on a romantic inspiration about innocence being close to…
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Dance Halls
“De donde es usted?” I asked the best Latin dancer I had ever followed around a floor. It was last summer in “centrally isolated,” as the locals say, Ithaca, New York where a friendly gay club goes …
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