#latine-studies

#latine-studies

Valeria Luiselli, an acclaimed author, discusses the intricacies of Julio Cortázar's 'The Night Face Up,' highlighting its themes and narrative structure that intertwine reality and dreams.

Espina humorously admitted to oversleeping on a significant news day, stating, 'Breaking news, mi gente! I can't believe it.' His videos celebrated Maduro's fall but also expressed concern about the complexities of the situation.

Frida Kahlo, during her 1933 trip to New York, created a colorful haven in her hotel room by covering the walls with prints by José Guadalupe Posada, which depicted sensational news and political imagery.

Eliades Ochoa's aura is so powerful that under the generous rays of sunlight streaming through the large window on this March morning, he evokes a Western film.

During Passover, Jewish families gather at their tables to retell a story passed down for thousands of years, recounting the Exodus, the biblical story of the Israelites' liberation from slavery in Egypt.

It makes me feel proud, simply because of the specific time we're in right now. It definitely takes a lot of courage for kids my age to represent their culture. Anthony Benitez, an 18-year-old violin student born in the United States to Mexican immigrants, expressed how the academy provides a meaningful outlet for cultural expression amid punitive immigration enforcement affecting Latino and immigrant families across the country.

The Bandera Cimarrona, a flag conceived at the first edition of the International Summit of Afro-descendants in Puerto Rico in 2022, stands as a symbol of the resistance, the pursuit of freedom, and the strength of Afro-descendants on the island and throughout the Americas.

Pianist Dr. Gabriela Calderón and violinist Dr. Catalina Barraza celebrate the rich musical heritage of Latin America.

Laime Arold, a 26-year-old Haitian, buys energy bars at a small shop on the side of the Pan-American Highway in southern Chiapas, Mexico. Jose Adan, a Honduran, prays aloud in a park in Tapachula, asking God to protect him from kidnappers and the police along the way. Gerardo Aguilar, a Venezuelan, travels at 60 miles per hour, lying across two seats on a bus headed for Guatemala. The three all have something in common: they are in Mexico and they are migrants. None of them are heading north. They are heading south.

On Ash Wednesday, 2026, two Roman Catholic priests and a religious sister entered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, to celebrate Mass with detainees inside. It might seem like a simple, routine event: a religious service to mark the start of Lent. But the Mass represented a legal win for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, based in Chicago.

I didn't feel included in the Latino community. I always felt left out. Las Comadres has since become a national nonprofit organization. De Hoyos Comstock, petite with a warm smile, describes Las Comadres as a 'Latina culture club.' The current political rhetoric, characterized by the most aggressive immigration enforcement in modern history, is forcing many U.S. citizen Latinos to question whether they belong.

A 2024 New York Times report notes that Mexico is home to over 1.6 million U.S. citizens - the largest American community abroad. But it's more than Americans: Argentinian, Spaniard, Chinese and Russian populations have all grown significantly, with Mexican authorities reporting a 64% year-on-year increase in Russian migrants in 2024 . The stereotypical CDMX immigrant - a digital nomad typing furiously from a café while nursing the same almond-milk cappuccino for hours (yes, I'm describing myself) - isn't the full story.

Now, Gary, repeat after me: Quiero una margarita, por favor, my Spanish tutor instructs. I cringe at the butchered Spanglish my estuary accent produces. Like Del Boy Trotter ordering a cocktail: Key yeah row oon margari'a, pour far four. It's 2023, I'm 41, living in Argentina and battling the frustration and disempowerment of learning a new language at this age, longing for my elastic 11-year-old brain over this husked-out mush.

The 1980s bring revolutionary wars, CIA-backed conflict and the violent birth of a new democratic era. Episode 2: Wars begins with Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution, which promised egalitarian transformation through literacy crusades. But civil war erupted as United States President Ronald Reagan's administration covertly backed the Contra rebels, plunging the nation into turmoil and suffering. Panama transitioned from Omar Torrijos's diplomatic triumphs over the Panama Canal to Manuel Noriega's sinister collaboration with both the CIA and drug cartels.

In the just-named Grammy Album of the Year, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS-which Bad Bunny has declared his " most Puerto Rican album " to date-the supernova reggaetonero painted an evocative portrait of the Caribbean island, while declaring to a whopping 8.6 million listeners: "VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR" (I'm going to bring you to Puerto Rico). And he did. Last year, a record-breaking number of tourists-7,486,000 to be exact-visited Puerto Rico's tropical shores.

In my previous post, I discussed the psychological violence being imposed on the Latine immigrant community through the implementation of new and insidious immigration policies under the current administration. Since that publication, this violence has intensified in both scale and visibility. Across many regions of the United States, the public has witnessed large-scale ICE raids in neighborhoods, workplaces, hospitals, school events, and even outside immigration courts, where individuals and entire families are apprehended as they exit mandatory hearings.

On November 28, with just weeks remaining until the run-off in Chile's presidential election, far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast issued a warning. "To the irregular immigrants in Chile," he said, "I tell you that 103 days remain for you to leave our country voluntarily." Kast ultimately won the election and is expected to be sworn in on March 11. But so far, in the highlands of Chile's most northerly region, the immigrant exodus that some expected has not occurred.

Evaluating a language by its usefulness is reductive about as soul-destroying as telling a passionate mathematician that they don't need to bother learning complex theorems because a computer could do it. I did two language A-levels (German and Japanese) and went on to do a Japanese degree at university. Despite Japanese being less useful than Spanish in terms of the number of speakers, it has enriched my life in countless ways.

In addition to writing fiction, you're a staff writer for the and a screenwriter. How do you think of your career? I think of myself as a storyteller. I'm nosy, so once I'm telling a story, I want to know what happens. I do find, with fiction, I can't toggle in and out of it. It's like acting, where you have to stay with that character, in that world.

The Trump administration's exercise in armed regime change in Venezuela should have come as no surprise. The U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean and the attacks on defenseless boats off the Venezuelan coast - based on unproven allegations that they contained drug traffickers - had been underway for more than three months. By the end of December 2025, in fact, such strikes on boats near Venezuela (and in the Eastern Pacific) had already killed 115 people.

At first we didn't believe it. We thought it might be AI. But then everybody we know started reaching out about the news. It's only in our dreams that this would be true, Juan says. I feel joy, and ignorance, because I don't know exactly what could be happening there nor do I know is it absolutely positive.

The Cuban Revolution was more successful at exporting its epic narrative than any other tangible commodity. Not even sugarcane, tobacco or rum can compare. The face of Che Guevara transformed into left-wing merchandise, the stoic image of Fidel Castro with a cigar in his mouth defying the 600 assassination attempts orchestrated against him by the CIA, and the slogan that Cuban education and healthcare are the best in the world have been an important part of the global progressive ideation from 1959 to the present.