For this assignment, you are to read current news articles about Latin America from the website for the North American Congress of Latin America (NACLA) and submit three short reviews during the semester. Please submit one review per due date. Each review is to be at least 3-4 pages and each due date corresponds to a regional topic in Latin America. The due dates for these reports are October 23, November 6 and November 20. Here are the regional topics corresponding to each due date:

• October 23: Mexico, Border issues, and Latinx communities

• November 6: The Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc.), and Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Belize).

• November 20: South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Venezuela)

Please submit your reports through Canvas in either of the following formats: doc, docx or PDF (if you are using Google Docs or Apple Pages to compose your review, please be sure to convert your paper to docx or PDF before submitting it). Late papers will be accepted for each submission, but only for one week after the assigned due dates and will be assessed a full grade deduction. Please use both a title page and a works cited page (neither of these pages count toward your 3-4 pages of text). These 3 reports will count as a combined 15% toward your final grade. In your works cited page, compose your article entry in a format like this:

Nidia Bautista, “Justice for Lesvy: Indifference and Outrage in Response to Gender Violence in Mexico City,” NACLA Report on the Americas website (July 31, 2017).

In terms of the content of each report, I am looking for two main points of discussion. First, you should devote the first half of the report to a summary of the main points in the article that you selected. To help you to address this issue, consider some of these questions: What is the main issue being discussed? (i.e. immigration, elections, education, environment, women’s issues, crime, etc.) Who are the main personalities mentioned in the article? (i.e. Enrique Peña Nieto, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump, etc.) How does the issue affect the people of the country mentioned in the article? Does the issue have any connection with United States interests? What do you think could be the best solution to resolve this problem?

And for the second point of discussion, please analyze the article that you selected and present your point of view on the story. For example, how do you feel about the story? How did this article contribute to your understanding about modern Latin America? And what do you think about the author’s perspective on the article? How does this topic relate to contemporary political, economic or cultural themes in the United States today?

Here is a list of articles from the NACLA website pertaining to regions for your first due date. Everybody, just pick any one article from this list for your October 23 review. You will repeat the same process for your reviews on Central America/the Caribbean, and a South American nation. These articles range in date from February 2019 to September 2020.

Border Issues/Latinx Communities and Issues:

• Abolish ICE! Fighting for Humanity over Profit in Immigration Policy (Links to an external site.)

• Border Land, Border Water (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• Border Shutdowns: State Violence and Psychological Warfare Performed (Links to an external site.)

• Clouds at the Border: Threatened by the Wall (Links to an external site.)

• Dismantling Anti-Blackness Together (Links to an external site.)

• Immigration Nation (Film Review) (Links to an external site.)

• Informal Recyclers Fight for Survival in Gentrifying Brooklyn (Links to an external site.)

• Latin American Immigrants in New York Face Covid-19 Crisis (Links to an external site.)

• Life and Resistance for Migrant Families in the Rio Grande (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• Local Paper Covers Pandemic’s Impact in Queens (Links to an external site.)

• On the Front Lines of Trump’s Immigration War in the U.S. Heartland (Links to an external site.)

• Reducing Migrants’ Lives to One Grisly Photograph (Links to an external site.)

• Slow Burn, Humid Pitch: Cultivating Care While Livin’ La COVIDa Loca (Links to an external site.)

• The Case for Nuance in Immigrant Stories (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• The Deadly Reverberations of U.S. Border Policy (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• The Deportation Machine (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• The Opportunistic Border Logic of the Pandemic (Links to an external site.)

• They Are Concentration Camps—and They Are Also Prisons (Links to an external site.)

• U.S. Asylum Law is a Biopolitical Crisis (Book Review) (Links to an external site.)

• “What better function for art at this time than as a voice for the voiceless”: The Work of Chicano Artist Malaquías Montoya (Links to an external site.)

Mexico:

• A Labor Spring for Mexico’s Maquilas? (Links to an external site.)

• “A Project for Life” in Mexico City (Links to an external site.)

• As Mexican Pork Industry Expands, Environmental Concerns Follow (Links to an external site.)

• AMLO Pushes Ahead on Militarized Megaprojects (Links to an external site.)

• AMLO’s Crumbling Promise to Migrants (Links to an external site.)

• Blurring the Division Between Church and State in AMLO’s Mexico (Links to an external site.)

• El Chapo and Mexico’s Drug War Spectacle (Links to an external site.)

• For Mexico’s Striking University Workers, A War of Attrition Over Public Education (Links to an external site.)

• “Green Tide” Reaches Mexico as Oaxaca Decriminalizes Abortion (Links to an external site.)

• In Mexico, the Threats and Failures of Pre-Trial Detention (Links to an external site.)

• Julián Leyzaola’s Dangerous Plans for Tijuana (Links to an external site.)

• López Obrador’s Public Enemy Number One (Links to an external site.)

• Machista Media Get it Wrong on Feminist Protests in Mexico (Interview) (Links to an external site.)

• Maquiladoras and the Exploitation of Migrants on the Border (Links to an external site.)

• Mexican Women Call on Government to End Violence (Links to an external site.)

• Mining Culture Wars Escalate in Oaxaca (Links to an external site.)

• Narcos Mexico Is Not the Education We Need (Television Review) (Links to an external site.)

• On the Coast of Oaxaca, Afro and Indigenous Tribes Fight for Water Autonomy (Links to an external site.)

• Pandemic Intensifies Women’s Struggle for Water in Oaxaca, Mexico (Links to an external site.)

• Revisiting the Battle of Culiacán (Links to an external site.)

• The Legacy of Samir Flores, One Year Later (Links to an external site.)

• The Rebirth of Mexico’s Electrical Workers (Links to an external site.)

• The Search for Answers in Mexico (Links to an external site.)

• Today We Protest, Tomorrow We Strike (Links to an external site.)

• Translating the Fourth Transformation (Interview) (Links to an external site.)

• Twenty-First Century Battlefields (Book Excerpt)