Editor's note: According to an August 13 report on the National Security Archive website, “Guatemala’s renowned Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) is in crisis after its director, Gustavo Meoño Brenner, was abruptly removed in one of a series of recent actions orchestrated by the … [Read more...] about 21 Years of Peace, 21 Million Documents: Revisiting the Digital Portal to the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional
Research
Faculty Spotlight: Jason Borge
BY SUSANNA SHARPE In his new book, Tropical Riffs: Latin America and the Politics of Jazz (Duke, 2018), Jason Borge uses jazz as a way to interrogate the complex intersections of North and South, race and class, cultural identity, and even politics and foreign policy. The very earliest seeds … [Read more...] about Faculty Spotlight: Jason Borge
Faculty Spotlight: Kelly S. McDonough
BY SUSANNA SHARPE There is a term in the Nahuatl language that means learned person, sage, or knowledge keeper: itxtlamati (plural, ixtlamatinih), a compound of the words meaning face and to know. The concept of knowledge gleaned from experience is central in the work of Kelly S. McDonough, … [Read more...] about Faculty Spotlight: Kelly S. McDonough
Staff Spotlight: Albert A. Palacios
BY SUSANNA SHARPE Albert A. Palacios possesses an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the energy to match. In the almost fifteen years since he moved to Austin as an undergraduate, he has earned four degrees, finished the coursework for a PhD, studied in an array of disciplines, and contributed … [Read more...] about Staff Spotlight: Albert A. Palacios
El viaje donde se pierde la inocencia y la niñez: Niños migrantes sin acompañante
POR CÉSAR IVÁN ARANA LÓPEZ La migración de niñas, niños y adolescentes centroamericanos (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras y Nicaragua) y mexicanos que viajan sin acompañantes por México (país de tránsito) y tienen por objetivo llegar y residir en Estados Unidos de América (EUA), es un fenómeno … [Read more...] about El viaje donde se pierde la inocencia y la niñez: Niños migrantes sin acompañante
Four Centuries of Rare Documents Will Be Digitized in Partnership with Puebla Archive
BY SUSANNA SHARPE August 8, 2018, was an auspicious day for students of Mexican history. An agreement signed between LLILAS Benson and the Tribunal Superior de Justicia del Estado de Puebla marks the official start of a project to digitize a large collection of archival materials from the Fondo … [Read more...] about Four Centuries of Rare Documents Will Be Digitized in Partnership with Puebla Archive
“To die little by little”: Disappearance and Ambiguous Loss in the Lives of Activist Mothers in Contemporary Mexico
Leer en español. BY MORAVIA DE LA O Margarita1 has spent the last nine years looking for her son, Mauricio. She keeps a manila folder with photos and articles about his case that she brings when I interview her in June 2017. In one of the photos that she shows me, a young man in glasses is … [Read more...] about “To die little by little”: Disappearance and Ambiguous Loss in the Lives of Activist Mothers in Contemporary Mexico
María Luisa Puga: A Life in Diaries
BY JOSÉ MONTELONGO Deciding how to end a novel is the author’s privilege. To write novels for a living is a volatile career choice, at least when it comes to paying rent, but the destiny and shape of your characters is not volatile at all, it’s your prerogative—you are the one choosing when and … [Read more...] about María Luisa Puga: A Life in Diaries
A Different Kind of Border Wall
BY LYNDA M. GONZALEZ Six grandchildren. Six different breakfasts. Every morning, 69-year-old Teresa de Lozoya cooks what she can manage from food bank supplies and leftovers from church meal programs: a bowl of ramen noodle soup, hot dogs scrambled with eggs, reheated plain hamburgers. Her … [Read more...] about A Different Kind of Border Wall
Living in a Material World: Art and Otherworldly Understanding in Colonial Latin America
BY BRITTANY ERWIN It was a bustling scene. Excited crowds of people had gathered along the processional route in the city center, which had been elaborately decorated for the occasion. Dressed in their finest wares, a group of civic officials and the religious elite solemnly proceeded along a … [Read more...] about Living in a Material World: Art and Otherworldly Understanding in Colonial Latin America