BY RUTH ELIZABETH VELÁSQUEZ ESTRADA We became conscious of the right to have rights and of the right to belong to an organized community only when millions of people had lost their rights, and could no longer recuperate them. —Agustín Estrada Negrete, political asylee and immigrant rights … [Read more...] about Derechos en Crisis: A Conference at the Frontier of Activism and Scholarship
Features
Archiving Human Rights Documentation: The Promise of the Post-Custodial Approach in Latin America
BY THERESA E. POLK Guatemala’s internal armed conflict was brutal by all accounts, and justice for human rights violations has been notoriously difficult to attain in its wake. Yet there have also been some critical milestones, including convictions in 2010 for the forced disappearance of labor … [Read more...] about Archiving Human Rights Documentation: The Promise of the Post-Custodial Approach in Latin America
Transitory Ghosts: Haitians and Dominico-Haitians in Santo Domingo
STUDENT RESEARCH: CITIZENSHIP AND LIMBO IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC BY JOSÉ RUBIO-ZEPEDA “I’m a nobody in my own country.” These are the words spoken by Juliana Deguis Pierre, a Dominican woman who made national headlines in the Dominican Republic after being denied Dominican citizenship … [Read more...] about Transitory Ghosts: Haitians and Dominico-Haitians in Santo Domingo
Unsettling Ideas about Africa and Blackness: Contemplating Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic
STUDENT RESEARCH: CITIZENSHIP AND LIMBO IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC BY JHEISON ROMAIN As I neared the end of my field research in the Dominican Republic, while in a batey[1] in the north of the country, I had a conversation with a 28-year-old black man who was born and raised in the … [Read more...] about Unsettling Ideas about Africa and Blackness: Contemplating Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic
Faculty Profiles
BY SUSANNA SHARPE Sarah Lopez Migration and home, history and the built environment. The work of Sarah Lopez sits at the confluence of these themes. An assistant professor in the School of Architecture, Lopez studies cultural landscapes, exploring how the history of the built environment also … [Read more...] about Faculty Profiles
The Canary in the Mine: Anti-Black Violence and the Paradox of Brazilian Democracy
BY CHRISTEN A. SMITH The Brazilian political crisis of 2016 has sent shockwaves through the nation. Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, has been accused of corruption and is facing impeachment proceedings. Millions of Brazilians have demonstrated in the streets against the … [Read more...] about The Canary in the Mine: Anti-Black Violence and the Paradox of Brazilian Democracy
Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’s Fight for Justice in Guatemala
BY IRMA ALICIA VELÁSQUEZ NIMATUJ Transitional justice refers to measures both judicial and non-judicial that are intended to redress large-scale human rights abuses. In this article, I focus on two recent cases of transitional justice in Guatemala. The first is the 2013 trial against General and … [Read more...] about Struggles and Obstacles in Indigenous Women’s Fight for Justice in Guatemala
LLILAS Benson and the Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Patrimony of Mexico
BY KELLY McDONOUGH One of the main attractions among the rare books and manuscripts at the Benson Latin American Collection is a group of late-sixteenth-century manuscripts and maps known as the Relaciones Geográficas (or RGs for short). As described in the Benson’s web portal to the RGs, these … [Read more...] about LLILAS Benson and the Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Patrimony of Mexico
Where History, Science, and Coral Reef Conservation Meet: A Case Study from St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
BY CARLOS E. RAMOS-SCHARRÓN Landscape is . . . a land shape, in which the process of shaping is by no means thought of as simply physical. —C. Sauer (The Morphology of Landscape, 1925) For Karl I am still relishing being a fashionable latecomer to the field of geography, particularly to … [Read more...] about Where History, Science, and Coral Reef Conservation Meet: A Case Study from St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
Departing Reflections: Charles R. Hale
BY CHARLES R. HALE I take this opportunity—the last Portal produced under my directorship—to offer a few words of thanks, an expression of excitement for the future, and some reflections on the past seven years. By the time this Portal reaches your hands, Professor Virginia Garrard-Burnett will … [Read more...] about Departing Reflections: Charles R. Hale
