Hector Luis Alamo

Back in 2010, Arizona’s education chief John Huppenthal ordered Tuscon’s school district to remove Mexican American Studies courses from its curriculum or lose 10 percent of its funding. This came after an audit commissioned by Huppenthal himself that recommended the program on the basis of, among other things, its promotion of critical thinking. Huppenthal and his […]

In the lead up to this year’s FIFA World Cup, the general consensus was that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff needed to pull off a successful tournament in order to solidify her chances of winning re-election this fall. At one time enjoying huge voter support, Rousseff has seen her popularity take a few blows since protests erupted during the 2013 […]

On Monday Iowa Rep. Steve King was caught off guard when DREAMer activists Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas confronted him about his opposition to President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which has allowed Andiola and hundreds of thousands of others to avoid deportation, get a driver’s license and find work. The seven-minute video […]

President Obama —not the “Hope & Change” President Obama, the “my hands are tied” President Obama— has proven yet again why he’s not the man I thought I voted for. After meeting with Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén and Honduran usurper Juan Orlando Hernández, Obama delivered a statement to simultaneously […]

If we’re going to discuss the root causes of the current Honduran refugee crisis, let’s get a few things straight. First, the U.S. government has and continues to fund, orchestrate and support coups across Latin America. Most Americans who know anything about Latin American history will readily highlight Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1972 and […]

Know what happens when a war on drugs is launched across Latin America? War erupts across Latin America. And yet, after years of failed policy, you still hear people arguing that what’s needed in Central America is more funding for a militaristic campaign against criminals and cocaine dealers. Even the president of Honduras himself argued just […]

Considering the crisis is mostly a product of the United States itself, you would think since tens of thousands of unaccompanied child refugees are showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum that the best plan of action would be to invest in the region crippled politically and economically by over a century of U.S. policies. Of […]

By now regular visitors to this site will have seen the images coming out of Murrieta, California, where an angry mob this week blocked three buses from delivering immigrant detainees apprehended in southern Texas. Presumably among the close to 140 detainees on-board the buses were unaccompanied child migrants from Central America, tens of thousands of […]

On Monday President Barack Obama promised to bypass Congress and use all of his legal powers as president to fix the nation’s immigration system. With tens of thousands of unaccompanied kids from drug war-torn Central America showing up at the U.S. border, creating what President Obama has labeled an “urgent humanitarian situation” —plus Speaker John Boehner […]

When a coup removed the democratically-elected leftist president of Honduras in June 2009, receiving tacit support from the U.S. State Department, the American people barely took notice. Then when the United States increased military funding in its little protectorate to reinforce the new right-wing regime installed there, the American public still remained largely unaware and unconcerned. […]

On Sunday, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who went by the nom de guerre “Comandante Leonel González” during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, was adorned with the presidential sash as he officially assumed the office of the presidency. Gripping the sides of the podium with both hands, he addressed the nearly six thousand guests, including 13 foreign leaders, invited […]

“The Obama Administration has an unprecedented opportunity to usher in significant progress using its executive authority at a time when public opinion on Cuba policy has shifted toward greater engagement with the Cuban people while continuing to pressure the Cuban government on human rights.” So states an open letter to President Barack Obama, signed by […]

As a regular watcher of Latin America, come Monday morning I usually expect to read about the terrible things that almost inevitably occur every weekend. In a region so vast and unstable, there’s bound to be a riot, a corruption scandal, a police crackdown, the shooting of innocent bystanders, or at least an earthquake or mudslide, […]

By now you’ve probably seen the OC Weekly video of a Santa Ana school police officer pinning a 14-year-old boy to the ground with a chokehold. Understandably most people find the video disturbing and difficult to watch. I, on the other hand, love it. It’s as close to a perfect video capturing the ugliness in […]

Imagine how the U.S. government might react if it were discovered that officials in Beijing tapped President Obama’s cellphone. What if protesters set fire to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, only to learn afterward that the protests were secretly sponsored by the Kremlin? The American public would be screaming for heads, of course. Republicans […]

Reading the reports of Michelle Bachelet’s inauguration in Chile on March 11 and watching the videos, I couldn’t help but hear former president Salvador Allende’s words reverberating: The seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have strength and will be able […]

Yesterday marked the 97th anniversary of the Jones-Shafroth Act by Pres. Woodrow Wilson, declaring “that the citizens of Porto Rico” were from then on “citizens of the United States.” It seems some leaders of the free world don’t know the definition of citizenship. Before the act was signed in 1917, the people of “Porto Rico” […]

Five days after Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro charged him with a list of things —“conspiring to commit a crime, arson of a public building, instigating a crime, severe injury, public intimidation, damage to public property, terrorism and homicide”— Leopoldo López emerged from hiding last Tuesday to lead thousands of anti-government protesters through the Chacaíto neighborhood in […]

You got to hand it to the folks over at TIME. They sure know how to put together an attention-grabbing cover. In 2012 they created a buzz when they put a bunch of Latinos (and one half-white, half-Chinese guy) on the cover with the words “Yo decido,” suggesting that Latinos would decide that year’s presidential […]