Jen Wilton

GENEVA—“Let us stand for a minute of silence,” Emmanuel Decaux, chairperson of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), told those gathered on February 2 in this Swiss city to discuss the grave problem of involuntary disappearances in Mexico. A high-level government delegation and a sizeable civil society contingent traveled from Mexico to attend the […]

The apparent massacre of students from Ayotzinapa in Iguala has completely shocked the Mexican public and provoked outrage across the globe. Some have called this a game changer for Mexico. In some ways it clearly is, but maybe not in the ways we imagine. The case of Ciudad Juárez The brutal massacre at Iguala is far from […]

“These will be the final words that I speak in public before I cease to exist.” So begins the moving communiqué from Zapatista leader Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. In the newly-released statement (available here in English), Marcos gives a brief account of the Zapatistas’ history, which he has had a leading role in since the armed […]

In honor of Women’s History Month, here is the second part of our series. In the U.S., incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault are rife, but the true extent of the problem is largely hidden from view. A staggering one-quarter of women have experienced domestic violence and more than six million children witness domestic […]

In the northeastern tip of Colombia, fierce resistance to Cerrejón, one of the world’d largest open-pit coal mines, has seen indigenous communities block highways and railway lines in recent weeks. These protests take place in the context of a wider movement of indigenous people trying to safeguard their territories.  “In 30 years of pillaging natural […]

Quesadillas is the second novel by Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos, author of the brilliantly comic Down the Rabbit Hole (nominated for the 2011 Guardian first book award). Where his earlier book gave a first hand account of life inside a Mexican cartel boss’ palatial home, told from the perspective of the kingpin’s son, his latest efforts […]

News outlets in Mexico this week have been overrun by the sudden announcement of the arrest and detention of Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, known simply as ‘La Maestra’ and dubbed by many as the most powerful woman in Mexico. Gordillo was the head of the powerful SNTE teachers union in Mexico—which is in fact the […]

In this powerful autobiography, Luis J. Rodriguez relates stories from his youth growing up in an impoverished East Los Angeles barrio. The son of Mexican immigrants, from an early age Rodriguez constantly faces barriers to success from a system designed to keep him out. As a result, Rodriguez and his peers are forced to invent the […]

San José del Progreso, Oaxaca – In a small, dry town in the south-west of Oaxaca, Mexico there is a deadly political battle being waged over local resources. By all accounts the town has been split in two—those in favor of and those who oppose the Cuzcatlán silver mine that started operations in the vicinity in […]