COMMENT: Spring 2014
By Harley Shaiken | Introducing the Spring 2014 edition of the Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies.
COLOMBIA: Building on Education
By Sarah McClure | Discussing the plans of Governor Sergio Fajardo of Antioquia, Colombia, to provide alternatives to violence through innovative educational initiatives.
ENERGY: Switching to Sustainability
By Daniel M. Kammen, Rebekah Shirley, Juan Pablo Carvallo, and Diego Ponce de Leon Barido| Developing strategies to help Latin America make the switch to sustainable energy, Berkeley students build modeling tools that help identify cost-effective energy reforms.
PERSPECTIVE: Mexico Under the "New" PRI
By Denise Dresser | Taking a hard look at reforms initiated by the Peña Nieto administration.
MEXICO: Communities Up in Arms
By Lorena Ojeda | Describing the context that led to the rise of indigenous community guards and mestizo self-defense groups in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
HEALTH: Starving, Stunted... Obese?
By Robert Stahl | Confronting a nutritional paradox in Latin America: the region still needs to combat stunting and undernutrition, but obesity is also on the rise.
FILM: In Cesar's Footsteps
By Erica Hellerstein | Relating the experience of watching a sneak preview of Cesar Chavez in a room filled with activists, young and old.
CESAR CHAVEZ: A Conversation with Director Diego Luna
Diego Luna | Discussing the making of Cesar Chavez with director Diego Luna.
TRADE: The Nafta Paradox
By Harley Shaiken | Arguing the twenty years after Nafta, both Mexico and the U.S. have seen rising productivity combined with falling real wages.
COLOMBIA: Finding Room to Pardon
By Jean Spencer | Making the case for peace in his country with Colombian Ambassador Luis Carlos Villegas.
ENVIRONMENT: People, Palm Trees, and Survival
By Ana Galvis-Martínez and León Ávila | Combining traditional knowledge and modern gear to protect Amazonian wild palms.
LABOR: Global Solidarity
By Sarah McClure | Arguing that, for labor leader Bob King, the key to stable democracy both at home and abroad is workers’ rights
LITERATURE: Wandering Players in an Imagined Land
By Erica Hellerstein | Continuing the exploration of his personal Narnia, Daniel Alarcón’s latest novel At Night We Walk in Circles is set in a nameless Latin American country that closely resembles Peru.
FILM: A Magical Cactus Trip
By James G. Lamb | Chronicling a quest for the psychedelic San Pedro cactus doe not make Crystal Fairy a drug movie, says the film’s director Sebastián Piñera.
LITERATURE: The Search for Belonging
By Krista Brune | Writing about exiles, immigrants, refugees — people whose past and future tense are in different languages — is at the core of the work of Brazilian poet and novelist Adriana Lisboa.
POETRY: Lavar a Alma
By Adriana Lisboa | A short poem.