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Begin New Search Journal Americas Quarterly Publishing Institution Council of the Americas

231. The Dominican Republic and Haiti: A Shared View from the Diaspora

Author:
Richard André
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
In a landmark ruling, the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court last September stripped an estimated 210,000 individuals—most of whom are Dominicans born to Haitian sugar cane workers—of their citizenship, effectively leaving them stateless. The ensuing outcry from the international community has included Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat—two of the best-known contemporary authors from the island of Hispaniola. Friends for over 20 years, Danticat (from Haiti) and Díaz (from the D.R.) have been relentless in their condemnation of the ruling. In a written exchange moderated by Americas Quarterly production editor and Haitian-American Richard André, Díaz and Danticat discuss the roots and legacies of racism and conflict in the neighboring nations, the impact of the court's ruling, and the responsibility of the diaspora to build bridges between Dominicans and Haitians and defend human rights at home and abroad.
Political Geography:
Island

232. The Dominican Republic and Haiti: Shame

Author:
Santiago A. Canton and Wade H. McMullen, Jr.
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Juliana Deguis Pierre was born in 1984 in Los Jovillos, Dominican Republic, 72 miles (116 kilometers) west of Santo Domingo. Under the country's constitutional recognition of birthright citizenship, Deguis—the daughter of two undocumented Haitian immigrants working in the sugar cane fields—was issued a birth certificate recognizing her Dominican nationality. Now 29 years old, she has never traveled outside her native country. She speaks fluent Spanish and hardly any Creole.

233. Venezuela: How Long Can This Go On?

Author:
Boris Muñoz
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
On April 10, Venezuelans stayed up past midnight to watch an event on TV that just a few weeks prior would have seemed incredible, almost miraculous: after three months of intense protests, headed by students in alliance with the most combative sectors of the opposition calling for President Nicolás Maduro's departure, the government and the opposition, thanks to mediation from the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Union of South American Nations—UNASUR), sat down to negotiate.
Political Geography:
South America

234. Behind the Numbers: Women's Rights

Author:
Joan Caivano and Jane Marcus-Delgado
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
The gender-based data on social inclusion clearly indicate the opportunities and obstacles facing women in Latin America-as well as numerous contradictions and complexities. An examination of new trends, laws and policies brings to mind the Spanish expression, "Del dicho al hecho, hay mucho trecho. " In other words, even in many areas where there appears to have been significant progress, intervening barriers frequently preclude its consistent application.
Political Geography:
Latin America

235. Behind the Numbers: Insecurity and Marginalization in Central America

Author:
Matthew Budd and Marcela Donadio
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
With 11 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012, Nicaragua stands out as a relatively fortunate exception in a region whose homicide rates rank among the world's highest. Its northern neighbors all recorded rates at least three times greater: with Guatemala at 34.3 murders per 100,000 citizens; El Salvador at 41.5; and—at the top of this grim list—Honduras at 85.5. To the south of Nicaragua, only traditionally stable and more developed Costa Rica recorded a lower rate (8.8). Panama registered 17.6 murders per 100,000 in 2012.
Political Geography:
America, Tanzania, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador

236. Ask the Experts: Higher Education

Author:
Arturo Cherbowski Lask, Francisco Suarez Hernandez, Amgad Shehata, and Salvador Alva Gómez Salvador
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
It's important to keep in mind that a region consists of different countries, each with its own needs and strengths, and bound to its particular culture and history—although tied firmly to a common, shared history and culture. In this mosaic, universities try to respond to their regional, national and local demands. Thus, the fields of knowledge and particular disciplines that each university develops answer to specific needs.
Topic:
Culture
Political Geography:
Germany

237. Can Mexico exploit its new demographic dividend?

Author:
Nathaniel Parish Flannery
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Can Mexico exploit its new demographic dividend? With contributing research from Miryam Hazán and Carlos López Portillo Maltos of Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT). Read a sidebar on Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT's) electronic job bank. Read a sidebar on Mexican migrants' return to restaurant work. José Antonio Pérez remembers as a child seeing migrants climbing onto La Bestia ("The Beast"), the train that carries Central American migrants north to the state of Oaxaca, and wondering where they were going. An uncle told him the migrants were "traveling to El Norte," the United States. "I didn't understand," Pérez recalled. "I only understood when I was older." At the age of 14, he joined them. He left his hometown of Arriaga, Chiapas, in 2003 and found work in a greenhouse in Chestertown, Virginia.
Topic:
Migration
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Mexico

238. Sarah Stephens and Joel Brito debate: Will warming Cuba-EU ties open up U.S.-Cuba relations?

Author:
Sarah Stephens and Joel Brito
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
The EU has recognized that its Common Position has failed to improve human rights in Cuba. It's time for the U.S. to do the same with its embargo. BY SARAH STEPHENS Will warming Cuba-EU ties open up U.S.- Cuba relations? Yes When Louis Michel, then-development commissioner for the European Union (EU), met in 2009 with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign minister, he worried openly about the slow pace of EU diplomacy. “I think that if the European Union does not consolidate the normalization of relations with Cuba,” Michel said, “the Americans will do so before us.”1 He need not have been concerned. In the nearly five years since Michel and Rodríguez sat down together, the Cuban government has pursued reforms to pry the island's economy back from the edge of crisis—ranging from creating space for entrepreneurship to ending travel restrictions. Now is the time for the United States to follow its Atlantic partner and get off the sidelines when it comes to engaging Havana. The Obama administration's track record signals some hope: thus far, the president has used his executive authority to restore Cuban-American family travel, reinstate people-to-people trips, and reconvene the episodic talks on migration and postal delivery. But he has left undisturbed the essential architecture of U.S. policy inherited from the Eisenhower era.
Political Geography:
United States

239. Helping tech startups in Buenos Aires — Tearing down cultural walls in Cuba — Battling Colombia's corrupt politicians — Promoting HIV awareness.

Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Business Innovator: Lisa Besserman Lisa Besserman could be at home anywhere in the world; but last year, the Queens, New York, native put down roots in Argentina to launch Startup Buenos Aires, to motivate, support and connect startups across the globe. The 29-year-old tech entrepreneur, named one of the “100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider Australia in May, says that her goal is to put Buenos Aires “on the map of global startup ecosystems.” Her clients seem to agree. A year after its launch, her organization—which helps local startups find employees and funding, and connects local tech talent to projects and employers—has attracted some 4,000 members, including foreign firms. Besserman is a successful example of a new class of global workers that could be called “tech nomads.” In November 2012, feeling constrained by corporate culture in New York City, Besserman left her job as director of operations at AirKast Inc., a mobile app development startup, and looked at a map to determine where she'd begin her next business venture. The only requirement: the city had to have a similar time zone to the East Coast to make doing business easier.
Political Geography:
New York, Colombia, and Cuba

240. Colombia's elections — Brazil's insular economy — the case for coordinated NAFTA-TTIP and TPP negotiations.

Author:
Jaana Remes, Patricia Ellen, Raúl Rodríguez-Barocio, and Cynthia J. Arnson
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Peace: Elections and Peace in Colombia BY CYNTHIA J. ARNSON Colombia's 2014 presidential elections marked a watershed in the country's politics. This was not because incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos won by nearly six percentage points, after having narrowly lost the first round to Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a hardliner backed by Santos's political nemesis, former president Álvaro Uribe. Rather, the campaign offered—as never before—starkly opposing visions of how to end Colombia's 50-year conflict with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC): through direct peace negotiations on a tightly constructed agenda, or through military action aimed at the FARC's defeat or surrender. Understanding how the elections became a referendum on the peace process—and on uribismo itself—requires looking less at the candidates themselves than at the alliance, and then bitter parting, of Santos and Uribe. Santos and Zuluaga served together in Uribe's cabinet, Santos as defense minister and Zuluaga as finance minister. Both had similar attitudes toward Colombia's economic opening and management, which led to record levels of foreign direct investment and growth rates well above the Latin American average.
Political Geography:
Brazil and Colombia

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