Archive
Browse all 11 articles across governance, urban systems, ecologies, and latitudes.
Who Owes Whom an Apology? Spain, Mexico, and the American Mirror We Keep Avoiding
As Mexico's president asks Spain to apologize for the conquest, the United States watches from the sidelines. But settler colonialism left different scars than imperial colonialism. An essay on apologies, archives, and what contrition might purchase.
The Solarpunk Meridian: U.S. Cities and Latin America''s Urban Innovations
American cities like to narrate themselves in asphalt and appetite—bigger freeways, taller chillers, longer commutes. Then the heat arrives like a bell the size of a sky, and the old grammar buckles. The most quietly innovative urban work of the last quarter-century has happened in Latin America—in.
Medellín''s Miracle? Urban Design, Politics, and the Limits of Transformation
Once suffering extraordinarily high violence rates, Medellín remade itself through transit, public libraries, and public-space investments. This essay traces the politics, innovations, ambivalences, and lessons for U.S. cities seeking equitable urban transformation.
The Labyrinth of Three Clocks: Venezuela 1998–2025
María Corina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize arrives as Venezuela navigates 27 years measured by three clocks: output, distribution, and rights. A data-driven narrative tracking boom, crash, and the quietest clock—democracy—that decides repair.
Why the U.S. Treats Latin America Differently
Walk into any American newsroom on a slow afternoon and point to a globe. Paris elicits sighs; Prague, a study-abroad anecdote; Berlin, a memory of train schedules that ran to the minute. Say Tegucigalpa, and the room tilts. Not hostility—just air pockets of unknowing.
The Double-Standard Doctrine
How Washington treats Europe like a roommate and Latin America like a distant cousin—and what it would take to change the house rules. An empire doesn't have to call itself an empire. Sometimes it just keeps two sets of house rules. When Europe coughs, the U.S. shows up with casseroles and cash.
Latin America's Next Boom Is North America's Insurance Policy
Why Latin America's next boom is North America's best insurance policy. For two decades the world's factory pointed east by reflex. Then pandemics and geopolitics broke muscle memory. 'De-risking' entered the catechism, and procurement teams began measuring distance again—how far the ship must.
Neighbors at Arm's Length
The double standard that warps U.S. policy toward Latin America—and how to fix it. Europe gets the Rules for Allies; Latin America gets the Rules for Neighbors. Here's a field guide to ending the whiplash.
The Republic of Yeast: A Latin American Chronicle of Invisible Trade
There is a secret cartography beneath every holiday table. You can draw its contours with a fork: the tremor of cranberry tartness, the quiet starch of potatoes, the kernel's soft pop in a spoonful of corn. None of these flavors is provincial. All of them are hemispheric—what remains of the first.
The Long Reverberation: How the Spanish Civil War and the Franco Years Shaped Latin America
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) did not end on the Jarama or the Ebro; it spilled across the Atlantic into classrooms, publishing houses, barracks, parishes, ports, and headquarters. The Franco regime that followed became a source of exiles who rebuilt Latin American culture and a distant mirror.
The Accidental Foundry: How Napoleon Broke Spanish America and Forged Latin America
Napoleon did not set out to invent Latin America. He wanted Europe, and the way to Europe ran through Madrid. Yet in toppling the Spanish monarchy, seizing Louisiana and flipping it to the United States, wrecking Spain's fleet, and turning sovereignty into a traveling mask with no face behind it,.