Featured Stories

Rocael is Q’anjob’al Maya. He lives in Cantón Recreo B, in the Guatemalan highland town of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango. He is married and has one daughter. He is 20 years old and studying to be a teacher. And for the first time in his life, on May 1, 2012, he understood the fear that his… full story HERE »

There’s an old saying back in the States that I just made up and it goes something like this: “If there is a zombie in the well, you probably shouldn’t drink the water.” Apropos of which, for all the buzz in El Norte regarding a civil war brewing within the ranks of the Republican Party, I’m… full story HERE »

January 1, 2013 was the 19^th anniversary of the first public appearance of the EZLN, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, in 1994. From late in the night of December 31, 2012, thousands of families arrived, carrying food, blankets and supplies, in the Zapatista town of Caracol de Oventic to celebrate the day.

Caracol is the Spanish word for the shell… full story HERE »

John Colella, my best friend, died five years ago this December. He was 42 years old at the time, and I remember simply not being able to process the information when my father called with the news. My dad might as well have told me that he’d just cancelled the family subscription to the color blue… full story HERE »

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On April 3, 2012, Guatemalan authorities displayed their latest trophy in the War on Drugs: Walther Overdick, handcuffed and behind bars in a jail cell. This man was the main contact in Guatemala for the Zetas. The Zetas, once the security wing and muscle of the Mexican Gulf Cartel formed their own cartel in January 2010,… full story HERE »

In the past few decades, I’ve been inside a church maybe two dozen times, mostly for weddings and funerals, a few times to marvel at the soaring nave or the intricately carved chancel of a cathedral, and once or twice just to sit in silence and pray. I was brought up in a tradition that said… full story HERE »

Every year I’d begin my classes the same way. “I know two things are true,” I’d tell my students the first day of class, as I walked slowly between their desks, scaring them a bit with a well-practiced professorial glare.

“First, I know with almost absolute certainty that by the end of the year, we’re gonna be… full story HERE »

By the time you read this article, Guatemalans will have elected one of the two men pictured here as their new president. In this trenchant political analysis Kevin Casas-Zamora lays bare the challenges that leader will subsequently face. This article, originally published by The Brookings Institute in September, asks the reader to consider just how dire… full story HERE »