On May 17, 2024, a Honduran migrant with visible facial injuries died in Ciudad Ju & aacute;rez at the edge of the Rio Grande. The case has not been solved. My personal knowledge about the situation of migrants at the Rio Grande and testimony from witnesses indicated that members of the Texas National Guard, under orders from Operation Lone Star, could potentially have been involved. As a journalist, however, my repeated requests to Mexican investigators, the Texas Military Department, and the Texas governor's office went unanswered, and I could confirm nothing. The in-formation I collected from witnesses was never published. I use this case as a reflexive critique of the journalistic standards of objectivity and neu-trality, with my own work under analysis. I argue that, in the face of official efforts to obscure information, especially under the often-difficult circumstances of border reporting, U.S. journalists should use the Latin American cr & oacute;nica as a model for sharing their own knowledge and observations and for raising questions that matter to the rights and interests of the public.
This study explores local perceptions of Haitian migration and border enforcement responses in the twin border cities of Ciudad Acu & ntilde;a, Coahuila, and Del Rio, Texas, focusing on how residents navigated and interpreted on-the-ground changes from 2021 to 2023. Drawing on twenty-four semi-structured interviews, this research uncovered mirrored yet contrasting effects across these communities, illuminating themes of initial disruption and community mobilization, everyday life with migrants and enforcement personnel, and economic impacts. Using a transborder and ethnographic approach, this study challenges dominant narratives that either homogenize the U.S.-Mexico border region as a whole or analyze one side in isolation. Rather, it highlights how migration and enforcement policies produce interconnected yet distinct realities for neighboring communities. The findings offer a grounded perspective on the uneven impacts of migration and border governance, contributing to broader debates on transnational mobility, local resistance and adaptability, and state power. In doing so, the study underscores the importance of centering lived experiences in understanding the complex social, political, and economic dynamics of border regions.
The unreliable narrator-protagonist of Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos undergoes a re-examination as a divided-self torn between two perspectives: the first is the disenchantment ushered in by modernity through the secularization of all realms of existence and, the second, the numinous in the Catholic tradition that bespeaks of a redeemer, and by extension a transcendent self. The narrator-protagonist is deeply knowledgeable of both worldviews, yet is unable to perceive, or perhaps accept, the con-tinued influence of the latter in his thoughts and actions. The conflict of vision prevents him from embracing his own complex identity. This lack of self-awareness is shown through a novel reading of certain episodes involving Mouche and Rosario that engages the rich lore surrounding the Catholic Saint Rose of Lima that is subsequently tied into the narratorprotagonist's alleged misreading of his own nightmarish dream.
This essay analyzes the film Brujer & iacute;a (2023), directed by Christopher Murray. Set in 19th-century Chilo & eacute; -an island in southern Chile- the story follows Rosa, a young Huilliche girl who seeks justice after her father is murdered by a German settler. When the local authorities refuse to help her, she turns to La Recta Provincia, an Indigenous organization of sorcerers who use magic to administer justice. Drawing on the historical background of this group, decolonial theory, and Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia, this article argues that magic in the film constitutes a heterotopic space that disrupts colonial logic and enables alternative ways of being and knowing. Divided into three parts, this work explores: (1) magic as epistemology, which challenges Western paradigms and gener-ates alternative modes of knowledge; (2) magic as justice, which explores the use of magic in the Indigenous legal system; and (3) magic as terri-tory, where physical and symbolic places resist the colonial hierarchies and mechanisms of domination. As a cinematic heterotopia, Brujer & iacute;a constructs a counter-archive that confronts the erasure of Indigenous cosmol-ogies and communities imposed by colonial systems.
