Bad News, Good News!
As I review the news coming from the Latino and Indigenous worlds, I've become aware of both "good" and "bad" news stories of late. We'll start with the Bad News:
Due to the cancellation of visas for some 100,000 Cubans hoping to visit or emigrate to the US, "many heartbreaking stories" are being reported by the Tampa Bay Times. These include: cancelled family visits and reunions, cancellations of scheduled sporting events, and cancellation of planned lifesaving medical treatments. The Trump administration's reason for this change in policy? The spurious and unsubstantiated reports of mysterious illnesses experienced by US diplomats and other residing in Havana.
US General Buchanan this week ended his recovery mission in Puerto Rico, withdrawing recovery forces and essential equipment such as helicopters from the island. A large percentage of Puerto Rican residents, however, still lack power and potable water, and a cascade of officially unreported hurricane-related deaths continue to occur as a result. The General's remarks suggest that he is aware that the work is nowhere near completed and yet he says that the time for transition is "right." He also expressed concern for how Puerto Ricans will cope with the next hurricane to hit the island, whether this season--which is not yet over--or next. Impression: a responsible and compassionate military man who is compelled to follow orders issued by a federal government which is much less so
Now the Good News!
Indigenous rights in Las Americas have been upheld by recent legal decisions in Canada that have corrected some long-standing sources of oppression of Native and Metis populations there, improving conditions related to women's rights and regulations concerning female-line inheritance, among other issues.
In Mexico, a Nahua woman from Jalisco is making a bid to run for the presidency. Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez Marchuy has allied herself with the resurgent Zapatista movement rooted in the state of Chiapas and is seeking the signatures required to get her name on the ballot as an independent indigenous feminist candidate. (Nahuatl was the major language spoken by the Aztec people at the arrival of Cortez.) !Viva!
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