Latin America Report

Maria Manrique shuffles her Tarot card deck at Mama Tried, a dim and disco-themed bar in downtown Miami. Her table, draped with a velvet and gold-lace cloth (the kind of design that you'd expect from a fortune teller), and masked in the warm orange glow of a crystal lamp, casts a soothing aura over the chaos of informal conversations and loud music.

President Biden's Cuba policy changes got wall-to-wall South Florida coverage last week. His Venezuela move, not so much — but it could be just as consequential.

El Salvador wants to build Bitcoin City; Cuba hopes to skirt the U.S. trade embargo. But so far Latin America looks like anything but a cryptocurrency utopia.

Cuban and Latino Democrats scored a rare victory in their effort to counter right-wing Spanish-language radio in Miami. But is it really the win they hope for?

Tech startups are helping Latin America's battered economy recover from the pandemic — and Miami's aspiring tech economy is helping them get that done.

After years of feeling excluded from the elegant Argentine dance, gay and trans partners are bringing more creativity to its traditionally male and female roles.

Britain's queen is a figurehead in Jamaica, but could the psychological effect of dumping her as the Caribbean island's head of state put it on a more developed path?

In 2021, leftists won presidencies in every Latin American election but one, including Peru and Chile. In 2022, they could take Brazil and Colombia too. Why?

The good news in Latin America and the Caribbean: much of the region turned vaccination tragedy into triumph. The bad news? Just about everything else.

The traditional Christmas procession festival, cancelled last year by COVID-19, is an expression of Mexican and Latino identity — and, lately, an immigration statement.

Biden's decision to remove Colombian guerrillas from the U.S. terrorist list sparks a new disinformation spree in Florida — and more Latino lessons for Democrats.

Leftist Xiomara Castro is routing her conservative rival in the vote tally for Sunday's election. Can she improve Hondurans' lives — and stem migration to the U.S.?

Assistant Secretary of State Todd Robinson has the daunting task of helping Haitians restore their collapsed security — so they can restore their collapsed country.

This is the second of two reports on a potent new synergy between protests and protest music in Latin America, from Cuba to Colombia, San Juan to Santiago.

This is the first of two reports on a potent new synergy between protests and protest music in Latin America — from Cuba to Colombia, from San Juan to Santiago.

Florida International University Cuban Research Institute head Jorge Duany has put together one of the few (if only) comprehensive Cuban art histories. It will be featured at the Miami Book Fair.

Colombia's Constitutional Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether to legalize abortion. Can social media sway justices, as well as public opinion?

Alex Saab — Venezuela's alleged money-laundering master — could turn up the heat on Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian regime if he sings to U.S. officials.

Prime Minister Mark Phillips sees no contradiction in Guyana being both a fossil-fuel leader and a climate-change mitigator. But will Venezuela try to grab its oil?

Cuba has started selling its COVID-19 vaccines abroad. It insists its trials show they're safe and effective — so why hasn't the World Health Organization said so too?

With Haiti's government, economy and public security in collapse, "civil society" organizations propose a reboot of their democracy. Will the U.S. buy into it?

Venezuela's regime and opposition are repeating a century-old claim that three-fourths of Guyana belongs to their country. Is it valid — or nationalist nonsense?

In an interview about his memoir, acclaimed photojournalist Bill Gentile discusses how aggressively but sensitively war and conflict need to be covered.

The remoteness of Haiti's southwest peninsula has made humanitarian aid delivery difficult, after the Aug. 14 earthquake. Is a new approach helping?

After Haiti's epic 2010 earthquake, Haitians were largely shut out of the international relief effort. Haitian-Americans want to change that in 2021.

Last winter, vaccine tourism was frowned on — but this summer developing countries like Colombia realize it actually aided their own fledgling vaccination efforts.

Cuba's dictatorship always claimed anti-regime protesters weren't "the Cuban people." This time it can't, which makes its harsh response look more deplorable to Cubans and the international community.

Haiti's prime minister says he'll step down to make way for a new post-assassination government — and Cuban dissidents insist anti-regime protests are far from over.

Many expats feel their economic contribution to Haiti merits political clout, too. But the murder of Haiti's president may prompt a reality check for the diaspora.

As Tropical Storm Elsa churns out of the Caribbean toward Florida, it leaves the realization that earlier and later storm activity may be the trend.

In "The Boy From Medellín," superstar J Balvin must find his social voice as Colombian street protests erupt before the biggest show of his life — in his hometown.

As doors close to them in South America – and as they misconstrue TPS in the U.S. – Venezuelan refugees are flocking to the U.S.-Mexico border and South Florida.

Expats have long insisted negotiating with Venezuela's dictatorial regime is tantamount to surrender. Reality is forcing a growing number of them to reconsider it.

Colombia's social unrest is rooted in Latin America's crushing economic inequality — but in Florida, the GOP scores bigger points by falsely blaming it on Marxism.

For an increasing number of Haitian deportees, Haiti is actually an unfamiliar — and seemingly unfriendly — country. A group called DipsOrg hopes to change that.

Radio Caracol is one of Miami's rare moderate Spanish-language stations. Democrats fear a new owner will use it to broadcast more right-wing disinformation.

Raúl Castro has stepped down as Cuba's communist boss — but the regime's old guard's still making sure the new guard keeps its rigid system intact.

Many Latinos who back President Trump bring the racial — and racist — complexities of Latin America to their attacks on the racial justice movement.

Critics say Colombian elected officials are increasingly involved in — and helped create — President Trump's 'socialismo' scare campaign against Joe Biden.

A third of Venezuela's reported COVID deaths are frontline healthcare workers. Efforts are underway to protect them – but the regime may block the help.

As the Inter-American Development Bank prepares to help Latin America rebuild post-COVID, will an American take over, breaking one of its core traditions?

Supporters of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe want Miami-Dade County to honor him. Critics say it would honor a human rights violator.

Florida's large Colombian community never got much attention from U.S. presidential candidates. Until now.

The White House created a rule that denies pandemic economic relief to U.S. citizens married to non-citizens. They're now hoping Sen. Marco Rubio can break it.

Controversial coronavirus deaths like Carlos Henríquez's in El Salvador leave Latin American relatives in the U.S. feeling increasingly helpless.

(This story was updated July 28 at 3:30 pm)

You've no doubt heard of the smash-hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.” But you probably don't know the saga of Alejandro Jamónton – the founding father who brought the Cuban sandwich to America:

Last Friday President Trump flew in for a visit to Doral.

Uruguay has recorded the lowest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths per capita in South America, if not the entire western hemisphere. The small but progressive country has done that despite sitting right next door to Brazil – which has the world’s second-highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities behind the U.S.

Seven years ago, Miami native Frank Mora left the Pentagon and came home to take over Florida International University’s Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, or LACC. Since then, Mora has turned the center into a more nationally important forum of conversation on Latin America.

Ten days ago, Colombian businessman Alex Saab was arrested in Cape Verde, an island republic off Africa’s west coast, as his private jet was refueling. Saab is wanted in the U.S. on money-laundering charges involving hundreds of millions of dollars – but his detention in Cape Verde and his possible extradition to Miami carry big political stakes in Venezuela.

In one of the most controversial moments of one of America’s most controversial presidencies, Donald Trump this month sent National Guard troops to Washington's D.C.'s Lafayette Square, near the White House. Pepper spray was fired to disperse what videos show were largely peaceful protesters demonstrating against police brutality and racism.

Col5Vid – a Spanish pun that stands for Colombia Sin COVID, or Colombia Without COVID-19 – is one of Colombia’s most dynamic new charity groups. But Col5Vid's founder admits the idea wasn’t born at a board room table – but on a bedroom sofa.

They're a familiar sight and sound in South Florida’s Venezuelan community: videos of exiles defending themselves against accusations that they’re “Chavistas," or sympathizers of Venezuela’s authoritarian socialist regime, a government despised by almost every expat here.

In South Florida we tend to think of the golden age of cocaine (if it can be called that) as the 1980s – iconic Colombian drug lords like Pablo Escobar and cocaine cowboys marauding through Miami. But according to British-American journalist Toby Muse, cocaine's real golden age is…today.

Like so many doctors around the world, pediatric surgeon Roberto Herrera was exposed to the new coronavirus back in early March.

No country in Latin America and the Caribbean has been hit as hard by the new coronavirus as Ecuador. Brazil, a far larger country, may have more COVID-19 cases; but Ecuador’s death toll is thought to be twice as high as Brazil’s. And no place in Ecuador has suffered as terribly as the port city of Guayaquil.

In Washington this month, President Trump announced the U.S. had just “bought a tremendous amount of hydroxychloroquine.” That’s the anti-malaria drug he insists is the most promising treatment for the new coronavirus, or COVID-19. "A game-changer,” the conservative leader likes to say.

Until this month, it looked like Latin America and the Caribbean might be spared the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the world saw the tragic images from Ecuador of a sudden and overwhelming number of deaths from the new coronavirus – of corpses lining the sidewalks in the port city of Guayaquil. Meanwhile, the number of cases in Brazil is doubling or tripling every week – and so are the number of deaths.

The federal government has designated farm workers as "essential" to the U.S. food supply chain during the COVID-19 crisis. Ironically, about two-thirds of U.S. farm workers are undocumented immigrants from Latin America. Either way, they do most of our food picking and processing, especially in Florida.

Last week, we asked if the U.S. should loosen economic sanctions against countries during grave crises like the new coronavirus. We considered Venezuela; this week we look at Cuba — and U.S. sanctions against its communist regime.

Since COVID-19 is a global pandemic, more Americans are asking a relevant question: In life-and-death emergencies like this, should the U.S. loosen economic sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran – and especially Venezuela?

When São Paulo, Brazil, reported Latin America’s first case of the new coronavirus last month, South Florida had reason to worry.

Since taking office, President Trump has worked to gain more Latino support in Florida by casting his rival Democrats as socialists – like the regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. Last week, WLRN talked to the Democratic SuperPAC Priorities U.S.A. about the Trump's strategy. They claim it’s the President who resembles Latin American dictators.

Last week, the Democratic Super PAC Priorities U.S.A. launched a social media ad campaign that's created a lot of buzz in South Florida.

Colombia’s highest court is about to issue a ruling that could return the country to a total ban on abortion – or bring it in line with Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. Either way, because Colombia is one of the region's largest and more culturally influential countries, the decision could have a profound effect on abortion rights in Latin America.

“José” is an award winning film from Guatemala about a young gay man’s struggles to find love in a socially conservative, homophobic society. “José” opens this Friday in South Florida theaters. But its star, Guatemalan actor Enrique Salanic, won't be here for the film's American premiere, as he'd hoped. That's because the U.S. has denied Salanic a visa to enter the country.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó rallied Venezuelan expats on Saturday at the Miami Airport Convention Center, an event that marked the end of a two-week world tour that included Europe and Canada. The aim was to rekindle international support for his campaign to oust authoritarian Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which started a year ago.

Early last year, Bulgarian officials discovered almost $70 million had been transferred from Venezuela to a bank in their capital, Sofia.

Two months ago, Democratic state Rep. Cindy Polo of Miami Lakes visited a prison in El Salvador. Polo met an inmate named Berta Margarita Arana, a Salvadoran woman serving eight years for attempting an abortion.

In 2012, the Presidents of Venezuela and Iran met at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas. The bromance between Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alarmed Washington, since Venezuela and Iran were (and still are) sworn enemies of the U.S. So Chávez had fun joking that Ahmadinejad had come to help him “fire large missiles” at America.

Port-au-Prince was a canyon of crushed concrete and horrified screams as Jean Samson Edouard ran panicked and barefoot through the capital’s Carrefour-Feuilles district.

It's hard to wrap your arms around everything that happened 2019 in Latin America and the Caribbean. It's even harder to find any good news — from the violent political unrest that rocked capitals from La Paz to Port-au-Prince, to a record number of fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest.

Thirty years ago this Friday – Dec. 20, 1989 – the U.S. invaded Panama. The main objective was to capture the Panamanian dictator, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted in the U.S. for drug trafficking. The invasion also restored democracy in Panama.

Last month a big anniversary in the western hemisphere went largely unnoticed in the U.S.

Twenty years ago this week, on Thanksgiving Day, a 5-year-old Cuban boy named Elián González was found floating on an inner tube in the Atlantic off Fort Lauderdale. His mother had taken him with her fleeing communist Cuba. She drowned. For the next seven months, Elián was the focus of a bizarre tug-of -war between his father in Cuba and his Cuban exile relatives in Miami – who wanted to keep Elián in the U.S.

Few issues dominate our politics today more passionately than immigration, but we rarely see the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border dramatized in fiction. Now Texas author and border native Oscar Cásares has written what one critic calls a “quietly suspenseful” novel titled “Where We Come From.”

Of all the problems immigrants need to solve when they settle in the U.S., Yllis Hernandez faced the kind that so often leads to a business.

Some political experts say Florida's efforts to usurp local government authority are uncomfortably reminiscent of the late strongman Hugo Chávez's playbook.

The Guatemalan film "1991," which just premiered in Miami, recalls horrific — but lesser known — racist violence that stalked the country's streets during its civil war.

Florida's large and more recently arrived diaspora is a key force driving the new — and potentially successful — Puerto Rican statehood effort in Washington.

On Monday, because of the terrible humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, President Biden granted Venezuelans currently living in the U.S. Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. It means more than 300,000 eligible Venezuelans, most of whom are here in South Florida, can live and work legally in the U.S. for 18 months. After that time, TPS can and likely will be renewed.

With Haiti in economic and security collapse, President Jovenel Moïse's increasingly authoritarian rule is a point of bitter debate in the country – and South Florida.

Due to limited resources, delayed start-ups, chronic shortages — and official scandals — only a fraction of Latin America and the Caribbean has been inoculated.

On Mardi Gras, 'Kanaval' host Leyla McCalla talks about the rich cultural connection between New Orleans music — meaning, really, American music — and Haiti.

A leader of the global COVID vaccine procurement mission acknowledges the pandemic disaster in Latin America and the Caribbean is its "greatest priority."

President Trump built diplomatic leverage on Venezuela, then lost it. President Biden can get it back — but Venezuelan exiles need to adjust expectations.

Venezuelan exiles were happy to see President Trump finally grant their community relief from deportation — but many are angry he didn't order it years ago.

When Joe Biden becomes president this week, Florida politics will compel him to engage both sides of the Cuban-American street before he engages Cuba.

Cuentapropistas, or private Cuban business owners like Marta Deus are under threat but "getting strategic." They're convinced they're the island's economic future.

As Cuba unifies its two currencies, ordinary Cubans brace for skyrocketing prices — with still no structural reform of the island's failed economic system.

As if the region's coronavirus catastrophe wasn't enough, 2020 heaped human rights crises and historic hurricanes on Latin America and the Caribbean too.

Artists' sudden, stunning push for free speech and expression in Cuba is resonating with ordinary citizens in ways authorities have rarely seen.

Venezuelan exile journalist Francisco Poleo explains why his country's political opposition — and most of the world — refuse to legitimize this Sunday's vote.

The strongest storms ever to form so late, and so far south, in the Caribbean could force us to revise our expectations about hurricanes in this part of the world.

Sudhir Hazareesingh's "Black Spartacus" illuminates the remarkable Haitian liberator Toussaint Louverture — and the universal importance of the revolution he led.

Joe Biden's decisive defeat in Florida reflected a big underperformance with Latino voters — whom critics say Democrats still take for granted and misread.

Donald Trump won a surprising number of Haitian-American votes in 2016. But since then he's burned a lot of bridges to Little Haiti. Will it burn him next week?

Biden and his campaign didn't take the GOP's "socialista" attacks seriously enough. On-the-ground Latino activists did. It may help him win Florida.