Latinx

Hey folks, this is Fidel. Every once in a while, the Latinx Files will feature guest writers. This week, I’ve asked Shaadi Devereaux to cover for me. Devereaux is a writer, speaker and poet who uses media to build narratives for trans women of color. She covers sexuality, desire, colonialism, race and anti-Blackness in the Americas. She is also an independent contractor and consultant on a variety of programming centered on human rights for women and marginalized communities. You can find her on Instagram here. What is…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Latinx children in the US experienced higher rates of depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study shows, as experts state the "pressing need" to examine the long-term impact. Findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, follow the…

The future looks bleak.At least 38 people incarcerated in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez died in a fire, with dozens more injured. The victims hailed from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.There’s conflicting information about what exactly happened. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed that the fire was started by the incarcerated migrants after learning that they were going to be deported.But according to a Mexican federal official who spoke to The Times on…

I’ve had very little energy all week, and although the heavy rains pummeling California are a contributing factor, the real culprit for my sluggishness is the World Baseball Classic.I wasn’t planning on it, but over the last three weeks, I became heavily invested in the quadrennial international tournament. For the first time in its history, the WBC felt more like a World Cup than a meaningless exhibition tournament ahead of the Major League Baseball season. And given El Tri’s historically bad performance at the actual…

If you want a reminder that the most vulnerable among us often bear the brunt of catastrophe, all you have to do is look at what happened in Pajaro, Calif.The small town flooded Friday night after a levee containing the Pajaro River broke due to the heavy downpours brought by California’s latest atmospheric river storm, stranding its residents, many of whom are migrant farmworkers. A second levee breeched Monday.The tragedy here is that officials had known for decades that the levee could be breached but chose not to do…

“Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so close to the United States!”That quote, coined by José Nemesio García Naranjo but made famous by Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz*, was the best my brain could come up with when trying to make sense of the kidnapping of four Americans by cartel members in the border city of Matamoros last week.The group of friends crossed into Mexico from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday reportedly for a tummy tuck procedure, but were immediately ambushed and fired upon by unknown gunmen. They were then…

Editor’s note: Fidel is out this week, so we lined up one of our favorite writers — Suzy Exposito. Enjoy this week’s newsletter and be on the lookout for some big news coming soon!A new era has dawned in Latina representation. My dear, sinister sisters: We have arrived.This past Sunday night at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, “Wednesday” lead Jenna Ortega and “The White Lotus” star Aubrey Plaza — two Latina actors, well-known for their grim sensibilities — graced the stage together to present the honors for best male…

Image: PREMIO STOCK (Shutterstock)Every so often, dictionaries spruce up their database of lexicography in order to get with the times. Dictionary.com is no different, and announced this week the new additions to the website’s catalog of words. This new suite of 313 new words demonstrates, intentionally or not, the way that technology and the digital world are changing our own language. The phrase “digital nomad,” for example, which describes someone who works remotely from different corners of the globe, can’t exist in a…

Every week, I’m briefly paralyzed by the panic that I won’t have anything to write about for the newsletter. Despite my obvious lack of faith, the content gods always bestow me with a topic.And boy, was I blessed this week!On Tuesday morning, Andalusia board President Juanma Moreno announced that the regional government had struck a sponsorship deal with the Latin Academy of Recording Arts. As part of the arrangement, Moreno said, the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards will take place in Spain. In a statement to Billboard, Latin…

Not to get too into the weeds about the nature of my job, but a few months ago I got an email from a public relations person asking if I had any interest in covering the release of “Lopez vs. Lopez,” the new NBC sitcom starring George Lopez.The comedian was responsible for the groundbreaking 2002 self-titled ABC prime-time sitcom “George Lopez,” one of the handful of programs in the history of American television to prominently feature a Latinx family. Despite being canceled nearly 16 years ago, the show is still around…