Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America by Chesa Boudin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up this book because of the title; I’m a big fan of the word “Gringo.” And for those of you who are about to get offended, know that I am the daughter of a self-proclaimed “gringo” and [...]

The Latin American Briefing Series is part of the University of Chicago’s Center for Latin American Studies; they regularly invites guest to discuss a wide range of topics and issues, and kindly makes them available through their website for free!
Look through their online archive to find videos of previous events. Some of these include discussions [...]

Today I spent the day at the Library of Congress and loved it. I was there with my mother and brother and we took one of the guided tours of the building. This tour starts off with a short movie including a number of brief interviews with some of the librarians who highlight many of [...]

For the 20th anniversary after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Guardian has gathered a number of online projects reflecting its history and present.

Videos  documenting the Wall’s history (The Guardian)
Photographs submitted by readers (The New York Times)
Interactive map tracing bits and pieces of the actual wall (BBC)
Berlin Twitter Wall (Twitter)
The Berlin Project
Mauer Mob (Performance [...]

Archivo Chile is a site that gathers information in all formats primarily about Chile’s social/popular movements, and secondarily about Latin America. The site also emphases human rights, and leftist politics.
The site is rather cumbersome to navigate, but full of interesting material. You can find documents on Salvador Allende, Gabriela Mistral, Violeta Parra, and Miguel Enríque [...]

openDemocracy is a one stop site for news with a Human Rights and pro-Democracy slant. The site is owned by the openDemocracy Foundation for the Advancement of Global Education which promotes education and the understanding of democracy.
The site is divided into 6 main categories: 50.50, openEconomy, openIndia, Our Kingdom, Russia, and Terrorism and Security. As [...]

La Silla Vacía is an online forum for all things related to contemporary Colombian politics. The site offers qualified commentary on the country’s political activity, and it is updated multiple times throughout the day. The idea is to keep others informed, as well as offering an open space for debate. Under “La Movida del Día” [...]

Government Attic is a site that collects hundreds of government documents that have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The site divides its content into “FOIA Logs” and “Documents” for easier browsing, but there is also a search box you can use. The logs will give you a lot of documentation showing the process [...]

Razones de vida by Vera Grabe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I looked up this book because I was curious to read the story of one of Colombia’s guerilla groups (The M-19) from their point of view. Vera Grabe’s story is similar to that of many other guerrilla fighters, they want to believe that their [...]

Just as I was falling asleep last night listening to the BBC, I heard about a very interesting software called Haystack. Basically Haystack is software that was developed by Austin Heap, a San Francisco based “techy” to help Iranians bypass government censorship of the web, while simultaneously protecting their identity. The software will allow people [...]