Monica Gutierrez

The mention of Diyarbakir -- where Jake Hanrahan, Philip Pendlebury and Rasool were documenting clashes between members of the pro-Kurdish PKK and security forces -- rushed unforgettable memories to my mind, this time with the concept of Vice bizarrely intertwined with the Kurdish city.

Puerto Rico is by culture part of Latin America and by politics part of the US. But at the same time the Island is not a Latin American country neither a State of the Union. That is why it is trapped in an impossible situation without real instruments to combat the very particular characteristics of her current situation. This time around the US cannot be the solution, because the US is an integral part of the problem. Applying the war on drugs to Puerto Rico is proving to be like pulling a gun to our own head.

I know of a Dominican woman who crossed the United States frontier illegally, looking for a better life for her and her family in Puerto Rico. She paid a smuggler a couple thousand dollars to cross the treacherous Mona channel on a small wooden boat, known as a "yola," with fourteen other souls. After being lost at sea for some time she is unable to quantify, the man in charge threw a sick person overboard to stop his unnerving whining. They almost capsized in waters infested with sharks. When food supplies ran out, a mother offered her breast milk to her fellow travelers and saved them from dehydration. Miraculously, they made it.

Not too long ago, traveling on a "pinasse" up the Niger River from Mopti to Timbuktu often rewarded visitors with an idyllic glimpse of the f...

What Is It About Roberto Paradise? | Monica Gutierr...