Adios Nino

“The problem we have is that these young people want to get money without any work.”

Don Arturo’s comment on the youth of his community came as part of a completely unrelated conversation about his community’s struggle with multi-national mining…

Year 3 of our student trip to Guatemala carries a different weight than other years. For the last time, when I left Chicago I was leaving home, leaving our little brick home for a period of time. I kept imagining the trip in the eyes of the kids and all the new sights, sounds…

Inspired by Evan Kuehn​ and by the need to productively procrastinate, I spent about 2 hours making some simple excel spreadsheets on the CPS budget data. With the caveat that I don’t know how CPS calculates school-specific budgets based on enrollment nor do I know much…

One of the most basic debates in social policy is whether inequality or poverty should be the focus of intervention, a debate that at its core is an ideological battle over what’s more important. We talk about this in the introductory social policy course I teach at Dominican, about…

I think the most annoying thing about being obviously not-Guatemalan in touristy areas is the aggression and persistence of vendors and assorted “salespeople.” Whether it’s the Central Market in the capital, Chichicastenago, Antigua, taxi drivers at bus stations or walking-stick sellers at…