By Dr. William Alexander Yankes We live in a scalding time of crisis, but it can be a good thing. Krisis is a Greek term meaning “threshold of transition for choice,” essentially an opportunity for a decision to be made. President Donald Trump’s dismal governance has brought us to a frightening juncture of annihilation or survival. It is up to us which path we take. Our nation’s 45 th president made no attempt to dissimulate his authoritarian and baldly fascist bent when he sent federal forces to stalk the streets of Portland, Oregon and other cities in which news of racially unjust policing had triggered mass protest and civil unrest. By giving plain-clothed federal officers and contracted security agents in unmarked vehicles carte-blanche to assault, kidnap or otherwise detain unarmed civilians and thus stifle political dissent, he expressly attempted to disrupt our democracy. For sometime, he has openly encouraged highly armed militia to attack the very people he was sworn t...

 Editorial and Analysis by Alci Rengifo In 1537, Pope Paul III issued a papal bull declaring that the Indians of the newly-colonized Americas were indeed human beings, complete with a soul. As the Spanish Empire eagerly doubled down on its conquest of the Americas, the Pope figured it was good manners to recognize Europe’s new subjects as people. In 2018, the blonde imperator of the west has decided to take a different tack and declare that 200,000 Salvadoran inhabitants of the U.S. imperium are not worthy of living and working here. In early January, President Trump announced that he was ending the  protections bestowed by the Temporary Protected Status program for Salvadorans allowed into the country following an earthquake in 2001. In the style of those old Roman edicts, Salvadorans still in the country under TPS must leave by September 9, 2019.The Donald has some sort of obsession with El Salvador as of late. The tiny Central American country had the distinct hono...

  Editorial by Alci Rengifo When Hurricane Maria decided to lay her wrath on Puerto Rico, she had no idea that her winds would lay bare the cruel face of both American capitalism and American imperialism. Though far away in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico’s history is closely linked to the Latino experience in America, for we are all the children of empire, especially in L.A., which is a city marked by the imperial acquisition of Mexico in the 19th century. As Trump bullies Puerto Rico, so the system has treated its Spanish-tongued subjects everywhere. “Imperialism” is a dirty word in the halls of American political discourse, whether Republican or Democrat, because the Norman Rockwell view many cling to cringes at the idea that we are (gasp!) an empire. Our countless bases overseas, our base in Guantanamo, Cuba, our continuing presence in Afghanistan, Iraq and parts of Syria are all driven by the hand of manifest destiny according to the cultural daydream. We refuse to believe we...