Northern America

Latinos voted for Barack Obama in throngs in 2008. The landslide turnout of Latino voters was due in large part to the promise of comprehensive immigration reform. I was among those Latinos. Many of us knew that change would not come easily, but we did not expect the plight of immigrants to actually worsen—as it has under the radical expansion of the federal program Secure Communities

BY SAMUEL STOLPER Like it or not, renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) are a major part of United States climate and energy policy. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have enacted RPSs, and seven more states have analogous voluntary (non-binding) programs[i]. RPSs have been active since the early 2000s, so some states have as much […]

On Sunday, November 23, the Obama administration announced that they had reached a preliminary deal with Iran over that country’s nuclear program. The tentative deal is being hailed in the media as a sign of rapprochement between the two historical enemies, but Banai warned during his talk that the rift runs deeper than many observers […]

Educational Equity: Where We Are and Where We Need To Be Since 2001, Congressman Mike Honda has represented the 17th Congressional District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. His district includes Silicon Valley, the birthplace of technology innovation and the leading region for the development of the technologies of tomorrow. First as a […]

Get Off the Sidelines and Get into the Game: An Interview with Senator Mazie Hirono Born in Fukushima, Japan, Mazie K. Hirono was nearly eight years old when her mother brought her and her older brother to Hawaii to escape an abusive husband and seek a better life. Hirono served in the Hawaii House of […]

Multicultural Cooking: An Interview with Anita Lo Anita Lo, chef and owner of Annisa, is one of the most respected chefs in the country, earning numerous accolades for her inventive contemporary American cuisine. In 2000, Lo opened Annisa, an intimate restaurant in Greenwich Village. In June 2009, a fire destroyed the restaurant. While plans for […]

The negotiations in Geneva are exciting, but miss much of the action. As US and Iranian diplomats sit down for the much-anticipated nuclear negotiations in Geneva, attention has focused on the drama unfolding in Europe. From Secretary Kerry’s premature departure from Israel on Friday, to French indignation over weak concessions on Saturday, there has been […]

October 25th, 2013 – Welcome to the policy cast of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy. This year Antonio Villaraigosa stepped down after two terms as the mayor of Los Angeles. In a city where Hispanics have become the predominant ethnic group, making up approximately half of the city’s 10 million residents, he represents a […]

Abstract Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, and yet they have some of the highest rates of being uninsured when disaggregated into ethnic subgroups. Analyzing U.S. Census data from the 2008 to 2010 American Community Surveys, this article seeks to identify factors contributing to disparities in health insurance coverage among […]

 “A Dream Deferred” is a documentary film produced by the Harvard Law Documentary Studio and directed by Dario Guerrero and Alex Boota, students at Harvard College. The film follows four Harvard students as the deal with the burden no other students must deal with; they are undocumented. Opinion Editorial “What happens to a dream deferred?”  […]

BY TOMMY TOBIN Whatever you think about former Vice President Dick Cheney, his upcoming book Heart provides new fodder for debates around the 25th Amendment and America’s system of presidential succession.  Cheney’s imperilled health during his term in office demonstrated that the 25th Amendment and the nation’s procedures for handling inability, disability, and vacancy in […]

In 2004, Tammy Duckworth was deployed to Iraq as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. She was one of the first Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom until her helicopter was hit by an RPG on 12 November 2004. Duckworth lost her legs and partial use […]