Karen Juanita Carrillo
Articles From This Author
How Hernán Cortés Conquered the Aztec Empire
The Aztec Empire, Mesoamerica’s dominant power in the 15th and early 16th centuries, controlled a capital city that was one of the largest in the world. Itzcoatl, named leader of the Aztec/Mexica people in 1427, negotiated what has become known as the Triple Alliance—a powerful ...read more
How Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ Confronted an Ugly Era of Lynchings
The haunting lyrics of “Strange Fruit” paint a picture of a rural American South where political and psychological terror reigns over African American communities. “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,” blues legend Billie Holiday sang in her powerful 1939 recording of ...read more
The Mariel Boatlift: How Cold War Politics Drove Thousands of Cubans to Florida in 1980
The Mariel Boatlift of 1980 was a mass emigration of Cubans to the United States. The exodus was driven by a stagnant economy that had weakened under the grip of a U.S. trade embargo and by Cuban President Fidel Castro's exasperation with dissent. “Those who have no revolutionary ...read more
How the Chicano Movement Championed Mexican-American Identity
In the 1960s, a radicalized Mexican-American movement began pushing for a new identification. The Chicano Movement, aka El Movimiento, advocated social and political empowerment through a chicanismo or cultural nationalism. As the activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales declared in a ...read more