In December 2014, Cuba and the United States established diplomatic relations after having none for more than 50 years. This new relationship started when the president of Cuba, Raul Castro, released an American prisoner accused of being a spy in exchange for the American government releasing three Cuban prisoners also accused of espionage.

Most of the countries in Latin America celebrated the fact that Cuba and the United States had re-established relations. Many Latin American politicians hope that the United States will lift the trade embargo over Cuba. They think that if the embargo is lifted, the Cuban economy will recover and the poverty rate will fall. But there is still a big problem in the way of Cuba’s growth: the communist regime of the Castro family.

In Latin America, it is common to blame the United States for the poverty and social problems of the region. Socialist leaders’ favorite thing to do is blame the United States and imperialism when something is going wrong. Venezuela and North Korea have done it recently and Cuba has done it for the last 50 years. It is easy to say that the situation in Cuba will improve when the United States lifts the embargo, but that does not mean that the Cuban government will stop controlling prices and salaries for the people.

The median salary in Cuba is 20 U.S. dollars a month, but some people earn fewer than 12. The government controls the wages in Cuba and rarely lets college graduates go abroad for fear that they might escape. Each time Cuba sends people abroad, some escape from the hotels where they are staying. When Cuban soccer teams come to play in the United States, at least a couple of them escape every time. Doctors and other specialists tend also to escape, since a doctor in Cuba makes approximately 30 dollars a month, while in countries like Mexico they can make up to 1,500 U.S. dollars.

As we can see, government control of the economy and wages is an obstacle to Cuban growth. People that work in private businesses like hotels have to pay lots of taxes from their wages. As long as the Cuban government keeps controlling the wages of its people and keeps limiting them to buying only from government stores, the quality of life of the Cuban citizens will not improve.

There is one thing that really bothers me with this new relationship between Cuba and the United States, and that is that Raul and Fidel Castro will continue to hold power on the island. I cannot believe the United States is negotiating with criminals like the Castro family, who have committed terrible crimes against human rights and have destroyed democracy in Cuba. Fidel and Raul Castro are dictators and they have to pay for their crimes.

Latin American governments criticized the government of Pinochet in Chile because he was a dictator backed by the United States. In the end, Pinochet was tried in court and condemned to prison. But with Cuba, Latin American governments have ignored the situation. Few of them have accused Fidel Castro and Raul Castro of being what they really are: dictators. I think that the Latin American governments have not accused Castro directly because he is opposed to the United States and because of his socialist ideology, which is predominant in most Latin American countries.

I don’t think Cuba will progress with the communist government it has. This system was the one that made millions of Cubans emigrate to countries like the United States, Spain and Mexico, where the economy is not controlled and they can enjoy freedom. In Cuba, people do not even have Internet in their houses. The complaints of citizens cannot be heard because they cannot reach the outside world.

Communism has failed again, and now a communist government asks desperately to fix relations with an old enemy in order to obtain hope for economic recovery. Even if the situation of the Cuban people improves after they re-establish a diplomatic relationship with the United States, the people must not forget that Fidel and Raul Castro are dictators and deserve to be punished.

On March 15, the Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui was fired from MVS Network, one of the main TV and radio networks in Mexico. The day after Aristegui was fired, millions of people backed the journalist on social media, and some signed a petition for her reinstatement. The firing of Aristegui became so popular because she and her team of journalists discovered that the Mexican first lady owned a mansion worth seven million dollars; this house was given to her by a construction corporation in order to obtain more contracts from the Mexican government.

Aristegui and her team had always been critics of the government. On her show, Aristegui denounced corruption among government officials and corporations. A couple of months ago they discovered that the leader of the PRI (Mexico’s most important political party) was running a prostitution ring in Mexico City. As we can see, Aristegui and her team had many enemies who wanted her off the air. According to MVS Network, she was fired because of inappropriate conduct and contract violations.

I do not want to accuse the Mexican government of pressuring the MVS network to fire Aristegui, but there are enough stories of censorship to make this plausible. Aristegui is very popular, and I am sure she will either find another job or move to the United States to continue reporting about Mexico. Many other reporters from Latin America have done the latter after having problems with governments or major networks in their countries. Government censorship in Latin America shows that individual rights and free speech are not protected and that the region is still not all democratic.

The case of Carmen Aristegui is the latest major case of censorship in Latin America, a region well-known for corrupt governments and powerful drug cartels who want to keep the population ignorant. Fortunately government control of the media in Latin America has decreased since the Internet came to the region. Now people can organize and learn what is happening in their countries from independent sources. People have become reporters and often upload videos and pictures of the injustices around them.

However, not even they escape from government censorship. In Venezuela, people began to videotape long food lines and the markets empty because of a food shortage. The government of Venezuela, in an attempt to hide the economic and political crisis, has made videotaping of long lines and markets without products a crime that can send you to prison.

Bloggers and independent reporters are also censored and attacked in Mexico. Maria Fuentes was a Mexican blogger that in 2012 began to write on a Facebook page named Valor por Tamaulipas which gave information about the actions of drug cartels in her state. In October of 2014, Maria was murdered by members of a drug cartel. I feel proud that there are people worried about the situation of their countries and risking their lives and liberty to show the world the problems around them.

A government that restricts the rights of freedom of speech is a dictatorship. This case is more clear with Venezuela, where the government puts citizens in prison just because of their opinions. The cases of Mexico, and other countries where cartels control entire regions, are similar. When the government is not protecting the freedom of speech of its citizens, it is a sign that this country is becoming a failed state because of its incapacity of protecting individual rights.

I feel sad that people willing to tell the truth have to hide their faces in order to avoid attacks from the government or cartels. Unfortunately they have limited options. They can’t go and denounce the aggressions they suffer because police in Latin American countries are often corrupt and inefficient. Their best option for now is to continue reporting anonymously and to unite with others that do the same.

Censorship shows us that apparently living in democracies does not mean that Latin America is democratic and that individual rights are not fully protected. No one should have to risk being shot because of his or her opinion.

China’s economic boom has taken 300 million Chinese citizens out of poverty. Companies from all over the world are going to China to do business, and Chinese companies are growing at an incredible rate. These companies are not only interested in attracting foreign capital, but they are also interested in going abroad to create new branches and start new projects in all regions of the world. However, these new projects, loans and companies that present themselves as solutions to economic problems hide environmental problems, political machines and corruption.

The Chinese government has provided funding for different projects with the purpose of improving diplomatic relations with Latin American countries. For example, in Costa Rica, the Chinese government financed the construction of the new Estadio Nacional after Costa Rican president Oscar Arias signed agreements during a visit to China. The stadium cost 100 million dollars and was built by a Chinese company. China has also lent money to multiple governments in the region. According to the BBC, China’s loans to Latin America rose 22 billion dollars in 2014. In my opinion, the purpose of these loans is to gain political power and open the doors to Chinese business in the region.

Chinese companies are known for bribing local and national governments in developing countries in order to get projects approved and leave them unregulated. The problem here is that Chinese companies love giving bribes and Latin American officials love money. The results have been disastrous. In Argentina, Chinese boats fish illegally each year, capturing tons of fish and threatening species. Although the government of Argentina has captured some of these fishing boats, Argentine journalists say that it is difficult to apprehend the Chinese boats because of their technology and because they bribe the Argentine Coastguard.

In Mexico there have been similar problems. The Chinese companies have tried to start projects like building resorts in national parks such as Cabo Pulmo, one of the biggest coral reefs in the Pacific Coast. Although construction of the resort was halted in 2012, the Chinese companies keep trying to convince officials to finish the project. According to environmentalists, this project would destroy more than 9,000 acres of land, and it poses a threat to the reef of Cabo Pulmo because of pollution created by thousands of tourists.

The latest project in Latin America that is threatening a whole ecosystem and a country’s way of life is the Nicaragua Canal, which was started by Chinese companies in December of 2014. This project would create a canal that would pass through Lake Nicaragua and connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The construction of the canal was negotiated by the son of the president of Nicaragua and the Chinese consortium HKND. This consortium will manage the canal for 50 years. Environmentalist say that the canal could cause a mass extinction in the largest lake in Central America.

Chinese companies are not worried about the environment, which is why China is  undergoing one of the worse environmental crises on Earth right now. These companies will do the same in China and Latin America if the governments allow them. It is necessary to create an international commission or organization that studies their projects and advises countries about the dangers and damages. Unfortunately, poverty is still the biggest problem in Latin America, and the people tend to support any project that promises economic relief. The prosecution of corrupt officials must be another priority, since most of these projects around the world get approved by corrupt governors or members of congress.

Finally, since these mega projects affect entire regions like the towns around Lake Nicaragua, there should be a referendum for people from the affected region to participate in approving the projects. The construction of the Nicaragua Canal was negotiated almost entirely with the presidential staff, and no organization could participate in or observe the negotiations of the project. If corrupt officials continue their rule of approving these projects, the situation will not change and there will be a day when Latin America will be without natural resources for even its own people.+

President Obama gave a speech about his immigration plan on Nov. 20, focusing on border security and delaying deportations of illegal immigrants. The first point he made was about giving additional resources to the border patrol. I think that this is good because it will stop immigrants from coming to the United States and return more illegal immigrants to their countries.

Today immigrants that are apprehended stay in detention centers for sometimes for more than six months while waiting for their deportation. During their stays in those centers they are usually in small cells with other people in unsanitary conditions. If border patrol hastens the return of illegal immigrants, the U.S. government would spend less on imprisoning them. As a result, illegal aliens would suffer less.

Obama’s second point was about high-skilled immigrants and entrepreneurs.

He said, “I’ll make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy, as so many business leaders proposed.”

Many business leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have mentioned the importance of immigrants in the fields of technology and computer science.

“For those (immigrants) who wish to stay and work in computer science or technology, fields badly in need of their services, let’s roll out the welcome mat,” said Bill Gates in a letter to congress in July of 2014.

I think that high qualified immigrants can improve the current services produced in the United States and also create new patents in this country. These two actions will expand the economic pie and create jobs.

Another thing we must take into account is that Latin American millionaires are moving to the United States because of general insecurity in Latin America. Since Chavez came to power in Venezuela and started to take properties from the wealthy, rich Venezuelans have started buying condominiums and bringing their businesses to the United States.

According to the New York Times, the Miami Downtown Development Authority study found that more than 90 percent of the demand for new residential units in neighborhoods like new downtown and Bricknell came from foreign buyers; 65 percent were from South America. If the U.S. government made it easier for Latin American businessmen to move their businesses and families here, more residential units would be built, which would be good for the housing industry. We also must take into account that if investors and entrepreneurs are able to bring their families to the United States, they will contribute more to the economy, since they will spend most of the money they earn in the here and will send little abroad.

In the third point of his speech, Obama said, “So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America more than five years, if you have children who are American citizens or illegal residents, if you register, pass a criminal background check and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation.”

This deal Obama mentions will bring more social benefits than economic benefits.

I am sure this deal will bring peace to millions of families that fear the deportation of their parents and siblings. This action also guarantees the protection of American children that now will not have to worry about being separated from their parents. Newspapers like the Washington Post and US News mentioned that Obama’s deal will delay the deportation of four to five million immigrants.

I think that this deal is a very good one for the government and immigrants because the government will receive more revenue from immigrant taxes and because illegal immigrants will be able to work without fearing deportation. Stopping deportations of immigrants that have families here creates a good image of the U.S. government and gives hope to the Latin American community that loves contributing to the progress of this nation.

The results of the midterm elections are out and there is some bad news for the Democratic Party and President Obama. The Republicans now control both the Senate and the House of Representatives. For Latinos, Obama’s year has not just been terrible, but hopeless. The first minority President, who was largely supported by Latinos in the elections of 2008 and 2012, has failed consistently to improve the lives of Latinos and has taken few actions to stop deportations of family members of U.S. citizens.

“[Obama] says he does not have the executive authority to do that, other attorneys simply do not agree with that,” wrote Univision journalist Sergio Ramos.

In my opinion, although the Republicans have not approved any of the immigration reforms that the Democratic Party has proposed, the Democrats could at least be honest with Latinos and say that the Republicans are the ones keeping them from passing any reform. During the Obama administration, more than two million immigrants have been deported, destroying millions of families. Each day I find more cases of college students that came to the United States as toddlers and now are being deported. The most shocking story was about a Harvard student who came to the United States as a toddler and had to return to Mexico to take care of his mother. Now he can’t return to the United States,even though he was accepted at one of the best universities in the world.

The Latino community keeps waiting for a president that will support immigration reform and give security to millions of families. I personally have family members in the United States that are illegal, and I have talked with many Mexicans across the country; their biggest dream is an amnesty like the one Ronald Reagan declared in 1986. Latinos are honest and hardworking people — most of them have succeeded in this country without help from any government or big organization. Maybe they broke the law to get here, but their contributions to this country have been huge, and it is unfair that they are being deported or put in jail just because they do not have papers.

Latinos are huge believers in the American Dream. We believe in it because we have seen our peers succeed, and year after year we see that our role in this country get bigger. In New Haven, Conn., I met a guy who owned the only Mexican Restaurant at Yale; in Chicago I met a Mexican businessman who could barely read and write when he arrived, and he now owns four restaurants and is incredibly wealthy. I take huge pride when I see athletes with Latino last names like Romo or Gonzalez. It is impossible to define “American” without mentioning Latinos.

Latinos can only hope for the best now; they are between a Democratic Party that has not changed the immigration laws significantly and a Republican Congress with many Tea Party members that are against immigration. Also, immigration is not the most important problem right now. ISIS and Ebola are probably going to be more important issues for Congress than immigration reform, leaving Latinos a vision of another hopeless six months. 

2016 could be a big year for Latinos. If the new Republican senators and representatives propose more laws against illegal immigrants, Democrats will have more support from Latinos in the next election. The fact is that in 2004 George Bush won 44 percent of the Latino vote and in 2012 Mitt Romney just received 27 percent of it. Although the Democratic Party has failed Latinos repeatedly, it is their only option for now.

People often associate Latin America with poverty. Markets all over the world are currently seeing a downward trend due to a number of global economic factors. Not only is the United States suffering, but Chile is also; the country expects to grow no more than two percent in 2014. Similarly, Mexico, which expected to grow 3.5 percent this year, will grow just three percent. With economies shrinking, few expected to see a miracle, especially not one in Latin America. Surprise! The number of billionaires in Latin America grew 38 percent according to the Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census of 2014. This number is huge when compared with the growth of the number of billionaires in Asia (18 percent), the United States (10 percent) and Europe (one percent).

When I saw this statistic, I was happy to learn Latin America had something to be proud of this year — until I read how these billionaires made their money. Argentinean journalist Andres Oppenheimer interviewed David Friedman, the president of Wealth-X, one of the companies responsible for writing the list of billionaires. Friedman unfortunately had some bad news: Most of these new billionaires are the sons of current billionaires. They just inherited fortunes.

In Los Angeles, 92 percent of billionaires are self-made and in Beijing 100 percent of billionaires are self-made, compared to just 57 percent in Mexico City and 61 percent in Sao Paulo. This data tells us something very discouraging. In my opinion, the problem with poverty in Latin America has to do not with the distribution of wealth, but with the creation of it.

I identify two major problems with wealth in Latin America: the accumulation of wealth by very few families and the creation of wealth by Latin Americans. Latin American billionaires tend to be part of families that have been rich since the times when their respective countries were still Spanish colonies. This rich elite controls politics and creates monopolies. I believe that the destruction of monopolies and creation of a true free market will make other companies grow and will bring a flow of new ideas that will create more billionaires. Without monopolies, new companies could start to cover services currently controlled by just one company. In a free market with less government intervention and low taxes, citizens will be able  to start businesses more easily.

Latin Americans usually become billionaires by owning mines or natural resources, entering the food and clothing industries, or pursuing the entertainment industry. The problem with this distribution is that Latin American countries are not inventing new technologies or products that count as intellectual property. Latin America’s performance in the production of patents has been mediocre in comparison with other countries. In 2013 the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted 3,152 patents to Israel, but only 570 to Argentina, Mexico and Brazil combined – yes, a country with 8 million people produces more technology than 3 countries with a combined population of 450 million. Most new billionaires in China, the United States and Japan have become billionaires because they produce technology and high-value patents.

The number of billionaires in a country reflects the opportunities in and productivity of that country. Billionaires often wield more power than governments. There are many examples. The Gates Foundation has paid for thousands of kids’ college educations. Chicago’s major parks and attractions were donated by the Pritzker family. Harvard’s research is funded mainly by alumni that are now billionaires. The only way Latin America can produce more billionaires is by investing in education, giving children more access to technology and breaking down monopolies.

The next software genius might be in a school in Colombia or Mexico or Paraguay without a computer. When a Prep School in Seattle bought an expensive computer in 1968, they expected to improve the quality of education for their students; what they did not know is that the computer would convince a young boy named Bill Gates to go into the software field. Who knows where Bill Gates would be if he had not had access to that computer?

It is not a myth: A huge part of Mexico is controlled by drug cartels that are even more powerful than the government.  In some counties of Mexico, cartels fund the political campaigns of congressmen and governors and effectively decide who wins the local elections.

For years, the international press has reported about the power of drug cartels, but has not followed any case specifically. I think that since the police in Mexico are incapable of resisting the cartels, we need international pressure to convince the Mexican government to accept more help from police from other countries in combating drug dealers.

The city of Iguala, in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast, is one of the counties in which the drug cartels are in control of everything. A lot of people in the town know that, but few dare to confront or denounce the local government.

One group from Iguala, the Normalistas, made up of college students that wanted to be teachers, decided to participate in a major protest on Oct. 2. On Sept. 26, 2014, the group of students took three buses to Mexico City to join students from all over the country in the Oct. 2 march, commemorating the massacre of students in 1968 who protested the Olympic Games.

On the way out of town, a group of policemen and drug dealers intercepted the buses and started to shoot. Three dead bodies were found at the scene, and the rest of the 43 students were kidnapped. Nobody knows where they are. The disappearance of these students and the incapability of the Mexican police to find them convinces me that calling cops or investigators from other countries is necessary to find the missing students.

The case first attracted attention from Mexican national media, but suddenly press from other countries began to write about the massacre. This past week, I read articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about it.

The pressure that media has put on the national government to solve this case has made President Enrique Peña Nieto send the military to Iguala. The whole police department of Iguala has been put under arrest and is being investigated in Mexico City. The mayor of Iguala is a fugitive, and many protests across the country are asking the governor of Guerrero to resign.

I feel sad and outraged about the massacre of the students. I still think there might be hope that, since this case captured the attention of the international media, this will make the world more aware of the situation of Mexico. Organizations in the United Nations should put more pressure on the Mexican government so activists will be better-protected.

Currently, the possibility of UN Blue Helmets in Mexico has run into problems. The UN Blue Helmets interfere in major international crises when the UN Security Council believes it is necessary, but since the Mexican government has not asked any country to help fight the drug cartels, the project is halted.

Aid from a neutral force like the UN would make the area safer, since the police and sometimes even the military are controlled by the drug cartels. The Mexican government also needs to work more closely with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, and let them operate in Mexican territory. Police corps can investigate Mexican drug dealers, but they cannot perform arrests or capture drug lords because of Mexican law.

Meanwhile, the attacks against students continue. The morning after the 43 students disappeared, a group of teachers and students from the college gave a talk about what happened to the population of Iguala. A group of drug dealers began to shoot at them, so one of the students ran away. The next day his body was found on one side of the road with his face stripped away.

I hope that the disappearance of the students sparks a movement of not only violence, but of political change. Mexican society must also begin to participate actively and remove all politicians that are related with drug dealers and put them in prison. This can only happen if Mexicans unite and find a leader or group of leaders who, like most Mexicans, are tired of this corrupt government.

For 76 years the Mexican oil and energy industry was run by the state. During those 76 years, the state monopoly proved itself to be the worst section of the Mexican bureaucracy, overlooking huge oil spills, the deaths of workers, aid to drug cartels, corruption, millionaire union leaders and obsolete equipment, among other things.

But how did this problem start? In 1938, Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas decided that the oil industry should be run by the state to benefit Mexican society. He started a national campaign to support his idea, and with the help of donations from the Mexican people (some of whom even pawned their chickens to contribute to the cause), he was able to pay foreign companies to leave the country.

Cárdenas´ dream of making Mexico a rich country through a state-owned oil industry failed miserably. The country couldn’t make PEMEX (the national energy corporation) competitive, so they were limited to oil extractions; the process of refining oil happened abroad because the state did not have the equipment and refineries to produce gasoline, and no one else could due to the state monopoly. In 1994 the Mexican government began to privatize government corporations, from railroads to soccer teams, but no one mentioned oil and energy.

In 2012, the new government, under President Enrique Peña Nieto, proposed new economic reforms. With Peña Nieto’s new Energy Reform, private companies will be able to come to Mexico and establish refineries and new oil wells; they will also be able to extract energy from renewable sources like the sun and wind. People will be able to choose where they want to buy gas and energy for their houses, since the government will no longer be the only entity that provides these services. The price of gas and energy will decrease, since there will now be competition in the industry.

The reform also brings hope for education: private companies will bring new training courses for Mexican oil workers and universities will offer new petroleum engineering programs. In his book Cuentos Chinos, the Argentinian journalist Andrés Oppenheimer mentions that in Mexico´s biggest university, UNAM, fewer than 100 petroleum engineers graduate per year — an incredibly low number for a country with such a huge oil industry.

However, a great number of Mexicans are against this reform. The new policies will produce layoffs in PEMEX, since the company has a surplus of workers. Many of these workers, however, represent a phenomenon called ghost workers — people who appear on the payroll, have never worked in PEMEX and whose checks are going to the pockets of other people. Also, the gas stations will have to fire more than 400,000 workers called dispatchers that work filling tanks and cleaning windshields. Since dispatchers do not exist in the United States outside of Oregon and New Jersey, American companies taking advantage of the Mexican energy sector will build gas stations that will not need them, forcing Mexican gas stations to lay them off to compete.

These are valid concerns. However, a lot of people who hold them still believe that the government should run the oil industry, even though evidence shows that the government has failed miserably. Mexico needs to try a new economic system in order to get the best out of the abundant resources it has. The biggest challenge now is to get rid of the socialist idea that the government can run economic sectors better than companies; decades of socialist governments in Latin America have proven that wrong.