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The Mayan Apparatchiks
When the Guatemalan president-elect Alvaro Arzú promised on January 7 that his government “will be one of total and absolute respect for human rights,” the announcement had a novel ring to it that on second thought was rather chilling. Mr. Arzú led his
Pitfalls of Peace in Bosnia
The woman piled her books and magazines on the grass in front of her apartment building in the Sarajevo suburb and set them alight. In the crazy logic of her world-turned-upside-down, this meant Serb thugs wouldn’t need to torch her apartment, as they
Gamblers’ Needs Focus a Town on its Reading Failures
TUNICA, MS. June, 1996 – A teacher stands before a blackboard in an otherwise barren room. Eleven faces stare back passively. Most are in their twenties, a few in their forties. They are newly hired cashiers at the Sheraton Casino. On Monday, they
The Dream: Trying to Make it in the Major Leagues
By Marcos Bretón with photos by José Luis Villegas La Victoria, Dominican Republic – It is after dark on a humid and still March night – the last night before 11 young men would fly to America on a trip that could forever
Delray Beach, Florida: Little Haiti’s Little Sister
Note: Many of the Pictures used in the original APF Reporter issue are copyrighted and could not be used in the web eddition Daniella Henry remembers her first visit to Delray Beach. Driving up from Miami one night in 1990, she exited brightly-lit
Traces of the Past
Text and photos by Jill Freedman APF fellow Jill Freedman traveled to eastern Europe to document the remnants of Jewish life in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. These residents of the Jewish home for the aged in Szeged, Hungary listen during a concert of
The Others who Suffer from AIDS
Here is the dream that kept coming back to Corey Whitman in the fall of 1991, a few weeks after he turned eleven: He and his parents and his four brothers and sisters are camping out in the woods in a motorhome, a
Indian Head Start: Restoring a Culture
HARLEM, Montana – Winston Morin pulls the Head Start bus up to a pink quonset-hut classroom at the Fort Belknap Agency and joshes with teacher Barbara Long Knife as she climbs aboard for the late-morning ride. The two-way radio hanging above Morin’s left
Head Start: Helping Alabama’s Poor Survive
Question: Which of these activities involves Head Start? A woman sets as her goal obtaining a commercial bus driver’s license, succeeds, and then aims at a new target- taking the test for her high school equivalency diploma. A child sees commitment to service
The Reproachful Voices of the Dead
Text and photos by Jill Freedman A child at the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach touches the face of a child. At least one and one-half million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust. The German and their henchmen were brutal, throwing children
Profiting from One’s Prayers
When prayers end, commerce begins. It’s an inevitable consequence when you are part of a sea of worshippers flowing from West Africa’s holiest shrine. This is the only known photo of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the founder of Senegal’s Mouride Brotherhood. It was taken
Chechnya Update
As dusk falls on the Chechen capital, Grozny, in southern Russia, the sounds of dogs barking, neighbors chatting, and the theme song to a popular Brazilian soap opera mix with the sounds of automatic gunfire and distant explosions. But the conversations continue, soup
Truth on Trial:South Africa’s Past Shades its Future
By the evolving standards of the new South Africa, Themba Khoza might seem to be what he says he is: “the main man,” filled with promise, living out a dream that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Born in Zululand
Survivors
Text and photos by Jill Freedman In the Lublin region of Poland, on November 2, 1943, an operation, given the code name “Harvest Festival” by the Germans, was begun. Its object was the murder of those survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising who
Punishing Women, Punishing Girls
Shirley Wilder still carries scars from her first weeks at the New York State Training School for Girls in Hudson, where she was sent soon after her 13th birthday. This vintage postcard shows young women participating in a fire drill at the New
Milestones
Most Fridays, George Whitman doesn’t have the strength of will to take his four children to the community dinners for people affected by AIDS. There is the hour he spends in verbal combat with his two oldest boys – Corey, 15, and Ryan,
Migrant Head Start: Following the Seasons of the Soil
WESTLEY, California – Just as farmwork has changed, so has care for children of those who work in America’s fields. Head Start, for migrant farmworkers’ children, follows their parents’ seasons on the soil. A father weary after a day in the fields picks
Caste Party: Africa Arrives in America
The United Gnegnos of America held their annual ball recently at the Bronx’s Parkside Plaza. Gnegnos (pronounced “NYE nyose”) are a caste, actually the lowest caste, among the city’s 20,000-odd Senegalese immigrants. To attend a Gnegnos function, to have even heard of it
South African Exiles
In exile, now, and far away, it is still easy to recall clearly the joy of sitting alone beside a waterhole, silently listening to the sounds of wild game. Waiting patiently, I anticipated and watched the movements of buck, of lion, of elephant
In Whose Best Interests?
Mark J. Saladino was on the spot. Under professional ethics rules, the young attorney was required to maintain the confidences of his law firm’s clients. However, a coworker — a secretary to a powerful partner in his office — had come to him