How an Indigenous Lenca child was kicked off her land by a real estate company

Lideni Alonzo is just nine. She had to leave her and her family’s land when her mother was issued a restraining order. 

An Indigenous Lenca person, Lideni feels a strong emotional attachment to the land she had to leave, and of course to the community there. She struggled in the city, where there were no mango trees to climb. 

With drawings and anecdotes, this article tells her and her mother’s story, and provides insight into the strategies used by big real estate companies to erase Indigenous peoples and gain access to their land.

Read here.


Lenca land, with a sign in the foreground saying it is private property and Indigenous Lenca land. Photo: Fernando Destephen.

53 border victims

On Monday, 53 migrants and refugees ultimately died from heat exhaustion and suffocation in a trailer in San Antonio, in the US. Temperatures in the trailer, where there was no ventilation, likely reached 53 ° C (127.4 ° F), according to expert calculations.

While a lot of the media has focused on the role of the trailer drivers and the arrest of four people involved in the tragedy, there would be no need to pay such people to get into the US if the US followed the proper refugee and asylum seeker protocol at the border, and allowed greater freedom of movement. The governments of Mexico, the US, Guatemala, and Honduras also agreed to “combat human trafficking.”

According to the Mexican government, at least 27 of those who died were Mexican, 14 Honduran, and 7 from Guatemala. See this infographic by ContraCorriente illustrating the number of Hondurans detained and deported at the US border so far this year (in Spanish).

The other sides of migration

🥾 A caravan left Mexico on Friday from the country’s southern border. Participants said it includes 400 pregnant women and around 1,000 children, for a total of 8,000 migrants. They also asked for protection in order to avoid tragedies similar to the trailer one, and are marching to another city in Chiapas state, where they hope migrant officials will be less overwhelmed and able to process their visas.

🥾 The US Supreme Court has voted 5 to 4 to finally end the Remain in Mexico policy. President Biden had tried to end the policy last June, but a federal judge ordered the government to restart the program.

Central America and Mexico news roundup 

🌎 Some 80% of El Salvador is experiencing water stress, and600,000 people do not have access to drinking water or sanitation service. The government recently passed a law to improve water access, but activists argue it is more about privatizing water.

🌎 Another journalist was murdered in Mexico on June 29, and the next day, journalists in his state of Tamaulipas protested. His daughter was also hit in the attack and died on Friday. So far, 12 journalists have been murdered this year in the country. 

🌎 And around Mexico and Central America, people marched on the weekend for sexual diversity rights. Over 10,000 people marched in Guatemala City under the slogan, “I exist, I resist, I persist,” and thousands also marched in San Salvador. Some 250,000 people marched in Mexico City.


Pride in Mexico City this year. Photo: El País / Rodrigo Oropeza

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