Author: Insights

On May 4, 1905, a British freighter named Ilford arrived at the port of Salina Cruz, carrying 1,033 Korean passengers bound for agricultural labor in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Most of them had never heard of Mexico. Few of the men, women, and children knew what work awaited. But all had been recruited under promises of land, wages, and opportunity. The reality that met them in Yucatán’s henequen plantations was far from those assurances. What was meant to be a short-term overseas contract transformed into a permanent and often punishing displacement, forged by geopolitical manipulation, imperial subjugation, and a system...

For nearly a century, war movies have been a cinematic cornerstone, dramatizing the chaos, heroism, and heartbreak of human conflict. But as Hollywood moves midway into the 2020s, fewer films are being made and even fewer capturing significant box office attention. The genre that has given us unforgettable stories, from the Cold War fears that culminated in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) to the tragedy of Vietnam in his “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), appears to be in retreat. The question is, why? What happened to the war movie, a category that once commanded the attention of audiences and critics...

“Day after day for the past nine years, we crafted every urgent plea possible to persuade them: appealing to their intellects and their hearts and their humanity and their patriotism. They told us we were exaggerating, we were overreacting, that we were drifting into melodrama or delusion, that the doom we were forecasting was a fabrication of our minds, that such grim realities were virtual impossibilities. ‘The sky is not falling, Chicken Little.’ they said. ‘You need to relax.’ And now…” – John Pavlovitz Life in a politically charged era can feel like you are constantly standing at the...