Latinos in the United States typically live longer than whites — a phenomenon commonly referred to as the “Hispanic Paradox” or “Latino Mortality Advantage.”

While not totally understood, these epidemiological findings have interested scholars, mostly because Latinos, on average, have lower socioeconomic status than whites. This is typically associated with higher death rates and worse health outcomes.

Good health at the start of migration, lower rates of smoking and strong social networks are some of the reasons researchers believe Latinos have an edge over their white counterparts in the United States.

But current health trends suggest the gap between U.S. Latinos and whites may soon be shrinking, according to Princeton University research, which points to higher obesity rates, higher incidence of diabetes, and significant disability issues as potential downfalls for Latinos. While Latinos still smoke less than whites in the United States, this may not be enough to counteract the other negative health trends.

Study author Noreen Goldman, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Demography and Public Affairs, recently answered questions about her research. Her findings were published in Research on Aging, an academic journal.  Read More

Brazil’s Senate voted last week to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, a move that suspends the president for 180 days. Rousseff, who is accused of using public bank money to cover budget gaps, now faces an impeachment trial. The suspended president is calling the situation a “coup d’etat” and maintains she didn’t act criminally regarding budgetary affairs.

The impeachment raises significant questions for Brazil’s economic and political future. John Londregan, professor of politics and international affairs, answered questions about these issues and how they will affect Brazil going forward.

Londregan, a faculty associate at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, is a specialist in the development and application of statistical methods in political science. He also studies politics in South America, with a particular focus on Chilean legislative and electoral politics. Read more

Dennisse Calle found the topic for her senior thesis along a Havana street, in the back of a stall that sells pirated movies and music.

Cubans pay the equivalent of a few dollars, insert a flash drive into the computer at the back of the stall, and get access to El Paquete — a weekly, one terabyte compilation of popular TV shows, movies, music, computer and phone apps, and advertisements that serves as an offline Netflix, YouTube, Craigslist and more in a country where Internet access is slow and expensive. Read more

Rachel Price, an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese who is also affiliated with the Program in Media and Modernity, joined Princeton in 2009. Her scholarship focuses on Latin American, Caribbean and particularly Cuban literature and culture; media; poetics; empire; and ecocriticism. Her essays have explored a range of topics including digital media, slavery, poetics and visual art. This semester she is teaching an undergraduate course, “El Género Negro: Crime Fiction,” in Spanish, and a graduate course, “Narrative Prose in Latin America — Finance and Form.”

In her new book, “Planet/Cuba” (2015, Verso Books), Price addresses contemporary literature as well as conceptual, digital and visual art from Cuba that engages questions of environmental crisis, new media and new forms of labor and leisure.  Read more