La Vuelta Podcast: Energy Reform in Mexico, Latinos and HIV/AIDS in the United States

This month’s episode of La Vuelta Podcast begins with an examination of recent energy policy reforms in Mexico.  Last summer, President Enrique Peña Nieto introduced a series of proposals to end the monopoly of the state-owned PEMEX (Petróleos de Mexico) energy giant by allowing foreign investment in the country’s energy sector.  The move set off a series of high-profile protests by opponents of the Peña Nieto administration, accusing him of compromising the sovereignty of the Mexican state by attacking an institution born, in a celebrated nationalization of foreign oil interests, during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930s. Noel Maurer, an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, who has written extensively on the Mexican oil industry, spoke with us about the history of oil and politics in Mexico and the impact that President Peña Nieto’s reforms might have on the Mexican energy sector.

Next, we turned to the complex issue of Latinos and HIV/AIDS infection in the United States.  Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reveal that Latinos are disproportionately infected with HIV.  In a recent article, Erika L. Sánchez, a Chicago-based writer, examined some of the ways in which Latino cultural taboos regarding sex and homosexuality might be influencing the persistence of the disease in the Latino communities of the U.S.  Sánchez joined us to discuss some of the stories she discovered of Latinos infected with HIV/AIDS and the ways in which some Latino communities are responding to this crisis.

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Best,

John