Virginia Quarterly Review, The

Are We Losing the War On Drugs?

The Crazy Place

In Dec 2006, Felipe Calderon, as one of his first acts as president of Mexico, declared war on the drug cartels of his nation and announced his intention to use the Mexican army as his instrument. Violence exploded across the nation and the number of murders soared, but the Army has suffered almost no losses, and the price of drugs in American cities has remained stable or has even declined. Yet, the vast majority of politicians and media outlets claim it is a war to the death against drugs a...

The Winter of Our Discontent

Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations came of age in the seventies and eighties, when the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) cracked down on cocaine trafficking between Colombia and the US via the Caribbean. Mexico's foray into the American drug market, then, began as legitimate cooperation with the US Army, and with the translations westward of the Colombia-to-America cocaine pipelines in the seventies and eighties, there were plenty of Sinaloans poi...

Call of the Narcocorrido

In the PM newsroom, across from faded purple and brown-striped cubicles where reporters sit amid tacked-up centerfolds and layouts for the day's cover story of a gun-shot man discarded in a ditch, two men, a photographer, and assistant editor, listen to the strains of narcocorrido drifting from a police scanner. The vague shrill discord of accordions and a brass band echoes in the glass office until a burst of distortion shatters the ill-begotten melody and imposes a staticky silence. Like mo...

Manny's Story

Manny Carrizales Rios is a migrant smuggler about to be sentenced to five years hard time in an American penitentiary. In his place in Rancho Anapra, which sits at the western edge of Ciudad Juarez, he is the boss. Here, deBree narrates the life of Manny.

Water Clock

A poem is presented.

The Mule

Apter details how drug cartels use young white girls as mules in the transport of illegal drugs--usually marijuana and cocaine--across the borders of Mexico and the US. He cites in particular the experience of Maria (not her real name), a mule herself, as a case in point to provide everyone an inside view of what it's like to be inside the world of drug traffickers.

Cold Range, Hot Range

A poem is presented.

Game Over

Anasi details his close encounter to a guy named Jesse to give everyone an inside look at the life of a drug dealer in the city of Pittsburgh. Among other things, he shares Jesse's ability to identify markets and suppliers and reveals the drug corners in this city--which Jesse described as a wasteland where crime was the only way to make money.

Ghost Poem

A poem is presented.

Upstate Girls

Kenneally discusses the rising number of teenage pregnancy that the city of Troy, located in upstate New York, continues to experience and how the city lost its identity as one of the major players in the industrialization of America. In 2007, 16.3 percent of all children in Troy were living in households headed by a single female; 19.1 percent of the population was living below the poverty line.

The City Ablaze

Somers-Willett discusses the embattled lives of working-class women in the city of Troy in upstate New York. These women belong to the growing class of Americans that people know as the working poor: minimum-wage service workers whose schedules fall just short of full time for a reason. As important as they are to the American economy, politicians still reductively refer to them as "welfare mothers" and "burdens to the state," as if they are somehow an affront to the American way of life and ...

A Call to Arms

A poem is presented.

In the Office of Temporary Assistance

A poem is presented.

Just a Girl

A poem is presented.

The Cutting Place

A poem is presented.

Advice for the Penny Bride in Times of Economic Crisis

A poem is presented.

Women of Troy

A poem is presented.

Opportunity Knocks

Reyes talks about Max Rameau, who is seizing the moment in hunting down houses that are left idle by the banks, or by the city, so that he can take them over. Rameau argues that everyone deserves a home. His solution is to usurp foreclosures on behalf of the homeless, to move families in crisis into houses long abandoned in a dead market, in struggling neighborhoods, and call as much attention to the act as possible so that he can trigger a broader discussion of how property works in America....

The Vanishing American

A short story is presented.

Congregation

Trethewey documents the struggles of a few people in North Gulfport, one of two historically African American communities in Gulfport MS, after hurricane Katrina. North Gulfport has always been a place where residents have struggled with a lack of civic resources extended to other outlaying communities. Isolated and unincorporated, North Gulfport lacked a basic infrastructure: flooding and contaminated drinking water were frequent problems.

Witness

A poem is presented.

Tower

A poem is presented.

Watcher

A poem is presented.

Believer

A poem is presented.

Kin

A poem is presented.

Exegesis

A poem is presented.

Prodigal I

A poem is presented.

Prodigal Ii

A poem is presented.

Benediction

A poem is presented.