Top Everything of 2025

Another year in the books. Like every year, there were too many worthwhile things for me to make a single list for only one category. So, also like every year, I'm dropping a list with my top picks for a variety of categories. With that said, though, expect an upcoming post or two about movies from 2025, since I did get the chance to watch more movies last year than usual.

A quick note: I am in the process of writing a book right now (an introductory guide to the roots and rise of the Nazis), so most entries will be shorter than they have been in past years. I was initially going to have less categories than usual, but none of them felt right to get rid of. So, brevity will be the key for much of this year's list.

Anyway, these are my picks for what stood out to me in 2025. Enjoy! 

 

Movie: One Battle After Another

This almost feels like a boring pick considering how much attention it has received, but sometimes a near-universally acclaimed movie gets that much praise for a reason. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it follows Leonardo DiCaprio as a burnt out ex-revolutionary trying to protect his daughter as his and his baby mama's past come back to haunt them. The main villain, a goofy yet terrifying military officer played masterfully by Sean Penn, is an imposing foe.

Everything about One Battle After Another is incredible: the directing, the writing, the acting, the editing, the score, everything. It all comes together to make something special, something that perfectly balances style and substance. It's one of those rare movies that everyone from hardcore movie buffs to people who only watch movies once in a while can enjoy. I don't want to say too much more because it's one of those movies you don't want to know too much about beforehand, but if you haven't seen it, check it out!

 

Comedy Movie: No Other Choice

While this movie won't release widely until early 2026, it had a limited release in December. I was lucky enough to catch an early IMAX screening of it. It's directed by Park Chan-wook, who made Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, among others. He's not only arguably South Korea's most celebrated filmmaker, but one of the best filmmakers working today of any country.

Getting to the movie itself, No Other Choice is a black comedy thriller about a man (played by the incredible Lee Byung-hun) who works as a senior employee at a paper company. When the company is bought out by a bigger US company, it lays off a huge chunk of the Korean employees, including the protagonist. He then has to try to find a new job, but that proves harder than expected considering the job market. This then pushes him to try more... drastic measures to get a new job.

The thematic focus of this dark comedy is the struggles created by modern capitalism. It's reminiscent of Parasite in a broad sense, though there are some key differences. I'd say, as a whole, Parasite is a better film in terms of how it executes tension and theme, but this movie is funnier. You'll very rarely go more than a minute or two without at least chuckling, and you'll be laughing often. There's one scene in the middle that had me and the audience I watched it with howling. It was easily the funniest scene I saw in 2025. While the subject matter of this film is actually pretty heavy when you think about it, it's told in such a funny, entertaining way that it all goes down smooth.

  

Animated Movie: K-Pop Demon Hunters 

Unless you spent 2025 in a Tibetan monastery, you probably heard about K-Pop Demon Hunters. The story follows a trio of Korean girls who live a double life: they are both world-famous K-pop stars and demon hunters. The two feed into each other, in fact. Their music helps them keep the world of demons at bay. The main character of the movie, Rumi, is one of these girls, but she has a secret. She herself is part demon. Not even her two squad mates know this. A central question of the movie is: should you hide a 'bad' part of yourself?

The answer, of course, is no. As things unfold, she learns to be herself and embrace that side of her, as you could imagine from a kid's movie. There is also a bad boy love interest who himself is part demon; also as you can probably guess, he's not as bad as you would initially think, and ultimately has a change of heart. The story of K-Pop Demon Hunters is good but predictable, and drops the ball with the demon metaphor. In fact, I've also heard Korean friends criticize the portrayal of Korean spirits and deities as villainous demons, but that's only a message I can pass along, not one I can meaningfully comment on. What works about the story is the dynamic between the main character and her two best friends, as well as her dynamic with the bad boy love interest. It may be relatively predictable, but there's a real sincerity to it.

The best part of this movie, though, is the music. That's what really elevated it above the competition for me this year. While I didn't like any of the Saja Boy songs that much, I like all of the main group's songs. Golden and This is What it Sounds Like in particular are two of my favorite songs of the year. Maybe even two of my favorite songs from a movie soundtrack this decade. 

 

Actor: Benicio del Toro  

This was an incredible year for acting, making this a difficult category to narrow down. Stellan Skarsgård was great in Sentimental Value and Andor, Lee Byung-hun was great in No Other Choice and Squid Game, and Michael B. Jordan (my choice for actor of the year in both 2018 and 2015) was great in Sinners and... well, Sinners again, since he played two roles. And those are just the actors who had multiple roles this year. Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent, Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme, and Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams were all incredible in their singular roles this year.

Ultimately, though, I had to go with the actor who gave life to my favorite film character of the year. In One Battle After Another, Benicio del Toro plays Sensei Sergio, a Mexican-American karate instructor who is coolness personified. Though he is dragged into the mess that transpires around DiCaprio's character, he manages to always keep calm, despite certain things that he has going on himself that could get him in huge trouble if found out. He is easily not just my favorite movie character of the year, but one of my favorite movie characters of the decade.

In addition to that role, he also plays a ruthless yet perpetually calm businessman named Anatole Korda in Wes Anderon's The Phoenician Scheme (funny to think that del Toro played two stoic characters with lots of influence on the people around them in a movie directed by a guy with the last name Anderson this year). Korda is trying to form a relationship with his daughter, who makes his heir in an attempt to connect with her. Like with most Wes Anderson movies, there a lot of emotional distance between the characters and the viewers. By the end of the movie, though, you see that there's a lot more to Korda than you initially think. That is, in large part, thanks to del Toro breathing so much life into the role.

Benicio del Toro is one of the best actors working today, and great representation for Latinos. He's got a lot of range, but really seems to be most at home when he's playing calm, cool, collected characters. I'm glad we have him.

 

Actress: Jessie Buckley 

Like with best actor, this is another extremely stacked category. Unlike best actor there aren't as many actresses pulling strong double duty (or at least among the movies/shows I've seen), but quite a few actresses put in excellent singular performances. Eva Victor in Sorry, Baby, Tessa Thompson in Hedda, and pretty much all the women in One Battle After Another (Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall) and Sentimental Value (Renata Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning) really knocked it out of the park this year.

But, if I had to go with one actress/performance, I have to go with the one that moved me more than any other I saw this year. That would be Jessie Buckley as the protagonist in Hamnet. It stars Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of William Shakespeare. The story follows the couple as they meet, fall in love, start a family, and have kids. Then tragedy strikes. It's a tragedy that actually did take place for the couple in real life, though the details around it aren't known. In fact, because there are no records about what actually happened during this tragedy, the story of the movie is based on a novel that simply speculates on what happened.

If the title sounds like his iconic work Hamlet, that's not a coincidence. According to this movie, it's William's grief channeled into his play. Agnes, though, is the protagonist. Initially, after the tragedy hits about halfway through, it creates distance between her and William. She blames him for seemingly caring more about his plays than his family. The rest of the story follows her on a really moving journey that I don't want to say more about in case you're reading this without having seen it.

What I will say, though, is that Buckley does an incredible job in her role. The way she carries the final scene in particular is one of the most emotionally affecting performances I've ever seen. She's been talked about as the favorite to win the Oscar this year for best actress, and I think she completely deserves it.

 

TV Show: Andor

While I don't watch that much TV, I do have series that I pay attention to. One series I really like, Righteous Gemstones, did a great job with its final season this year. In other years that could've been my pick for this category. Unfortunately for Danny McBride's hilarious dramedy series, however, Andor (which was also my TV show pick for 2022) really knocked it out of the park.

Like with the first season, this season does a great job of being a Star Wars show for adults (and smart teens). It's not just interested in lightsabers and Jedi (in fact, it's not interested in those things at all), it's interested in its themes, characters, and world-building. Rather than many other Star Wars spinoffs, which focus on what fans already like from the universe, Andor makes the universe more complicated and interesting by delving into exactly what it takes to spark a rebellion against an evil galactic empire.

If there's one different between this season and the first, it's about the role of the protagonist, Cassian Andor. In the first season, he goes from cynical rogue to dedicated revolutionary. In this season his character is already set. While he is still the main vantage character, there is more attention paid to the characters and world around him as the series moves toward its conclusion, which ends right where A New Hope begins. It's a fantastic season of television that really is the best sort of storytelling for an existing franchise. The Andor series is easily my favorite Star Wars saga next to the original trilogy. It may even be better.

 

Male MMA Fighters: Islam Makhachev

Islam Makhachev has come a long way in his MMA career. Starting as a one dimensional grappler, he has now beaten some worthy opponents and developed other aspects of his game, even if his wrestling is still by far his strong asset. Despite the worthy opponent's he's beat, though, his biggest issue is that he has yet to face enough of them. This has mostly not been his fault (he's had fights with good opponents fall through, plus the lightweight division in general has fallen off in recent years), but he does what he can in the position he's in.

In 2025, Islam first faced and defeated Renato Moicano. He had originally been scheduled to face Arman Tsarukyan, a more championship-caliber opponent, but Tsarukyan pulled out the day before due to injury. Moicano offered to step in. Islam accepted in order to save the event and beat him in the first round by submission. In doing so, he broke the record for UFC lightweight title defenses (4). 

Islam's next was far more impressive. He moved up in weight and fought the welterweight champion, Jack Della Maddalena. He won by a dominant decision, managing the incredibly difficult task of becoming the champion for the weight class above him. This is impressive on its own, but especially against Della Maddalena, one of the better fighters in the UFC today. He now has tied former middleweight champion Anderson Silva for longest winning streak (16).

Overall, Islam had an incredible 2025 for the records he set and the fact he became champion for the weight class above his own. While his quality of opposition isn't the strongest, it's not really his fault that he has had so many fights either fall through or end with last minute replacements. he has beaten just above everyone put in front of him, which is damn impressive.

 

Female MMA Fighter: Valentina Shevchenko

What more can be said about Shevchenko? She's one of the best women to ever compete in combat sports. She was my pick for 2020 female fighter of the year and, honestly, could've easily been my pick a couple other times. She's well-rounded, composed, and strategic.

In 2025, she beat Manon Fiorot and Zhang Weili. While Fiorot is a solid opponent, Zhang is a world-class one. While Zhang did move up in weight (and indeed looked much smaller than Valentina in their fight), she's still a tough, skilled opponent who is a difficult fight for anyone. Beating her is no small feat.

 

MMA Fighter I Hope Bounces Back: Zhang Weili

I love Zhang and what she brings to MMA. Aside from her skills as a fighter, it's clear that she is a true martial artist in spirit. All of her social media posts about training are a true celebration of martial arts, and by all accounts she always is nothing but respectful and attentive wherever and whenever she trains. She is a great ambassador for MMA and the true beauty of martial arts. I hope she is able to recover from her loss to Shevchenko and come back better than ever. The MMA world needs martial artists like her. 

 

MMA Fight: Lopes vs Silva

Sometimes a good old fashioned brawl is just what you need. While there was some good fight technique on display, ultimately this was mostly a fun barn-burner where both fighters put it all on the line. Diego Lopes remains one of the most entertaining fighters in the UFC.

 

Scientific Discovery: Life On Another Planet?

I know it seems like I choose something involving possible life on another planet every other year on this list, but what can I say? I love astronomy, and I'm fascinated by the idea of life on other planets.

In April, the James Webb Space Telescope gave us data about the planet K2-18b. By looking at the light that filtered through the planet's atmosphere, scientists saw a sign of possible life. Specifically, they saw two gases (dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide) that, on our planet at least, are produced by living things like algae. What's extra interesting is that, even before this, K2-18b was already in the conversation as a planet that may contain life due to being an ocean-covered planet that may be temperate enough to host living organisms. This new discovery only adds to the tantalizing possibility that there may indeed be life on the planet.

 

Scientific Achievement: Pig Organ Transplants

Any scientific achievement that preserves human life is worth celebrating (assuming those achievements don't come at the expense of others, of course). In recent years, scientists have experimented with transplants using pig organs because their organs have similar traits to our own. Usually, however, transplants don't really work because our bodies reject the non-human organs.  

In this case, surgeons gave a gene-edited pig kidney to a man named Tim Andrews. This is the fourth such transplant that has happened, but this one is noteworthy because Andrews lived with the kidney for a record 271 days before it had to be removed. The gene-editing of the kidney and medicine schedule for Andrews worked incredibly well, considering the human body would never accept such an organ at all otherwise.

If this technology can be further developed, people will be able to live years with pig organs. Maybe even longer. It may not be sexy to think about people having pig organs inside them, but in a time where there is a shortage of donated organs for medical use, anything we can do to help others is worth doing.

 

Bullshit News Story: "Venezuelan Drug Traffickers"

In September 2025, the Trump regime began killing random fishermen in the Caribbean, accusing them of being cartel members. They did so without giving any sort of evidence that the individuals killed were involved in the drug trade. They also bizarrely accused them of smuggling fentanyl, rather than cocaine (you'd think they would at least try to lie better.

Later on in 2025, President Trump pardoned former conservative Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to forty five years in prison for conspiring to smuggle over four hundred tons of cocaine into the United States. And we're still supposed to believe that the murders of these fishermen in the Caribbean were able drug smuggling.

 It's a bit surreal writing this post in January after the Trump regime invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Maduro. While Maduro is certainly not my favorite world leader, he is the sovereign leader of Venezuela. The US does not have the right to decide it can just invade a country for no real reason. These killings of random fishermen were the ugly pretext, an attempt to claim they were on a mission to fight drug cartels. But, again, the flimsy evidence alongside the pardoning of Orlando Hernández shows how little the truth matters in any of this.

 

Actual News Story: Continued Murder in Gaza

The genocide in Gaza started under Joe Biden. It was a genocide which he gave just about unconditional support to. Kamala tried to distance herself from the genocide in rhetoric, but gave no concrete policy explanations for exactly what she would do different. Donald Trump did something similar, except even more chaotically, stupidly, and dishonestly; sometimes he claimed he would bring peace between the two sides, other times he crudely referred to political opponents as "Palestinians" in a bizarre, gross case of 1800s-style racism.

Upon becoming president, Trump more or less continued Biden's policy of letting Israel to whatever it wanted. There were some differences in the details (he applied a bit more pressure on Israel than Biden had, yet also cracked down more on refugees coming from Palestine), but the broad outline was the same. Eventually, however, Trump did force Netanyahu to come to the table, leading to negotiations that created a ceasefire in October. That could have been a positive (if not way too late) development, if not for the fact that the ceasefire never really happened.

Yes, fighting between the two sides largely stopped. Mostly from the Palestinian side. Meanwhile, Israel has killed more than 400 Palestinians since the "ceasefire" went into effect. They may have slowed down the slaughter, but they're still consistently killing Gazans. Mostly civilians. The genocide has already been an incredible stain on humanity; unfortunately for the people of Gaza, there is still no real end in sight for the suffering.

 

Photo: Immigrant S.O.S. Call for Help

Another absurd aspect to everything the US is doing to Venezuelans (and Caribbean fishermen in general) is the fact they're pretending to do this out of concern for Venezuelans themselves. Meanwhile, Venezuelan migrants held in US detention centers formed an S.O.S. sign, signaling both the awful conditions they faced and their worry that they might get shipped off to one of the many shady super-prisons in El Salvador. It's a striking reflection of just how barbaric our immigration system is.

 

Badass: Gaza Aid Flotillas

Since the genocide in Gaza began, many around the world have tried to help in whatever small ways they can. Most of the time that meant demonstrations, donations to aid groups, and boycotting Israeli goods. In June of 2025, there was a group of particularly noble people who wanted to do more. They wanted to break the siege Israel imposed on Gaza and deliver aid directly.

Twelve brave souls rode aboard a boat called the Madleen through the Mediterranean to deliver vital aid to the people of Gaza. On the way, people who supported Israel's genocide harassed and even attacked the Madleen, but they rode on. On June 9th, however, the Israeli military seized the Madleen, imprisoned everyone aboard, and eventually deported them. The aid was not given to the people of Gaza.

This only inspired more action, with more people. More waves of flotillas departed, trying to get aid to the people of Gaza. An especially big wave of vessels set sail in October. Some governments, including Spain and Greece, claimed they would protect the flotillas. Unfortunately, while a few of these governments did follow through on sending escorts, they abandoned the flotilla vessels once they got close to Israel. None ever made it to the shores of Gaza.

It's a hard pill to swallow to know that the murders won. But, we can at least celebrate the courage of those on the vessels themselves. There have been more attempts since for flotillas to bring aid to Gaza. There are even more attempts being planned for 2026. Hopefully there will be a break and Gaza can get relief from the outside world that isn't controlled by the very people massacring them. 

The US Role in the Central American Refugee Crisis

So, uhh, kids are being held in US detention camps under pretty horrific conditions.  There's currently a lot of debate centered around what the US should be doing for these refugees, the majority of which are from Central America.  As a historian of both the United States and Latin America, it bothers me to see one thing completely missing from these debates: the fact that the US has played a significant role in destabilizing certain parts of Latin America, particularly Central America.

Frankly, I think it's part of a bigger problem with our media's complete failure to give adequate historical context (or any, really) for the events that they cover.  But that's a subject for another post.

What I'm going to do here is give a brief overview of the US role in Latin America.  If you want a more detailed look into the US role in a specific Latin American country, one of my first posts on this blog explores the US role in Nicaragua during the 20th Century, focusing especially on the Nicaraguan Revolution and the subsequent US support of the Contras.

What I'll do here, however, is give a very broad overview, though I will zoom in a bit on a few key moments.  Enjoy!

(A quick note about sources: usually I source my posts pretty thoroughly, but a lot of the stuff I'm talking through here is stuff I read/learned from graduate school.  If you have any questions about the information I've provided here, or would like any book recommendations, feel free to ask!)

The Roots of US Involvement

 "Man, I wish I got my own countries to colonize, like Europe does. The US always gets the cool stuff!"

For about a hundred years after the founding of the United States, the US could only look to powerful European countries/empires like Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and Russia with envy.  The US gradually grew in size and power during these hundred-ish years, but they weren't an empire the way the big European powers were, and therefore didn't have access to the same amount of resources or cheap (forced) labor.  This desire to expand is part of what led to the Mexican-American War, which is why we have the southwestern US today.

When it came to expanding beyond the continental US, however, there was a problem.  The European countries had colonized much of Africa and Asia.  Furthermore, the US hadn't developed a powerful enough military to carry out long-distance colonization of these far away places.  It could only watch as these European powers continued to profit off of the fruits of African and Asian colonization.

"Luckily" for the US (but not for the people down south), Latin America was right at its doorstep!  Most of Latin America had freed itself from Spanish and Portuguese control by the end of the late 1800s, yet few places were as developed as the US.  The US therefore had its own potential areas to exploit.  Even better, with Europeans being on the other side of the Atlantic, and focused on exploiting Africa and Asia, the US would have barely any competition!

Now, to be fair, there was mixed opinion on whether the US should actually do this or not.  Some said they shouldn't because Latin Americans should be seen as fellow independence-minded people who, just like the US, overthrew European exploitation; some opposed it less out of idealism and more because they felt, on a practical level, the US couldn't sustain such a project; others said the US shouldn't simply because they were so racist against Latin Americans they thought mingling with them would degrade US society and spread disease.  Some favored colonization out of a genuine, if misguided, desire to help; others openly only favored colonization because of a naked desire for profits.  Many simply didn't care one way or the other.

The Spanish-American War

I just wish there were someone around in the late 1800s to write

"that ain't it chief" in the letters to the editor (the comment section of its day).

Unfortunately, the imperialist side won out when the last territories of the Spanish empire, particularly Cuba, started fighting for independence.  There was a big push within the US to intervene in the conflict.  A strong anti-Spanish campaign propagated by politicians and spread by newspapers vilified the Spanish to no end (though, to be fair, much of it was quite justified).  Then, in February 1898, the USS Maine exploded in a Havana harbor, which ultimately sealed the deal (later investigations, however, showed that it was caused by a fire in the ammunition stocks of the ship, rather than Spanish mines).

A couple months later the Spanish-American War officially popped off between the two countries.  It was a brief war that only lasted from April 21st to August 13th, when the US won.  It marked not only the emergence of the US as an unofficial empire in nearby Latin America, but the end of Spain as a serious colonial power.  Part of the reason the US gave for fighting was that it was trying to "free" Cuba and other Spanish holdings.

In a foreshadowing of future affairs, Cuba did not really have say in the post-war talks.  Cuba was freed from being a Spanish colony, but became a "protectorate" (basically, a colony) of the United States.  In 1901 the US forced Cuba to integrate the Platt Amendment into their constitution, which forbade it from entering into treaties which "compromise Cuban independence" (which would be judged, of course, by the US), guaranteed US interests on the island, and gave the US authority to overthrow any Cuban leaders that it saw fit.  This last clause wasn't put there for show- the US intervened in Cuba multiple times from 1901 to the time of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. 

The Banana Wars

One of my most disappointing memories of grad school

was learning these weren't the weapons used during the Banana Wars.

When Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901, he issued what he called the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.  For context, in 1823 president James Monroe and secretary of state John Quincy Adams drafted the Monroe Doctrine, which proclaimed that Europe couldn't create any new colonies in the Western Hemisphere and pledged US defense of any Latin American country facing European invasion.  It never led anywhere- the few times anyone from down south asked for help the US did nothing because it didn't have the power to- but it was a nice gesture.

The "Roosevelt Corollary", on the other hand, claimed the US could police Latin America through interventions in cases of "wrongdoing or impotence."

Long story short, this led to multiple US interventions in places like Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Honduras.  Usually it was the marines that were sent.  In some cases these interventions turned into occupations that lasted years, such as in the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), Nicaragua (1912-1933), Haiti (1915-1934), and Honduras (sporadically from 1903-1925).  The US also intervened in Cuba multiple times, as mentioned above, and even intervened briefly in Mexico in 1916, during the Mexican Revolution.  The US began to think of Latin America/the Caribbean as its "backyard."

These interventions were caused for a variety of reasons.  Usually it was some sort of combination of supporting pro-US factions during times of conflict, trying to quash domestic conflicts to create stability for US business interests, and good ol' fashioned bullying to get Latin American governments to bend to US will.  These interventions often squashed movements for democracy, civil rights, and other causes that could've helped create actual stability and prosperity for Latin Americans.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, he ended the occupations in Latin America and instituted the "Good Neighbor" policy with Latin America.  The US withdrew militarily from the region and treated its neighbors with far more diplomatic respect.  Some historians attribute the Good Neighbor policy to genuine idealism, while others attribute it to more cynical causes, such as the idea that the US had already squashed enough social movements that they didn't need to stay occupying the region, or that it was done to get Latin America to side with the US if it entered WW2.  Whatever the reason(s), the Good Neighbor policy allowed Latin America a break from US intervention.

The Cold War Begins

No jokes here, just two goons you've probably never heard of who were responsible

for shifting US policy toward Latin America in a way that led to unimaginable suffering.

Then the Cold War happened.

As most of us know, World War 2 ended with tensions between the US and Soviet Union on what exactly the post-war world order would look like.  Both saw each other as an existential threat.  President Truman looked to contain communism to keep it from spreading.  In 1947 he created the CIA, National Security Council, and expanded/reorganized the US military.  When, in 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb and the Chinese communists overthrew the Chinese national government, tensions only further escalated.  The US was shook.

In 1952, Eisenhower won the presidential election.  He actually had a moderate foreign policy vision by Cold War standards, but he also had two people in his cabinet who were fervent Cold Warriors.  Head of the CIA Allen Dulles and secretary of state John Foster Dulles (pictured above) hated communism (or even just alleged "communists") more than they loved democracy or freedom.  In 1953 they helped overthrow the democratically elected, non-communist prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, for nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951.  They reinstalled the repressive shah (who would later be overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution).

Then they turned their eyes to Guatemala.

Operation PBSUCCESS

"Surely the US, also being a democracy, will welcome me with open arms!"

In 1944 Guatemala had a mostly non-violent revolution that overthrew a US-backed military dictatorship.  In its place, Guatemalans establish an electoral democracy.  The first elected president was Juan Jose Arevalo, who helped further entrench democratic norms/institutions, legalized unions, instituted labor protections, and created literacy campaigns to help low-income and rural Guatemalans learn to read.  The US didn't like him for overthrowing their guy, but recognized he wasn't a communist, much less a Soviet puppet.

Then, in 1950, Jacobo Arbenz (who had served as defense minister under Arevalo) won the presidency.  He was to the left of Arevalo and expanded on what Arevalo had done, but he also had one big cornerstone of his campaign that hadn't been done before in Guatemala: land reform.  In 1952, Arbenz passed Ley 900, which appropriated unused land from large estates and gave it to the poor.  Much of the land was taken from the United Fruit Company, as it was the largest landholder in Guatemala.

(Fun side note: landowners were compensated for their land based on the amount they claimed the land was worth on their taxes.  Because these landed elite purposefully undervalued their land to avoid paying fair tax rates, they received way less than the land was worth and were pissed about it).

This was the final straw for the US.  In 1954, Arbenz was overthrown in a CIA-orchestrated coup.  The consequences were far-reaching for both Guatemala and the US.  For Guatemala, this created a spiraling of conflict in the country, as Guatemalans didn't take too kindly to their democratically elected government being replaced with a dictatorship.  They fought back, assassinating the US-chosen dictator in 1957, but the US insisted on appointing more military dictators.  This created a civil war in Guatemala that started in 1960 and didn't end until 1996.  Yes, that's right, nineteen ninety-friggin-six.  We'll get back to that later.

For the US, this (along with the 1953 coup in Iran) gave the US false confidence in coups.  I say "false confidence" because these coups only succeeded exactly because both places were not Soviet-connected communist countries run by militant ideologues.  Both Mosaddegh and Arbenz tried to de-escalate things, rather than militantly stand their ground; later investigations showed zero ties of either administration to the Soviets.  When the US actually ran into militant ideologues backed by the Soviets during later interventions, including the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, they often completely ate shit.

Revolution vs Reform

"Three cheers for scruffy beards!"

In 1959 the Cuban Revolution succeeded in overthrowing US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.  Long story short, Fidel Castro and his "barbudos" (bearded ones) came to power.  I'm not gonna talk in detail about Fidel's leadership here, as I already wrote a blog post a couple years back examining his complicated legacy.  For the purpose of this post, the main effect of the Cuban Revolution across Latin America was that it inspired much of the poor, the Indigenous, the working class, and the educated, for it showed that overthrowing US imperialism was possible (much of Latin America during this time was still ruled by US-backed dictatorships).  This optimism was called "fidelismo."

JFK came into office during the beginning of fidelismo.  JFK himself decided that these US-backed tyrants had to get their acts together.  Because of that he passed the Alliance for Progress, a large aid package for Latin American leaders in exchange for creating plans to help improve conditions for their citizens.  He believed reform would prevent revolution.

This noble thought failed, however, because it did nothing to fix the power structures of Latin America.  Military dictators with backing from the landed elite and Catholic church ran most of these countries, and spent most of the money on vanity projects (if not outright pocketing it) rather than on the promised programs.  The only real exceptions were Chile and Venezuela, which were both social democracies with pretty stable democratic institutions at the time.  They were used as models for the policy despite its overall failure, which allowed LBJ to continue it.  Nixon, however, ended the program.

Luckily for the US, Cuba wasn't very good at spreading revolution yet.  It made the mistake of buying into its own hype- Che really thought it was mostly just their group who overthrow Batista, rather than there being a number of factions from which Fidel just happened to come out on top.  From Che's analysis he developed "foco theory", the idea that a small group of revolutionaries can spark a greater flame of revolt.  This approach failed in Latin America, as Cuba naively thought it could just start revolutions abroad rather than assist already well-established revolutionary movements who had popular support (something they'd catch onto later, which greatly helped their success rate).

Basically, 1960s idealism petered out for both the US and Cuba in their own ways.

The Cold War Rises

"Sometimes, a [blatant disregard for human life] rises."

When Nixon came into office in 1968 he threw full support, including propaganda campaigns and military assistance, behind Latin American tyrants.  He did so without apology or any efforts to help average Latin Americans.  He also possibly helped directly overthrow the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in 1973- there is debate as to whether the US facilitated the coup or just cheered from the sidelines.  Either way, they threw their full support behind the dictator Agosto Pinochet when he came to power.

When Carter came into office in 1976, he brought human rights into his foreign policy more than basically any Cold War president had, other than perhaps late-stage JFK.  He drastically reduced aid to countries with human rights issues, openly called for democracy in Latin America, and even chose not to intervene against revolutionary movements that had began popping up.  Unfortunately for Carter, 1979 was a rough year for the US.  The Iranian Revolution overthrew the US-backed shah and took Americans hostage, the Sandinistas overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Anastacio Somoza to establish socialist democracy, and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

The Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions were inevitable and just happened to succeed during the Carter administration.  Republicans actively undermined/delayed the Iran hostage crisis in order to make Carter look weak.  The Afghanistan invasion would prove to be an disaster for the Soviets, much like Vietnam was for the US.  At the time, though, this spelled doom for the Carter presidency.  Reagan, who campaigned as the Cold War-iest of Cold Warriors, won the presidency in 1980.  His administration looked at human rights and democracy with the same level of apathy that people online view anti-piracy warnings.

He funded the Contras (counter-revolutionary forces) in Nicaragua by illegally selling arms to Iran.  It's worth noting there was nothing remotely democratic about the Contras- they were made up of people from the Anastacio Somoza dictatorship who had zero popular support among the general Nicaraguan population.  He also funded military dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador, among other places, despite their numerous, horrific atrocities.  Rapes, murdering of children, and cruel acts of torture were the norm for these regimes.  In some cases, entire villages were wiped out, with no exceptions made for children, the disabled, or elderly.

The Aftermath

 Shit, man, let's get some kittens in here to balance out the horror a bit.

By the end of the Cold War in 1991, Latin America was exhausted.  Especially Central America.  While South America suffered greatly under US-backed dictatorships in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and elsewhere, those countries generally had more wealth, institutional stability, and other such advantages that helped lessen the long-term damage from these dictatorships.  Many people in these countries felt more like these dictatorships were an era of disruption, and the end of the Cold War signaled a return to normalcy (though, that said, hundreds of thousands were killed and/or disappeared, and many more tortured or threatened, so the effects shouldn't be taken lightly, either).

Central America was in shambles, however.  The civil war in El Salvador continued until 1992, while Guatemala's continued until 1996.  The Contras only backed down in Nicaragua because the US had strong-armed Nicaragua into voting for opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro in 1990 instead of Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega in exchange for ending support for the Contras.  Honduras, while not wrecked by civil war, was used by the US as a base of operations during the Cold War, and the CIA violently suppressed dissent.  Panama was like Honduras up until its government grew so corrupt and unstable that it began to interfere with US interests, which caused Regan to turn on its leader, Noriega.

Only Costa Rica was spared, thanks in part to its strong democratic tradition that had miraculously found a peaceful middle ground between independence from the US while not agitating it.

To use Guatemala as a specific example of what Central America looked like, it's estimated that during the civil war about 200,000 people were killed.  That is a horrible number by itself, but even more horrible when put into the context of how small the country is.  The population of Guatemala in 1996 was about 10 million.  A UN truth commission found that 93% of the human rights violations conducted during the civil war were carried out about the military regime; only 3% were carried out by the leftist liberation movements, with the extra 4% carried out by other groups.

Poverty and Violence

I'm, uhh, gonna stick to this kitten thing if y'all don't mind.

The end of the Cold War in Central America, or even Latin America as a whole, didn't end all conflict.  Mostly, it lessened the US role in the region.  It's hard to say to what exact extent the US has played a role in the post-Cold War Latin America, as it's still too close to the present day for the Freedom of Information Act to disclose what we've done in recent years.  Still, it seems certain that it has played far less of a role without the threat of Soviet-backed communism to scare it into action.

Central Americans were left with a lot of questions.  How do we rebuild basically every institution of our society?  How will we govern, when we've known nothing but subjugation for so long?  What do we do with the people who served in these despotic, murderous regimes?  How do we create functional economies when so much people, resources, and ideas have been lost to violence for so long?  How do we go about healing psychologically from such traumatic experiences?

That's not something you recover from overnight.  These problems meant a power vacuum, which the drug cartels have taken advantage of.   On top of that, even in places where the drug cartels haven't reached, poverty is still extremely common.  These conditions, brought about in large part by the US role during the Cold War, are what sparked today's refugee crisis.

Closing Thoughts

A Guatemalan protest opposing government corruption in 2015.

Welp, there you have it.  US intervention has played a large role in the conditions that created today's refugee crisis.  Now, I don't wanna imply it was only the US who is responsible- the dictators of these countries, usually military men backed by the landed elite and Catholic church of their home countries, were the ones who wielded authority and made these decisions.  They used the US to help keep their grip on power just as the US used them to protect their Cold War interests.  It's impossible to say for sure whether which of these regimes could've survived without US support, but either way, both parties share blame.

On yet another note, I don't wannna imply that it's only been despair for Central America, either.  Most of these countries have become democracies in aftermath of the Cold War.  Many of them have built institutions that, while fragile and under-resourced, still show a level of progress despite the daunting challenges faced in the early 1990s.  Brave organizers have launched campaigns on everything from accountability projects against former despots, to commissions to find disappeared people, to political causes to help people.  There have even been former human rights activists and liberation movement leaders who have run for elected office.

The situation in Central America isn't hopeless.  The people of Central America aren't helpless.  Still, there are serious problems that the US helped create.  We need to recognize that reality, and think about that when we think about the refugees coming here from Central America.  "Tough luck, isn't my problem" doesn't apply here.

Thanks for reading.