Under the Shadow

In 1912, the United States invaded Nicaragua and began what would become the longest US occupation in Latin American history. The occupation would birth both a dictatorship and one of Latin America’s most important revolutionary heroes: Augusto Sandino.Sandino would wage a six-year-long guerrilla insurgency to rid Nicaragua of the US Marines. And he would win. The United States f

William Walker was a journalist, lawyer and physician from Nashville, Tennessee, who in 1855 invaded Nicaragua with a few dozen troops and conquered the country.At the time, he was one of thousands of private U.S. citizens who had their sights set on taking over foreign nations, all in the name of Manifest Destiny.In this episode, host Michael Fox follows in the footsteps of Willia

A New York court has found former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of drug trafficking and weapons possession. It’s a huge verdict that will likely see the former president imprisoned for life.In the last episode of Under The Shadow, host Michael Fox looked deeply at Hernández’s time as president from 2014 to 2022, which many came to call a narco-dictatorship.

In June 2009, Honduras faced a devastating coup that shattered the country’s fragile democracy and sunk the country into violence, repression, and a decade-long narco-dictatorship.But the people fought back.In this continuation of Episode 7, host Michael Fox looks at the fallout of the 2009 coup in Honduras, walking from 2009 into the present. He takes us to Tegucigalpa to dive i

In June 2009, Honduras faced a devastating coup that shattered the country’s fragile democracy and sunk the country into violence, repression, and a decade-long narco-dictatorship. But the people fought back.In this episode, host Michael Fox dives into the tremendous resistance to the 2009 coup. He also looks at the government of Manuel Zelaya, the Latin America Pink Tide movemen

In the 1980s, Honduras was ground zero for US operations in Central America—it was the primary point from which the US would wage its proxy wars and launch its interventionist operations across the region in the name of “fighting communism.” The 1954 CIA coup in Guatemala, which we explored in Episode 2 of Under the Shadow, was staged from Honduras. It was the main base of op

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has been reelected. While the official results aren’t yet in, with 70% of the ballots counted, Bukele has received an astounding 83% of the votes. He declared victory on Sunday night over X (formerly Twitter).Under the Shadow host Michael Fox was on the ground for the election. He takes us there, and sits down for an in-depth conversation wi

Guatemala's new president Bernardo Arévalo was inaugurated on January 14. But it did not come off without a hitch. Outgoing opposition lawmakers did their best to try to stymie the swearing-in of Arévalo and some of his party members. Arévalo’s supporters rallied in Guatemala City. As we looked at in Episode 2, Bernardo Arévalo is the son of Guatemala's first democratic leade

Today, we look at Radio Venceremos — a grassroots guerrilla radio that broadcast throughout El Salvador’s Civil War, denounced violent state repression, and inspired a nation.In this episode, Michael Fox travels to San Salvador, where he visits the Museum of Word and Image, the home of the archives of Radio Venceremos. He hears from former members of the radio about the revolut

1980s El Salvador was ground zero for the US intervention in Central America. The United States would funnel over $6 billion US dollars to El Salvador in mostly military aid and police and security training throughout the country’s 12-year civil war, which would last from 1980 until 1992.The violence and the US support for the country's bloody authoritarian regimes would have a d