Deported U.S. Veterans Speak Out Against Treatment by Feds

The Takeaway

Here’s what you’ll find on today’s show:

— The Texas Civil Rights Project estimates that in total, about 3,000 U.S. military veterans have been deported from the country, though the Department of Homeland Security does not officially keep track. Hector Barajas, once such veteran, operates a safehouse in Tijuana, Mexico, nicknamed “The Bunker.” The storefront functions as a makeshift asylum for veterans deported to Mexico. Barajas served in the military for six years when he was expelled from the U.S. after serving two years in prison due to a weapons charge.

— Early last year, the military in the small southern African country of Lesotho terminated three female soldiers for getting pregnant, pursuant to a 2014 rule banning women in the military from bearing children. The three women took the Lesotho Defense Forces to court and, in a landmark ruling last month, the nation’s High Court reinstated the women and invalidated the military policy. For working women throughout Africa, progress in the workplace has been uneven. Despite the expanding role of women in the military and in business, women still encounter deeply rooted expectations of domesticity

— A story of the power of a young person, a teenager, to rise up and push for change: We go back almost 100 years, to a teen hero from 1919. Yu Gwan-sun was a young fighter for Korean independence, who died while imprisoned by the Japanese for her rebellion. The New York Times has now written a new obituary for Yu Gwan-sun, who has become a beloved symbol in South Korea.

— Last week, the Brooklyn Museum announced the appointment of Kristen Windmuller-Luna to chair their African art department. But Windmuller-Luna is a white woman, and many on social media saw this selection as somewhat tone deaf. The problems that plague representation in the art world are far broader than this single appointment. A 2015 study by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation found that just four percent of museum curators in North America are black.

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