"Dark Legacy

Feb 14, 2024 | progressive.org | Amelia Rayno |"Dark Legacy

Under the searing sun of the Argentine Puna, or high desert plateau, Eufemio Alancay raises a pickax and slices into the upper crust of the Salinas Grandes salt flat. Beneath, in a freshly exposed pool, is the “white gold” of his ancestors: salt. Alancay lifts a shovelful, the saturated crystals gleaming like heavy snow. The abundant commodity, hand-washed atop this eighty-square-mile porcelain-like desert, will later be bagged and sold around the region.

Oct 17, 2023 | progressive.org | Amelia Rayno |"Dark Legacy

A young woman pushing a stroller squinted at the beef cuts on display at Victor Aguilar’s butcher shop. “How much is the rump roast?” she asked before frowning at the price and walking away. Aguilar, who owns this shop in Villa 31, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, shook his head. He doesn’t bother to post prices anymore, with inflation—now over 120 percent—growing daily. “It’s like that,” he tells The Progressive. “People don’t come in ready to buy anymore.