When Dales Louissaint left Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 2016 amid growing lawlessness and economic crisis, his sights were set on the United States. For him, the American dream meant learning a new language, going to college, and becoming a lawyer. 

Today, he’s safely living out his dream, envisioning even bigger life plans – earning a master’s degree, buying a home, starting a family – and confident they could become a reality. 

But instead of in the U.S., he’s making it happen in Mexico. 

On a recent rainy morning, Mr. Louissaint weaves his way through a maze of plastic folding tables and chairs on the basketball court outside a Mexican asylum office in Tijuana. As a translator for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), he’s helping migrants – mostly Haitians, with some Cubans, Hondurans, and Syrians – fleeing violence, impunity, and persecution.

He’s constantly flagged down by applicants looking to white-out mistakes on their paperwork (he carries a special pen in his pocket for the purpose) and sits alongside those trying to articulate why they had to leave home. 

Mr. Louissaint is no-nonsense in his work, nodding calmly as applicants lob questions at him. Most, he suspects, have their eyes trained on the U.S. as he once did, before he realized he’d likely never attain legal status to study and work in a job like this. “Many end up staying here. And for some, it can work,” he says. “I never want to live in a country other than Mexico.”

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Mr. Louissaint assists people seeking asylum in Mexico. He works with the United Nations refugee agency.

To be sure, Mexico faces undeniable challenges. There have been more than 30,000 murders per year for five years straight – a far higher rate than in the U.S. – and gangs hold unchecked control over vast swaths of the country. An estimated 386,000 Mexicans are displaced within the country due to violence. Roughly 60% of laborers work in the informal sector, unable to earn a stable wage. Remaining in Mexico isn’t realistic for all migrants and refugees – or even Mexicans – and the ability to settle here can depend on a person’s place of origin, the threats they’re fleeing, and where in Mexico they land.

Yet as the U.S.-Mexico border takes center stage in the U.S. this year in the lead-up to the presidential election, all of the rhetoric about shutting migrants out ignores the changes taking shape around immigration south of the border.  

After generations of being defined as simply a “sending country” or more recently a “transit country” for U.S.-bound migrants, Mexico hit net-zero migration between 2009 and 2014 – with more Mexicans returning to Mexico than migrating to the U.S. That trend started to reverse prior to COVID-19, according to Pew Research Center, but migration remained much lower than levels seen in the 1980s and ’90s, when Mexico faced historic political shifts and acute economic crises.  

Global migration stands at an all-time high, almost double what it was in 1990, and that means more people from more places are crossing through Mexico. But it also means more people are staying put – by choice or not – in Mexico, while increasingly Americans are cutting the reverse path and crossing the border headed south. 

“Mexico definitely, above all since 2018, has become a destination country,” says María Inés Barrios de la O, professor of migration studies at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana. That reflects, in part, the fact that people are leaving home for many more reasons than they may have in the past, she says. “It’s not just economic migration, but more forced migration: people leaving contexts of violence, poverty, natural disasters, marginalization,” says Dr. Barrios. 

As a result, “the traditional flows from south to north, underdeveloped to developed” are no longer the default migratory paths.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

People participate in an afternoon dance class at Parque Mexico in Mexico City.

The first part of Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán’s life follows that classic migration tale. His reality today is part of Mexico’s new narrative.

“After a few months of being in Mexico, I came to the conclusion that I was falling in love with a country that I’d never known,” says Mr. García, one of Mexico’s top chefs, who was deported twice from the U.S.  

He first left Mexico at age 9, crossing the border without documentation to reunite with his father and join him as a migrant farmer. “I wasn’t concerned with success; I just finally felt wanted,” he says of deciding not to try to return to the U.S. following his second deportation, in 2007 at the age of 29.

On a recent morning, Chef García sits at a back corner table inside his airy, artfully decorated Mexico City restaurant Máximo Bistrot, considered one of Latin America’s top dining establishments. The kitchen is bustling as staff moves in fine-tuned chaos, chopping, sautéing, mixing, carrying, and cleaning. 

But he is calmly talking business with a former employee, Eleuterio Orea, who worked as a floor manager at Máximo for five years before returning to his small community in Puebla state to pursue projects of his own. He requested today’s meeting to invite Mr. García to an upcoming culinary event he’s organizing, and to tell him about a mezcal project that centers around biodiversity.

By the time they say goodbye, Mr. García has agreed to cook at the event and to list the mezcal on his menu.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán was deported from the U.S. twice before settling in Mexico and becoming one of the country’s top chefs.

For him, this is success. Mr. García made an international name for himself over the past decade as an innovative chef who centers Mexican ingredients in his dishes. But a less high-profile part of his work has been trying to give employees a reason to remain in Mexico – through higher-than-average wages, efforts to promote internally, and opportunities for continuing education. 

When we started, “we didn’t quite understand how successful we wanted to be; it was just we wanted to prove a point,” says Mr. García of launching Máximo with his wife, Gabriela López, in 2011. “We started to employ people [who] would have traveled to the U.S. illegally, but instead they stayed in Mexico. Because they had no need to leave. We’re really proud of that.”

Mr. García says many people he’s worked with, like Mr. Orea, have gone back to their villages inspired to become entrepreneurs. One former employee opened a butcher shop, and others sell local pottery and textiles or heirloom tomatoes to top-tier restaurants in the capital. During the pandemic, Mr. García partnered with four former employees who wanted to open their own restaurants, now proudly counting them among the 11 businesses in his restaurant umbrella group, Grupo Maximus. 

Laura Tillman, author of “The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García,” says Mr. García is part of a new cohort of Mexican chefs helping change “the manual” for younger generations, who once saw American kitchens as their only viable choice. 

The message Mr. García says he is trying to convey: “There is a future in Mexico.”

That means something coming from him. 

Mr. García spent his early years like many of the people working for him today. He lived in a small rural town, his family was poor, and his future was seemingly written: He, like countless before him, would migrate to the U.S. He only saw his father three times in the first decade of his life. In 1987, when he was still a boy, his family crossed the U.S. border on foot,  to reunite with his dad. Mr. García’s childhood was marked by harvests – picking citrus in Florida, planting onions in Georgia, and collecting apples in Michigan. 

He was first deported after driving the getaway car for a robbery as a teen in Georgia. He served a three-year sentence, followed by immediate deportation in 2000. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Mr. García, chef and owner of Máximo Bistrot, oversees food preparation before opening the floor for the day’s service, Feb. 24 in Mexico City.

When he landed in Mexico, he barely recognized this country, and his entire family – including his ailing father – was north of the border. He turned around and went back.

Something changed for him when immigration authorities caught and deported him for a second time, in 2007. Despite his quick ascent in Atlanta kitchens, he had a sensation of being invisible there, he says. “I didn’t feel human in the U.S. I felt like nothing. I felt like I didn’t have a purpose,” he says. “I was very depressed, but extremely relieved,” he says of being deported. 

He talks to his employees daily about his experience of living without documentation in the U.S. – he knows he can’t force anyone to extinguish their vision of working in el norte, but he feels his story can provide a reality check. At least once a year, he says, people who know his background approach him to say they can help him get back into the U.S. – that they have a good lawyer who surely could get him pardoned. 

“I don’t really feel the need to go back,” he says, despite the fact that his family lives in the U.S. now, with legal status. Instead, they visit him in Mexico. Mr. García has welcomed Mexican employees back after they’ve tried their hand at the American dream, and he also finds himself in recent years welcoming talented people arriving from Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, and other politically or economically challenged countries to work in his kitchens. There’s room for them here, too, he says.

“For me it’s super important to stay as long as I can here in this business, to try to promote and teach people that they can do this in a country where people say there’s no success.”

For the Bangs family, Mexico is now central to their notion of success for the future.

When the American family packed its bags in Southern California to move south of the border in 2022, it joined the more than 76,000 Americans receiving temporary and permanent residency visas in Mexico over the past five years. 

Whitney Eulich

JaQuay, Vesper, and Margaux Bangs (left to right) return home from school pickup in their adoptive Mexico City.

“Coming to Mexico made me realize that the United States is like a teenager. It’s very ‘me, me, me, me, me,’” says JaQuay Bangs, who moved to the capital from Ventura County, California, with his wife, Margaux, and young daughter. The cost of living and the experience of living abroad were central motivators, but violence in the U.S. – particularly racial violence – played a key role for Mr. Bangs, who is Black. 

“The narrative in the U.S. is that everybody wants to get into the U.S., right? But then you come to Mexico City and you’re looking around and you’re like, ‘Oh. People don’t care about the U.S.!’” he says. “I realized I had been caught up in that teenage mentality, too” of seeing the U.S. as the one and only place to be.

Americans have long moved abroad to escape U.S. policies, culture, or the cost of living, from Black Americans heading to France in the first part of the 1900s to draft dodgers during the Vietnam War to retirees flocking to charming and relatively inexpensive San Miguel de Allende and Lake Chapala in Mexico for decades. 

During the pandemic, migration from the U.S. to Mexico grew exponentially, with Americans taking advantage of remote work opportunities in a vibrant and more affordable setting. Mexico is also far less polarized around politics and race. And while crime rates are staggering in the country as a whole, in Mexico City crime dropped to roughly eight homicides per 100,000 people in 2023, levels that are safer than in U.S. cities like Portland, Oregon (12 per 100,000), or Dallas (nearly 19 per 100,000). 

Americans entering Mexico on first-time temporary and permanent residency visas grew from just over 11,500 in 2019 to almost 20,000 in 2022. 

During the pandemic, Mr. Bangs was laid off as head of music for a streaming platform and spent a year searching for work. He later found a job with a startup, only to learn it didn’t have funds to pay for his labor. He quit.

“It was a scary couple of years in terms of stability and financial security,” says Ms. Bangs, who designs kitchens and cabinetry remotely. On top of the high cost of living in their small town, their biracial family was reckoning with the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, questioning where they fit into their community and country. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Ms. Bangs does her daughter Vesper’s hair at the family apartment.

“A lot of experiences came up that made me feel, ‘This place isn’t quite what we thought it was,’” she says of their Southern California town. So they decided to change the narrative: The Bangses would move to Mexico City for one year to improve their Spanish and try to have an “adventure,” instead of stressing to make ends meet in an environment that constantly sent them the message that they weren’t valued. That year turned into two.

Sitting in their sunny, third-floor apartment in the leafy Condesa neighborhood in central Mexico City on a recent afternoon, they say a lot has changed. “One thing we underestimated is how good it feels to be away from the polarization of the U.S.,” says Ms. Bangs. 

Their daughter, now 6 years old, speaks Spanish fluently and has a little band of friends she bikes part of the way home from her school with each day. Instead of nerves over school shootings or racial microaggressions, the adults are soaking up what feels to them like a culture that sees children as full citizens who deserve love and respect from the entire community. 

Mr. Bangs says he didn’t realize in the U.S. how much the question of race weighed on him. In retrospect, he says, “it was difficult, that feeling of just looking over your back all the time.” Here, the first question he’s asked isn’t what sport he plays. He doesn’t watch strangers touch his daughter’s hair with what feels like ridicule. He hasn’t been stopped or followed by police. And he no longer games out scenarios to preserve his own safety, such as having a plan if his daughter runs onto a stranger’s lawn during an evening stroll. (Answer in the U.S.: Beckon to her from the public sidewalk – do not set foot on private property as a Black man.)

“I feel lighter,” he says.

The family realizes Mexico isn’t perfect. Racial bias persists; it’s just not examined in national discourse. A 2017 study found a 52% reduction in educational attainment between the lightest- and the darkest-skinned Mexicans.

The family also recognizes that as foreigners who don’t read the local news daily, they’re living in something of a bubble, shielded from the violence, impunity, and corruption that mark life for so many Mexicans. Crucially, they haven’t been able to secure work and recently decided to return to the U.S. for a job opportunity – but with a game plan to return to Mexico permanently within the next 10 years.  

In that transition, the Bangses say their current priority is to preserve habits they’ve formed while living here – a more active presence in the kitchen for Mr. Bangs, a focus on midweek family outings to parks for Ms. Bangs – and to bring them back to the U.S.

“That’s my attitude toward moving back,” says Mr. Bangs. “I want to help” improve our culture back in the U.S., how we interact with our neighbors, what we prioritize in any given day or week, “rather than just be along for the ride.”

“I understand where we want to be in the future,” Mr. Bangs says. “We want to be here in Mexico.”

The Bangses are not alone in that sentiment.

Mr. Louissaint was able to gain residency in Mexico due to his Haitian nationality, which fell under a visa category for humanitarian need. He didn’t have a clear asylum case, and the idea of entering the U.S. without authorization repelled him. “I watched news of people who lived in the country for 20 years ... never getting a pathway to permanent status,” he says. He decided if his goal was to study and make a career for himself, Mexico was the best alternative.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Dales Louissaint reads an old school notebook at his home in Tijuana, Mexico.

It took him two years to get his paperwork – and language skills – in order to gain acceptance to a local university in Tijuana. And he met helpers along the way, like a stranger who, upon learning of Mr. Louissaint’s desire to study at the Autonomous University of Baja California, put him in touch with his college-aged son for in-person language tutoring.

He’s content he chose Mexico – he’s been treated kindly by locals, found the opportunities that eluded him back home, and loves a job that keeps on getting busier.

Asylum claims inside Mexico have shot up a hundredfold over the past decade. And while whole numbers might pale in comparison with the more than 930,000 new requests for asylum in the U.S. last fiscal year, it’s a data point that continues to grow. In 2023 Mexico received nearly 141,000 asylum applications, a roughly 30% increase from 2022. In 2013, applications were just shy of 1,300.  

It’s Mr. Louissaint’s job to give those newcomers his full attention. 

He left Haiti during his second semester of college, alone in Port-au-Prince after his parents and most of his siblings had already fled in search of stability and opportunity across the Americas. His loved ones encouraged him to leave the widespread violence behind to pursue his studies in the U.S. His journey took him through Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, across the deadly Darién Gap, up through Central America, and finally to Mexico, where he spent months in a crowded shelter at the border. 

His time in the Darién changed him, he says. But it’s also helped him better understand what asylum-seekers are braving to reach this point. “People don’t migrate for happiness; they do it for necessity,” he says. “I won’t ever travel illegally again.” Even back in 2016 – when far fewer took the only land route between South and Central America than the half-million people who crossed in 2023 – it was overrun by deadly risks, from criminals to animals to racing rivers and pounding rain.

He’s held on to the black backpack that he used to carry his belongings through the Darién, an intentional reminder of that experience. Those memories make him feel “strong, and grateful to God. But also, a desire to show the world that someone who makes it through the jungle is going to thrive,” he says, eyeing the tables of asylum applicants waiting nearby.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Dales Louissaint’s language skills come in handy as he helps Spanish and Haitian Creole speakers apply for asylum in Tijuana, Mexico, Feb. 26.

After arriving in Tijuana, he worked to get his studies in Haiti recognized here, learning Spanish, studying for entry exams, and applying to law school. All while working at least eight hours a day doing home repairs, and later in a factory, often including weekends. On top of his studies, he needed to work to support himself. Last summer, he graduated with honors, soon after hired by the UNHCR. 

Though Mexico wasn’t part of his vision when he left Haiti, Mr. Louissaint serves as an example for those who see him assisting and translating at the border today, says Dagmara Mejía, the head of the field office for the UNHCR in Baja California.

“People tend to look at the United States because of the American dream, what they’ve heard about it. But for many the priority is to safely rebuild their lives,” she says. “Seeing someone like Dales, who could find his place and thrive [in Mexico], is inspiring.”

Applicants “like to ask me if I’m happy here,” Mr. Louissaint says. “I can’t share too much, but I will tell them I’ve been here for seven years. I’ve studied. I have a U.S. visa to cross.” He often thinks about a Haitian proverb, he says: “What one person can accomplish, another can accomplish, too.” 

Something Mr. Louissaint doesn’t share with many people is that he was recently accepted into a master’s program in humanitarian law in San Diego, just across the border. He hopes to attend this fall if he can come up with the funding. This is part of his upgraded life plan: become adept in U.S. law in addition to Mexican law so that he can serve migrant communities on both sides of the border, while basing himself in Mexico. 

“Mexico has helped me a lot, but I’ve also helped Mexico,” he says. “I have something to offer society, and I’m grateful to do it. The opportunities it’s given me are so huge.”

Jeff Dean/AP

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd at a campaign rally March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio.

It’s a question as old as Donald Trump’s nearly nine years in politics: How should the public interpret the once and possibly future president’s sharp rhetoric? 

From calling Mexican migrants criminals and rapists in announcing his first presidential run to using the word “bloodbath” last weekend in a speech about potential job losses if he were not elected, Mr. Trump has a knack for commanding attention with incendiary language. 

To supporters, Mr. Trump’s verbal style is either refreshingly blunt or entertaining. To detractors, it’s dehumanizing or inciting. Caught in the middle are the news media, criticized for “platforming” him when they cover his speeches and slammed for normalizing abhorrent language when they ignore him. 

It’s all taking place within an increasingly polarized environment – a trend that was developing long before Mr. Trump entered politics, but has grown since then. 

One concern is whether his tone as the de facto Republican leader is deepening the rifts and making the United States harder for anyone to govern. A related worry is that words can beget actions. In some polls a majority of Americans blame Mr. Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Some observers say he has, if anything, stepped up the use of violent and dehumanizing language in his current campaign.

Now that the longest general election campaign in history is upon us, the challenge in assessing the impact of Mr. Trump’s language – on voters, on the campaign, and on the political environment – will be especially acute. But what’s clear is that it will be a factor all the way to Nov. 5. 

“Trump understands that his most loyal supporters are likely to be motivated by what they hear, but he usually – although not always – keeps his language broad enough so he can argue that his critics are misreading his intent,” says Dan Schnur, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications and a former GOP strategist. 

Mr. Trump’s use of the word “bloodbath” in a speech March 16 in Dayton, Ohio, is just the latest example. He was addressing challenges to the auto industry, particularly over electric vehicles.

“We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single [Chinese] car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected,” Mr. Trump said. “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

Many mainstream news outlets reported that Mr. Trump promised a “bloodbath” if he’s not reelected. But even some high-profile Trump detractors defended him, saying he was talking about the auto industry and not post-election violence. 

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A camera viewfinder shows Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking during a primary election-night party in Columbia, South Carolina, Feb. 24, 2024.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has declined to endorse Mr. Trump, is one. On CBS last Sunday, he said that “the president was clearly talking about the impact of imports.” 

Still, Mr. Trump’s comments were sufficiently ambiguous so that activists on both sides can justify their views. And that’s how the former president wants it, analysts say, stirring up controversy and leading some to defend him when others won’t.

“His approach to language is very combative and aggressive,” says Jennifer Mercieca, a professor of communications at Texas A&M University. “It’s about reinforcing division and polarization, and he benefits greatly from having every issue a comment on whether or not you support Donald Trump.” 

The Trump campaign has fundraised off the “bloodbath” comment, a sign of just how much traction the comment got. 

Commentators question whether the news media can handle the challenge of Mr. Trump’s rhetorical style. Public trust in the media has declined to a record low, according to Gallup, with only 32% of Americans saying they trust the media “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”

This creates a big opening for many political players in 2024, including Mr. Trump. Efforts at “fairness,” which many mainstream media outlets say they strive for, are likely to fall short in public perception.

“Fairness is problematic because it’s subjective and it’s hard to even define,” says Matthew Levendusky, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, in an email. “No matter what the media does, Trump will say they’re being unfair. The challenge for the media is to explain to people what is at stake.” 

Professor Levendusky frames the challenge of covering Mr. Trump in the larger context of his long pattern of norm-busting behavior – from the launch of his 2016 campaign to his recent rhetoric about immigrants (“poisoning the blood of our country”) to his embrace of those convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“The danger is that in covering this as just more ‘Trump being Trump,’ it can become normalized when it is not,” Mr. Levendusky says.

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, stresses the need for journalists to emphasize “not the odds, but the stakes.” In other words, focus on the consequences for democracy in the 2024 election and not the horse race. But the danger is that the public has become inured to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, raising the bar ever higher for incendiary comments to alarm people. 

Another challenge for reporters is that the public is increasingly avoiding the news – especially young people – or just following events in snippets via social media, which strips away nuance.

“We have crisis levels of polarization, cynicism, frustration, and mistrust in this country,” says Professor Mercieca. “So a democratic-oriented political leader, someone who would be using rhetoric for the common good, would use strategies to try to ameliorate all of those negative qualities in the electorate.”

Back in September 2016, conservative journalist Salena Zito urged voters to take Mr. Trump “seriously but not literally.” The press, she said, was being too literal in its approach to Mr. Trump. Now, high-profile commentators are saying, the former president must be taken both literally and seriously. 

And even if much of what Mr. Trump says is performative, the public can’t be certain that he’s not being serious about his stated intentions for a second term. 

“People have been using war analogies or military analogies in politics ever since Machiavelli and Sun Tzu,” says Professor Schnur, who was communications director for Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. 

“The question is whether we should take his remarks literally or not. If we do, he can argue he’s being held to a different standard. But if we don’t, we’re ignoring his political history.”

It’s presidential campaign season in Senegal’s capital city and all over town the candidates’ faces beam down at voters from posters tacked to light poles and plastered on billboards. Eighteen people are running, and at times, their images seem to blend together: a sea of older men in dark, dour suits. But one face stands out.

In her pastel blue headwrap and green dress, Anta Babacar Ngom cuts a strikingly different figure. For one thing, at 40 years old she’s a generation younger than many of the other candidates. For another, she’s a she.

Although no one expects Ms. Ngom to become the next president, her presence in the race speaks to the increasingly forceful role of women in the politics of Senegal, which has one of the highest percentages of female legislators in the world.

“Leadership is about fighting your way through,” says Aminata Touré, who served as Senegal’s appointed prime minister from 2013 to 2014. 

Indeed, in the run-up to Sunday’s controversial vote, women were often at the forefront of protests against the government’s attempt to postpone the election. Prominent political leaders like Ms. Touré pushed the current president, Macky Sall, to step down at the end of his term and hold elections as promised. Ms. Ngom was herself briefly detained at one such demonstration. Prior to the election campaign, she was best known as the CEO of a poultry company who made waves in 2019 when she opened Senegal’s first KFC – with an all-female staff.

Seeing women break the mold in these ways has an importance that “goes beyond politics,” Ms. Touré says. 

The fight for parity

Ms. Ngom is the first woman to appear on Senegal’s presidential ballot since 2012. And her presence there is the result of a hard-fought battle by women’s organizations to make sure Senegal’s women had a seat at the table.

In the mid-1990s, these groups began campaigning for a so-called “parity law,” which would create quotas for women’s representation in politics. These kinds of quotas were surging in popularity globally, but in Senegal, activists struggled to win support for the idea.

“Some said no, because it’s not our culture,” says Rokhiatou Gassama, president of COSEF, the Senegalese Women’s Council, which promotes a greater role for women in society. “They said this law disturbed our families.” 

Rebecca Blackwell/AP/File

Former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade. He introduced a quota system to ensure political parties filled half of their election candidate slots with women.

At the time, she says, some male politicians and marabouts, or religious leaders, were uncomfortable with a parity law because it suggested women were equal to men.

But activists eventually found an ally in Abdoulaye Wade, who was elected Senegal’s president in 2000 as a modern reformer. He pushed for quotas too, and in 2010, Senegal’s parliament passed a law requiring at least half of every political party’s slate of candidates for office to be women.

Overnight, the law transformed Senegalese politics. In the next election, in 2012, the number of women who held seats in the national assembly doubled – from 22.7% to 42.7%. In local elections, the results were even more dramatic. Women’s representation in regional legislatures went from 16% in 2010 to 47% after elections in 2014.

Today, Senegal has one of the highest percentages of female lawmakers in the world. One important ripple effect of quotas has been to normalize women’s leadership. In 2019, for instance, Dakar elected its first female mayor since Senegalese independence, English professor and former beauty queen Soham El Wardini.

“You have to make sure that people respect you. And sometimes it comes in a confrontational way,” says Ms. Touré, who earned the nickname “Iron Lady” during her tenure as Senegal’s justice minister, before being appointed prime minister in 2013. “I did not beg for respect,” she says. 

A fraught campaign

Ms. Touré served only a year as prime minister, but she remains a forceful voice in Senegalese politics. Last month, she was arrested in a thick cloud of tear gas at a protest denouncing Mr. Sall’s decision to postpone the presidential election, which was initially scheduled for late February. 

Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Supporters of Senegalese presidential candidate Anta Babacar Ngom brandish one of her campaign posters. She is the only female candidate in the race.

Although a new date was set a few weeks later, the ordeal “severely tested” Senegal’s democracy, says Alioune Tine, founder of the Afrikajom Center, a Senegalese political think thank. But he says the reaction of Senegalese citizens – including its women – has been encouraging. “There was resistance from Senegalese citizens,” he adds. Ultimately, “I think that is good for democracy.”

For women, however, the campaign season has been particularly fraught because of allegations swirling around the most prominent leader of the opposition, Ousmane Sonko. He was barred from the ballot after being convicted last year of “corrupting youth” in connection with a coercive sexual relationship he had with a young masseuse.

He and his supporters claimed the charges were politically motivated, and his imprisonment touched off major protests. But his ugly and sexist comments about his accuser’s appearance and motives prompted activists to denounce him for reinforcing and normalizing a culture of rape. 

In that context, many Senegalese women are watching Ms. Ngom’s campaign for president with particular interest.  

“I think she is very courageous,” says Mary Mendoza, a university student. Just by running for president, she says, Ms. Ngom is sending the message that women belong in the highest echelons of Senegalese society. 

It is a sentiment shared by fellow student Diariatou Mbow.

“In this country, we have strong women but the patriarchal society tries to limit them,” says Ms. Mbow. “Anta Babacar is encouraging a lot of young women like myself.”

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Adelle Waldman’s novel looks at the hardships faced by part-time workers at a big-box store. Her characters, who long for the stability, benefits, and job security of full-time work, cook up a plan that sparks their hopes and dreams.

The Hunter, by Tana French

Tana French stretches the tension – and the mystery genre – like taffy in her return to the ethically murky Irish village of Ardnakelty. Retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper has crafted a life with veterinarian Lena and Trey, the teen he teaches carpentry and ethics. Then Trey’s father returns, claiming, “There’s gold in them hills.” Only those who have read “The Searcher” first will fully appreciate the stakes as Cal and Lena work to save Trey.

James, by Percival Everett

Huck Finn’s sidekick Jim earns pride of place in Percival Everett’s retelling of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Here, he becomes James, a smart, self-educated man confronting a vivid cast of ne’er-do-wells, enslavers, and fellow escapees as he wends north hoping to buy his family’s freedom. 

The Far Side of the Desert, by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman

Alliances – familial, situational, political – gird this engrossing thriller from novelist Joanne Leedom-Ackerman. U.S. foreign service officer Monte disappears during a visit to Spain; the search to find her, spearheaded by older sister Samantha, ricochets from Morocco and Egypt to Washington. Monte’s captivity is brutal, but there’s resilience, too, as both sisters slay old demons and chart new paths.

Reading Genesis, by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson, author of the 2005 Pulitzer-winning novel “Gilead,” offers her idiosyncratic reading of the Book of Genesis. By not taking any of the familiar Bible stories at face value, she makes a case for God’s enduring covenant with creation.

The Making of a Leader, by Josiah Bunting III

Rather than focusing on George C. Marshall’s military accomplishments during World War II and, later, his role in rebuilding postwar Europe, historian Josiah Bunting III examines Marshall’s early years. His insightful, admiring biography illuminates Marshall’s leadership qualities.

Women Behind the Wheel, by Nancy A. Nichols

Journalist Nancy A. Nichols offers a spirited exploration of the effects of the automobile on American women. She documents the ways driving has both expanded women’s freedoms and, citing midcentury isolation in the suburbs, limited their opportunities.

H Is for Hope, by Elizabeth Kolbert 

New Yorker science writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s trenchant essays on climate change are combined with haunting illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook into a graphic nonfiction alphabet. It’s an urgent, innovative book.  

Reuters

Maia Sandu, president of Moldova, attends a news conference in the capital, Chisinau, March 18.

For Ukraine, military victories against Russia have become harder to achieve since the 2022 invasion. Yet that is not the case on a less visible front against other types of Russian aggression – in nearby countries that also have a minority of Russian speakers.

From the Baltics to Central Asia, former Soviet states are seen by President Vladimir Putin as part of “the Russian world,” with supposedly a distinct civilizational identity that justifies Moscow’s meddling. Here are some recent victories by such countries as they choose an identity based on universal ideals, such as equality and freedom:

On Thursday, European Union leaders gave a thumbs-up to opening formal talks with Bosnia-Herzegovina on joining the 27-member EU and embracing its values. The offer was a major step toward preventing the kind of ethnic violence that engulfed southeast Europe in the 1990s after the Cold War – and that the world now sees in Ukraine.

Also on Thursday, Moldova’s Parliament agreed to press toward membership in the EU, saying integration with the bloc is now the country’s “top priority.” The government plans a referendum later this year to gauge public support. Polls indicate it would win. As a neighbor of Ukraine with a sizable number of Russian speakers, Moldova has endured intense pressure from Moscow not to make the reforms necessary to join the EU, such as an independent judiciary.

In early March, Armenia hinted it was ready to distance itself from Moscow’s influence and embrace the EU. “Many new opportunities are largely being discussed in Armenia nowadays and it will not be a secret if I say that includes membership in the European Union,” Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told Turkey’s TRT news channel.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the largest land war in Europe since 1945 – has pushed the EU to overcome a reluctance to enlarge its membership. The EU is offering more “carrots” for nations to join and allowing candidate countries to enjoy some benefits of membership, such as visa-free travel within the bloc, as they make reforms.

Set up to suppress the kind of ethnic nationalism behind Europe’s 20th-century wars, the EU again sees a need to ensure peace based on universal ideals of democracy that embrace all ethnicities, religions, and races. The war in Ukraine isn’t the only battlefield to watch for progress these days.