In October 2007, the United States and Mexico announced the Mérida Initiative, a three-year program of U.S. assistance to Mexico and Central America to combat drug trafficking, gangs, and organized crime. This report provides an overview and discussion of the funding provided for Mérida, and presents several issues that Congress may consider as it oversees implementation of the Initiative and shapes its future direction.

Interview with assistant professor of music history at UNT Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, Mexican-born immigrant to Dallas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Alonso-Minutti's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico, attending college at Universidad de las Americas, discovering music history as a discipline of study, a one-year course of study in theology in Dallas, choir direction at a church in England, attending graduate school, and accepting a job offer from UNT. Additionally, Alonso-Minutti discusses family history, her grandparents' migration from Spain and Italy, her first impressions of the U.S., the decision to study musicology in the U.S. or Great Britain, the citizenship process, and the contrast of life in Mexico, England, California, and Texas.