‘Who Ever Thought I Would Be Chief?’ Tribe Elects First Female Chief

When Millie Thompson Williams and her cousin Myra Battise were growing up, they’d play make-believe underneath a canopy of pine trees in the Big Thicket National Preserve, pretending to be tribal council members.

It was a true fantasy for the two girls growing up during the 1960s, when the seven-member governing body of their tribe was made up entirely of men.

Direct Cash Pilot Projects are Increasing Across Colorado

Thornton, Colorado, resident Chrystal Almeida (featured on Cover) receives no-strings-attached cash payments every two weeks from one of several national universal income experiments. The money helped Almeida open her own home-based child care business.

Twenty-six year-old Almeida—who lost her job as a medical assistant during the COVID-19 pandemic—bought toys, books and other educational supplies for infants and toddlers with $250 from the Thriving Providers Project that lands in her bank account a couple times per month.

To Combat Gun Violence, This Artist Turns Ammunition Into Art

  By Cara Anthony   As a child, Mykael Ash enjoyed picking up seashells near the Mississippi Gulf Coast. His grandfather lives there, so trips to the beach were a…

Colonias Residents Fight Long, and Often Lonely, Fight for Basic Services

For years, Cruz Cuellar was afraid to light candles in her house.

Sometimes, one of her granddaughters would try to light an aromatic candle to enjoy the scent wafting through the house. “No, no, no, no, we’re not risking it,” she would say. Cuellar has three fire extinguishers in and around her small home located in a community that had no running water.
She’s lived there for almost three decades, but never had a fire hydrant near her house until this year. The closest one was on top of a hill a quarter of a mile away, accessible only by a dirt road.

Once Criticized, ‘Spanglish’ Finds a Place in the Classroom

In Elizabeth Menéndez’s kindergarten classroom, red time on the schedule means teachers and students should speak Spanish; blue time is reserved for English. Then, there’s purple time, a “safe language space”, where students use whichever words they prefer in the moment.

Chris Bacon-Chang, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia who studies language policy, has seen recognition of the model grow among his students, both future teachers and teachers returning for more training. In 2014, he says, not a single one of his students had heard of translanguaging but in each of the last couple years, he has gotten several questions from his students about the model. Both linguistics and education scholars cite a similar trend, noting growing attention on translanguaging at conferences and in academic publications.

Suspending Students for Absences, Tardies Compounds Learning Loss

  by Tara García Mathewson and Maria Polletta     Guadalupe Hernández’s attendance problems started in kindergarten.   The boy, who has two attention disorders and oppositional defiant disorder, often…

Lessons From Latin América’s Abortion Victories

  By Tina Vazquez   The abortion rights movement in the United States is in the fight of its life.   Although the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson…

The Human Toll of ‘Nuclear Colonization’ Across New Mexico

Of the three waves of colonization New México has undergone — Spanish, American and nuclear — the latter is the least explored. And for author Myrriah Gómez, there were personal reasons to reveal the truth about how “nuclear colonization” has altered the state’s past and continues to shape its future.

Gómez, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, is the author of  “Nuclear Nuevo México,” a book that explores the history of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the fundamental tension of living in its shadow. Its publication last month by the University of Arizona Press couldn’t be timelier: Los Alamos is currently preparing to build plutonium “pits” that act as triggers in nuclear weapons, putting the lab front and center in an ongoing national debate about nuclear impacts.

‘There Are No Words to Describe the Grief, Anger and Trauma’

Denverites packed a vigil on Monday night honoring the victims of the Club Q shooting as elected officials and faith leaders spoke about the need for action against gun violence and support for the LGBTQ community.
Saturday’s mass shooting at Club Q, a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, left five people dead and at least 18 others injured.

“There are no words to describe the grief, anger and trauma that we are all experiencing,” said Nadine Bridges, the executive director of LGBTQ advocacy organization One Colorado (cover photo). “The beautiful people who lost their lives were our community. We are beautiful beings whose hearts beat together to create a song that will have rippling effects against this hatred. We will not allow these people to take us down.”

Search and Rescue Group Looks for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

Bernadine Beyale, a commanding woman with sharp eyes, stands with a hiking pole in one hand and a GoPro camera strapped around her chest. She is on a dirt road on the Navajo Nation near the Arizona border, carrying a backpack filled with water bottles for her and her two German shepherds, a notebook, a two-way radio and two phones. A blanket of reddish sand spreads out in all directions, giving way to cliffs, desert washes and broad mesas.

“The last thing he was wearing was a maroon shirt, gray sweatpants and mismatched flip-flops,” Beyale tells the 20 people gathered around her by a windmill. “If you come across bones… don’t touch it. Don’t disturb it.”