Ricky Hurtado bucked party strategists to run a different kind of campaign. Is he the vanguard of Latinx electoral power and millennial campaigning in North Carolina? Originally published in The Assembly. Photos by Cornell Watson. When Ricky Hurtado launched his state legislative campaign in November 2019, the kickoff party signaled a new kind of Democratic politics […]
Feeding refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border
Click here for “Feeding refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border,” Food & Environment Reporting Network and Texas Observer, May 2020.
ICE Puts Immigrants Into a Cruel Catch-22
By complying with one government agency, Samuel Oliver-Bruno exposed himself to deportation by another. Originally published in The Nation. LAST MONTH, SAMUEL OLIVER-BRUNO WAS SUMMONED to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) support center in Morrisville, North Carolina. After living in the United States for more than two decades, the 47-year-old drywall installer was […]
What Happens After the Progressive Revolution Comes to a City Like Durham?
On the challenges of governing a bright-blue city in the middle of a hot-red state. Originally published in The Nation. LAST DECEMBER, AFTER HE WAS SWORN IN as mayor of Durham, North Carolina, Steve Schewel laid down his vision for a city where elected officials work alongside residents to resist regressive state and federal policy. […]
Citizens of Carolina
Click here for “Citizens of Carolina,” Carolina Alumni Review, September-October 2017 issue. Opens as a PDF.
Lifting the Emotional Embargo in Cuba
An unorthodox blend of anthropology and poetry is cultivating reunion and reconciliation among people and cultures that have been estranged for decades. Originally published in Sapiens. THE JUNE HEAT WAS SO INTENSE, the air so still, that the open balcony doors offered little relief. Anthropologist Ruth Behar felt her clothes sticking as she looked over […]
Coverage of the World Bank Group in Gujarat, India
Click here for “The Uncounted,” part of the Evicted & Abanadoned series, HuffPost and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, May 2015. Click here for a follow-up (with a shared byline), “World Bank Fails To Stop Attacks, Arrests Of Villagers Protesting Big Projects,”HuffPost and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, September 2015. Click here for another follow-up, “Is the World […]
Reports from Moral Monday
During 2014, I reported on North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, a faith-based organizing effort that is becoming a national model. The movement is spearheaded by the state NAACP with broad support from churches and issue-based organizations, including women’s, immigrant, environmental, LGBT, and labor groups. Most of the articles were published online by The American Prospect, illustrated by […]
Wealth for Everyone
Immigrants in Durham, N.C. had become easy targets for robbers. The community’s response: start its own wildly successful credit union. Originally published by One Nation Indivisible. NOT LONG AFTER HE ARRIVED in Durham, North Carolina in 1996, Marcelino Varela learned a lesson that would prove valuable in his adopted city: Always be ready to sprint. He […]
A Moveable Feast
America’s Creole migration brought a whole new flavor to California. Originally published in American Way, in conjunction with the documentary Zydeco Nation. Photos by John Noltner. AT 4:00 ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON, the cars start turning onto Embarcadero Way. The street in Palo Alto, Calif., has all the charm you’d expect from a Silicon Valley business […]
