#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
Communities
Posted inArticles
Can AI translate Native languages in times of disaster?
In the wake of Typhoon Halong, an AI language company wants to hire Native translators, raising questions about data sovereignty.
Posted inArticles
Why Colorado River negotiations are so difficult
Basin states have had 2 years to figure out how to share the shrinking river. Will they get there before the feds step in?
Posted inNovember 2025: Precious Metalheads
Aspen ‘eyes’ keep us accountable to the natural world
In times of crisis, their gaze is a summon from nature to take action.
Posted inNovember 2025: Precious Metalheads
Heavy metal is healing teens on the Blackfeet Nation
In response to youth suicides, teachers show students the power of headbanging at Fire in the Mountains festival.
Posted inArticles
ICE raids in Colorado highlight how violent the U.S. has become
After migrating to Canada, a journalist reckons with the grief and gratitude of having left.
Posted inArticles
‘It’s a story of hope’: Reflections on undamming the Klamath
A Q&A with Amy Bowers Cordalis about her new book on the multigenerational effort towards dam removal.
Posted inNovember 2025: Precious Metalheads
For rural Californians, unreliable power has become the norm
Years ago, the state’s largest utility rolled out a power outage program designed to reduce wildfires. Customers now experience thousands of outages a year.
Posted inArticles
Truly grasp what Typhoon Halong did to western Alaska
This is not only a climate emergency. It is a cultural one.
Posted inOctober 2025: Limits to Growth
Inventing habitats
Reconciliation means meeting a landscape on its own terms.
Posted inOctober 2025: Limits to Growth
Inventando hábitats
La reconciliación significa encontrarse con un paisaje en sus propios términos
Posted inArticles
Phoenix subdivision builds move ahead, despite water concerns
The first crack in the area’s suspension on new housing that relies on groundwater appears.
Posted inArticles
Montana’s Chinese past isn’t past
A forgotten Chinese cemetery reveals how Missoula buries its past — and why the present is so familiar.
Posted inArticles
The rural West’s increasing health care costs haunt the shutdown
Health insurance costs are skyrocketing, and federal tax credits that make it more affordable are expiring.
Posted inArticles
Tribal governments fend off the worst of the impacts of the shutdown
In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, tribal nations hefted their political and economic capital to protect services for their citizens.
Posted inArticles
What the government shutdown means for public lands
Many parks will stay open, and oil and gas permitting will continue — even as tens of thousands of staff are furloughed at NPS, BLM and USFS.
Posted inSeptember 2025: Who Controls Our Food?
What makes a community activist optimistic
After 85 years, Luis Torres still has answers to our many challenges.
Posted inSeptember 2025: Who Controls Our Food?
‘How many bricks of colonization do we sit under?’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
Posted inArticles
Resistance to data centers rises on the border
In Doña Ana County, New Mexico, residents have long struggled to access clean water. Now, developers plan to spend $165 billion on a massive data center complex.
Posted inSeptember 2025: Who Controls Our Food?
What eating bitterness has to do with Chinese food
The Chinese immigrants who built the Transcontinental Railroad quietly endured racism and violence, fostering a complicated legacy for Chinese-Americans.