When a large-scale restoration effort was halted by feds, history could not be forced back into the archives.
Media
Posted inArticles
In rural New Mexico, kids paint a sonic portrait of their ghost town
Madrid was once a booming coal town. At radio camp, its youngest inhabitants had big questions about its past — and present.
Posted inAugust 2025: Fire Culture
Native languages need radio, which is at risk of being lost
As public media is threatened after cuts from Trump administration, Indigenous radio also face threats to how they preserve and grow language.
Posted inArticles
What defunding public media would mean for the West
Data show that rural, tribal and Western stations would be most impacted by Trump’s attempt to cut CPB funding.
Posted inMay 2025: The Art of the Cruise
The subversive power of Spanish-language radio
For decades, immigrant communities have used the airwaves to educate and protect themselves. Under Trump, they’re doing it again.
Posted inMay 2025: The Art of the Cruise
El poder subversivo de la radio en español
Durante décadas, las comunidades inmigrantes han usado las ondas para educarse y protegerse. Bajo la administración de Trump, lo están haciendo de nuevo.
Posted inApril 2025: A Monumental Reckoning
Rebecca Nagle considers Supreme Court wins and what’s at stake for tribes under Trump
The author of ‘By the Fire We Carry’ notes the nation’s power of empire while looking to history to frame our present.
Posted inArticles
Urban wildfires shouldn’t surprise us
Southern California is jolted into a new reality.
Posted inArticles
Los incendios urbanos no deberían sorprendernos
El sur de California se ve sacudido a una nueva realidad.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
The power of prescribed fire
A wildfire journalist steps behind the drip torch.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
How do we raise our children in a time of wildfire?
The poet Rachel Richardson learns, through writing and motherhood, to defy fear.
Posted inArticles
The importance of ‘Being Caribou’
Remembering the activist and author Karsten Heuer.
Posted inArticles
Indigenous affairs stories you need to read
Beyond HCN’s coverage, the beat is expanding, highlighting the complexity of Indian Country.
Posted inArticles
Culture that impacted our sense of the West
Some books, happenings and other cultural endeavors that helped expand our sense of place in 2024.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
The passion of the Mormon feminist
For 50 years, ‘Exponent II‘ has made the LDS Church squirm. It has no plans to stop.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
How do you describe a sacred site without describing it?
Western journalism puts Indigenous reporters in a tricky position where values don’t always align.
Posted inArticles
Reservation Dogs is finally up for the recognition it deserves
Producer and writer, Migizi Pensoneau, ‘brings the realness’ to Emmy voters.
Posted inArticles
Satirizing gentrification in ‘The Curse’
Avant-garde entertainment’s new topic of interest: urban transformation in the American Southwest.
Posted inArticles
The great Clean Girl vanishing act
The search for an ‘invisible’ perfume is rooted in frontier aesthetics.
Posted inArticles
‘Frybread Face and Me’ shows the complexity of Indigeneity
Billy Luther’s new coming-of-age film shows characters grappling with city life juxtaposed against the reservation.