Much of the state’s oil extraction takes place in residential areas, often in Spanish-speaking communities, but there’s a lack of research detailing its impact.
People & Places
Posted inMay 1, 2021: Beauty and Biodiversity in the Borderlands
Can a wildlife refuge help a community’s fight for environmental justice?
In Albuquerque’s South Valley, activists are happy for more green space but worry about gentrification.
Posted inMay 1, 2021: Beauty and Biodiversity in the Borderlands
As the country reckons with race, will tribal nations lead the way?
The descendants of those once enslaved by tribes continue to push for equality.
Posted inArticles
LA girls behind the lens
The Las Fotos Project empowers youth of color to tell their stories.
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Modern redemption in a small New Mexican town
Kirstin Valdez Quade’s debut novel depicts everyday Catholicism in a struggling family.
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Albuquerque’s racist history haunts its housing market
Policymakers and activists fight to remove pro-segregation, anti-immigrant provisions from property deeds.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
Did James Plymell need to die?
How homelessness is criminalized in small cities and towns across the West.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
Foreign-born doctors fill physician shortages in the West
Some find a permanent home; others languish in a visa holding pattern.
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Honoring Montana’s first Black librarian
Carrying on the legacy of Alma Smith Jacobs requires representation and education.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
How Wyoming’s Black coal miners shaped their own history
Many early Wyoming coal towns had thriving Black communities.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
Workers reflect on Oregon’s first and last coal plant
‘The people here made the plant. What we did is something that was needed.’
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
Meet the gun-toting ‘Tenacious Unicorns’ in rural Colorado
How a transgender-owned alpaca ranch in Colorado foretells the future of the rural queer West.
Posted inArticles
Pandemic restrictions follow state lines. The spreading virus doesn’t.
Cross-border COVID-19 contamination underscores the pitfalls of not having national standards.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
A high school football team’s wartime resistance
In ‘The Eagles of Heart Mountain,’ Bradford Pearson renders the lives of incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II in three dimensions.
Posted inArticles
I lost my mom to COVID-19. Don’t let the holidays steal yours.
If you understood how much this hurts, you might stop planning Thanksgiving.
Posted inArticles
Latina community health workers combat COVID-19 in the West
Promotoras de salud work to build trust and improve health outcomes with people on their own turf.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
How an intimate burial can make death human-sized
In burying a stranger, a writer learns that dying can be as small and personal as life.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
Black cowboys reclaim their history in the West
At an annual rodeo in Phoenix, the contributions of African Americans are finally recognized.
Posted inArticles
How residents rallied to get their post office back
In rural Arizona, the postal service is a literal lifeline.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2020: The Next West
The failures of U.S. immigration policies
Three new books challenge the way we imagine the U.S.-Mexico border.