Essays

In Honduras, Defending Your Land Can Be Deadly

Amid Deepening Climate, Criminal, and Economic Crises, Indigenous Activists Are Being Murdered

In Honduras, Defending Your Land Can Be Deadly | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

On May 28, 2023, the body of Martín Morales Martínez was found floating in the Gama River in Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras. Morales Martínez was Garifuna—a people descended from enslaved Africans, Arawak, and Carib Indians. He was also a respected land rights activist who devoted his life to fighting the theft of Garifuna coastal lands by corporations, investors, and state authorities. His was the most recent in a series of murders of Black and Indigenous land defenders in the country that show how violence, economic development, and race are …

by Christopher A. Loperena |

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What Bruce Springsteen Taught Me Then—And Teaches Me Now

On 40 Years of Listening to the Sonic Squall from the Boss’s Soul

by Tom White |

Bruce Springsteen was the first artist I saw in concert—in 1976, when I was 15. He had recently graced the covers of Time and Newsweek, and journalist Jon Landau, who …

How San Francisco Became a Labor Enforcement Laboratory

Community Partners Are Helping Local Government Protect and Empower Low-Wage Workers

by Seema N. Patel |

In the U.S., there is a chasm between what the labor laws say and what workers experience as their everyday realities. That’s because employment here is based on private contractual …

In Ukraine, No Election Doesn’t Mean the Electorate Is Happy | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In Ukraine, No Election Doesn’t Mean the Electorate Is Happy

President Zelensky Is an International Star. At Home, It’s More Complicated

by Daria Badior |

Regular presidential elections should have taken place in Ukraine this month.

But on day one of Russia’s full-scale invasion of our country, Ukraine’s government introduced martial law, under which …

My Father, the Madrasah, and Me

In Nigeria, Where Western Education Is King, an Arabic Studies Legacy Lives On

by Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi |

On a phone call the other day with a new friend, Zay, we ended up on the topic of religion. “Did you attend madrasah?” I asked her, referring to the …

Is ‘Uberveillance’ Coming for Us All?

It’s No Longer Sci-Fi. Trackers Embedded in Our Bodies Are Threatening Our Privacy—and Our Humanity

by M.G. Michael, Katina Michael, and Roba Abbas |

The smartphone has become a modern Swiss Army knife: driver’s license, e-payment device, camera, radio, television, map, blood pressure monitor, workstation, babysitter, pocket AI, and general gateway to the internet. …


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