When New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham gave early childhood education centers in her state the option to shut down alongside public schools on March 13, the vast majority of them did. Large, extended families are prevalent in New Mexico, so there is often someone to care for kids when school isn’t in session.

Not everyone, however, has that safety net.

Photo credit: Noël Lindquist

It’s Christmas Eve, 2019, and members of the Homeless Outreach Team in Missoula, Montana, pile out of a van near the Reserve Street Bridge. They unload rucksacks filled with sandwiches, hand warmers, and water bottles. Several volunteers tag along—one with blankets and another with gift-wrapped wool socks.

The outreach team goes down a steep, icy embankment to an island in the Clark Fork River behind the Walmart Supercenter, just upstream from a sewage treatment plant that delivers an intolerable sewage stench in summer months. On the island, homeless individuals camp alone in tents, or in small clusters.

Last summer, I spent a total of 30 hours on hold or on the phone over the course of three weeks because my income was miscalculated when I finally reached a caseworker. I had to call again, and then again. I spoke with a different case worker each time and so each time we had to start the processing of paperwork and the calculations from scratch. By the time it was sorted out, the interview deadline had passed and the system automatically cut my benefits. This required a fourth call so I could go through the lengthy process to reinstate my benefits.

If this sounds punishing and like far too much paper pushing, it is. Still, the support SNAP provides keeps my kids fed and despite the hoops I have to jump through it is nothing compared to the bloated government bureaucracy that Trump has in mind for SNAP if congress approves the administration’s proposed budget cuts.

One of Diego Romero’s favorite activities is watching people react to his art. He keeps a low profile and usually not even the security guards know he’s the artist. Hiding in plain sight, he looks on as people study his Pueblo-inspired pots with comics painted inside them. With work in places like the British Museum, the Cartier Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Romero has lurked in numerous museums around the world over his 30-year career and delights in the groans, sighs, and chuckles his art elicits. “It doesn’t matter whether they speak English or not,” he says. “They can take one look at my pot, look at each other, and then just start laughing.” Whether he’s combining Moche stirrup bottles with a Homer Simpson Chia Pet head or a neo-Mimbres style pot with a Pueblo version of Uma Thurman’s iconic Pulp Fiction pose on it, Romero is adept at eliciting reactions.

For Mateo and Diego Romero, being named the 2019 recipients of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Native Treasures Living Treasures award is the ultimate homecoming. Although they have lived in the Santa Fe area for over 30 years, they grew up in Berkeley, California, with a Cochiti father and a non-Native mother. Because their upbringing was so geographically and culturally removed from their Cochiti community, the brothers have always felt like they were straddling two worlds.

In Peru, stark divisions between classes and races can make memory a battleground. Artists who tell their stories are resisting attempts by the government to erase their history—a silencing that serves to perpetuate the violence they have already experienced.

Thomas Haukaas (Lakota) beads like a painter. At first glance, a viewer might simply see colorful animals or butterflies in his soft beaded baby cradles—but a closer look reveals social messages. (…) The inclusion of a same-sex couple on the cradle achieves this subtlety, and sends the message that the men represent one of many versions of what it means to be a family. “We get to define who we are related to,” Haukaas says. “This is who we are and what we are.”

Cat-o-nine-tails, reedmace, bulrush, water torch, candlewick, punk, and corn dog grass. The cattail has almost as many names as it has uses. Humans have taken their cue from the animals over the centuries and continue to benefit from cattail’s nutritional, medicinal, and material uses.

"In keeping with the Torah’s commandment to “take challah,” for example, some New Mexico families burn the first ball of tortilla dough just as Jewish bakers burn an olive-sized ball of matzo or challah as an offering before the bread is baked."

"As I walk around my neighborhood, I am perpetually traumatized by sprinklers. I resist the impulse to drag hoses away from sidewalks when I see concrete being watered. I harbor secret longings to sidle into side yards and turn faucets off."

Participating in 150 minutes of exercise a week—just 2.5 hours of walking briskly or another physical activity—could delay an inherited form of Alzheimer’s, according to researchers of a new study.

Air pollution is on the rise, and there’s no question that it’s bad for your respiratory system. Scientists have linked pollution to around 9 million premature deaths and officially classified it as a human carcinogen and a leading environmental cause for cancer deaths. But could air pollution affect the brain, too?  

"A global buzzword for decades, ['sustainable'] has been appropriated and misappropriated for decades by a dizzying array of organizations and industries."

"The Penasco Theatre is located in the picturesque mountain town of Penasco along State Road 75--the High Road to Taos. Hand built in 1940 by Amado Roybal, its 16-inch adobe walls were crafted from the dirt in the backyard." p. 60

"Workshops and presentations featured in-depth discussions about climate change, social injustice, and the artist’s role in shaping dialogue about issues of sustainability. Motivated to create lasting change in global and local communities, students wrapped up the conference by participating in the National Day of Service."

“'Prince Charles couldn’t understand what we were going to do about Search and Rescue because all the other United World Colleges did it on the water,' Ted says, laughing. 'I said I didn’t think the Gallinas River was a very good locale for that.' Working with the New Mexico state police, the school soon developed a comprehensive land-based search and rescue team—marking the beginning of UWC-USA’s integral Wilderness Program."

"Each attempted escape was intercepted and landed both mother and daughter in jail. Each time, they were rescued by Yoomie's grandmother who was, fortunately, wealthy enough to pay the bribe fee." 

"He tells a story about a student from Japan who graduated in ’84 who wanted to ship moose antlers to Japan. 'I made a box for him and apparently they got to Japan ... I could do that back then because they used to send them by ship.'"

"Red raspberry leaf has been traditionally used as a remedy for centuries (some sources estimate 10,000 years) and legend has it that the plant’s Latin name, Rubus idaeus, comes from Mt. Ida in Turkey, where Greek Gods supposedly discovered the plant."