Creative Nonfiction
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The Cold Mountains: Photographs of the Nuosu in Southern Sichuan
Ancient Legends For the past ten years, I have been photographing the Nuosu (or Yi) ethnic minority, who reside mostly in Lishangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, known as the “Cold Mountains,” in southern Sichuan province in southwestern China. For thousands of...

Marginal Equity:
Poetry Reading on Indigenous Cultural Self-Determination
In this video clip, author and artist Kade Twist introduces his book Marginal Equity and reads the first section, “project abstract.” Marginal Equity is a book-length poem that parodies the form of a corporate/governmental prospectus—complete with opportunity statement, deliverables, and...

Twins of Diyakunda
Once upon a time, there were two twin boys. One was named Manu and the other Guju. Together, they decided to go to Diyakunda, the Happiness Land. They had heard it said that Diyakunda was the most beautiful place in...

Colten Boushie
Editor’s Note: Colten Boushie was a 22-year-old Indigenous man from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, Treaty Six Territory, in the place we now call Canada. On August 9, 2016, Colten was shot in the back of the head and killed by...
Dispatches
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Harbor Blues, Salina Cruz
“I remember the city before the refinery,” says Rafael Mayoral, a middle-aged professor and self-described activist in defense of the land. He is tall, broad-chested with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair that blows wildly in the violent Tehuano winds. “It...

Lapiztola + Chiquitraca: Collective Crises
In May of 2006, Rosario Martinez and Roberto Vega were fresh out of design school when the annual teachers union strike took on a sinister character as an explosive social movement of street protests turned into an seven-month war between...

A Brief History of Mexico’s Transoceanic Trade Route
“The mind is bewildered with the difficulty of embracing in one comprehensive view the astonishing consequences that would result from a communication between the two oceans, by means of which ships sailing from Europe will save two thousand leagues, and...

“No Maize Es No Pais”: Accounting as Artistic Practice
“Why is Mexico hinging its future on a neoliberal economic model when it’s failing everywhere in the world?” asks Edith Morales, a conceptual artist from Oaxaca whose work draws paradoxically from her Mixe roots and her background in accounting. Her...
Entanglements
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Corky Lee: Memories of a SeekerÂ
Corky Lee’s reputation was burnished many years ago. As many know, he prided himself on being the “undisputed, unofficial Asian American photographer laureate.” And that was no joke. Corky’s reputation preceded him when he paid a visit to the “liberated...

Gay Ancestry
On May 18, 1981, the New York Native published the first article about a “gay cancer” rumoured to be afflicting gay men. Dr. Lawrence Mass, who had a regular health column in the Native, wrote about the curious appearance of...

Beach of the Dead
Dear Fay, It’s taken me three and half years to write this letter. You would have turned 68 today, and if there wasn’t a virulent affliction ravishing the country we’d be getting ready for your birthday party. In a few...

High Tide: Reflections on Music, Isolation & CatharsisÂ
*Paintings & Text by Sidd Joag Several weeks before the pandemic began in earnest was the last time I would sit across the table from a woman I had been seeing for a time, more off than on. I often...
Essays
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Isthmus at the Crossroads
The mystery surrounding the origins of the Iko’ots people is that no one knows when, why, or how they came to southern Oaxaca, but everyone seems to agree they arrived from somewhere else. There is speculation that they sailed from...

Butterfly with Broken Wings
Seldom has an interview felt more insensitive than the afternoon we arrived at Lukas Avendaño’s family home. Lukas chose not to mention that he had postponed our interview the day before because he was returning home from Oaxaca City with...

Guardians of the Wind Farms
We’re sitting in a neighborhood restaurant hidden at the far end of a long nondescript alleyway. Huddled around a table near the doorway, everyone glances toward the entrance any time someone passes through it. Our source, who for their safety...

Confessions of a Looted Soul
The North Wind Whips By VĂctor Terán (Translation by David Shook) The north wind whips through, in the streets papers and leaves are chased with resentment. Houses moan, dogs curl into balls. There is something in the afternoon’s finger, a...