I don’t remember my mother and father ever being together. My Nana was the primary caregiver for me and my older brother. My mom would get her stuff together long enough so that my Nana would let us live with her, but it never lasted very long. After witnessing various forms of trauma brought on by poverty, domestic violence, and drug addiction, we would eventually go live with my Nana for good. I’m not sure if the back-and-forth at such a young age primed me to be a people pleaser, but I always did well in elementary school. I wanted to make someone proud of me, and at the time, it was my Nan ..read more

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. In 1997, Americans bought 20 percent of all groceries from the top four retailers. By 2019, the top four retailers claimed 43 percent of all sales. The consolidation of the United States’ food retail industry is an issue that has been snowballing in size for decades—an issue that threatens the welfare of our communities and of democracy itself. The growing power of a handful of major grocery retailers, commonly referred to as power buyers, creates an uneven playing field that stifles independent grocers, exploits suppliers and farmers, and preys on consumers. The ..read more

Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian intellectual, writer, and pharmacist, stated: “If you want to be an intellectual, you have to be engaged. If you don’t want to be engaged – if you don’t want to confront oppression – your role as an intellectual is pointless.” He was assassinated in 2017 in an Israeli police raid at his home in al-Bireh, a city in the West Bank.  The state of Israel is waging an onslaught of indiscriminate and unchecked violence backed by complete diplomatic cover and financial support from the US. Since October 7, 2023, we have been witnessing the accelerated genocide and di ..read more

By: Emily Ramirez, Edited by: Sommer Iqbal “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” – Toni Morrison ..read more

The Limitations and Possibilities of Public Policy By: Haleema Bharoocha, Edited by: Sommer Iqbal In my role as a policy practitioner and community advocate, I have dedicated the past few years to honing the symbiosis between organizing and policy, with the aim of promoting equitable, compassionate, and impactful outcomes for the communities we are working alongside and for, to create policies. To understand this interplay, it’s essential to position public policy within the spectrum of social change strategies. These strategies span from offering instant assistance (direct service) to confron ..read more

California’s agricultural sector is reliant on the increasingly unpredictable mega-storms, called atmospheric rivers, that can dump as much water as twenty Mississippi rivers. Climate change has created unprecedented extremes: in some years there may only be one atmospheric river, while in others California can be inundated by twenty. As a result, farmers may face one year of extreme drought and be forced to fallow their land, and in others their fields may be unprepared for a deluge of water. In order for players in the nation’s largest agricultural sector to prepare for the increasingly unpr ..read more

In December 2021, the City Council of New York City voted to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. This new policy will permit more than 800,000 noncitizen residents to vote in city elections beginning in early 2023 and extends voting rights to green card holders and immigrants with work authorization who have lived in New York City for at least 30 days.  Several other municipalities across the United States have also authorized noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. New York City joins nine cities in Maryland and two cities in Vermont in allowing noncitizens to vote in ..read more

By Julie Grassian Problem Statement:  1 in 20 children in the United States experience the loss of one parent or guardian before the age of 15.1 Even more shocking is that 2 million children in the United States have lost both parents before the age of 18.1 Parental death is considered to be among the most difficult of adverse childhood experiences. Childhood is a critical period for development; parents are a crucial source of buffering, supportive relationships against stress, and can promote resilience in the face of adversity.2 Children without parents are at a disadvantage in recover ..read more

Innovation in government services to citizen (G2C) service platform By Claudia Eyzaguirre, Shaloo Jeswani, Taekyeong Yoo, Vrashabh Kapate  Summary The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won a landslide victory in the state elections in India’s national capital of Delhi in 2015. Their campaign was run on reducing corruption and increasing transparency in governance. The Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy tasked the Department of Administrative Reforms to come up with a program that would increase access to government services for citizens, and reduce bureaucratic corruption. The department ..read more

By Genevieve Kaplan Introduction Those indigenous to the United States have proven vital to the country’s prosperity historically, yet are treated with discrimination, stemming from the lack of historical accuracy surrounding the group’s influence. Reservations were created to accommodate the many native people displaced from the time of colonization, but with the concealed purpose of controlling the group, pertaining to their access to resources and rights as citizens. Because of the control they obtain, the United States has manipulated the story of indigenous peoples by limiting the knowled ..read more