Every issue I try to identify a unifying thread or a shared impulse in the stories to write about in the editor’s note. This one was eluding me. What did a photo essay about domestic workers, a film about the oldest Portuguese language newspaper in the country, a podcast about an immigrant Lutheran congregation, a photo camp for high school students, and the last installment of our web series American Sueño have in common?
Then it came to me, like the voice from the corn in Field of Dreams, “This is what Newark looks like.”
The voice was actually Shana Russell, who wrote this issue’s terrific essays on Ursula Simone De Assis and Maricela Bendito. She was looking over my shoulder as I was scrolling through the issue. “This is Newark; immigrant and African-American histories coming together.”
This is the story of post-industrial cities across the country. It is an important story, a complicated story, an evolving story. And now more than ever a story that demands our attention.
37 VOICES is a photo essay documenting how in one of the wealthiest states in the country a disturbingly large number of working people are struggling to get by.
LUSO-AMERICANO is a short film about the largest Portuguese-language newspaper in the United States, and how it keeps a community connected.
In PICTURING NEWARK, sixteen young photographers share their vision of life in Newark through a National Geographic Photo Camp.
ACT OF FAITH is an audio story about St. Stephen’s Grace Community, a church that puts into practice what its pastor preaches from the pulpit.
AMERICAN SUEÑO: ONWARD is the final installment of our web series about undocumented immigrant Marisol Conde Hernandez and her family. The series began in the wake of President Obama’s expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program in November 2014. As DACA worked its way through the courts we followed Marisol as she worked her way through law school.
This will be the last episode of American Sueño, because while the fate of DACA still hangs in the balance, Marisol, against all odds, was admitted to the bar this November and is now a practicing attorney in New Jersey. Kudos to Marisol and her family for this epic achievement!
