Selected WORK
bitter fruit
An investigation into Guatemala’s palm oil industry and the indigenous communities defending their land.
Read the full story at The Baffler.
A Pipeline Brings Gas and Revolt to Southern Italy
An investigation into the growing criminalization of protest in Europe, focused on the Apulia’s TAP pipeline and the people who protested it.
Read the full story at In These Times.
California Confronts Overdose Epidemic Among Former Prison Inmates (PHOTOS ONLY)
Photographed recent parolees Michael Vera and Agustin Pargas for a story about California’s attempt to tackle overdose among formerly incarcerated people.
See the photos on California Healthline and/or The Los Angeles Times
AMONG THE SINNERS (PHOTO + WRITING)
A series of vignettes and photographs about growing up Catholic and particularly, that special brand of pagan-Christianity that permeates Southern Italy and the Southern Italian diaspora.
Read the full series at Preachy.
HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS AFFECTED SURVIVORS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
The economic exploitation of human trafficking destroys an individual’s ability to secure even their most basic needs despite working for years, even decades, and the pandemic has only compounded that turmoil.
Read the full story at DAME Magazine.
In Asia, Millions Are Fleeing Climate Disasters With Little Promise of Relief
How Asia’s climate migrants face a lifetime of constant movement — “for us, climate change is inescapable.”
Read the full story at Common Dreams.
Turning Cow Poop Into Energy Sounds Like A Good Idea — But Not Everyone Is On Board
In California’s Central Valley, a gas utility is harvesting methane from manure on cow feedlots. Critics worry the push toward biogas will only further entrench two polluting industries.
Read the full story at Discover.
Clothing companies have been praised for making protective masks. But garment workers say factory conditions are unsafe.
Amid COVID-19, thousands of Los Angeles’ garment workers are being put to work making masks – often without access to proper safety and sanitation themselves.
Read the full story at The Lily.
ReHEARSING FOR REBELLION
An Essay on “Bella Ciao,” forgotten women of history, and the radical politics of Italy’s rice fields.
Read the full story at Lapham’s Quarterly.
Fast Fashion’s ‘Cheap Labor’: Under the Pandemic, Global Garment Industry’s Women Workers Pay the Price
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, millions of garment workers around the world have been left to face an unknown future as economic uncertainty has rippled across the fashion business. I spoke with several organizations working alongside female workers, Dalit communities, and home-based workers as they grapple with the financial fallout of the pandemic and advocate for greater responsibility from global corporations.
Read the full story at WMC Women Under Siege.
An UNKNOWN EPIDEMIC ARRIVES IN AMERICA
Since the late '90s, researchers have been tracking a kidney disease of uncertain origin that has killed more than 20,000 people—mostly men under the age of 45—across the Pacific Coast of Latin America. No one suspected they would see it in the U.S. Then, patients arrived in the emergency room of a Houston hospital by the hundreds.
Read the full story at Elemental.
Roommates — The creative and sometimes cramped ways people live together
For California Sunday magazine, I interviewed Maria Salazar about her family’s housing situation and the struggle to find an affordable home in rural California.
Read the full story at California Sunday.
THE ORGANIZATIONS HELPING IMPROVING ACCESS TO JUSTICE.
How legal empowerment advocates are helping disenfranchised people fight pollution, gain access to clean water and sanitation, protect land rights, and more.
Read the full story at Ensia.
Dollar stores moving to pull dangerous plastics from shelves
Under steady pressure by environmental justice advocates, Dollar Tree has committed to phasing out harmful chemicals in their plastic products. Who's next?
Read the full story at National Geographic.
CAN you save a dying italian town with the art of storytelling? (PHOTO + WRITING)
How a Southern Italian city is using literature and the arts to bring life back to their community.
Read the full story at Literary Hub.
The Origin Story of Peter Singer’s Instagram Account
A delve into the Instagram account of famed philosopher Peter Singer.
Read the full story at the NewYorker.com.
The things they carried (PHOTO + WRITING)
How a group of forensic anthropologists use personal effects and DNA to reunite undocumented and deceased missing migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border with their families.
“On this day, every bag pulled from the weight of the earth will be given a tag, an epithet for an unknown name. In this anonymity, every body is a John Doe.”
Read the full story at Harpers.org.
RESEARCHERS AND STUDENTS study youth pesticide exposure
A decades-long study in California shines a light on the impact of pesticides on childhood brain development while at the same time, involving young, people of color in that research.
Read the full story at Ensia.
A Cross-Border Brew Fosters the Next Generation of Latina Brewers
With the support of a grant from the North American Guild of Beer Writers, I wrote about a cross-border craft beer collaboration and Tijuana’s next generation of female brewers.
Read the full story at CraftBeer.com
Blood, sweat, and braids (photo + WRITING)
At the end of a training session, coach Malinda Ripley reads an inspirational quote from her phone. As she does, the girls from Albany High School’s wrestling team undo their braids, peel off layers of damp clothing, and unlace their soft-soled sneakers. It has been a long two hours. Some have bickered. Others have cried. Most have apologized for being stressed and snarky. But for the last ten minutes, as they settle on the floor—shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand — it is warm and quiet.
View the full photo essay at The Bold Italic
and the lift is good (video)
Since 2015, women’s participation in powerlifting has more than doubled. Often documented through Instagram athletes and encouraged by the mantra “strong is the new skinny,” the face of heavy lifting has been changing. Schunck, while part of that movement, is also very different. She is not the best, not the strongest, and not the loudest—in fact, she shirks most public affirmations of her athletic prowess or progress. Co-produced with Dominic Czarnota.
Watch the full video at The Establishment.
WATER IS LIFE (VIDEO)
Three years ago, Celerina and Bartolo Chavez found out that the water in their small agricultural town of Arvin was contaminated with a chemical called 123 Trichloropropane (or 123 TCP) — a known carcinogen and by-product of pesticides originally sold by Dow Chemical and Shell Oil Company. Co-produced with Briana Flin.
Watch the full video at BOOM California.