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![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Levy01-1-300x229.jpg)
Revisiting The Appalachian Coalfield
What began in 1968 as a ten-day trip became fourteen years of visiting and photographing in coal mines,miners’ homes, and communities in the hills and “hollers” of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. I was attracted by a rich cultural
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Marlan01s-300x225.jpg)
America’s Young Detainees
Three boys stumble out of the back of a border patrol van. Their sweatshirts, jeans, and boots are filthy, and their lips are flaky. One boy has red cheeks, chapped by the cold desert wind. The boys each clutch a small bag. They
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A Citizen On Paper Has No Weight
Last week, I registered to vote. Yaser Esam Hamdi made me do it. Yes, the alleged Taliban fighter — who has been lingering in solitary confinement in a Norfolk naval brig for the past nine months — prompted me to take one more
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Clifford_Blackfeet01s.jpg)
The Blackfeet’s Lost Acres
A dozen Blackfeet Indians and one white man sit in an aspen grove up against the backbone of the world watching a horse die. This is a land of spirits and portents. Things that happen here take on a heightened significance. The slow,
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Sacirbey01_Challenges-300x225.jpg)
The Challenges and Growth of Progressive Muslims
Astaghfirullah is an Arabic expression known to Muslims the world over, no matter what language they speak. Roughly translated, it means “I ask forgiveness from God.” Muslim parents employ it regularly to express exasperation with kids who sneak out on dates or go
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Sachs01_Good-Germs.jpg)
Good Germs Gone Bad
To work in Abigail Salyers’ laboratory at the University of Illinois, is to play matchmaker to some unlikely couples. Standing at her laboratory bench, PhD student Kaja Malanowska lifts the cover from a petri dish to pick up a half a billion or
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Coffman_Anthan01s-300x178.jpg)
Sweeping out the Plains
Text and photos by Jack Coffman and George Anthan In 1890, the federal Census Bureau announced that the nation’s frontier was closed. It’s opening up again. The great wave of population, which swept homesteaders onto the Northern Great Plains with the promise of
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Atwood_Lives01s-300x195.jpg)
Lives in Looting
How professional grave-robbers are destroying the past At 23, Robin is a huaquero, a professional grave-robber who has been digging up pre-Hispanic burial mounds known as huacas in his native Peru almost every night since his early teens. He and his buddies loot
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When Conflict Focuses on Citizenship
War is all about taking sides – unless, of course, you can’t because you belong on both sides. That’s the sort of conflict that citizenship laws were intended to avoid. But that’s how Haider Thamir, a citizen of both Iraq and the United
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Denizet-Lewis01_Brother-300x229.jpg)
Brother’s Keeper: One Family, Two Suicides
On the afternoon of Saturday, May 4, 2001, the cast of the Monadnock Regional High School production of “Ordinary People” gathered in the school auditorium in Swanzey, N.H., for its first dress rehearsal. Opening night was only four days away, and the mood
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Classmates: Portraits of a Chinese Generation
Song Liming lost his virginity on a chilly day in February 1982 to an Italian temptress named Antonella in Building 10 of the Foreign Students Dormitory at Nanjing University, while Antonella’s ex-, an avuncular German named Uli, was knocking on the door outside.
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Wells_Beyond01s--300x200.jpg)
Beyond Stereotypes: Globalization’s Winners and Losers
To discuss the winners and losers in globalization in developing nations such as India, most people reach for a cliché. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is a widely held misnomer about globalization. Well-documented declines in poverty in poorer countries
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Olsen01s-300x200.jpg)
Secret Land Swaps That Taxpayers Help Finance II
Across the West, a handful of environmental groups are persuading Congress to bestow wilderness protection on their favorite stretch of country by trading away public land. Such deals are the only way to protect the last unspoiled territory from development in the face
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Molyneaux_qAquaculture01s-300x192.jpg)
Aquaculture Moves Offshore
The white spires of the Algonquin Hotel towered above the coastal town of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, the center of aquaculture development in Canada’s maritime provinces. Government officials and aquaculture industry representatives from Canada, Norway, and the U.S. met at the Algonquin to
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Tye02s-218x300.jpg)
The Work of a Pullman Porter
A Pullman porter was, before anything, a man who made beds. Or, as they said, made down beds, since the most taxing part was popping the upper berth from the ceiling. The lower was formed by folding down opposing seats, fastening curtains, affixing
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Campbell_Mystery01s-copy-207x300.jpg)
The Mystery of Cancer in Alaska
Jennifer Probert poses in her home Tuesday evening, August 19, 2003. Probert has been compiling informal cancer statistics from Tok. (for Diana’s cancer series) Eric Engman/News-Miner Jennifer Probert has been wondering for several years now why she knows so many people with cancer.
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Lorch_Cultural01s-300x200.jpg)
The Cultural Broker in Refugee Resettlement
For Carol Russo, it all began in April 1975. Sitting in her living room, surrounded by her husband’s deer trophies and pictures of family, she watched the television news. Desperate Vietnamese trying to board overcrowded American helicopters. Thousands of refugees massed on the
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The Fake Crisis over Lawsuits: Who’s Paying to Keep the Myths Alive?
Over the past two years, the average media consumer would be under the impression that the nation is awash with lawsuits, greedy trial lawyers and out of control juries eager to punish corporate America with million-dollar verdicts. The airwaves and newspapers have been
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2002/12/Margolies_Americana01-300x197.jpg)
On The Americana Road Again
As a photographer and writer I have spent nearly 30 years crisscrossing the continental United States in search of unique and typical examples of roadside and Main Street architecture and design. In traveling over 100,000 miles in a long series of marathon automobile
![](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Molyneaux_Disease01s-300x202.jpg)
Disease: Shrimp Aquaculture’s Biggest Problem
A mass of gulls hung like kites in the clear air above a shrimp farm in Sonora, Mexico. The birds indicated a situation familiar in every country where shrimp are grown. “Birds are the first sign of disease,” said Jose Reyna, a technical
![A "Submarine" logger in the Amazon cuts drowned timber using an underwater chain saw invented by a local mechanic. The wood, burned into charcoal, fuels the iron smelters that pollute the Amazon. Photo by Claus Meyer/Tyba.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Margolis_Forging00-300x214.jpg)
![Harold Kulakow, whose dream was to be a rabbi, lives in a nursing home, but is anxious to live in a group home. He works at a sheltered workshop during the day.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Shapiro_Forcing01-300x184.jpg)
Forcing the Young into Nursing Homes
![Students and tutors at the Ridgefield ABC house included, (left to right) Debby Lashley, Simone Page-Janello, Ana Negron (seated), Steve Blumenthal, Karen Schwamb (standing), a former tutor, Carlina Santos (seated), Shauna Daniel. Photo courtesy of The Ridgefield Press.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lyles_Importing01-300x200.jpg)
Importing Girls to Integrate a Connecticut Public School
![The funerals of two local villagers killed by the Israeli army prompted a political rally at Kufr Neimeh in the West Bank.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lukoski_Faces01-300x198.jpg)
Faces of the Anguished Middle East
![Drawing of man standing at table talking to a man and women sitting](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Daniels_Intolerance01-245x300.jpg)
Intolerance on Campus
![Gay Day 1990 in San Francisco featured a dart game using Sen. Jesse Helms as the target to raise money for the North Carolina Senate race.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Browning_Gay-Politics01-300x125.jpg)
Gay Politics
![A Punjabi farmer, using a hand tool to create a channel for his irrigation water, takes a break on a foggy morning. Photo by APF Fellow Russell Clemings](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Clemings_Gift01-300x228.jpg)
“The Gift of the Indus”
![Rubber tappers at the Cachoeira Extractive Reserve load up mules with sacks full of Brazil nuts, which they have collected from the forest floor. Photo by Ricardo Azory](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Margolis_Har-Rows04-300x194.jpg)
Hard Rows: The Amazon after Chico Mendes
![The ADAPT march along Pennsylvania Avenue, towards the U.S. Capitol last March.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Shapiro_Climbing01-300x230.jpg)
![Robert Group picture of the first ABC class, at Dartmouth College, 1964. Photo courtesy of A better Chance, Inc.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lyles_Clearing03-300x207.jpg)
Clearing a Path from the Ghetto to Choate
![Red Cross doctors and Palestinian rioters in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in Jerusalem flee from rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the Israeli army during a battle last March with stone-throwing camp residents. The night before, two Palestinians were shot dead and dozens injured. The doctors and nurses from the camp’s Red Cross clinic dangerously station themselves amidst the fighting to provide quick first-aid to the wounded.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lukoski_Palestinian02-300x192.jpg)
The Palestinian Revolt: New Miseries in an Endless Feud
![Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell addresses a rally at the law school, threatening to take a leave of absence if the school did not give tenure to a black woman. AP/Wide World Photos](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Daniels_The-Push01-300x156.jpg)
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Cold War Resartus
![A Hungarian gypsy family.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pope_Gypsy01-300x213.jpg)
Gypsy Liberation In Hungary
![Contra soldiers training in the Honduras. Photo by Jason Bleibtrew/Sygma](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dillon_Rampage01-300x241.jpg)
A Contra Rampage–With Blessings from the United States
![Peter Avram, a peach grower in Victoria, examines trees killed by rising groundwater at his orchard near Shepparton. Photo by APF Fellow Russell Clemings](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Clemings_Flood02-300x206.jpg)
“A Flood From Below”: The Downfall of Irrigation
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Coca, Campesinos, and a Controversial General
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The Alarming Increase in Alcohol-Damaged Children
![Impoverished farmer Marianna Kowalewicz (right) and her neighbor.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pope_Little01-300x218.jpg)
![Contra soldiers during a cease fire in Yamales, Honduras. Photo by Jason Bleibtreu/Sygma](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dillon_Contras-Murdering03-300x155.jpg)
The Contras Murdering Their Own: A Grisly Retribution
![Frequent sampling and analysis of the Kesterson Reservoir bolstered the Interior Department’s resolve to stop its pollution by drain water. Bureau of Reclamation photo by D. M. Westphal](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Clemings_Death03-300x199.jpg)
Death Traps
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From the Cold War to the Drug War
![Military Parade in Concepción, Chile. Photo byt APF Fellow Pamela Constable](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Constable_Crime01-300x200.jpg)
Crime and Impunity in Chile: Perverting the Law of a Legalistic Land
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Beating Alcohol Through Tribal Self-Help
![David Halberstam, July, 1961. Courtesy of The New York Times Archives.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Prochnau_David01-221x300.jpg)
David Halberstam: The Making of a Critic
![Lech Walesa, Solidarity chairman, on his way to address striking shipyard workers in Gdansk in 1988. AP/Wide World Photo.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pope_Growing03-244x300.jpg)
Growing Up: Solidarity’s Turbulent Times
![Contras look for a clearing in the jungle moments after a Sandinista ambush in Rio Yamilita, Honduras during February, 1987. Photo by Jason Bleibtreau/Sygma](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dillon_Rebellion01-300x223.jpg)
Rebellion Among The Rebels
![A wheat field near Coahuilla in Mexico’s Colorado River delta growing region shows the effects of too much salt in an irrigated field. Photo By Russell Clemings](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Clemings_Mirage02-300x211.jpg)
Mirage
![A protest outside Chile's National Congress. Photo by Miguel Angel Larrza.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Constable_Chiles04-300x219.jpg)
Chile’s Lost Generation
![Hauling garbage for a living at the Santa Fe dump. Photo by Damian Dovarganes](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bilello_Economic01-300x240.jpg)
The Economic Chaos In Mexico: A Primer
![Thousands of petitioners oppose the construction of a dam on the Danube River. John Nordell-JB Pictures](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pope_Dam01-300x187.jpg)
A Dam on the Danube: The Greening of Hungarian Politics
![By 1982, dozens of CIA agents in the Honduras were working hard to train and arm a counterrevolutionary army. Photo by Jason Bleibtreu/Sygma](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Dillon_Ambush01-300x208.jpg)
![A rally for Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in Chile. Photo by APF Fellow Pamela Constable](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Constable_Dictator00-300x240.jpg)
The Dictator
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The Stale, Small War in El Salvador
![The lights of the Mon Reve lottery bank in Port-au-Prince invite Haitians to bet their pennies on winning a fortune.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Steber_Land01-300x197.jpg)
Land Of Dreamers: What Haitians Want
![Malcolm Browne of Associated Press interviews Quang Lien, spokesman for the protesting Buddhist monk's in Saigon, in June 1963. Wide World Photos, Inc.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Prochnau_Americas01-300x206.jpg)
America’s Little War Becomes A Nightmare
![Manuel J. Clouthier and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas meet the press. Fernan Rodriguez C.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bilello_Opposition01-300x178.jpg)
The Opposition Struggles In Mexico
![Sketch for World War II poster. (General Services Administration).](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Morrissey_The-Age01-208x300.jpg)
The Age Of Electronic Government
![The body of a man shot one week before the presidential elections in November, 1987. It was placed in the well-traveled Carrefour section of the capital as a warning to would-be voters.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Steber_Death03-300x190.jpg)
Death In Haiti
![In the early 1960’s, the war in Vietnam was a rural effort involving elephants and canoes. Training was small scale. Marine Captain William Bethel, right, instructs two South Vietnamese soldiers in the operation of a portable flame thrower. Photos Courtesy U.S. Dept of Defense.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Prochnau_Wary02-300x133.jpg)
The Wary Chronicler Who Inspired A Rebellion
![Rodolfo Gonzalez Guevara, an activist in Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Arturo Fuentes/Imagenlatina](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bilello_Fragile01-300x196.jpg)
The Fragile Peace
![Electronic government–the Government Printing Office in the 1980’s. Courtesy U.S. Government Printing Office](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Morrissey_Building05-300x99.jpg)
Building America’s Stone Wall
![Michele Corash, a San Francisco lawyer advising industry on Prop 65.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Russell_Proposition03-300x263.jpg)
Proposition 65: California’s Controversial Gift
![Line Art By John Potter.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Clawson_Death01-300x259.jpg)
Death By Drink: The Sad Battle of America’s Indians
![The U.S. Supreme Court during Powell’s case. Seated from left: Justice Tom C. Clark, Justice Hugo L. Black, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice William 0. Douglas, and Justice John M. Harlan. Standing are Justices Byron R. White, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, and Abe Fortas. Wide World Photos, Inc.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Haygood_Supreme_03--300x212.jpeg)
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How America Eagerly Built Her Arsenal
![The parched slum of Rabato, part of Gonaives, Haiti. Gonaives is surrounded by mountains that were deforested by the French.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Steber_Paradise02-300x165.jpg)
Paradise Lost: Haiti Without Trees
![Morley Safer in Cam Ne. Photo: Courtesy of CBS News](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Prochnau_When01-300x243.jpg)
When The World Began Watching
![The crowd at a post-election rally for Cuauhtémoc Cáardenas. Photo: Fernan Rodriquez C.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bilello_Massacre01-300x145.jpg)
The Massacre in Mexico – Twenty Years Later
![Alexandria township workers dig trenches for a sewer system. Photo: AP/Wide World Photos](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mufson_Alex03-300x136.jpg)
“Alex: From Showdown to Showcase?”
![Monsanto Chemical Company’s W.G. Krummrich plant in Sauget, Il., across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Photo: Courtesy of Monsato](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Russell_Your-Right02-300x207.jpg)
Your Right To Know What You Breathe And Drink–A New Law Emerges
![Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and members of his education and labor committee staff in 1963.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/1988/11/Haygood-A-Chairman-01-300x209.jpeg)
A Chairman’s Glory and Pain
![Dr. Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, is encouraged by biotechnology’s ability to produce more food, lessening pressure to clear more cropland. Photo Courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Baskin_Future01-173x300.jpg)
The Future
![Photo Courtesy of Lockheed Corp.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Biddle_Americas01-227x300.jpg)
America’s Weapons Makers and How They Grew
![Street boys play in rainwater in front of Haiti's presidential palace in Port-au-Prince..](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Steber_Kids00-300x272.jpg)
Kids With No Childhood
![Tenant at the Kenilworth-Parkside development in Washington, DC PHOTO BY ROGER COHN](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Cohn_The-Plight02-300x186.jpg)
The Plight of Public Housing
![Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. at a New York press conference. Photo: AP/Wide World Photos](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Haygood_Eisenhower_01-241x300.jpeg)
Powell and Eisenhower
![Cornell University professor James Gillett uses a terrestrial microcosm chamber for experiments involving genetic engineering. Photo courtesy of Cornell University News.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Baskin_Government01-300x292.jpg)
How Government Regulates a Life
![Identity's extreme ideas espoused by the Rev. Peters echo paranoid themes found in other hate groups. Photo: Blair Godbout/The Coloradoan.](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DAntonio_Identity02-300x221.jpg)
The Identity Movement and its “Real Jew” Claim
![Political cartoon Great Puzzles of the World](https://aliciapatterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Burnham_Equal03-300x167.jpg)