Can Two Friends Agree to Disagree on Abortion in Post-Roe America?

It’s an Issue Worth Fighting Over—But Not a Good Litmus Test at the Personal or National Level

We met through a mutual friend who told us both, “You’ll love her. You get angry about all the same things.”

That was almost exactly correct. At the time, Joanne had just started a nonprofit to provide free diapers to families in need. Colleen was a freelance writer who had walked away from a newspaper job to work in a soup kitchen after her editor told her to stop writing so much about poverty.

We found sisterhood raging about injustice over coffee, and devising strategies for change.

Twenty years of collaboration and friendship …

More In: Essays

How I Learned to Be ‘Good With Kids’

An Editor of a Magazine by and for Children on What Their Work Has Taught Her About Parenting and Life

When I was a child, the border between the natural world and me was so thin it was transparent. I looked into my dog’s eyes and felt that I knew …

The Black Angeleno Who Took on the ‘Problem of Palestine’

Diplomat Ralph Bunche's UN Work Paved the Way for Israel's Birth

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, soon to be the first prime minister of Israel, gave the first public reading of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. With an eye toward wooing …

Is Puerto Rico a Global Model for Disaster Recovery?

In the Wake of Three Hurricanes—And Centuries of Exploitation—Islanders Turned to One Another for Relief

When Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022, the U.S. colony had still not fully recovered from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, in 2017. Collapsed bridges had not been …

Who Are the Anglo-Indians?

Our Small, Enduring Community—Invisible in Most Colonial Histories—Straddles Two Worlds

“I thought they died out,” a woman remarked flippantly to my friend just the other day. She, like many Indians, has long believed that Anglo-Indians ceased to exist when the …

What Sharing the Burden of War Could Look Like | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What Sharing the Burden of War Could Look Like

A Military Chaplain on How Those Who Fought and Those Who Sent Them Can Hold This Weight Together

This spring, I walked into an old Quaker meeting house on Pocumtuck homeland, now Massachusetts. I had been invited by Ojibwa Elders Strong Oak and Grandmother Nancy to participate in …