How changing rules, massive backlogs, and decades of dysfunction have eroded trust in government

How narrative power, press freedom, and the voices of young storytellers help safeguard civic engagement and strengthen democratic resilience.

A message of alarm and hope—alarm at the state of the nation, and hope that we can still right ourselves.

A personal reflection on arriving in a new country and discovering its diversity, opportunities, and challenges.

"Democracy isn’t a fixed state, it’s an ongoing project. Are we doing the work to keep it?"

Democracy advocates say the case could strip constitutional protections from millions of U.S.–born children and undermine core principles of equal citizenship.

Colombia’s cut flower industry intertwines cultural heritage with global trade, sustaining livelihoods, including USA, and celebrating tradition.

Latina women face the biggest wage gap, earning nearly 11 dollars per hour less than white men.

“By suspending foreign aid and dismantling USAID, the Trump administration has weakened our national security, allowing China to apply influence within Latin America without competition” -Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ)

Affordable housing developments in Chicago’s Humboldt Park aim to provide living spaces for local educators, artists and medical professionals, recognizing them as community pillars.

Missoula's Hispanic or Latino population is over 5% of the total population.

“We always say, if you don’t find what you are looking for here, just let us know, and we’ll create it."

Lambda Theta Alpha celebrates their 15th annual male pageant which is designed to help raise awareness about abusive relationships.

A student organization at the University of Washington is providing a safe space for students to discuss the mental health challenges Latinas face.

"A university education is more than lectures and exams; it’s a gateway to opportunity, transformation, and belonging. Diversity in the classroom isn’t just important—it’s essential."

"We're meant to be here," said one of the viola players.

During a graduation ceremony in 2017, Laura C. Chávez-Moreno was “struck” when an Amlie High School student gave a speech highlighting their classes' diversity as their strength.  Yet none of the students who stepped up to the podium were Latinx, and only one was Black.  Nor was there any mention of the high school’s dual language program despite having a 21% Latinx/Hispanic population, the author and assistant professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) said. In her debut book, “How Schools Make Race,” Chávez-Moreno dissects how Oakville Urban School District’s bilingual program enforces a racial project based on hierarchies and shapes student’s ideas about Latinidad.  Her research found that schools “more often than not” imposed ideas about race “implicitly,” she said.  For instance, schools encouraged students to attain the Seal of Biliteracy, an award given to high school graduates who demonstrate proficiency in multiple languages.  “Race is [...]

By executive order, the Trump administration has called for an end to “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes.   Growing up, my cultural identity was nurtured by my family, but when I stepped beyond the safeguards of home, my experiences as an undergrad and grad student were revealing. My journey was marked by the absence of Latina representation in required texts and academic spaces. Revolutionary figures like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Coello Novello, writer Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and others were glaringly omitted.  I found my sense of self through cultural organizations, not classrooms. These spaces allowed me to revel with fellow first-generation Latinas who shared the struggle of finding cultural affirmation in Spanglish conversations, shared traditions, and the quest of shattering the glass ceiling. The history of higher education in the United States has been marked by [...]

"The way our communities, especially Black and brown communities, connect with the environment," said Ribeiro, "with our ancestral knowledge, our indigenous knowledge, has been through a spiritual and cultural way."

"There's a large despair of impact for individuals of color, specifically Asian Americans and Hispanics or Latino residents."

"I want my grandchildren to know about the monarch butterflies,” Claudia Galeno-Sanchez said.

There are roughly 9 million lead service lines still in use across the nation. Of these, 400,000 exist in Chicago.

Critics argue that aging infrastructure poses a significant risk to the Great Lakes.

Piped water is important in the region because area groundwater wells are of poor quality, must run deep into the ground, and have proven unreliable.

The state has not made it easy for families after the so-called Medicaid unwinding in 2023, when COVID-related coverage protections were lifted.

Corazones Azules was founded two years ago as a way for Latina mothers in Schuyler to share the joys and challenges of raising disabled children. Now, they have helped raise thousands of dollars to fund a safety program.

"Sometimes you may be able to speak the language but not really understand the culture," Lao-Collins pointed out.

Two East Tennessee health centers are working to fight food insecurity by providing fresh produce to their patients and the community.

The number of Hispanic Americans age 85 and older is projected to increase from 509,096 in 2019 to 3.4 million in 2060.

Hispanic and Latino New Mexicans - who account for 50% of the population - experience higher food insecurity rates than non-Hispanic whites.

Earlier this month, the Illinois Latino Agenda (ILA) convened its first meeting of the “Welcome to Illinois” coalition. The purpose of this new coalition is to provide a space for those responding to the ongoing migrant situation to share information, provide updates, and determine if there are synergies to teamwork. As of mid-October, Illinois has received over 3,600 asylum-seekers from Texas and Florida. State, city, and local organizations have worked around the clock to meet the immediate needs of these families, providing everything from food and shelter to medical screenings and legal advice. Early on, community organizations expressed a need for coordination of these efforts and a long-term plan to ensure that the migrants feel safe and welcomed. The Illinois Latino Agenda agreed to respond by establishing the Welcome to Illinois coalition.  “We’re just getting out of the eye of the hurricane. We still have to figure out how the dust settles and how [...]

The Go Green Fresh Community Market in Chicago’s Englewood is an oasis. With its earthy-colored signs and stalls stacked with leafy greens, the local grocery store sits at the intersection of 63rd and Racine – right in the heart of a food desert, where locals have little or no access to fresh produce.  Food deserts, according to the USDA, are entirely man-made urban areas with a poverty rate of at least 20% and where at least a third of the population lives more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. In Chicago, food deserts make up the majority of South and West neighborhoods, prompting around 500 thousand residents to shop at local corner stores.  A typical corner store, however, is crammed, small, and does not carry fresh food options, explains Elliot Clay, state programs director at the Illinois Environmental Council. Results of concentrated shopping at corner [...]

Publisher’s Note: Please participate in a short survey at the end of the story. Knowing how this story may have influenced you will help guide our future reporting...Thank you! When Anthena Gore was a teenager, she noticed that water in her home tasted different than water at school or at her friends’ houses in the suburbs. She also noticed that other Black Chicagoans near her North Lawndale residence had a similar experience.  Gore, an adolescent at that time, felt drawn to the natural world, especially water – “the only digestible utility we have,” she said that is so simple yet essential. Years later, she turned her fascination into a profession and became a programs strategist at Elevate, a nonprofit organization designing programs to bring clean and affordable heat, power, and water to vulnerable communities.  Working with water, Gore still believes it is simple. “It’s really the system that we have [...]

Unions are having a comeback after years of declining influence. Employees from companies across the country are increasingly organizing to ask for more benefits, pay, and safety from their employers. Experts say employee organizing at high-profile companies like Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe's, and Starbucks is due to the pandemic inspiring workers to question, 'is there another way to work and live?' and the relationship dynamic between employers and workers. Starbucks leads the surge of unionizations as baristas in over 200 stores across the country have filed for union elections. So far, 165 stores have won their elections, while only 26 stores have lost. According to Fernando Vargas-Soto, a former Starbucks employee in Logan Square, the employees started thinking about unionizing back in December, when the company started rolling back some of their COVID policies despite the country's surge of the Omicron variant at the time. He said the plastic [...]

In the midst of a nationwide teacher shortage plaguing the country, studies show that the need for educators in Illinois is worse than ever. For English Learners (ELs) the stakes are especially high as these students deal with a language barrier in which their parents may not be able to assist with and a shortage of adults qualified to teach them. “Because this is one of the fastest growing groups of children in the state, if Illinois is going to be successful, we need this group of children to be successful,” said Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, Director of Education Policy and Research at Latino Policy Forum. The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools found that in 2021 there were 2,040 open positions in Illinois school districts alone. The need for bilingual teachers is especially highlighted as the number of ELs in Illinois grows and the demand for educators certified to [...]

The College of Lake County (CLC), a community college in Illinois, recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution, adopted a cultural response to recruit and retain Latino students in tackling the student deficit it experienced during the pandemic. According to its official enrollment numbers, the response saw a 27 percent increase in Latino student enrollment for the Fall 2021 semester (36 percent of all students were Latinx, per CLC). According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, this was a welcomed change since Latino undergraduate enrollment in colleges nationwide declined by seven percent between 2019-2021. The college's multipronged cultural response included hiring bilingual therapists that offer counseling in English and Spanish to Spanish-speaking and international students and a Latino student outreach coordinator to be part of its student inclusion and activities office. CLC also hired a new team of college and career navigators that were embedded in high schools feeding [...]