This week, we’re looking back at our top stories from a wild year. Today’s newsletter reflects on the ways race, privilege, and identity shaped 2020.
How the Civil War and Reconstruction Shaped the West
December 23 | To grasp why people of color today face inequities in the West, we must better understand how the Civil War and Reconstruction established a racial hierarchy in our region.
Police Violence and the Pandemic: A Joint Crisis Roiling People of Color
June 12 | Black people and other people of color around the West find themselves dealing with conjoined crises of public health, public safety, and economic security. And to permanently fix any of them, experts say we must fix them all.
This Denver Group is Keeping Immigrants’ Restaurant Dreams Alive
August 14 | COVID-19 has targeted immigrant neighborhoods, women, and culinary businesses with devastating accuracy. By offering immigrant women coaching, financial support, and connections to social services, Denver’s Comal Heritage Food Incubator is maintaining a vital but sensitive piece of the West’s entrepreneurial fabric.
Out of the Wilderness: Guides are Teaming Up to Prevent Suicides
October 9 | Despite working in beautiful wilderness destinations, guides and outfitters face numerous mental-health challenges. The isolation and financial insecurity have only worsened during the pandemic. Fortunately, some guide-founded organizations connect others with help.
How Bears Ears Activists Advanced Navajo Voting Rights in Utah
July 10 | The confluence of an environmental movement, a landmark voting-rights ruling, and an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort gave Navajos control of the San Juan County Commission for the first time. One result could be the restoration of Bears Ears National Monument.
Travel & Inequality Made Ski Towns COVID-19 Hot Spots
April 10 | Some of the earliest and most severe rural COVID-19 outbreaks were in counties with ski resorts. And in the subsequent economic shutdown, local workers — many of them Latinx — shouldered the steepest consequences. In response, officials and activists teamed up to ensure these communities were able to weather the outbreak.
New Mexico & California Lead the Way on Outdoor Equity
November 19 | For many families, financial and logistical barriers prevent easy access to the outdoors. But two states recently launched grant funds designed to make outdoor recreation more equitable.
Farmworkers Are Deemed Essential, but Few Get Coronavirus Protections
April 3 | It’s no surprise farmworkers were deemed essential employees at the onset of the pandemic — without them, the nation’s agriculture industry would grind to a halt. But this critical slice of the U.S. labor force is particularly vulnerable during the current public health and economic emergency.
This Montana Group Has Adventurers Working for Scientists
January 10 | Adventure Scientists represents a burgeoning shift in the ethos of outdoor recreation. By contributing to research, its volunteers — cyclists, climbers, and kayakers among them — are slowing down, paying more attention to the public lands they recreate on, and giving back to that land.
A Court Ruling Has Cities Rethinking Tents and Tiny Houses for Homeless People
February 28 | A federal appeals court ruling issued in 2018 has many cities experimenting with homelessness solutions like tiny-house villages. But some argue that leaders are simply deploying temporary emergency measures while neglecting permanent fixes to the emergency itself.
From Si’ahl to Seattle: Does a Wealthy City Owe Its First Residents Reparations?
January 17 | Public recognition of Indigenous land is becoming more common, and some Native Americans feel they jumpstart examinations of the complex relationships between Native nations and the United States. Such acknowledgments, though, are just a primer for a much larger conversation of what is owed to people pillaged of land.
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