This week’s top 5 long reads

A fearless investigation into child migrant labor. Reenacting the tragic murder of an activist. A journey back to the place I once called home. An examination of the character disguised as a plumbing mystery. A new take on an old metaphor. All that and more in this week’s article.

hannah dreier | new york times magazine | September 18, 2023 | 7,705 words

Last week was all about quality investigative reporting.wired Lying to Elon Musk’s claims about Neuralink lab monkeys, propublica Revealing How Columbia University Protected Predatory Doctors — But studies like Hannah Dreyer’s, which exposed child labor on chicken farms, are rarely done. The incident began at 2:30 a.m. when 14-year-old Marcos Cooks nearly had his arm ripped off by a conveyor belt. What follows is a series of surgeries and untold stories of heartbreak, and Cooks returns to work another night shift in an even more dehumanizing job. he has to do that. His family in Guatemala is counting on him. In the meantime, Dreyer takes you to Dreamland, an immigrant community in rural Virginia, a trailer park where many of the child laborers live with relatives and guardians. A high school where exhausted children sleep through class and teachers write down schedules for students’ all-night shifts on sticky notes. A convenience store where teenagers turn their wages into cash and send it to their families. This is a live-in, not a drive-by. Anchored by vigorous reporting and unparalleled scenework (and stunning photography courtesy of Meridith Kohut). And importantly, it’s a wake-up call. We all know how much the factory farming industry treats the animals that feed it. They even know how the same industry treats those who continue to operate slaughterhouses. But until now, many of us have wondered about how the Purdues and Tysons of the world are chewing through the childhoods of people who have no choice, while being buffered by hidden third-party contractors. , I could lament my ignorance. Those days are over. —PR

Jason Fagone and Julie Johnson | San Francisco Chronicle | September 19, 2023 | 9,717 words

In 1969, charismatic Mohican activist Richard Oakes led the occupation of Alcatraz Island, once Oron land. This “invasion” was a protest against the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans and was an act of settlement. Oakes became the face of the “Red Power” movement, inspiring protests across the United States and laying the groundwork for expanding indigenous rights. But decades later, his name is almost unknown. In 1972, at just 30 years old, he was fatally shot and wounded in the woods north of San Francisco by a wilderness camp manager who claimed self-defense. After the shooter was acquitted in court, his loved ones believed Oakes had been targeted because of his Indigenous identity and being an activist. Jason Fagone and Julie Johnson provide a detailed reconstruction of the events leading up to Oakes’ death. (I would like to express my respect to all chronicle Immersive design team, leader placement right there They interview families, prosecutors, and law enforcement, and use hundreds of government records and confidential FBI files obtained through FOIA to fill in the gaps. . Their words alone are powerful, but a digital presentation that includes portraits of fellow activists, officials involved in the incident, and Oakes’ living family members come together to tell an important story about a forgotten civil rights leader. . —CLR

Shruti Swamy | From afar | September 19, 2023 | 2,173 words

Shruti Swamy delves into her childhood memories as she returns to Mumbai, India for the first time as a wife and mother. This is a beautiful and striking meditation on what it means to return to the place she once knew and to show it to those she loves. Swamy’s dissonance is evident as she struggles to be understood in Hindi and navigates a city that has changed over time. she asks: “But are there moments, meals and interactions that make sense of Mumbai for us?” As the young family visits markets, beaches and street vendors, Swamy soaks up the city’s smells, sights, sounds and tastes. She talked about the joy of coconut cream she promised her 4-year-old daughter and the bite on the street that made me want to book a plane ticket. A perfect combination of mint and fat, slow-burning chili pepper. As a reader, it’s great to see her persistence pay off. “This city teaches me, moment by moment, to be awake to the present, to pay attention, to follow the threads of connection with people, and to enjoy it where I find it.” This is home again. If it means going home, please join me. —K.S.

John Jeremiah Sullivan | Harper’s Magazine | August 14, 2023 | 3,700 words

I’m worried I’ll have to call a plumber to my house. In my experience, they always sigh and tell me that the last person who approached my dodgy pipe was a cowboy and now I have to spend several hundred dollars. My insecurities are so great that I’m extremely proud of it, but I recently fixed up my bathroom myself and tied a ballcock with a purple sparkly ribbon I found in my knick-knacks drawer. (That’s what a cowboy does.) Obviously, I jumped at the chance to read John Jeremiah Sullivan’s entertaining article about his own plumbing woes. His innocuous opening sentence: “This is a plumbing-related story that happened in my house.”[,]” betrays the roller coaster journey you are about to embark on. Halfway through, I, like Sullivan, became obsessed with where that mysterious sewage smell was coming from. To find a solution, they must go rogue, bringing in plumbers Greg and Fran with “crackhead powers” from the underbelly of the contractor world. I knew nothing about this mysterious class of plumbers until I felt them standing right in front of me, as Sullivan conjured them from the page. I devoured the glowing descriptions of men. Fran, who has a shaved head and wears denim culottes, complains about Greg. Greg, who has a “terrifying gray mustache, strong hands, and wild, penetrating eyes,” talks at length about defecating. Sullivan may be as puzzled by plumbing issues as I am, but he’s a master character study. —C.W.

Kristen ArnettVox | September 18, 2023 | 1,634 words

Have you ever played the game Florida Man? It’s easy. Enter your birthday (month, day) and “Florida Man” in the search bar. You (like me) will be charged with not one, but several of the heinous crimes committed by men in Florida over the years. Kristen Arnett explains: The behavior is reminiscent of a misbehaving toddler whose brain has not yet fully developed. ” There were several to choose from. My favorite is the Florida man who was caught on video driving down Interstate 4 while standing up, his upper body sticking out through the sunroof. Arnett said the game was made possible thanks to the Sunshine Act, which made arrest records and mugshots “easily available online for the public to stare at and point at.” “I’m working on it,” he explains. If a crime is committed in the Sunshine State, that information is immediately accessible to anyone, anywhere. ” This work is not just a series of strange actions. Arnett, a third-generation Floridian, suggests that while the Florida Man meme makes it easy for outsiders to dismiss Florida as the epicenter of America’s disease, we need to look deeper. “I think the harder lesson is that Florida is no different than any other place. The headlines just turn our hardships into jokes and make things more palatable,” she wrote. . “We cannot and will not ignore the fact that we continue to be weird and fully, authentically ourselves. We cannot forget the great as well as the difficult.” Perhaps. , maybe it’s time to embrace that little piece of Florida Man inside of us all. —K.S.

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