Dear readers,
Where do individuals go when they’re left unprotected by institutions? In Volume 57, Issue II of The New Journal, they turn to each other.
Seven months ago, we witnessed the mass arrest of pro-Palestine student protesters on Beinecke Plaza. In our cover story, Megan Vaz traces the protracted legal battle for arrested students and the unusual ways the administration cracked down on protests last spring, probing the question of what protections a university ought to provide its students—and what happens when that trust fractures.
In his feature on the fight to secure Temporary Protected Status for Ecuadorians in the United States, Matías Guevara Ruales follows one woman’s escape from organized violence in Ecuador and the nationwide grassroots campaign to protect migrants from deportation.
Elsewhere in the city, people create their own communities when established spaces fail. Kelly Kong talks to parents defending their right to homeschool their children independent of governmental restrictions. Andrew Storino asks what it means to build a community around disability, an identity often private and invisible. A communist reading group unites around the promise of revolution, a therapeutic support center models holistic care, and a group of activists brings their own experiences with food insecurity to their organizing.
In this issue about people uniting around the causes they believe in, the words of Ecuadorian American activist Angélica Idrovo come to bear. “Hope,” she reminds us, “at the end of the day, is a discipline.”
With gratitude,
Managing Board
Maggie, Chloe, Aanika, Sam
