Independent journalism by Samuel N. Gilbert

featuring reporting on immigration, border communities, international conflict, climate change, and Indigenous foodways. A portfolio of published work from leading global news outlets

Madrid, New Mexico, Now Has a Booming Art Scene

New Mexico Magazine
Above: Cowgirl Red in Madrid. On a warm day in 1988, Riana Peaker-Newman, then 16, and her father, Waylan Peaker, drove the 20 miles south from Santa Fe to Madrid,

New brew: the Native American women upending craft beer

The Guardian
Nowhere is this consumer movement more apparent, and unique, than at Bow & Arrow brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The first and only brewery in the US owned by Native

Death sentence’: butterfly sanctuary to be bulldozed for Trump’s border wall

The Guardian
On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can to see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarchsand other species

‘Juárez in a bottle’: Mexican moonshine made with snakes resurfaces in US

The Guardian

When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border.

Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican

‘Juarez in a bottle’: Mexican moonshine made with snakes resurfaces in US

The Guardian
When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border. Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican

He relives it all again’: the lasting impact of detention on immigrant children

The Guardian

A US federal judge on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to allow long-term detention of illegal immigrant children, a key part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end

The lasting impact of detention on immigrant children: ‘He relives it all again’

The Guardian
The first memory Hilda Ramírez has of the United States is the sound of helicopters. Four years ago, she, her eight-year-old son, Ivan, and five other migrants from Central America

The treasure hunters on a deadly quest for an eccentric’s $2m bounty

The Guardian
Sacha Johnston was inching along a dirt road in a narrow canyon in northern New Mexico. “Just guide me,” Johnston said to her search partner, Cory Napier, who directed Johnston

The Man Who Helped Design a 10,000-Year Nuclear Waste Site Marker

Motherboard
This story appears in VICE magazine's Dystopia and Utopia Issue. Click HERE to subscribe to VICE magazine. At first, Jon Lomberg thought it was a joke. When the late Carl

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