In a quiet corner of Boston a group of neighbors chop onions around a stainless steel table. Someone stirs a pot of beans, seasoned the way their grandmother taught them. Two children run back and forth, giggling, carrying spoons that are just a bit too big for their hands. The air is thick with garlic, steam, cumbia music, and the subtle rhythm that emerges when folks collaborate on a common task. It is ordinary and remarkable at the same time. This scene did not unfold in a

Trends of African American and Asian American incarceration and deportation in the United States continue to reflect the hierarchy of race established throughout history in social, political, and economic systems. Who do you think of when you encounter the terms incarcerated or deported? According to Google Trends which tracks and collects search frequencies for these terms, most Americans believe incarceration is synonymous with African American and deportation refers to “i

By: Alexandra Angelini, Halle-Marie Armstrong, Angelina Baicu, Brady Conner, Mara Crockett, Weiqi Ding, Monica Fumagalli, Micaela Henry, Massimo Marano, Bobby Sue Villani, Yihang Lex Xu, Ning Zhang  Introduction  Public transit investments have the potential to shape the social and economic environments of global cities. The rerouting of Boston’s Orange Line light rail system in the late 1980s and the expansion of its Green Line in 2022 illustrate the dual effects of transit

At this point in our collective consciousness, humankind’s emergence from the natural world is a universally accepted truth. Charles Darwin did what no one else of his era could by grounding man’s canon onto Earth and tethering him to the scientific laws of the reality around him.  The simplicity of his theories have exalted them in the mind of most to the point where evolution is the only logical way of explaining many human habits, relationships and choices in the modern da

Other people are an inevitability.  It is one of the few, reliable certainties in life. Any task, from the most grand to the most mundane scale, requires contact with other human beings. Every action we undertake, whether apparent to us or not, requires someone else to do their part.  There are several evolutionary explanations for these inherent social interactions. Our chronology as a species is built upon a foundation of communal engagement, care and communication. Child-r

On January 31st of this year, US Federal Judge Roger Benitez struck down a California law, Senate Bill 1235, requiring background checks for purchasing ammunition and banning bringing in out-of-state firearms. Benitez made this ruling after it was challenged by the California Rifle & Pistol Association on the account that it infringes on the constitutional right of the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms for self-defense. This is the second time around that Benitez has thw

We use judgment to make sense of the world. Given that there are a variety of things in the world that need to be made sense of, the corresponding judgments we have at our disposal come in all shapes and sizes — and not all judgments are made equal.  Of these, those produced in the court of public opinion occupy a significantly lower rung in the hierarchy of normative judgments than, say, their sophisticated counterparts in the legal arena.  Regardless of the moral correctnes

The history of societies is nothing if not a history of conflict. All generations of the past have found themselves as belligerents in a conflict of the body, heart, and mind between the circumstances that they are born into and the circumstances constructed for them by the systems that govern. Our present era captures an especially momentous battle given the sheer number of individuals and groups that the system has managed to antagonize. It is a battle fought on the frontli

Introduction BRCA gene mutations are most commonly discussed in relation to women’s health, particularly breast and ovarian cancer. Therefore, women are frequently framed as the main subjects of risk and responsibility in BRCA testing-related public awareness campaigns, clinical messaging, and genetic counseling pathways. Men are much less likely to seek BRCA testing, despite the fact that mutations carry significant health implications for men as well, including increased ri

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu leads a City Hall press conference. Gary Higgins / Boston Business Journal Anyone who lives in or is interested in moving to Boston is no stranger to the city’s expensive housing market. The Boston Foundation, a community foundation founded  in 1915, published  its Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2025 on November 12, 2025, which delves into the state of the housing supply, home prices, and affordability in the Greater Boston area. The report’s find

Day after day, as I hurried into and out of my dorm building, I came to notice that the cherry blossoms were holding out for longer than expected. Last year, they had bloomed and then fallen in what felt like the blink of an eye, but this time, the pink petals held on stubbornly, even though green shoots were already jostling them for space. It looked like spring was here to stay for Boston. So, on the long weekend granted by Easter, I managed to slow myself down and have a c

Rooted in urban resistance, I speak my ancestral tongue—critical consciousness. I discovered the power of storytelling in my ethnic studies classroom: forming a human barricade, student activists shielded the elderly tenants of the I-Hotel from eviction. Born and raised in San Francisco, I watched my neighborhood’s characteristic stucco homes gradually fade into sleek, wood-paneled structures, which catalyzed my pursuit of housing justice. My intersectional leadership shines