The New Yorker April 5, 2021

Rachel Aviv (“Past Imperfect,” p. 28) is a staff writer. She received the 2020 Front Page Award for investigative reporting, for her story about a covid-19 outbreak in an Arkansas prison. Daniel Alarcón (“The Collapse at Arecibo,” p. 16), a contributing writer, is the executive producer of “Radio Ambulante,” a Spanish-language podcast. He teaches at Columbia’s Journalism School. Emily Flake (Comic Strip, p. 37) is a New Yorker cartoonist. Her latest book is “That Was Awkward.” Craig Morgan Teicher (Poem, p. 35) will publish a new poetry collection, “Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey,” in April. Wyna Liu (Puzzles & Games Dept.) is an associate puzzle editor at the Times and an assistant editor at the American Values Club Crossword. R. Kikuo Johnson (Cover) teaches cartooning at the Rhode Island School of Design. His graphic novel…

IMMOBILE HOMES Sheelah Kolhatkar describes how, when investment firms acquire mobile-home parks and suddenly raise rents on the land, mobile-home owners become trapped (“Trailer-Park Trades,” March 15th). One solution, as Kolhatkar discusses, is for the law to treat mobile-home parks more like rental housing, and to extend tenants’-rights laws to cover them. This may help in the short term, but it does not change the fundamentally feudal relationship between homeowner and landlord. A better answer is for residents to organize themselves in coöperative mutual-aid associations and together buy the trailer-park land. Successful examples of this approach exist. I worked with residents near Cumberland, Wisconsin, who, when faced with the sale of their mobile-home park and possible eviction, formed the Country View Cooperative and purchased the property. Each mobile-home owner has one share…

In an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many New York City venues are closed. Here’s a selection of culture to be found around town, as well as online and streaming. MARCH 31 - APRIL 6, 2021 MUSIC American Modern Opera Company OPERA The enterprising artists of American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) have spent recent weeks in a bubble residency at the Catskill Mountain Foundation, workshopping a new project with the composer and interactive-electronics trailblazer George Lewis. Now, as the Guggenheim’s “Works & Process” series resumes responsibly managed live performances, the AMOC members Jonathan Allen, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Miranda Cuckson, Conor Hanick, Aaron Wolff, and Emi Ferguson showcase material newly developed with Lewis, plus some company favorites, in a brief rotunda performance. Tickets are available seventy-two hours in advance.—Steve Smith (April 4…

In 2017, Hannah Goldberg founded Tanabel, a food-and-events company, in response to the 2016 election. Seeking an outlet for her anger, she had joined a task force at her synagogue devoted to assisting refugees from the Middle East. A culinary-school grad and a professional chef who trained at Jean-Georges and in Europe before a stint in wine and cheese importing, Goldberg organized fund-raising dinners; to support an initiative to supply milk goats to Syrians in a camp in Jordan, she roasted a whole goat. Soon she began hiring refugees to cook with her, building a business around empowering displaced women by paying them a living wage while spotlighting and preserving their native food cultures, including techniques and recipes passed down through their families. “I met with a lot of the refugee-resettlement…

During the past decade, three U.S. Presidents have each faced a humanitarian emergency at the southern border. Barack Obama did in 2014, when tens of thousands of children from Central America arrived, without their parents, to seek asylum. Five years later, under Donald Trump—and the harshest border-enforcement regime in more than half a century—record numbers of children and families overwhelmed federal authorities. Now, two months into Joe Biden’s Presidency, it’s his turn. Last Thursday, the topic dominated the first press conference he has given since taking office. “What we’re doing right now is attempting to rebuild the system that can accommodate what is happening today,” he said. “It’s going to take time.” There are currently some eighteen thousand unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody, including more than five thousand who remain…

Habib Zahori, an Afghan war reporter, who is currently a writer for the CBS sitcom “United States of Al,” was musing the other day on what separates the gravest brutality from the highest comedy. Take, for instance, the Taliban. Funny? “The beating and the torture and the prison,” Zahori said—definitely not funny. The public shaming, though perhaps worse, was another story. “One time, during Ramadan, they caught somebody eating. They put him on the back of a donkey, and they forced him to hold this piece of bread between his teeth.” Zahori began laughing. “Why would you do that to another human being? It’s absurd!” Zahori, who has a shaved head and a beard, was taking a break from the virtual writers’ room. He sat in his home office, in Ottawa,…