2000 APF Fellows Chosen

Good Times Fall On Hard Times In Mississippi

“I believe I’ll get drunk, tear this barrel house down.”

—Drunken Barrel House Blues, Memphis Minnie.

The juke joints are dying.

The Genius of One Caring Teacher

Watching the children of Garrison Elementary School enter their cafeteria at lunchtime, it’s no task to identify the students of Mark Lewis. They’re the ones carrying books. Biographies. Short stories. Essays. Poetry. The cafeteria noise and chatter isn’t enough to keep them from reading a page or two of their books in the next half hour.

The Politics of the Habit

These were the strictly cloistered Passionist sisters and their garbs were, by far, the most dramatic I had seen on a year-long venture to convents and monasteries all across North America. Surprisingly, the habit has taken on a new popularity among younger nuns and a renewed disdain among an older generation of feminist sisters.

Oil Discovery Rocks the Caspian Sea

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN--The discovery of oil forever has changed the lands surrounding the Caspian Sea. APF photographer Stanley Greene spent time with workers, showing the rigs that are quickly extracting oil from this new field. The communities surrounding the new oil fields are finding their environment changed by shallow waste wells, construction, and new arrivals. What were once fishing and agricultural villages are now transformed by derricks and docks.

Southern Schools Strain Under Immigrant Arrivals

Luis sits at a computer working with a program designed to teach him English. He is warm and accepting, still trusting despite what he has seen. But when the 11-year-old recalls his journey from Guanajuato, Mexico to Morganton, North Carolina, his round face darkens and his eyes contract with fear. It was a bad time.

Report From Siberia: Life In A Khanty Reindeer Camp

Sitting cross-legged on a hand-hewn, wooden sled I am wondering how I can coax a little more speed out of the two reindeer trudging before me. Up ahead, Alexei is growing smaller and to the rear Misha is rapidly catching up. They were smart in positioning me—a novice reindeer driver—in the middle.

Senior citizens are the most targeted by Internet, telemarketing, mail fraud

Today, 80 percent of personal wealth in financial institutions and half of all discretionary income is owned by persons age 50-plus, according to Age Wave, a nationally-recognized research organization. Mature adults are where the money is. The picking is remarkably easy and thieves don’t have to display weapons when trying to take it. Even if caught in the act, few ever spend a day in prison.

Haiti:Giving Hope a Second Chance

“You’d always know in the pen when somebody got the L note [A life sentence]. It’s the one time a man can cry in prison. Being sent back to Haiti…it’s like being buried alive.”

Port-au-Prince, Haiti—On the second day of his homecoming—after living eleven years in the United States—twenty-two-year old Patrick Etienne is overcome with emotion. The silent rivulets streaking his cheeks and staining his pristine white tee shirt are not tears of joy.

Polish Entrepreneurs after the 1989 Roundtable

Research chemist Malgorzata Dudek had worked for two decades at the technical university in Gliwice and in 1983 decided she wanted to apply that knowledge in a startup business.

Continental Divide Trail

Caught in a thicket of ancient enmities, the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail stops here in northern New Mexicos Piedra Lumbre basin - a river valley of silvery cottonwood, yellow tipped sage and deceptive serenity.

U.S. Border Wars ShowNo Signs of Keeping Migrants Out

El Paso, Texas—Wire fencing encases the sides of the Rio Grande where the river slices through El Paso on the U.S. side and Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border. Its purpose: to keep out illegal migrants who each year routinely swim across to seek their fortunes in the United States. Today, as far as the eye can see, the concrete canal is empty of people, an apparent success story in the three billion dollar attempt to shut down one of the longest — and busiest international borders in the world.