I began my fellowship at the Prospect in June, about a week after I walked the stage of my alma mater’s undergraduate graduation ceremony. Jumping headfirst into being a full-time journalist was both exciting and challenging, which I took in stride, leading me to report on topics that I was fascinated by. As the Prospect’s John Lewis Writing Fellow, I joined the team hoping to prioritize reporting on matters related to, and about, marginalized and vulnerable communities. My stories cluster around three topics: immigration in the age of Trump, pivotal developments related to education, and the issues facing minority groups such as Black women. These are the stories that encapsulate the contours of my reporting the best.
ICE Impersonations Proliferate Amid the Agency’s Undercover Tactics
This was the first story I worked on, motivated by the explosion of ICE agents donning face coverings, neglecting to wear uniforms, and refusing to provide proper identification. As a result, not only have federal agents been able to get away with unethical practices, but those with criminal intent are able to capitalize on these disguises to harm others. Since writing this piece, there have been more incidents of ICE impersonations, but there have also been calls to ensure that ICE activity is more transparent. Read the story.
How Public Media Cuts Hurt Kids
Buried in the Rescissions Act of 2025, passed in June, was a provision yanking funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As a result, hundreds of local public media stations lost their federal funding, forcing them to shutter essential programming, lay off staff, or close altogether. Public media serves many functions, one of the most influential being as a provider of educational resources for this country’s most vulnerable children. These funding cuts risk putting children in rural areas, from disadvantaged backgrounds, and those who cannot participate in programs such as pre-K at risk of losing free, high-quality educational content. Read the story.
Competing for Crumbs
When the Department of Education announced that it would be granting HBCUs and tribal colleges, it seemed like a win for universities that historically have been underfunded in comparison to their predominantly white counterparts. In some ways it was—an infusion of $495 million in additional funding is no small sum, and can go quite far to support the needs of educational institutions. But this money wasn’t allocated out of the goodness of the Trump administration’s heart: The funding was previously assigned to minority-serving institutions (MSIs), or colleges and universities that enroll a substantial number of students from historically underrepresented groups. Losing federal support has been detrimental to these schools, and it all occurred under the premise of rooting out DEI in governmental affairs. Read the story.
The ‘Welfare Queen’ Is Back, but She Never Quite Left
During the government shutdown, the internet saw an influx of racist, misogynistic AI-produced videos that portrayed Black women using their SNAP benefits improperly. Accompanied by politicians claiming that there was widespread abuse of the welfare system (particularly by undocumented immigrants), the decades-old trope of the “welfare queen” swung back into prominence. As the experts whom I spoke with pointed out, it’s not surprising that this stereotype has re-entered political discourse—it’s incredibly effective in drumming up support for reforming the distribution of government aid. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, millions will lose some, or all, of their food assistance over the next ten years. But these changes can be rationalized under the guise of rooting out fraud and encouraging “personal responsibility,” which is exactly what pushing the welfare queen trope helps to do. Read the story.
To Be Black, Female, and Unemployed
Over the summer, a report that more than 300,000 Black women had left the workforce in the first half of 2025 made headlines. This development inspired my contribution to the December print issue, which was themed around affordability. I interviewed sociologists, economists, and policy analysts who discussed the unique affordability issues that Black women face, with a focus on how these struggles are intensified by unemployment. Ultimately, I focused on maternal care and food insecurity in my story, emphasizing how the influence of misogynoir impacts Black women’s relationship to such concerns. Beyond this, the piece served as a warning: The unemployment rate of Black women, arguably the U.S.’s most oppressed community, is an indicator of what’s to come for other social groups. Read the story.