Part of the Series
Ladydrawers
New Ladydrawer Melissa Mendes draws the latest installment of our yearlong look at international gender and labor issues (check out “Fast Fashion,” “Let’s Go Shopping” and “The Business of Thrift” with Julia Gfrörer), which looks at the wacky world of Foreign-Trade Zones and the labor problems they foster. Despite their rampant growth in recent years, few know they exist. However, they contribute greatly to the annual gross domestic product – and the global garment trade.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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