Stories by Michelle Chen
Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times. She is a regular contributor to the labor rights blog Working In These Times, Colorlines.com, and Pacifica’s WBAI. Her work has also appeared in Alternet, Ms. Magazine, Newsday, and her old zine, cain. Follow her on Twitter at @meeshellchen or reach her at michellechen @ inthesetimes.com.
Posted on Jan 15, 2012, Source: In These Times
ICE officers' union resists reform measures to controversial Secure Communities program, while AFl-CIO wants to end it
Posted on Dec 11, 2011, Source: In These Times
The holiday season is a time of material pleasures, but it's also a time to take stock of how our social values tend to be at odds with the objects we most prize.
Posted on Nov 28, 2011, Source: In These Times
Movements are discovering the connection between health and activism through medical workers joining the front lines to deploy their skills and their conviction.
Posted on Nov 14, 2011, Source: In These Times
Maybe the ethical clarity that moral crusaders desire requires less talking and more listening to what sex workers know, need and want.
Posted on Oct 17, 2011, Source: ColorLines
Congress last week approved three long-pending trade deals with Panama, South Korea and Colombia that will likely lead to massive job loss, not job creation.
Posted on Sep 30, 2011, Source: In These Times
Occupy Wall Street seems to be following the trajectory of grassroots organizing: a spark of protest led by younger activists, followed by the support of labor organizations.
Posted on Sep 26, 2011, Source: In These Times
Teachers standing up for their rights on the job are providing a good example for their students, not "politicizing" education as the so-called reformers do.
Posted on Sep 2, 2011, Source: ColorLines
On Monday, activists hope to get ahead of political deal-making by demanding that any new trade deal give greater priority to environmental, labor, and health concerns.
Posted on Aug 10, 2011, Source: In These Times
There's no simple explanation for the uprising in London and several other UK cities this week. But the riots mirror the state of working-class Britain.
Posted on Jul 21, 2011, Source: In These Times
The Murdoch empire is based on a vulgar corporate culture in which honesty and critical thought are dismissed as an impediment to commercial success.
Posted on Jul 12, 2011, Source: ColorLines
Rape is a weapon used by the powerful against the powerless--and migrant women across the world are its victims.
Posted on Jul 7, 2011, Source: AlterNet
Scott Walker's budget is the latest to slash health funding for women--showing that the war on workers and the war on women are intertwined.
Posted on Jul 6, 2011, Source: ColorLines
The future of a warming planet holds more than just melting ice--it will see a lot more conflict over resources, food, and living space as well.
Posted on Jun 30, 2011, Source: AlterNet
The plight of women in Afghanistan, Congo and other difficult places owes much to the machinations of Washington politicians.
Posted on Jun 17, 2011, Source: ColorLines
Student activists in the West Bank are educating themselves in grassroots organizing strategies--on the ground and on the Web.
Posted on Apr 21, 2011, Source: In These Times
At the center of state lawmakers' money-laundering shell game is the starving of public education for investments in prisons -- an incentive for incarcerating the disadvantaged.
Posted on Mar 30, 2011, Source: On The Issues Magazine
Little girls are growing breasts a year after losing their first baby teeth. Are the chemicals in everyday household products to blame?
Posted on Nov 16, 2010, Source: ColorLines
The Obama administration just decided to leave countless kids stranded on some of the world’s bloodiest battlegrounds.
Posted on Sep 23, 2010, Source: Ms. Blog
Knowledge is power. So it's no wonder that, all around the world, a girl has less of both.
Posted on Sep 8, 2010, Source: ColorLines
We may be past the era of cruel reproductive social engineering, but something more sinister is now emerging in its place.
Posted on Jul 21, 2010, Source: ColorLines
2010 has been a big year for health care reform, but the families on whose backs those legislative victories were won have little to celebrate.
Posted on Nov 18, 2009, Source: ColorLines RaceWire
We can argue about the nuances of immigration reform all we want. But the real conversation begins when -- and only when -- we acknowledge elements of structural racism.
Posted on May 26, 2009, Source: ColorLines
With foreclosures and job losses dragging down the whole economy, low-income families of color are falling into an even deeper hole.
Posted on Aug 6, 2008, Source: The Women's International Perspective
Legal protections for immigrant survivors of domestic violence are growing more complex and in some ways, more precarious.
Posted on Aug 6, 2008, Source: ColorLines
A third of female veterans are women of color. Three of them share their stories of systematic racial discrimination.
Posted on Jul 21, 2008, Source: In These Times
An amendment to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act tethers crucial health programs to an anti-abortion agenda.
Posted on Apr 21, 2008, Source: The Wip
Congress has slashed funding to domestic violence programs, and the White House is pushing for even deeper cuts. But the human cost is enormous.
Posted on Mar 27, 2008, Source: In These Times
Amidst the ongoing chaos in Kenya, an alternative media system driven by ordinary Kenyans is rising.
Posted on Jan 15, 2008, Source: The Wip
Far from besieged forests and melting icebergs, American cities are a new front in the environmental movement.
Posted on Nov 19, 2007, Source: In These Times
Industry special interests are burying information on cancer-causing chemicals and, according to watchdog groups, the government is helping them do it.
Posted on Aug 30, 2007, Source: In These Times
The chances that Congress will allow the expansion of low power FM broadcast radio stations to exist in big radio markets offers a huge opportunity for citizens to communicate outside of the corporate airwaves.
Posted on Apr 2, 2007, Source: The NewStandard
As the U.S. Forest Service pursues a logging plan for the Tongass, conservationists are pushing for different economic priorities in Alaska.
Posted on Feb 9, 2007, Source: The NewStandard
Fast-tracked pharmaceuticals are on the market for an average of almost two years without beginning required safety tests, and the FDA is letting it happen.
Posted on Apr 26, 2006, Source: The NewStandard
Last week's ludicrous governmental report, which denied the efficacy of medical marijuana, is the Bush administration's latest attempt to divorce science from policy.
Posted on Mar 3, 2006, Source: The NewStandard
Although the poor pay a heavy tax burden at the federal level, when it comes to state and local taxes, they as much as the richest brackets.
Posted on Feb 18, 2006, Source: The NewStandard
In two years, the Bush administration spent $1.6 billion to paint a prettier picture of its failing policies, even as it cut away the social safety net.
Posted on Dec 13, 2005, Source: The NewStandard
While claiming to relieve polluting companies of paperwork, a new EPA plan will let polluters off the hook in reporting their toxic emissions.
Posted on Oct 18, 2005
Residents and workers are rebuilding the city in the shadow of toxic contamination, even as officials at all levels give mixed messages about the wisdom of returning to the area.
