Join us for a conversation with @jdaldern.bsky.social and Theresa Gregor celebrating the release of their new book, Landkeeping: Restoring Indigenous Fire Stewardship and Ecological Partnerships, published by @osupress.bsky.social.

Thursday, April 30, 2026, 12-1 pm PST

RSVP: bit.ly/landkeeping

We're absolutely delighted to share good news this week!

Please join us in congratulating Julia Brown-Bernstein on her new position as an assistant professor of U.S. history at Scripps College.

Julia completed her dissertation with ICW at USC before going on to a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale.

Save the date! April 30, 2026 12:00 pm PT.
Landkeeping: In Conversation Online Event with Jared Aldern and Theresa Gregor. Registration is now open!

Marla Ramírez In Conversation with Natalia Molina

Thursday, June 11, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00pm PST

RSVP: bit.ly/banishedcitizens

DJ Gonzales In Conversation with Natalia Molina

Thursday, May 21, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00pm PST

RSVP: bit.ly/DJGonzales

Join Natalia Molina, ICW, and Third LA for two dynamic conversations!

D.J. Gonzales (Brigham Young University) and Marla Ramirez (University of Wisconsin, Madison) join us to discuss their new books.

RSVP: bit.ly/usc-icw-events

3/ 📷: Macy Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River, ca. 1870. According to reporters, Chinese religious leaders performed rituals at “the river bridge.” Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

2/ 📷: A vegetable peddler, pictured in prominent Chinese community member Peter SooHoo, Sr.’s photo album of Old Chinatown. The Huntington Library.

We’re excited to announce our spring webinar series—Wood, Water, Land.

Join us to consider how human interactions with wood, water, and land transformed and continue to impact the American West.

It launches in April, just in time for Earth Month 🌎🌱

RSVP: dornsife.usc.edu/icw/upcoming/

She accompanied Powell, working as a botanist, and also emerged as a leader in the national woman suffrage movement.

Thompson helped to shape the scientific and political infrastructures of the United States during a period of territorial expansion and social transformation

While many may know about John Wesley Powell’s famous expeditions to explore and map water resources in the American West, few know of the impact of his sister, Ellen Powell Thompson.

Ellen Powell Thompson: How Women’s Suffrage Benefitted from the Work of a Botanist in the Nineteenth-Century American West Ellen Powell Thompson’s life illustrates how environmental exploration and women’s reform were deeply interconnected.

📖 🔊We have your weekend reading (and listening)!

The new season of our podcast is accompanied by a series of pieces published in partnership with KCET.

Today's is by Erika Bsumek at UT Austin about the work of botanist and suffragist Ellen Powell Thompson.

www.pbssocal.org/ellen-powell...

From Deportees to Coerced Workers: Managing Labor and Migration Within Mexico After the Bracero Program Abstract. In 1971, agents from Mexico's secret intelligence agency began to report that hundreds to thousands of Mexican men recently detained in the United States were being taken every night from Me...

New article from IEHS member Laura Gutierrez:

"From Deportees to Coerced Workers: Managing Labor and Migration Within Mexico After the Bracero Program,” in the Hispanic American Historical Review

read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article...

From 'The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life' An excerpt from the book "The Water Remembers" by Amy Bowers Cordalis, member and former General Counsel of the Yurok Nation.

📖 🔊We have your weekend reading (and listening)!

The new season of our podcast is accompanied by a series of pieces published in partnership with KCET.

Today's is by Amy Bowers Cordalis, a Yurok tribal leader and recipient of the UN’s highest environmental honor.

www.pbssocal.org/from-the-wat...

We are seeking applications for a one-year postdoctoral research position in the history of the American West! The position runs from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027.

Details and to apply:

🎧🎤 The season finale of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

Our last episode considers the future of the Colorado River and how our predictions and priorities for water management, specifically in Southern California, must shift in an era of climate change.

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...

📖 🔊We have your weekend reading (and listening)!

The new season of our podcast is accompanied by a series of pieces published in partnership with KCET.

The first is by journalist Jacques Leslie, who has written for years about the Klamath River:
www.pbssocal.org/the-endanger...

🎧🎤 Episode 5 of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

Watersheds West: The Mighty Snake

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...

The Snake captured the heart of host William Deverell decades ago. He explores the river's historical and contemporary complexities as it flows into an uncertain future.

We were proud to report this news and are grateful not only for this generous pledge, but also for ICW's terrific work!

The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss

Martha A. Sandweiss

Tomorrow (Feb 12) at 12:00pm PST, join @huscicw.bsky.social for a virtual event with Martha Sandweiss! With Bill Deverell, she'll discuss her work, The Girl in the Middle, exploring a haunting image of an unnamed Native child and a recovered story of the American West

Register here: buff.ly/xdurSrk

“From the get-go, California provided an example of bilingual governance.” In 2017, @rosinalozano.bsky.social gave a talk at USC about her research on the history of #Spanish in the US.

@huscicw.bsky.social audio -> soundcloud.com/husc-icw/11-... #skystorians #AcademicSky

We’re so honored to share that we just received a $4 million pledge toward our $10 million endowment campaign from a friend of the institute who wishes to remain anonymous. The gift will support our mission to create “new understandings of the past to inform public dialogue in the American West.”

🎧🎤 Episode 4 of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

Watersheds West: Trouble at Glen Canyon

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...

We explore how Glen Canyon is tied to colonialism and Western settlement, water use and management, and the future of water across the American Southwest.

The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss

Martha A. Sandweiss

Next week, Feb 12 at 12:00pm PST, join @huscicw.bsky.social for a virtual event with Martha Sandweiss! With Bill Deverell, she'll discuss her work, The Girl in the Middle, exploring a haunting image of an unnamed Native child and a recovered story of the American West

Register here: buff.ly/xdurSrk

🎧🎤 Episode 3 of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

Watersheds West: Freeing the Klamath

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...

This episode shares histories of Native resistance and the movement to bring a century-old system of dams down, free the Klamath, and feed its lakes and wetlands.

🎧🎤 Episode 2 of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

Watersheds West: Adaptation and Repair

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...

We talk with Dr. Karletta Chief about engaging with Indigenous communities in addressing environmental disasters and a future shaped by climate change.

🎧🎤 The first episode of Western Edition Season 5 is live!

This episode orients us to a region defined by its aridity and considers how humans have interacted with water over the past two centuries, from Indigenous cosmologies to American conquest.

www.buzzsprout.com/1837352/epis...