Field Notes Archives

Field Notes: Looking Down on the Port of Long Beach

Long Beach, California: A scene from 2,000 feet above the Port of Long Beach, where officials say they handle the transport of $180 billion worth of goods each year.

Pacific Standard Staff

Letter From Hunan, China: The Chinese Government Has Big Plans for Its Migrant Worker Population

As the urban economy slows, the government is encouraging rural-to-urban migrants to open businesses in the countryside.

Josh Freedman

Field Notes: Leaving Debaltseve

Bakhmut, Ukraine: A woman waits in a bus after an emergency worker-led evacuation from the embattled town of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine.

Pacific Standard Staff

Letter From Oxford, Mississippi: Where Public Defenders Go to Church

While Gideon's Promise offers training in courtroom tactics and storytelling for public defenders, its goal is much larger: to create a nationwide community.

Tony Rehagen

News in Brief

What Life Is Like for Haitian Refugees in Tijuana

Despite Trump’s proposed wall, Haitians living in the shadows of Tijuana plan to risk dangerous journeys to make it to the U.S.

Massoud Hayoun

Field Notes: Working the Bricks in Myanmar

Mingaladon Township, Myanmar: Laborers in a brick factory, about an hour's drive from the new hotels and shopping malls of the city of Yangon, get by on $3 per day.

Pacific Standard Staff

Field Notes: Casting About in an Overfished River

Assam, India: At sunset a fisherman casts his net on a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, where commercial overfishing has made it more difficult to operate.

Pacific Standard Staff

Letter From Berkeley, California: The Tsar Bell

The largest bell in the world sits in a courtyard at the Kremlin as a 200-ton tourist attraction. It has never been heard—until now, using digital tools.

Zachary Slobig