The New York Times Magazine 20 March 2022

March 20, 2022 7 Screenland Tongue Tied By Keith Gessen / 11 Talk Tina Stege By David Marchese / 14 The Ethicist Collateral Damage By Kwame Anthony Appiah / 16 Diagnosis Starburst and Tsunami By Lisa Sanders, M.D. / 18 Letter of Recommendation Toilet-Training a Cat By Brent Katz / 20 Eat Maple Milk Bread By Eric Kim 22 Michelle Yeoh’s Quantum Leaps 28 Where Does American Democracy 34 The War for the Rainforest By Alexandra Kleeman / For her new sci-fi Go From Here? By William Langewiesche / Set aside for an isolated comedy, the martial-arts star had to attempt Moderated by Charles Homans / Six experts discuss Indigenous group, the Brazilian preserve a more psychological kind of acrobatics. how worried we should be about its future. Ituna-Itatá has now been heavily deforested — a grim illustration of the intractable forces destroying the Amazon. The anthropologist Edward Luz, left, in Vila Mocotó, Brazil. Page 34. Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times 4 Contributors / 5 The Thread / 10 Poem / 14 Judge John Hodgman / 19 Tip / 46, 48, 50 Puzzles / 46 Puzzle Answers 3 On the Cover Illustration by Pablo Delcan. Copyright © 2022 The New York Times

Contributors ‘‘The War for the William Langewiesche is a contributing writer for the magazine. He is a former national William Langewiesche Rainforest,’’ correspondent for The Atlantic and international correspondent for Vanity Fair, where Page 34 he covered a wide variety of subjects throughout the world. For this issue, he writes about Djeneba Aduayom the deforestation of Ituna-Itatá, an Indigenous preserve in the Brazilian Amazon. “I’ve João Castellano worked on stories in Brazil over a number of years and was exposed to realities that Keith Gessen weren’t apparent from a distance,” Langewiesche says. “It struck me that there is perhaps Charles Homans an overly rosy view in the United States and Europe about the ongoing deforestation in the Alexandra Kleeman Amazon. Ituna-Itatá is supposed to be one of the most protected areas in the rainforest. Behind the Scenes The level of exploitation in the preserve gives some idea of the widespread devastation.” ‘‘Michelle Yeoh’s Djeneba Aduayom is a photographer in Los Angeles. Her work is inspired by her mix of Quantum Leaps,’’ French, Italian and African heritage. Page 22 João Castellano is an independent photojournalist working for Brazilian and ‘‘The War for the international media since 2007. Rainforest,’’ Page 34 Keith Gessen teaches journalism at Columbia and is the author of the novel ‘‘A Terrible Country.’’ Screenland, Page 7 ‘‘Where Does Charles Homans covers politics for The New York Times. American Democracy Go From Here?’’ Alexandra Kleeman is a professor at the New School and the author of the novel ‘‘You Page 28 Too Can Have a Body Like Mine.’’ Her newest novel is ‘‘Something New Under the Sun.’’ ‘‘Michelle Yeoh’s Quantum Leaps,’ Page 22 Kathy Ryan, director of photography: ‘‘For Djeneba Aduayom photographing Michelle Yeoh. this issue, Alexandra Kleeman writes about the actress Michelle Yeoh and her new sci-fi comedy, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once.’ In addition to her dramatic work, Yeoh is known for her roles in martial-arts films, so we assigned the photographer Djeneba Aduayom, who as a former professional dancer has an intimate understanding of movement and choreography. She exudes positivity and always seems to be having fun at her shoots. It shows in the beauty she elicits from her subjects.’’ Photograph by Tatiana Tate. 4 3.20.22

The Thread Readers respond to the 3.6.22 issue. can speak more persuasively. We are a the email newsletter (I get it, you can nation of moderates and centrists for the monetize it and you absolutely deserve RE: RASHIDA TLAIB most part. I hope she does not let her own to do so), but I’ll still miss you dearly in agenda fracture the Democratic Party these pages. Rozina Ali profiled the second-term congress- when it must be more united to succeed. Dan C., Los Angeles woman from Detroit. R. Anderson, South Carolina Dorie, you write excellent, clear recipes I applaud The New York Times Magazine Rozina Ali’s article on Rashida Tlaib was On the Cover: and beautiful, evocative essays for this for publishing a thorough, fair and com- calm, detailed, informed and nuanced. I Photograph by column. Even if we don’t cook whatev- plex profile of Rashida Tlaib. Far too much believe in the right of Israel to exist as er is the focus of the piece, we are led time and attention in our national conver- a safe and thriving sovereign nation. I Alex Majoli through a finely constructed story that sation is given to those who want both to also believe in exactly the same rights always takes us, just for a bit, to another reduce her meaningful and effective pres- for the Palestinians. It certainly will not ‘Dorie was the place, one where the beautiful is possible ence in Congress to a pro-Palestinian voice be decided through the familiar and cla- friend I would because we can make it so. Thank you! and to reduce questions about Palestinian mant hysteria that characterize much of call to help Cindy Swope, Churchville, Va. rights to spurious shouting about antisem- the exchange. Meanwhile, my sincere me make a itism. Increasing numbers of Americans admiration goes to Rashida Tlaib. She is birthday cake RE: THE TURNING TIDE understand that unambiguous demands that rare kind of politician who acts on the for a friend for Palestinian rights are simply the same courage of her human and moral convic- because I Alex W. Palmer reported on the trial of two demands for liberal democracy and tions, unlike so many in her profession. was too broke humanitarian aid workers in Greece. racial justice for which the Democratic Jonathan E. Hill, Northfield, Minn. to buy one.’ Party claims to stand in the United States. As I read this in the warmth of my home, Representative Tlaib’s uncompromising RE: EAT with a belly full of dinner, surrounded by devotion to domestic economic and racial peace and quiet, it serves as a reminder to justice and to a principled foreign policy is Dorie Greenspan wrote her last Eat column be grateful for what I have, and to provide welcome and represents the future of the on the joy of making mistakes in the kitchen. for those in need. I only hope this article Democratic Party. does not antagonize the Greek authorities Kenan Jaffe, Glendale, N.Y. I absolutely did not make a loud, embar- overseeing the pending criminal cases. rassing gasp of disbelief when I read that MBEE, Boston I’m still amazed when The Times covers this was Dorie’s final column! I have an Palestinian views thoroughly, as this arti- entire shelf dedicated to her books. I Great article. It opened my eyes. I enjoyed cle does. Thank you. Representative Tlaib feel like we’ve become friends over the the balanced approach it showed to the has an important voice in Congress and years, especially through the pandem- challenges of the immigration problem. she uses it wisely. I appreciate the full his- ic. Dorie was the friend I would call to Armando, Somerset, Mass. tory Ali presents here. The United States help me make a birthday cake for a friend is slowly coming to the realization that we because I was too broke to buy one. She CORRECTION: have been grossly unfair to Palestinians. was the friend who helped me pretend Pauline Coffman, Oak Park, Ill. that we were dining in Paris, even after An article on Feb. 27 about the Epstein- coronavirus ravaged my bank account Barr virus and multiple sclerosis described I’m sure the congresswoman represents and put that dream to rest. And now, imprecisely how the virus spreads. It repli- what she believes are the needs of her a friend who moves away from us and cates itself; it does not only produce proteins constituents. And she is entitled also to quietly breaks our heart. Thank you for which its host sheds. speak out about her closely held person- letting us live a little la vie en rose through al views. But she may want to consider your charming writing! I signed up for Sendyour thoughts to [email protected]. sacrificing so that the Democratic Party Illustrations by Giacomo Gambineri 5



Screenland TongueTied Even the less dramatic videos emerging from Ukraine offer a powerful argument about what makes a nation. ⬤ By Keith Gessen The thing about the videos from the war in Ukraine in 2014 was that there were very few war videos. It was, at least at first, a small-arms war. Fighting, when it erupted, happened on city streets. As soon as shots were fired, whoever was making the video would put away the phone and 3.20.22 7

Screenland run. The videos that characterized the — and with it come new videos. In the Soldiers speak road. ‘‘What happened, boys?’’ he says Opening page: Screen grab from YouTube. Above: Marcus conflict were not of rifle fire but of pro- first hours of the war there were rumors Russian as they to the soldiers milling around behind Yam/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images; Alexander Venzhega/ tests: riot police beating demonstrators as that President Volodymyr Zelensky had fire on Russian the vehicle. people shouted, ‘‘What are you doing?’’; fled from Kyiv, as Viktor Yanukovych tanks. Locals later, young men on the same square, out- fled before him in 2014. Then came Zel- speak Russian ‘‘We ran out of gas,’’ one of them says. fitted in motley assortments of helmets ensky’s video response. Standing in the as they survey ‘‘Want me to tow you? Back to Russia?’’ and kneepads, counterattacking; videos square in front of the president’s office annihilated the driver asks. of people arguing; videos of people being on Bankova Street in central Kyiv, sur- Russian The soldiers laugh. The driver asks forced, in eastern Ukraine, to get on their rounded by his political allies and advis- columns. if they know where the road they’re on knees. After pro-Russian forces took over ers, he pointed to each in turn and said leads to. They say they don’t. He says it cities in the east and the Ukrainian Army that they were tut — here. The head of the goes to Kyiv. They seem surprised. finally moved to restore its authority, party faction was tut. The chief of staff This video was revealing on a number there were videos of pro-Russian protest- was tut. The prime minister was tut. His of levels. There was the courage of the ers trying to prevent tanks from entering adviser Podoliak was tut. ‘‘Vsi my tut,’’ he driver, pulling up to armed soldiers in a their towns. These were the images of a concluded. ‘‘We’re all here.’’ war zone, and the simple incompetence country falling apart. of the Russian invasion, allowing an The next day brought a video from the armored vehicle to run out of gas on the Now war has arrived again to Ukraine front, a dashcam clip of a man pulling up way to Kyiv. But most fascinating was the — in the east of the country, it never left to an armored vehicle by the side of the fact that the driver could communicate so 8 3.20.22 Photo illustration by Vanessa Saba

easily, so freely, with the Russian soldiers. two depending on the context and sit- Date on which a wars in Iraq or Vietnam and more like the Like a great many of his countrymen — uation. Russian propaganda claims that Day of Ukrainian United States invading Canada. especially in the east, where the invasion the language is discriminated against, and Literature and began — he is a native Russian speaker. there are people in Russia who believe Language has, What was Putin thinking? We know a that you will get shouted at, or even since 1997, been fair amount about this: Last summer he The language question has been a pain- attacked, for speaking Russian in Kyiv. observed: Nov. 9 published, on the Kremlin’s website, a ful one in Ukrainian politics, though it Yet in the videos now emerging from very long essay on ‘‘The Historical Unity EyeEm/Getty Images looms far larger in the minds of Krem- Ukraine, over and over again, people are of Russia and Ukraine.’’ He repeated some lin propagandists than it does in actual speaking Russian. Soldiers speak Russian of its contents in a long televised speech Ukrainian life. There are young Ukrai- as they fire rocket-propelled grenades at on the eve of his invasion. The essential nians for whom it is a matter of princi- Russian tanks. Locals speak Russian as argument was that Ukraine could not ple and honor to not speak Russian, the they survey annihilated Russian columns. exist if it moved away from Russia — language of the former empire. And the Americans are accustomed to wars that because it was part of Russia, and always government periodically passes conten- take place far away, against people who had been. tious laws that aim to encourage further don’t so casually speak our language, but Ukrainianization. But most people con- of course most wars take place between The answer to these historical rumi- tinue to speak the language that makes people who live right next to one another. nations came, again, from Zelensky — most sense to them in their everyday Russia invading Ukraine is less like our and, again, in Russian, as the president lives, sometimes switching between the switched languages during a speech in order to directly address the Russian 9

Screenland people. Responding to the Kremlin’s Zelensky was Poem Selected by Victoria Chang claims that it was protecting the separat- making an ist regions from Ukrainian plans to take argument about Jane Wong’s poem grapples with the making of a self that’s dependent on childhood, history, them by force, Zelensky asked whom, nationhood — comparison and societal expectations. Growing up can be overwhelming as we figure out exactly, Russia thought he was going that it is formed where we came from, who we are and where we are going (all at once!). Wong writes, ‘‘I was to bomb. ‘‘Donetsk?’’ he asked incredu- not by history or taught that everything and everyone is self-made,’’ but the speaker is realizing that life will lously. ‘‘Where I’ve been dozens of times, by language, but come with its own surprises, regardless of our intent, or anyone else’s. seen people’s faces, looked into their by individual eyes? Artyoma Street, where I hung out memories. Lessons on Lessening with my friends? Donbas Arena, where By Jane Wong I cheered on our boys at the Eurocup? Scherbakov Park, where we all went I wake to the sound of my neighbors upstairs as if they are bowling. drinking after our boys lost? Luhansk? The house where the mother of my best And maybe they are, all pins and love fallen over. friend lives? Where my best friend’s I lie against my floor, if only to feel that kind of affection. father is buried?’’ What I’ve learned, time and again — Zelensky was making an argument get up. You cannot have what they have. about nationhood — that it is formed not by history or by language, but by individ- And the eyes of a dead rat can’t say anything. ual memories, by personal connections. ‘‘Note,’’ he continued, ‘‘that I’m speak- In Jersey, the sink breaks and my mother keeps a bucket ing now in Russian, but no one in Rus- underneath to save water for laundry. sia understands what I’m talking about. These place names, these streets, these A trickle of water is no joke. I’ve learned that. families, these events — this is all foreign Neither is my father, wielding a knife in starlight. to you. It’s unfamiliar. This is our land. This is our history. What are you going I was taught that everything and everyone is self-made. to fight for? And against whom?’’ That you can make a window out of anything if you want. He was also making an argument about This is why I froze insects. To see if they will come back to life. history. History was not something that happened centuries ago, as in Vladimir How I began to see each day: the sluice of wings. Putin’s boring essay, but something that Get up. The ants pouring out of the sink, onto my arms in dish heavy water. happened in the course of a single life- time. Your home was the place that stored My arms: branches. A swarm I didn’t ask for. your memories and the memories of your loved ones. And when someone tried to No one told me I’d have to learn to be polite. invade it, there was only one response. To let myself be consumed for what I cannot control. As the fighting continued, and as the I must return to my younger self. To wearing my life Russian Army responded to Ukrainian like heavy wool, weaved in my own weight. resistance by dropping huge bombs on Ukrainian cities, the news and the images To pretend not to know when the debtors come to collect. out of Ukraine became bleaker. And there is no question that the worst and most Victoria Chang’s fifth book of poems, ‘‘Obit’’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), was named a New York Times terrifying parts of war take place out of Notable Book and a Timwwe Must-Read. Her book of nonfiction, ‘‘Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and sight, with no smartphones filming. But Grief,’’ was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in Antioch University’s in that first week, we learned import- M.F.A. Program. Jane Wong is the author, most recently, of ‘‘How to Not Be Afraid of Everything’’ ant things. Few expected this level of (Alice James Books, 2021). She is an associate professor of creative writing at Western Washington University. resistance from Ukraine. The country had changed since 2014; it had taken time to think about what happened in Donbas and Luhansk, and to see what became of those places. And in Zelensky it had found a surprising leader — a Rus- sian-speaking Jew who was nonetheless a profound patriot of Ukraine. What he has offered is a vision of a transnational, multiethnic, multilingual country on the eastern edge of Europe, and something worth fighting for. 10 3.20.22 Illustration by R. O. Blechman

Talk By David Marchese Tina Stege on why the world should care about the Marshall Islands. ‘We will be hit first and hardest by climate change, but everyone’s going to be hit.’ Photograph by Mamadi Doumbouya 11

Talk ‘‘We’re on the front of the front lines of climate change.1 When you have millions Opposite page: power: the idea of sovereignty, territorial vulnerability,’’ says Tina Stege. She would of people who are forced to flee, they’re Tina Stege at the integrity, the right to choose your own know: Stege is the climate envoy for the going to be spilling over into wealthier United Nations future. Those are core to the concerns that I Marshall Islands, a country of rough- nations. Those nations are going to have Climate Change have for the future of my own countrywith ly 60,000 people spread mostly among to respond. Do they build walls or do they Conference regard to climate change, and seeing it play coral atolls halfway between Hawaii and welcome? I have real concerns, because in Glasgow in out in real time in Ukraine, where interna- Australia that is facing an imminent exis- we’ve seen that you’re more open to wel- November. Below: tional norms and the rule of law have been tential threat from climate change. In the coming those who maybe look like you or Stege (center) broken — all small countries everywhere Marshalls, sea-level rise has already led to who you understand, and you’re more like- in Namdrik atoll in are left to worry. We’re on a war footing increased flooding and the degradation ly to build walls for those who seem differ- 2016, working with climate change in my country. That of water used for drinking and cooking. ent. That’s where, in terms of power differ- on a project for the question of ‘‘How do you feel when your Ongoing coral bleaching affects local fish entials, what we do as the Marshall Islands American Museum country may be at war with climate change stocks, which Marshallese rely upon for is tell stories — show how human dignity of Natural History. but wealthier countries, they’re going to be food as well as for income from nations is a common value that applies whether OK?’’ The thing is, they’re not. We will be that apply to fish in the country’s waters. you are from the Marshall Islands or the David Marchese hit first and hardest by climate change, but And a warmer, wetter world means a United States or Europe or Sudan. When is the magazine’s Talk everyone’s going to be hit. greater risk of waterborne disease — the you diminish the human dignity of another columnist. The latest report from the Intergovern- country was hit hard by an outbreak of individual or community or country, that mental Panel on Climate Change seemed Dengue fever in 2019. The horizon is dark diminishes your human dignity. So telling to me to suggest that climate-change and will only get darker if the rest of the the stories, bearing witness, establishing mitigation and adaptation need to be world doesn’t make the changes neces- the things that bind us together is critical the global focus, more than trying to sary to stay below 1.5 Celsius degrees of to addressing climate change. stay under 1.5 degrees of warming.2 But warming above preindustrial levels (which You’re talking about interconnectedness. what would adaptation look like for the appears highly unlikely). While her coun- Along those lines, how might what’s hap- Marshall Islands? In the Marshalls, we’re try’s situation may seem uniquely dire, pening in Ukraine affect the Marshall two meters above sea level. It’s a small, Stege knows that the Marshalls, site of Islands? You can’t help but feel connected low-lying atoll nation. We’re essentially horrific damage caused by U.S. nuclear when you see the terrifying images and one long beach. It’s all coast. There’s no weapons testing in the 1940s and 1950s, hear how people are being killed or forced interior. So adaptation for us is many offers both a window into a possible future to flee their homes. We were talking about things. It needs to be about responding of even more widespread uninhabitability as well as a shared opportunity. ‘‘Climate change is a preventable crisis,’’ says Stege, who is 45. ‘‘There are pathways. But can we achieve what needs to be achieved?’’ I have two questions to start, about power and morality: Your country’s continued existence is dependent on the decisions of far more powerful, far less at-risk countries. So how has your advocacy work affected your thinking about global power? And second: I’ve seen people argue that global warming is likely to wind up at something like 2.2 or 2.7 degrees Celsius above preindus- trial levels, and therefore we shouldn’t freak out because at those levels life for us in rich Western countries won’t be all that different. How do you view that argument from a moral perspective? The way I was raised was with this idea that when you protect those who are the most vulnerable in your community, you are protecting your entire community. This translates to the message we’ve had for the world on why they should care about the Marshall Islands: Climate change is going to affect everyone on this planet. I think in 2020, 30 million people were displaced by 12 3.20.22

This page: Yves Herman/Reuters. Opposite page: From Tina Stege. to sea-level rise, that’s first and foremost. 1 According to the nuclear testing and the climate-change culture or history that you’re drawing on But it’s also about water resources, because United Nations damage happening now? Very important for support these days. Well, yes. There’s our aquifers are going to be inundated. refugee agency, as parallels and also very important differ- this phrase, and it’s personal because it Freshwater lenses3 will be affected. We’re of 2021, roughly 90 ences. In terms of parallels: the fact of a was one that my cousin, Darlene Keju- going to get more droughts. It’s less rain. percent of refugees crisis that essentially is a wave coming Johnson,8 adopted in her work. That It’s going to be coral bleaching. We are came from countries in from the outside, over which you did phrase is tuwaak bwe elimaajnono, and it coral atolls, and corals are dying. How do most vulnerable nothing to contribute and over which you refers to situations where you need to get we live on an island where all the fish that to climate change. have little control or sense of how it start- to another island, but there are waves — we eat live off those corals? It’s water scar- ed. Nuclear testing resulted in displace- they seem impossible. Tuwaak bwe elimaa- city, it’s food scarcity, it’s health impacts 2 Which is the ment of populations;6 there are people jnono means face your challenge, go into related to those things. In the longer term, preferable goal as who still live with health impacts.7 The the wave to get to the other island. That is you’re looking at engineering solutions. set by the 2015 sense of violence doesn’t unfold with one a testament to resiliency. If your island is a Protecting the coastlines: People often Paris Agreement. event but continues to unfold. Those are place that you can’t survive on, you need to refer to sea walls, but sea walls can bring some of the parallels. One very important get in your canoe and go to the next island. problems like erosion. So how do you do 3 A lens is a layer difference: A big part of the nuclear legacy That idea of the wave coming and you that in a way that doesn’t negatively impact of fresh groundwater was the lack of information — the amount have to face it and get to another island — your environment too much? It’s raising that sits on top of secrecy and classified documents and are you thinking about a world in which buildings. It’s looking at where people of denser saltwater. people feeling as if they were guinea pigs. the Marshallese ancestral home is gone? might need to move within the country Marshallese have worked hard to have The future I want is a future where we get to consolidate populations on the higher 4 At the 2009 United that not be our story with climate change. to choose. Maybe that means migration, ground that does exist. It’s terribly compli- Nations climate We are empowering ourselves to be able but I don’t want to be forced. I don’t want cated. We’re looking in the tens of billions summit, rich nations to respond and make our own choices. to be a refugee. When you become a refu- of dollars, we’ve been told, to safeguard pledged $100 billion What are those choices? And which of gee, you have so much stripped from you. the entire country, and just plain billions a year to poorer them do you think are actually available? The main thing that’s stripped from you to safeguard parts of the country.4 countries to help with We want to be able to make choices about is choice. Choice is at the heart of what What’s the Marshallese sense of the climate adaptation how we adapt. Whether that is protect, it means to have that sense of dignity, of future? I work with a lot of people who’ve and mitigation. relocate, raise land. At the moment I don’t empowerment, of crafting your own way spent years thinking about how to ensure Estimates vary, but see a path forward on accounting for the forward. Self-determination is at the heart that we stay in the Marshall Islands and the amount delivered cost of those choices. We absolutely will of our adaptation plan. There are going to maintain our culture, our identity, our sense is by any account need international financial support. be tough choices. We accept that. What of place and who we are as people. Main- far, far short of the Right now it’s in dribs and drabs. We need we don’t accept is that we don’t have a taining your homeland and making sure pledged figure. it to be at scale and speed. choice. The world should not accept that. that you have a future for your kids is the There are beautiful folk stories from the Taking away choices doesn’t just diminish ultimate motivation. Also, it takes a lot to 5 The United States Marshall Islands about the importance of us; it diminishes the world. live on these islands. They’re not lush. Our conducted 67 nuclear ocean navigation and finding one’s way. sandy soil doesn’t support a mango tree. It tests in the Marshall Reading those made me wonder if there This interview has been edited and condensed supports the breadfruit tree, the pandanus Islands from 1946 are specific things from Marshallese from two conversations. tree and the banana tree. And you have fish. to 1958, including It’s a beautiful environment, but it’s a pretty dropping a hydrogen unforgiving one. So Marshallese have resil- bomb on Bikini atoll. ience built into our DNA. We’ve also been through equally challenging times. The day 6 Marshall Islanders we’re talking on is Nuclear Remembrance were relocated Day in the Marshall Islands. It’s the day that from various atolls the Bravo hydrogen bomb was detonated because of in Bikini.5 Nuclear ash fell across the Mar- the nuclear testing. shalls, and many people were affected. We High levels of still have people struggling with cancers contamination and health systems that haven’t been able continue to make to respond adequately. But in the face of some of those those challenges, we’ve had people contin- atolls inhospitable. ue advocating on the world stage for nucle- ar justice, just like we advocate for climate 7 Cancers and justice. So when you have those examples, birth defects, you soldier on because you know so many including so-called people have done it before you. The only jellyfish babies way is to keep fighting. born with translucent Do you see parallels between the dam- skin and no bones, age inflicted on the Marshall Islands by have been linked to the radiation resulting from the nuclear testing. 8 Keju-Johnson was a Marshallese antinuclear activist. She died of breast cancer in 1996 at age 45. 13

The Ethicist By Kwame Anthony Appiah Can I Sever Ties With phone but found the calls awkward. My My Selfish Sister? stress level is definitely lower without having to deal with my sister, but I wonder if I am being unreasonable about this. Name Withheld Several years ago, I told my sister that I mother’s health issues. Then I moved There’s a sense in which you seem to be Bonus Advice Illustration by Louise Zergaeng Pomeroy wouldn’t be upset if we never spoke her to a retirement home near me, and collateral damage, an incidental casual- From Judge again. Recently her husband, with whom until her death made hundreds of visits ty of your sister’s justified anger toward John Hodgman I have a good relationship, asked me to see her there and in the hospital. her mother. Knowing what you do about to reconsider. I’m torn. I don’t want to have what your sister has endured, wouldn’t Grace writes: I any contact with her, but I don’t want to Throughout this period, my sister’s it be great if you could just let go of your have a wonderful deny my two adult daughters contact behavior was appalling. Before I moved own rancor? Well, something of a para- boyfriend, Alex, who with the only family that exists on my side. my mother, she divided up her jewelry, dox arises here. Respond to someone’s plans fun surprises taking everything of value for herself and shabby behavior with resentment, and for my birthday. I Growing up, my sister and I experienced leaving my two daughters with leftovers. you’re treating her as a moral agent love it, but I’m guilty daily physical and emotional abuse from (My sister said that as my mother’s only capable of making her own decisions. of badgering him for our mother, who was prone to frequent daughter she was entitled to the jewelry, Respond with irenic understanding, and details in advance. outbursts of terrifying rage. (My father was and my girls should be grateful that they you’re treating her as a patient or a pup- He recently said he the invisible man, allowing her ego and got anything.) When I wanted to arrange pet, someone acted upon and controlled would start telling anger to run amok.) Today I am in my extra care for my mother, my sister said by larger forces. It’s a distinction that the me the truth when I early 70s. My sister is a few years younger. I could pay for it; she wasn’t going to philosopher P.F. Strawson marked as one asked. Please order We were never close but we used to get allow me to piss away her inheritance, between ‘‘reactive’’ and ‘‘objective’’ atti- him not to do this together for holidays. We live hundreds which was not substantial in any event. tudes. ‘‘To understand all is to forgive and instead accept of miles apart; my sister remained all,’’ the old French maxim insists. Such this behavior as in the city where we grew up and where After my mother’s death, I found the forgiveness comes at a steep moral price. part of the process. my mother continued to live after my stress of dealing with my sister’s self- ———— father passed away. absorption and anger increasingly difficult. At this point in your life, you may cer- Ah, a classic case of I know that my sister has her own legacy tainly conclude, adopting the reactive ‘‘Be careful what you Some time ago, my mother ran into from our traumatic upbringing; she has posture, that your obligations toward wish for’’ (which is health problems and was hospitalized. talked about having been in therapy for your sister have been eroded by her dis- also what I whisper My sister told me that she had done her decades. I’ve told my daughters that I regard for you; because she doesn’t seem menacingly into my part and that now our mother was my absolutely don’t want to stand in their way to value her relationship with you, you children’s ears problem. For a year, I traveled back and if they want to interact with my sister. They struggle to find value in your relation- when they confront forth every weekend to deal with my have spoken with her a few times on the ship with her. You have commendably their birthday insisted that your strained relationship candles). I advise with your sister shouldn’t impede your you to practice daughters from establishing their own gratitude. You have ties. If that hasn’t gone well, it isn’t obvi- a generous partner ously your doing. who celebrates you every year in the But there is another relationship that way you wish! Why you do value, which has associated obli- punish him with the gations, too: It’s with your brother-in-law. ‘‘fun’’ of a joyless, You might want to spend some time with no-win interrogation? him and your sister, not for her sake but I rule in Alex’s favor. for his. That argues for trying to build a Moreover, he has relationship with your sister that you can revealed to me your value — a relationship with a person, not next three birthday a patient. The work of repair, I’d guess, gifts: glamping would involve both hearing her out and on an oil rig, 1,000 asking her to acknowledge that she has limes and a pet let you down. jaguar named Chris. These may or may Although certain religious traditions not be true, but my teach that we should forgive uncondi- sentence is that you tionally, forgiveness is more naturally suffer the mystery. seen as a response to remorse. And if you and your sister fail to find common To submit a query: ground, you can tell your brother-in-law Send an email to that you made an effort but no headway. ethicist@nytimes .com; or send mail to The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. (Include a daytime phone number.) 14 3.20.22 Illustration by Tomi Um

A friend of my husband’s has repeatedly that she had Covid early in 2021, has Respond result. But they’re even better protected voiced anti-vaccination views. Recently, I antibodies, tests herself and never got to someone’s — and less likely to transmit the virus — found that he procured vaccination papers vaccinated. When my spouse questioned shabby when they’re vaccinated and boosted as without being vaccinated so that he could her husband privately about this, the behavior with well. You were dining in January, a month travel and go out in public. This act of husband backpedaled, claiming that she resentment, when Covid killed some 60,000 Ameri- fraud has crossed the line for me. He often didn’t have a forged Covid vaccination and you’re cans. Here we’ve got a woman who, in travels to countries without high vaccine card (which could be a felony) but that treating her ways I’ve just touched on, was shirking levels, so the chance of him hurting others restaurants don’t always check for cards. as a moral agent a system created for the general welfare, is high. I asked my husband to consider capable of and elevating the odds of exposure for drawing back from this friendship to show This was the third time we have met making her own an immune-compromised friend; and a that he is not condoning this. Am I making these folks for dinner in recent months, decisions. husband who was lying to you. too big a deal of it? During Covid, it’s been arriving separately and always at a difficult to keep up friendships, so a loss restaurant with indoor dining only. Our You should have told them what of this one would be hard for my husband. cards were invariably checked upon you thought and felt free to share your arrival. Their stories just don’t jibe. I am concerns with other acquaintances. Name Withheld beside myself with disappointment This couple abused your friendship at the blatant dishonesty. More important, and forfeited whatever consideration It has been curious, amid the pandem- I am conflicted having this knowledge this relationship might otherwise have ic, to see normally law-abiding people and keeping it to myself, since we know conferred. Your attitude to them can be exempt themselves from laws because many of the same people. appropriately reactive. they don’t agree with their rationale. Even if you thought (against all the evi- Name Withheld Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy dence) that vaccines do no good, you at N.Y.U. His books include ‘‘Cosmopolitanism,’’ wouldn’t be entitled to second-guess the People who have had Covid will gener- ‘‘The Honor Code’’ and ‘‘The Lies That Bind: judgment of political officials who have ally gain some measure of immunity as a Rethinking Identity.’’ taken expert advice and made rules. Pan- demic scofflaws like this man are making decisions for other people — people who might not have chosen, say, to consort with the unvaccinated. As we look forward to a post-pandemic (if not post-Covid) era, maintaining your other friendships should get easier. In the meantime, I see no reason not to let this man know where you stand. As the social psychologist Tom R. Tyler argued in a classic study, norms of legitimacy, more than fear of punishment, explain why peo- ple obey the law. By sounding off, you’ll be helping to sustain those norms. What has protected us here is the whole scheme: vaccinations, certificates and so on. Any individual defection isn’t likely to cause a great deal of immediate harm. The main wrong he’s doing is displaying an egocentric contempt for all those who have troubled themselves to support the scheme by putting in the small contribu- tions that make society work. My spouse and I are fully boosted seniors. I am currently cautious in all things, having a compromised immune system. After the holidays, we agreed to indoor restaurant dining with friends who had just returned from a family visit to the Midwest. As we were leaving the restaurant, the wife mentioned that she had a forged Covid-19 vaccination card. She said

Diagnosis By Lisa Sanders, M.D. “You can’t see the ceiling, can you?” the man asked his 31-year-old wife. She gri- Her vision suddenly started going maced, then shook her head. She was haywire. Something seemed to lying in bed looking toward the familiar be blocking signals to her brain, shadows and shapes cast by the wintry but what was it? morning sun. But she couldn’t see them. It was as if a dense white fog lay between her and those daily shifting patterns. Squinting didn’t help. Opening her eyes as wide as she could didn’t, either. All her life she had perfect vision. It was a secret source of pride. She’d never even seen an eye doctor. But that morning changed everything. She first noticed the trouble in her eyes six months earlier. She is a professional violinist and a teacher and that summer took her students to Italy to experience the sacred music and art. As she gazed up at the frescos decorating the ceiling of a favorite cathedral, a shimmering shape with jagged, irregular edges appeared out of nowhere. The points seemed to twin- kle as the starlike image slowly enlarged. Inside the glittering outline, the colors were jumbled, like the crystals in a kalei- doscope. It was beautiful and terrifying. She dropped her head, closed her eyes and rubbed her aching neck. When she opened her eyes, the star burst, with its glimmering edges, was still there, distorting all that lay beyond it. It grew so large that it was almost all she could see. Then slowly it began to fade; after nearly a half-hour, the world start- ed to resume its familiar look and shape. There had been similar, if less severe, experiences: Every now and then, when she would get up quickly after sitting or lying down, she would feel an intense pressure inside her head, and when it released, everything briefly looked faded and pale before returning to normal hues. These spells only lasted a few seconds and happened only a handful of times over the past fewyears. She wrote it off to fatigue or stress. After that day in Italy, those glisten- ing star bursts appeared weekly, then daily. Stranger still, straight lines devel- oped weird lumps and bumps when she looked at them out of the corner of her eye. Doorways, curbs and table edges seemed to waver, growing bulges and divots. When she looked at the object full on, it would obediently straighten out but resumed its aberration once it was on the sidelines again. Days after her morning whiteout, the young woman went to an optometrist in 16 3.20.22 Photo illustrations by Ina Jang

nearby Fort Lee, N.J., Dr. Paul Shahinian. Lisa Sanders, M.D., could cat-scratch fever, an infection caused ↓ If the star bursts were worrisome to the by the bacterium Bartonella henselae; even young woman, Shahinian’s reaction to her is a contributing writer syphilis, often called the great imitator Occupational Hazard? exam was terrifying. She needed to see a for the magazine. Her because of its ability to manifest in so many neuro-ophthalmologist, he told her — a latest book is ‘‘Diagnosis: ways, could cause this kind of injury. Kulkarni knew the patient didn’t have specialist in eyes and brains — and she Solving the Most Baffling health insurance. He called around to needed to see one soon. All the informa- Medical Mysteries.’’ If He sent the patient to the lab for test- the neurosurgeons he knew, trying tion collected by sight is transmitted to you have a solved case to ing. The results of the blood tests came to figure out how to get this woman the brain through a thick cable of fibers at share, write her at in quickly. It wasn’t Lyme or Bartonella or the care she needed. The only answer the back of the eye called the optic nerve, Lisa.Sandersmdnyt syphilis. None of the inflammatory mark- seemed to be for her to get in through the doctor explained, and the nerve in her @gmail.com. ers suggestive of an autoimmune disease the emergency department. Thanks to left eye was hugely swollen. As she sat in were elevated. It was the M.R.I. that held a law called the Emergency Medical his office, Shahinian called the specialists the answer. Kulkarni didn’t see the bright Treatment and Labor Act, all emergen- himself. The first two offices he called white smattering of dots and dashes that cy departments are required to provide had the same answer: She couldn’t get an would suggest M.S. Instead, a large round stabilizing treatment to any patient who appointment for months. Then he reached object, a mass about the size of a plum, comes in, regardless of insurance status out to a neuro-ophthalmologist who was dominated the middle portion of the left or ability to pay. The care provided isn’t new to the area, Dr. Kaushal Kulkarni, and, side of her brain. free; patients are billed, but they have after explaining the urgency, arranged for to be treated. the patient to be seen the following week. Kulkarni called the patient and told her that the M.R.I. was abnormal. She came She went to the emergency depart- ↓ back a couple of days later. He couldn’t ment at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/ tell her based on the pictures just what Columbia University Medical Center, Communication Breakdown kind of tumor she had. The most common and the mass was removed. The pathol- would be a meningioma, a tumor of the ogist confirmed that the tumor was an Kulkarni listened to the patient describe tissue that lines the brain. An acoustic neu- acoustic neuroma. Reading up on this her strange visual abnormalities. Although roma was rarer but also possible. This is a type of growth, the patient noted that her vision was still 20/20, the intermittent slow-growing tumor originating in the tis- hearing loss is a common symptom. She star bursts and the bent lines seen in her sue that connects the ear to the brain. She had hearing loss in her left ear, but she peripheral vision — a phenomenon known was a little young for that; these tumors hadn’t made a connection between that as metamorphopsia — suggested some- usually appear in men and women over problem and the one with her eyes. She thing was wrong with the way the brain 40, and they usually cause problems in thought that the constant exposure to the was getting and processing her visual hearing and balance rather than in vision. sound from her violin might have caused information. Kulkarni shined a narrow Whatever it was, the tumor was so large a little damage. She figured it was just bright light into the young woman’s right that it blocked the circulation of the spinal the price of doing what she loved. After eye. As expected, both pupils constricted. fluid through the brain, causing the nerve the surgery, her hearing didn’t change, He moved the light over to the left, and to swell. It would have to be removed. but the strange star bursts completely both pupils immediately dilated. Moving disappeared. Straight lines still have the it to the right, her pupils again constricted; tendency to buckle in her peripheral returning to the left, again they sudden- vision, though. ly widened. Clearly the signal on the left wasn’t getting through. The swelling was Before her hair had even grown enough cutting off the flow of information from the to hide the scar, the bills began to roll in. eye to the brain. It seemed to be a one-way The numbers were even more frightening problem, however: The fact that the left than the images of the tumor. The ultimate pupil constricted when the light was shined accounting totaled around $650,000. She in the right eye indicated that information and her husband worried that they would from the brain was still getting through. have to declare bankruptcy. They had some money — they were saving for a rainy day, There are many causes of this kind of but this was a tsunami. Salvation came, optic-nerve injury. Shahinian had thought unexpectedly, when a friend of a friend that, given the patient’s age, this was likely asked if theyhad talked to the hospital about to be multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune financial help. It turned out that Columbia disorder in which the immune system Presbyterian did have a financial-aid pro- mistakenly attacks nerve fibers that link gram. In fact, all nonprofit hospitals are the brain to the body. Kulkarni agreed that required to provide financial assistance to was a possibility and ordered an M.R.I. to people who need it; it’s mandated by the look for evidence of that or other abnor- Affordable Care Act. They didn’t have to malities. Was this a tumor? Or a stroke? bankrupt themselves. They are grateful that Other autoimmune diseases also had to be the ordeal ended well. And, two years after considered. It could also be the result of an the surgery, they are beginning to rebuild infection: Lyme disease could do this; so their savings — because you never know when it might rain again. 17

Letter of Recommendation Toilet-Training a Cat By Brent Katz Sometimes, at Charles Mingus’s apart- learned about it after Topos, a bookstore Tired of an Step 2 was to start trimming down the ment, you would have to wait outside and small press in Queens, reissued it — a overflowing litter brim of the box as he moved it. Eventually the bathroom as a cat finished using piece of paper folded into three parts, its box? Charles he affixed it atop the toilet with string. the toilet. The legendary jazz composer title in Cooper Black font, a photo of Min- Mingus has a ‘‘Don’t bug the cat now,’’ he writes, ‘‘don’t and bassist had grown tired of coming gus’s tuxedo cat, Nightlife, on the cover. pamphlet for that. rush him.’’ The third step was to cut a home to an overflowing litter box. So plum-size hole in the box. The cat came he devised a solution. And in 1954, he It took Mingus three or four weeks to to expect the hole. ‘‘At this point you will wrote it up on a single sheet of paper and toilet-train Nightlife. His method, in a nut- realize that you have won.’’ began handing out copies. A pamphlet shell, was to fill a shallow cardboard box version followed. with torn-up newspaper, instead of litter, Mingus then slipped the remaining which can clog the pipes. He placed the cardboard under the toilet seat. Eventu- ‘‘The Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toi- box far from the bathroom to start, then ally, with a magician’s flair, he disposed of let Training Your Cat’’ arrived in my mail- began inching it closer. ‘‘Do it gradually,’’ it completely so that the cat was just using box in the second year of the pandemic. I he writes. ‘‘You’ve got to get him thinking.’’ the toilet. ‘‘Don’t be surprised if you hear 18 3.20.22 Photograph by Robin Schwartz

the toilet flush in the middle of the night. ‘Sometimes father compose at the piano. ‘‘People have the cat would miss, and there’d be cat A cat can learn how to do it, spurred on the cat would this impression of him thinking about poop on the seat or on the floor.’’ by his instinct to cover up.’’ miss, and there’d every chord and every detail, but he just be cat poop played,’’ Eric said. ‘‘And playing would The creative process can be messy. I first discovered Mingus in middle on the seat or lead to an idea.’’ It was not something he And apparently, Mingus was ambivalent school. His music was spontaneous on the floor.’ tried to force. about this messiness — about whether yet composed. He took the listener his method even should work every time. to the brink of cacophony but always Brent Katz Mingus also had a gift for inching When John Cassavetes asked Mingus to maintained a handle on things. Now, has written for The musicians out of their comfort zones. score his 1959 movie, ‘‘Shadows,’’ Mingus years later, my five-year relationship New Yorker, The Paris He would often arrive at rehearsals with agreed — but on one condition, according had recently ended. I was lucky to be Review, The Believer unfinished compositions, according to to Cassavetes. Mingus told him he had all employed, but I was definitely in the and other publications. the jazz scholar Krin Gabbard, then sing these cats that were defecating on the floor wrong job. My life was taking another He works as head of the band members their parts, not allow- and wanted Cassavetes to send some of his turn toward the unknown, and I didn’t development at Best ing them the crutch of sheet music. ‘‘He people over to clean it up. ‘‘I can’t work,’’ he feel I had much control over it. Mingus’s Case Studios. could read people very well,’’ Eric said. said. ‘‘They [expletive] all over my music.’’ pamphlet seemed to be filled with little ‘‘And that goes for cats, dogs — everyone.’’ So Cassavetes and a few others went to glimpses into his worldview and his cre- Mingus’s apartment with scrubbing brush- ative process. After all, a cat, like inspira- But my conversation with Eric also es. Afterward, Mingus said: ‘‘I can’t work tion, is a mysterious force. It cannot be complicated the picture. For instance, he in this place. It’s so clean. I’ve got to wait commanded to sit or roll over, like a dog. told me that, even for his father, the Min- for the cats to [expletive].’’ Somehow, it felt as if Mingus could see gus method wasn’t foolproof. ‘‘Sometimes right into the mind of the cat, to work naked eye. Discovering others will require with the enigma. Tip By Malia Wollan a telescope, preferably one with an aper- ture of at least eight inches and equipped I started buying copies for friends, as How to Spot with an astronomy-imaging camera. gifts. Then I decided to test the method Asteroids Take multiple photographs of a patch myself, to see what it might teach me of sky over 60 minutes and then quickly about Mingus’s gift for making things ‘‘Stay up all night,’’ says Gregory Leon- flip through those images one after the happen that shouldn’t be possible. I ard, a research scientist at the University other, looking for bits of light in motion. haven’t had a cat since we lost Cleo, the of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, who Stars will appear stationary, but asteroids, Abyssinian, who went crazy, my mom uses a network of powerful telescopes to satellites, comets and other bits of space claims, from licking the sticky side of find and track what NASA calls near-Earth debris will seem to move. Try to photo- Scotch tape. So I enlisted the help of my objects, including asteroids that come graph your asteroid over several nights friend Madden, a writer and organist who within 120 million miles of the sun. An to collect information on its orbital path. has a tuxedo cat, just like Nightlife. She amateur hunter can use the same strat- picked up a cardboard box, and the jour- egies as a professional. Go looking in a If you think you’ve seen an asteroid, sub- ney began. place without light pollution on a cloud- mit your data to the Minor Planet Center, less night with a steady atmosphere (if funded by NASA and run by Harvard and The first hiccup came swiftly. Her cat, you see stars sparkling, it’s a sign of the Smithsonian. The center has received Reilly, didn’t want to go on torn-up news- atmospheric turbulence). Avoid a full some 340 million observations, including paper. And so, nary a week in, we reinsti- moon. Leonard and his asteroid-hunter more than 28,500 near-Earth object dis- tuted the Pine Pellet sawdust that Reilly colleagues tend to be solitary types who coveries, all available to the public. trusted and that Madden hoped would don’t mind working solo night shifts and not gunk up her pipes. sleeping during the day. On any given night, alone at a survey telescope in the Santa Catalina Moun- The box crept closer to its destination, Under the darkest skies, you might tains north of Tucson, Leonard says he and Reilly began using it in the bathroom. see Vesta, the largest asteroid, with your feels ‘‘a little bit like a lighthouse keeper,’’ But three weeks in, when Madden put the looking for potential danger out in the box on the toilet, Reilly wouldn’t make cosmic sea. Do not go hunting for chunks the final leap. of rock hurtling through space unless you can do so without feeling overwhelmed A few days before our four-week dead- by fear. If you’re going to worry, do it in line, I texted, ‘‘Has he gone on the toilet a gentle way with a deep-time mind-set. at all yet?’’ ‘‘The probability of being affected by an impacting asteroid in a human lifetime ‘‘Not yet,’’ Madden wrote. is about as close to zero as one can get,’’ We had reached an impasse. What’s Leonard says. ‘‘That said, over geologic more, we seemed to be confusing him. time, the probability is 100 percent that At one point, Madden scooped Reilly up there’s an asteroid that’s got our number just as he was about to do his business in on it.’’ a guitar case. About a week before the experiment ended, the Charles Mingus Institute con- nected me with Eric Mingus, Charles’s son. He told me he used to watch his Illustration by Radio 19

Eat By Eric Kim A Cottony Crumb: Milk bread at its best is soft and almost sweet, with a wispy, ethereal texture. Baking a loaf of milk bread is the closest Sometimes she cut them into teddy-bear Its taste, though and caramelizes into an exterior that you I’ll ever get to time travel. shapes, which made them taste more familiar to many, actually want to eat. delicious because the crusts were sliced conjures a different This recipe delivers an approximation off (and because they were shaped like feeling depending My milk bread isn’t traditional by of the sikppang, or white bread, that my teddy bears). But in my homemade ver- on who you any means, but the end result gets you mother, Jean, brought home from the sion of that bread, the deeply browned are and how you close. When I asked Kristina Cho, who Korean bakeries along Buford Highway crust is a grand achievement, a source remember it. wrote the cookbook ‘‘Mooncakes and in Atlanta when I was little, in the 1990s. of inordinate pride, thanks to a full cup Milk Bread,’’ ‘‘What is milk bread?’’ she Throughout the week, she turned that of maple syrup. The amber maple both asked me if I wanted the technical answer pillowy loaf into ham-and-mayonnaise dyes the bread a gorgeous hazelnut color or the emotional one. Of course, I said sandwiches, my favorite school lunch. emotional. This is how she described it 20 3.20.22 Photograph by Linda Xiao Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.

to me: People who grew up eating this The beauty On my most recent visit back home to mashed potatoes or grits, 2-3 minutes. You bread, a common fixture of Asian baker- here isn’t just Atlanta, my mother asked me just before may see lumps at first, but as you continue to ies, should have a visceral reaction to it, that the loaf I left if I could bake her a loaf — maybe whisk, and the flour cooks, your mixture will whether or not they have the exact words tastes wonderful; two, so she could give one to my brother smooth out. to describe it. A ‘‘this is it’’ moment. That’s it’s that and his wife. I said sure, but this time I because milk bread — a type of soft, boun- the process of would teach her how to make it herself 2. Make the bread: Remove the pot from cy white bread made with, yes, milk — making it invites so she could have it whenever she want- the heat, and whisk in the cream until smooth, exists across cultures, so its taste, though me to shut ed, and not just when I’m home. Family which will cool down the mixture and add familiar to many, conjures a different feel- off my brain. recipes, even ones that come from sons some necessary fat. To the creamy mixture, ing depending on who you are and how and not mothers, should be shared, not add 4 cups/576 grams bread flour, the you remember it. My maple loaf may not held hostage. So we each took a pot out of maple syrup, egg, salt and yeast, and stir with be an exact replica of your classic Asian- her cupboard. We would bake two loaves a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, until bakery milk bread, but it is milk bread side by side and compare crumbs later. you can no longer see any streaks of egg or all the same. As Cho reassured me, ‘‘All flour. Cover the pot with a lid, and let sit forms of milk bread are valid.’’ We started with the roux, or the tang- in a warm place to proof and hydrate until zhong, a mixture of bread flour and, in doubled in size, 1-2 hours. When I set out to develop this reci- this case, whole milk that gets cooked pe nearly two years ago, I didn’t know on the stovetop and whisked vigorously 3. To knead by hand, keep ½ cup/72 grams how much it would give me. One loaf into a texture not unlike mashed potatoes. of bread flour next to you. Dust a clean work has multiple lives: first, fresh out of the Milk bread bakers will be familiar with surface with some of the flour, and turn the oven, sliced piping hot and eaten straight this preliminary step — or at least until dough out onto the surface. Dust some more over the sink. Next, toasted, buttered and the maple syrup, a glossy river of it, is flour on top of the dough and on your hands, adorned with honey, jam or flaky sea salt; pooled in. Jean was a natural at kneading, and knead the dough into a ball using both a cup of tea is excellent for washing that which wasn’t a surprise. She was a potter hands. As you start to feel the dough get sticky, down slowly. Later, when the loaf begins in a past life. I loved imagining her as a add more of the flour. The goal here is to to stale, it becomes grilled cheese with ceramics major back in Seoul, decades not use more than that ½ cup of flour to knead tomato soup, hand-torn croutons for ago, learning to turn a ball of clay into a the dough, and at the same time develop roast chicken, French toast, bread pud- vase that would someday sit in our living enough gluten in it so that it’s no longer sticky, ding and bread crumbs that are almost room in Georgia, in our very first house, which should take 5-7 minutes. Alternatively, too sweet for savory cooking and are a two-story brick single-family at the top knead with a stand mixer: Transfer the dough therefore just right. of a hill, the one with the peach tree in from the pot to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted the front yard. with the dough-hook attachment. Knead on The beauty here isn’t just that the loaf medium-low speed for 15 minutes; it will tastes wonderful, existing within some I can’t promise that this bread will become pretty sticky and cling to the bowl. notional territory between a sweet bread change your life. But what I do know is Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. and a yeasted cake; it’s that the process that it can slow down time, maybe when Dust some more flour on top of the dough and of making it invites me to shut off my you need it most. on your hands, and form the dough into a ball brain, to stop tinkering. I’ve found that using both hands, adding more flour as needed. when I make time for this bread, with Maple Milk Bread its two rises, each an hour or more, I’m 4. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with cooking also making time to take a bath, time to Time: 1 hour 5 minutes, plus rising time spray. Cut the dough in half with a knife, then read a book, time to pour myself a glass flatten each piece using your hands, pulling the of wine (usually all three). It feels as if I’m For the tangzhong: corners of each piece up and over the center, lengthening the day beyond its 24 hours. all around, so that you’re creating 2 tight balls. The process results in a sense of peace ½ cup/72 grams bread flour Twist the pulled-up edges to seal, and turn and a loaf that’s almost pancake-sweet, the balls over so their smooth sides are facing with a feathery texture like cotton candy, 1 cup/237 milliliters whole milk up. Nestle the 2 balls side by side in the pan, as Cho described her ideal milk bread. and let sit, covered with a clean kitchen towel, You should be able to peel back layer after For the bread: in a warm place in your kitchen, until the dough wispy layer. balls have risen an inch above the rim of the ½ cup/118 milliliters heavy cream pan, 1½-2½ hours. ‘‘Not every one of my loaves gets that exceptional cotton candy texture,’’ Cho 4 cups/576 grams bread flour, plus more 5. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 350. Bake the said. ‘‘It’s the combination of kneading as needed bread until the crust is dark brown and an time and humidity in the air that makes instant-read thermometer inserted in the center the perfect loaf.’’ At first this was a source 1 cup/336 milliliters maple syrup reads 185-190 degrees, 40-45 minutes. of great frustration for me, and I felt like a bad baker whenever I didn’t achieve that 1 large egg 6. Remove from the oven, and let cool in the wispy, wheaten dream. But later, I real- pan for 5 minutes before taking the bread out ized that the mercurial nature of bread 1½ teaspoons coarse kosher salt or 2¾ and slicing into it. (Technically it should cool baking is in itself where the magic lies teaspoons kosher salt (Diamond Crystal) completely, but come on: There’s nothing like — the magic of letting go. the glorious experience of tearing into a fresh, 4½ teaspoons/14 grams active dry yeast warm loaf of sweet milk bread.) The bread (2 envelopes) will keep for up to 3-4 days in a closed container at room temperature. Nonstick cooking spray Yield: 1 loaf. 1. Make the tangzhong: In a medium pot, whisk together the bread flour and milk until relatively smooth. Set over medium-low heat, and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens into a texture not unlike 21



MICHELLE MICHELLE MICHELLE QUANTUM MICHELLE QUANTUM MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM LEAPS MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM MICHELLE YEOH’S QUANTUM MICHELLE QUANTUM MICHELLE QUANTUM MICHELLE QUANTUM QUANTUM QUANTUM For her new sci-fi comedy, the martial-arts star had to attempt a more psychological 23 kind of acrobatics. By Alexandra Kleeman Photograph by Djeneba Aduayom

1995, just rolling down her face.’’ Yeoh worked to showdown. ‘‘The work she does,’’ Jamie Lee 1995, calm herself, concentrating on the fact that she Curtis, who plays a supporting role in the film, IN 1995, could still feel her hands, as members of the told me over the phone, ‘‘it shows her incredible IN 1995, crew placed the mattress (with her still on it) facility as an actor, the delicacy of her work as an IN 1995, MANY in a van, and drove her straight to the hospital, actor, and her absolute beastly work as a physical IN 1995, MANY where she was placed in a body cast and treated martial artist.’’ It’s also the first time audiences IN 1995, MANY for several cracked ribs. will see Yeoh play someone whose movements IN 1995, MANY are uncertain, someone with abundant gray hairs, IN MANY The accident illustrated the special risks someone whose body struggles to do what she IN MANY involved in moving between different modes of asks of it — and the first time she’s been called filmmaking, from the slapdash and high-energy upon to loosen the elegance and poise that has MANY environment of Hong Kong action movies — often defined her career so far and let her own electric, MANY shot without a script and choreographed on set slightly neurotic personality slip through. MANY — to more staid, introspective films that priori- tize psychological depth. Yeoh was being asked The film follows Evelyn Wang, a Chinese years into working as an action star, Michelle to consolidate all that she knew about falling into American immigrant mother who made a key Yeoh plummeted from an 18-foot overpass and a character who knew much less — and bridging decision decades ago to leave her judgmental nearly ended her career. It was her first role in a the difference required a new sort of agility. father behind and follow her boyfriend, Way- character-driven drama, playing the lead in ‘‘The mond, to America. Years later, Evelyn is living Stunt Woman,’’ directed by Ann Hui, a promi- Now that Yeoh is 59, decades into a series out the underwhelming consequences of that nent filmmaker of the Hong Kong New Wave. The of performances that have made her one of decision: an unexceptional life taking place script called for her to channel nearly a decade the most recognizable Asian actors in the above the laundromat they operate at the mar- of experience as a martial artist into the charac- world, it’s clear that what might have been a gin of financial failure; a strained marriage to ter of Ah Kam, a stunt woman working her way career-ending injury was, for her, just another Waymond; a daughter whose Americanized into the film industry. This scene was crucial: obstacle to vault over. Since her first starring feelings are illegible to her. As Ah Kam hesitated over the performance of a role as a high-kicking police inspector in ‘‘Yes daunting on-camera stunt, the character played Madam!’’ (1985), Yeoh has performed in doz- On top of all that, their business is being audit- by Sammo Hung, a legend of kung fu cinema, ens of other action films, from fast-paced Hong ed. While Evelyn is at the I.R.S. with mounds of would push her, and she would fall over the ledge Kong martial-arts films to wuxia features — Chi- receipts, she is pulled aside by a dynamic, take- onto the bed of a passing truck. ‘‘When it’s an nese historical epics set in a time of warriors and charge version of her husband, who tells her that easy stunt,’’ Yeoh says, ‘‘that’s when things can warlords — to more contemporary Western fare. he’s from a parallel universe under siege — and really go wrong.’’ She fought alongside Jackie Chan in ‘‘Supercop’’ that she’s the only one who can save them all. and took the nimble, lightning-quick combat What follows is a wild, absurd romp through There’s a certain way to protect yourself when style of Hong Kong cinema to the James Bond alternate versions of Evelyn’s life, ranging from doing a stunt fall: You remain aware of both your franchise in ‘‘Tomorrow Never Dies,’’ in which the glamorous (in one she’s a celebrated actress body and the layers of cushioning waiting to she rode a motorcycle through the streets of trained in martial arts — basically, Yeoh) to the receive you below, planning your landing as Bangkok while handcuffed to Pierce Brosnan. hilarious (a hibachi chef) to the profane (an alter- you descend. Yeoh’s first attempt at the stunt nate path where people have hot dogs for fingers). went perfectly. But she had to shoot it again, so Over the years, Yeoh has cemented her image the moment could be captured from a different as a self-assured combat expert, the serious and Approaching a role that bounds gleefully perspective, and this time, instead of readying confident counterpart to whoever is at her side. across so many modes and genres put Yeoh herself for the impact, Yeoh was immersed in In Ang Lee’s ‘‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’’ to the test. She showed me a photo of her her character’s reluctance and uncertainty. In (2000), she soared across courtyards and roof- script, dutifully flagged with adhesive tabs that the United States, the scene might have been tops while subtly articulating the feeling roiling denoted the genre of each scene she appears in shot with large, puffy airbags to pad her fall, within the Qing dynasty warrior she played. As (action sequences, comedic scenes, heavy-duty but in Hong Kong the norm was mattresses the star of more character-focused films like Luc drama): The stack of pages bristled with color, and cardboard. Yeoh took a nosedive into the Besson’s ‘‘The Lady’’ (2011) as well as international like a wildly blooming flower. She experiment- assemblage below, where her head lodged blockbusters like ‘‘Crazy Rich Asians’’ (2018), she ed with different kinds of sticky notes. ‘‘With between two mattresses and her legs carried embodied refined self-containment. the fat ones, they were overlapping so much. the momentum past the axis of her spine. As So, I had to get the skinny ones,’’ she told me. her torso folded in half, she felt her own legs But in her latest turn — as the multifaceted ‘‘Oh, my God, it was a whole creative process. hit the back of her head. star of this April’s ‘‘Everything Everywhere All at And then when I finished, I looked at it and go, Once,’’ a mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on Oh, my God, I’m in serious trouble.’’ ‘‘I know I’m in serious trouble when Sammo the superhero film — Yeoh draws from previously calls me by my real name: It’s like, ‘Choo Kheng! unknown emotional and comedic reserves, bring- IT WAS A QUIET, blue-tinged morning in Paris, Choo Kheng!’’’ she recalls. ‘‘And I looked up and ing the full force of her physicality to the portray- where Yeoh lives much of the year with her there was Ann Hui. She was right next to the al of a middle-aged woman whose ordinariness partner and fiancé, Jean Todt, a longtime motor- boxes. And she was looking at me with tears makes her the focus of a grand, multiversal sports executive. We were sitting at a large table in the penthouse suite of a hotel not far from her Eighth Arrondissement home; she divides her 24 3.20.22

From top: Alamy; Photofest; Alamy. time among France, Switzerland and Malaysia. Michelle Yeoh in ‘‘The Stunt Woman’’ (1996). and college. But a back injury derailed her train- Yeoh wore a cream turtleneck sweater, and there ing. When she returned home after graduating, was a refined quality to her high cheekbones and With Pierce Brosnan in ‘‘Tomorrow her mother entered her in the Miss Malaysia smooth brow that reminded me equally of the Never Dies’’ (1997). competition, which she won. It was a victory, but ancient Chinese lady warriors and ultrawealthy also a detour from a path that until that point socialites she has played, though with her sub- ‘‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’’ (2000). pointed decisively toward dance. ‘‘My dream tly cat-eyed glasses and the way she kept urging really, at that time, was to teach ballet,’’ she said. me to eat — the table was blanketed in breakfast this, cultivating a sort of full-body ambidexteri- pastries — she also reminded me of my most ty, shifting at will between modes of movement One day in Hong Kong, a friend was having elegant auntie. that have lived in her for years. dinner with the entrepreneur and film producer Dickson Poon, who told her that he was short on Yeoh promised to take me through a bit of her Born into an upper-class family in Ipoh, a actresses. Her friend took a photo of Yeoh from daily fitness routine, so I had come to the hotel tin-mining city in Malaysia surrounded by lime- her wallet and started singing her praises. Yeoh expecting to watch her do the elliptical, her favor- stone caves and steep mountains, Yeoh spent got on a plane to meet with Poon, and the next ite mode of exercise, in the guest gymnasium. much of her childhood in motion. She took bal- day she was shooting a wristwatch commercial Instead, she asked me to follow her to the hotel let; played basketball with her mother, brother with Jackie Chan, outbiking and outriding him suite’s bedroom, where she took off her shoes and cousins; and boated and swam in the sea on through a lakeside landscape. In 1984, she was and lay down on the pillowy bedding — then weekends. Her father, a lawyer, spent his free cast in an action film, ‘‘The Owl vs. Bumbo,’’ as mimed waking up. (She had decided that a basic time tending to his kelongs — traditional wood- a damsel in distress. As Yeoh watched the fight workout would be ‘‘too boring.’’) She stretched en structures used for fishing. When she was a sequences, she recognized the underlying move- her body as far out as it could go on the verti- teenager, her parents sent her to Britain, where ments. ‘‘It’s rhythm,’’ she recalled thinking. ‘‘It’s cal axis, pointed her toes downward and let her she continued to pursue ballet in boarding school choreography. It’s timing. But at the end of the fingertips brush the headboard of the oversize day, it’s like a tango on steroids. You know, boom, bed. Next, she shifted into a series of reaching, boom, boom!’’ She was demure, longhaired, a more grasping movements, which she described as obvious candidate for a love interest, but the ‘‘climbing an invisible wall.’’ Her light, wiry body action attracted her. ‘‘So, I said, ‘I would love to lengthened as she pulled against an imagined try.’ ’’ The studio set her up in a gym frequented resistance. She softly chanted, Om mani padme by stuntmen and action stars, where she trained hum, a Buddhist mantra that she invokes to keep with actors she would later go on to battle herself safe and blessed. ‘‘And the other one I say in-scene. Within a year, she was the lead in her to myself is: ‘Please forgive me. I’m sorry. Thank own kung fu movie, ‘‘Yes, Madam!’’ you, I love you,’ ’’ she said, closing her eyes for a long moment. ‘‘Because, you know, I hurt myself Andre Morgan, an American film producer, doing some things. So I say it to my own body recalls attending a dinner organized by Poon before I do anything.’’ around that time and meeting Yeoh — a sweet, charming young actress who focused on strength- Yeoh struggles with jet lag, often finding ening both her acting and her martial arts. She herself alert at 3 a.m. Her waking routine is was frequently covered in bruises but remained designed to create a bubble of mindfulness that undaunted. Doing martial arts is one thing, he she can transport wherever she goes. Still lying explains, but on camera you’re expected to pull on her back, she showed me how she begins your punches and subtly avoid other actors’ loosening her hips, swinging a leg in the air strikes, while making it all look real. ‘‘When in large, graceful circles, first turning the hip you’re learning as a young trainee, as hard as you inward and then shifting it out into a position try, your timing isn’t perfect, so you get kicked, used for ballet. She extended the leg in a lift, and you get punched, and you get hit,’’ Morgan then ended with three small, controlled kicks. says. ‘‘She was brave enough that she was willing Common wisdom holds that the body can’t eas- to take the punches and the kicks while she was ily be conditioned for both ballet and martial perfecting it. That was the definition of somebody arts at once: The physical orientation required that was really seriously devoted to mastering the of one would seem to be in direct opposition skills of being an on-camera martial artist.’’ to the needs of the other. But Yeoh has defied In 1988, after Yeoh starred in a half-dozen action films made with Poon’s studio, D&B Films, she married Poon and retired from acting to start a family; she didn’t think she could juggle being an actor, wife and mother. She wanted children badly but was unsuccessful. It was a heartbreak, for which she partly blames the shame and opac- ity that surrounded reproductive health at the The New York Times Magazine 25

time. Within four years, she and Poon divorced, With Zhang Ziyi in ‘‘Memoirs of and the chilly Eleanor Young in ‘‘Crazy Rich This page, from top: Columbia, via Everett Collection; Warner Bros. Pictures, via Everett Collection; Alamy. Opposite: A24. though they remain friends, and Yeoh is god- a Geisha’’ (2005). Asians,’’ a future mother-in-law bound by cus- mother to Poon’s daughter. tom and propriety, whose rigidity masks her ‘‘Crazy Rich Asians’’ (2018). own struggle with what’s expected of her. After the divorce, Yeoh was surprised to find that she was still in demand after several years ‘‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Yeoh continued to tell her characters’ stories away from the industry, and she leapt back into Ten Rings’’ (2021). through their physicality: There’s a hint of the acting with renewed purpose. In 1992, she starred grandmaster in the grace with which Mameha, alongside Jackie Chan in the internationally dis- hopeful thinking. All that effort comes up.’’ After the geisha, closes her umbrella, and in the matri- tributed ‘‘Supercop’’ — a milestone in the main- watching, he had to go off and cry for about 15 arch Eleanor Young’s perfect posture. But in the streaming of the martial-arts film in the West minutes. ‘‘In Chinese we call it xiang you xin more psychologically focused world of West- — followed by major roles in nearly a dozen other sheng — your countenance, when the way you ern drama, she could delve into her characters’ action-heavy titles. By the end of the decade, look comes from the heart.’’ psyches at an even deeper level, exploring the Yeoh had mastered Hong Kong cinema, in which complex ramifications of their self-restraint. quickness and precision blend with flashy, play- ‘‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’’ led to Yeoh won high acclaim for these performances, ful daring. But it was ‘‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden a new set of internationally minded dramatic with the critic A. O. Scott calling her ‘‘one of the Dragon’’ that made her a superstar. In it, she had roles, in which Yeoh tended to embody beau- great international movie stars of the past quar- to achieve an ethereal, almost immaterial quality tiful, polished women. She played the large- ter-century.’’ But bending her deeply ingrained very different from the rough-and-tumble chor- hearted elite geisha Mameha in ‘‘Memoirs of poise into a more ungainly, everyday shape — eography of street fighting. Yeoh trades intricate a Geisha’’; the now-fallen Burmese leader Daw while continuing to kick ass — may be Yeoh’s volleys of strikes and blocks, at one point even Aung San Suu Kyi in Luc Besson’s biopic ‘‘The most complicated assignment yet. running down and across a vertical courtyard Lady’’; a mystical warrior master in Marvel’s wall in pursuit of her masked opponent. She ‘‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’’; THE FLUSTERED, DISHEVELED, curmudgeonly does all this with an unfurrowed brow, giving heroine of ‘‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’’ the impression of a fighter immersed in a battle would seem to bear little resemblance to the so demanding that it consumes her every move- practiced martial artist from ‘‘Supercop’’ who ment, with nothing left over for theatrics — of a can knock out two bad guys at once with a sin- person who has sublimated her body into pure, gle airborne split-kick. But Daniel Scheinert and almost transcendent gesture. Daniel Kwan (the directing duo best known for their feature from 2016, ‘‘Swiss Army Man’’) wrote Yeoh helped to animate Lee’s vision of a the part of Evelyn exclusively for her — in the graceful, aestheticized, classical kung fu, but earliest version of the script, the lead character the production was a much greater challenge was even named Michelle. ‘‘Our producers were for her than it may appear onscreen. Neither like, What do we do with it if Michelle can’t do it?’’ Yeoh nor her co-star Chow Yun-Fat spoke Man- Kwan told me over the phone. ‘‘And we were like, darin fluently, and both, she recalls, had to learn I don’t know — maybe make a different movie?’’ the complex lines, written in a historical style, Scheinert, also on the call, jumped in: ‘‘Yeah, who phonetically. Nor was Yeoh practiced in the else can do the action? Who can nail the drama? traditional martial-arts style used in the film, There’s no one else who does what she has done combining influences from Peking Opera and and has that history and that experience. And acrobatics. Early into shooting, she tore a knee that being said, even still, she surprised us.’’ Yeoh ligament while filming the pivotal courtyard was open to the wide-ranging role and enthusi- scene. She had one shot remaining in the scene, astically supported the movie after signing on; in which she was supposed to be running toward later, the Daniels learned that she had been very the camera at high speed — so they placed her in unsure, early on, about some of the crazier parts a wheelbarrow and pushed her toward the cam- (the hot dog hands, for example), but that their era, filming her from the waist up as she churned confidence had persuaded her. her arms furiously. Then she left for surgery and was off set for weeks as she recovered. ‘‘It was ‘‘She’s the queen of martial-arts movies,’’ says Ke really tough,’’ Lee told me over the phone. ‘‘That Huy Quan, Yeoh’s co-star in the film. A former child was supposed to be her strength.’’ star who appeared in ‘‘The Goonies’’ and ‘‘Indi- ana Jones and the Temple of Doom,’’ Quan retired When Yeoh was able to walk, she returned and from acting for more than 20 years, working as an shot her remaining scenes while wearing a brace. action choreographer behind the scenes, before But when it came time for the film’s emotional climax, with her character saying goodbye to her poisoned beloved, cradling him in her arms, she nailed it. ‘‘I knew those were real tears,’’ Lee remembered. ‘‘A lot of pressures gushing out, months of repression, and perhaps a lifetime of 26 3.20.22

returning to the screen just recently. Having once what drew her to ‘‘Everything Everywhere All for the celebration of young, muscular, male bod- watched Yeoh act alongside other legends of Hong at Once’’ is that she wanted to tell more stories ies. We feel her exhaustion in her shuffling gait, but Kong cinema, he found himself looking to her for about people the audience could feel for. also the thrill of that same body spinning sharply guidance as they filmed. ‘‘And she is just this amaz- to block a strike. ‘‘There’s a calcification that takes ing, generous, very giving, very patient person.’’ What’s especially startling is the vulnerability place as we get older,’’ Jamie Lee Curtis says, ‘‘and Yeoh brings to off-kilter action sequences, with I mean literally, you get your bones, your arthritis It was rigorous, nonstop work, filmed large- characters unused to combat. When Evelyn tries — it’s all calcification, all hardening. The hardening ly in an office building in California’s Simi Val- to fight for the first time, in the I.R.S. office, she has of the arteries, the heart.’’ Ideas, too, can harden ley, leaving little time to rehearse. Yeoh had to no special abilities: She punches a nemesis, and — ‘‘binary, rigid, calcified imprints of our parents improvise, testing out various approaches in real her fist crumples; she pulls her hand back and cra- and our ancestors’’ — she continues. ‘‘Our jobs as time. Embodying Evelyn also meant shedding a dles it against her chest. But when, at last, she suc- human beings is to break free of them and create certain amount of hard-earned expertise. Back ceeds in employing a high-tech earpiece that lets new ideas, and the Daniels, through the brilliance at the Paris suite’s dining room, Yeoh stood as her channel the martial-artist version of Evelyn, of Michelle Yeoh, have done so.’’ she told me about figuring out how her charac- she is flooded with expertise. She turns toward ter might inhabit her body — a slightly stooped the fight, her eyes expressing bewilderment but ASSHEHAS grown older, Yeoh has given up doing shuffle with her hands held low but not hang- her body demonstrating honed skill. Her fingers some of the stunts that she blithely attempted ing. From that off-kilter center of gravity came extend toward the camera in an open-palmed, when she was still proving herself — and when Evelyn’s way of scolding, fighting, even dancing: defensive position, their tips trembling. Having she watches her early films, she thinks of all that index fingers up, poking lightly at the air. Yeoh put previously turned movement into an ideal, almost could have gone wrong. ‘‘We knew that we could her hands up in tight little fists, the wrists bent at abstract form, Yeoh is now bringing it back to the do it, and we did it,’’ she said. ‘‘I swear, sometimes an amateur’s angle. She had to relearn to fight in specific — a particular aging, female, Asian body I look at a movie and go: Oh, my God. What the a way that showed Evelyn’s body language and housing a human being with complex emotions. hell was I thinking then?’’ At one point, I asked inexperience, she told me. At first, she said, the whether she still remembered how to fight with Daniels kept telling her: ‘‘Don’t do it too well. The effect is liberating, cathartic; it feels the ancient weapons she used in ‘‘Crouching That’s looking too good!’’ as if Yeoh, this Swiss Army knife of actors, has Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’’ and she got to her feet and unleashed in herself the ability to inhabit each of began lunging, thrusting an imaginary weapon. In one sense, the character was familiar to her diverse modes of performance simultaneously The key when mastering a new one, she said, is Yeoh. ‘‘If I go into Chinatown or whatever, you — to be everything all at once — as she stakes claim to spend time before the scene carrying it around see these housewives or mothers who are there,’’ over a space that has traditionally been designated everywhere, moving it constantly, making it an she said, ‘‘who are so frazzled because they’re extension of your body. Wielding the pizzeria trying to keep the family, and all they do is go and advertising sign she used for one of Evelyn’s alter- do the shopping, the grocery shopping, then they nate lives as a sign-spinner, for example, was ‘‘a have to go home and clean.’’ After Yeoh played little bit like using a spear, except it’s wider.’’ the matriarch in ‘‘Crazy Rich Asians,’’ people told her that her performance helped them better She had me follow her to the bathroom, where understand their own mothers-in-law; part of she did several pull-ups while gripping the overhanging edge of a marble doorway, transi- Yeoh in ‘‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’’ (2022), tioned to an ethereal sequence of tai-chi-inspired a starring role written exclusively for her. motions she learned for ‘‘Shang-Chi’’ and then moved into a series of deep squats while miming brushing her teeth in the bathroom’s mirror. The routine was a little bit daffy — a wuxia grandmaster with a hint of Lucille Ball. It was also strikingly original, a spontaneous yet fluid choreography that turned the surfaces of this fancy hotel room into a jungle gym. It showed how Yeoh’s body has stored all the different forms of expertise that it has absorbed, all the injuries and victories, and metabolized them into deep bodily wisdom. As she spoke, she casually execut- ed a famous kick that I had seen her do countless times to knock out someone directly behind her — flinging her leg up until it was completely vertical. She repeated it again and again, switching from one leg to the other, until it seemed more like an ecstatic dance, light and free and frictionless. The New York Times Magazine 27

WHERE DOES AMERICAN DEMOCRACY GO FROM HERE? SIX EXPERTS DISCUSS HOW WORRIED WE SHOULD BE ABOUT ITS FUTURE. A ROUND TABLE MODERATED BY CHARLES HOMANS ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO DELCAN 28



THE PANELISTS Early last year, Freedom House, an American organization 1 An outside spending that since World War II has warned against autocracy and group started by a band Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard repression on the march around the world, issued a special of prominent Trump- Candler Professor of African American report on a country that had not usually warranted such atten- dissenting Republican Studies at Emory University. She tion: its own. Noting that the United States had slid down its activists during is the author of ‘‘One Person, No Vote: ranking of countries by political rights and civil liberties — it the lead-up to Trump’s How Voter Suppression Is Destroying is now 59th on Freedom House’s list, slightly below Argentina first impeachment, Our Democracy.’’ and Mongolia — the report warned that the country faced ‘‘an Republicans for the Rule acute crisis for democracy.’’ In November, the International of Law aired ads urging Benjamin Ginsberg practiced election Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an influential congressional Republicans law for 38 years, representing Stockholm-based think tank, followed suit, adding the United to ‘‘demand the facts’’ Republican candidates, elected officials States to its list of ‘‘backsliding democracies’’ for the first time. about Trump’s efforts and party committees. He is co-chair to pressure President of the Election Officials Legal Defense The impetus for these reassessments was Donald Trump’s Volodymyr Zelensky of Network, a distinguished visiting attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6 Ukraine to investigate Joe fellow at the Hoover Institution and a attack on the Capitol that followed. But as the reassessments Biden’s son Hunter. lecturer at Stanford Law School. themselves noted, those shocks to the system hardly came out of nowhere; like the Trump presidency itself, they were both 2 Scott, a Republican Sherrilyn Ifill will step down this products and accelerants of a process of American democrat- senator from South month after nearly a decade as ic erosion and disunion that had been underway for years and Carolina, was asked by president and director-counsel of the has continued since. In states across the country, Republican Fox News in February if N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund. candidates are running for office on the platform that the 2020 he would consider joining election was stolen — a view held by about three-quarters of Trump’s 2024 ticket. Steven Levitsky is professor of Republican voters. Since the beginning of 2021, Republicans ‘‘Everybody wants to be government and director of the David in at least 25 state legislatures have tried, albeit mostly unsuc- on President Trump’s Rockefeller Center for Latin American cessfully, to pass legislation directly targeting the election bandwagon, without any Studies at Harvard University. He system: bills that would place election oversight or certifica- question,’’ he replied. is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of tion in the hands of partisan legislatures, for instance, and ‘‘How Democracies Die.’’ in some cases even bills specifically punishing officials who 3 During the Obama blocked attempts to overturn the 2020 election outcome in presidency, the N.A.A.C.P. Sarah Longwell is a founder of Trump’s favor. And those are just the new developments, and other organizations Defending Democracy Together and happening against a backdrop of a decade-long erosion of sued to block new executive director of the Republican voting rights and a steady resurgence of political extremism voter-ID laws in Texas and Accountability Project. She is and violence, and of course a world newly at war over the Alabama on the grounds also the publisher of The Bulwark. principles of self-determination and democracy. that they deliberately discriminated against Lilliana Mason is an associate professor How bad is it, really? We convened a panel of experts in an Black and Latino voters. of political science at Johns Hopkins attempt to answer that question: political scientists who have The Alabama law University and the SNF Agora Institute. studied the lurching advances and retreats of democracy in was upheld, but in Texas She is the author of ‘‘Uncivil Agreement: other countries and the dynamics of American partisanship; a federal court sided How Politics Became Our Identity.’’ a historian of and activist for civil rights in the United States; with the N.A.A.C.P., and Republican legal and political operatives who guided the and the state wrote a This discussion has been edited party to victories in the past and are now trying to understand replacement bill. and condensed for clarity, with material its current state. added from follow-up interviews. 4 ‘‘Preclearance’’ required Charles Homans: Steven, when you and Daniel Ziblatt pub- states with documented 30 3.20.22 lished ‘‘How Democracies Die’’ in 2018, you considered the histories of discriminatory possible futures ahead of us as a country after Donald Trump’s voting procedures — presidency. And you concluded that the likeliest scenario was most of them former maybe not the worst outcome — full-blown authoritarianism Jim Crow states in — but a moderately grim one: an era ‘‘marked by polariza- the South — to submit tion, more departures from unwritten political conventions any proposed and increasing institutional warfare.’’ How do you think that changes to their election prediction holds up? procedures to the Steven Levitsky: I think it was broadly right. Trump didn’t Department of Justice. consolidate an autocracy. But things got a lot worse more quickly than we expected. Even though our book was con- sidered a little on the alarmist side when it was published, I think we were insufficiently alarmed. We did not anticipate the rapid and thoroughgoing Trumpization of the Republican Party. We did not consider the Republican Party to be an antidemocratic force when we wrote the book in 2017. Today I consider the Republican Party to be an antidemocratic force. That’s a big change. We thought that there were elements in the party capable of

constraining Trump four years ago. We were wrong. And we treated as a race issue and not a democracy issue, when if 5 In addition to the never anticipated anything remotely like the attempted pres- we saw them in any other country, we would recognize them Texas voter-ID case, idential coup of 2021. as indicators of something being wrong with a democracy. civil rights organizations Sarah Longwell: I agree. When I co-founded Republicans for Carol Anderson: With Obama, there was this narrative: ‘‘Woo, sued North Carolina the Rule of Law1 in 2018, I looked at Trump’s victory in 2016 we have crossed the racial Rubicon! We have overcome! We over the Republican- and thought, OK, this is an accident of history. I would have put a Black man in the White House!’’ Without looking at the led Legislature’s 2013 told you that Trump is a cancer on the party, but if you cut data that shows that a majority of white people did not vote omnibus elections bill, him out, you know, there’s enough institutional memory that for Barack Obama and that they have not voted for a Dem- which imposed strict the party will bounce back. But Trump metastasized, right? He ocratic candidate for president since 1964, the year Lyndon voter-ID requirements, reconstituted much of the party in his image. In 2022, there Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. restricted early voting are hundreds of mini-Trumps running for office. Ifill: Our democracy was in terrible trouble when we had and eliminated same-day a Black president and a Black attorney general, and there voter registration — That Jan. 6 happened isn’t the most surprising part. What was this thin veneer that we were moving in one direction. measures that a panel is most alarming is that Trump wasn’t held accountable for I remember at the time being in a meeting with President of federal judges, it, and that the party has decided today that, even after he Obama and saying: ‘‘Let me explain to you what is happening in overturning the law, incited an insurrection, he should still be the leader of the in Texas. Let me explain to you what’s happening in Ala- ruled targeted party. People like Tim Scott — people that you might have bama.’’3 After the Supreme Court decided the Shelby County Black voters ‘‘with almost said, ‘‘These are the good, reasonable, post-Trump Republi- v. Holder case, which removed the preclearance provision, a surgical precision.’’ cans,’’ the people I counted on to constrain him — are now critical provision from the Voting Rights Act,4 there was this happy to be considered for his vice-presidential candidate wave of voter-suppression laws that were happening around 6 After Joe Manchin, and to endorse him for 2024.2 the country with very explicit statements from Republican the Democratic senator Homans: I want to back up a second and question the implicit leaders of those states, saying, ‘‘We’re free and clear now.’’ from West Virginia, premise of my own first question here, which is that this con- announced that he would versation necessarily begins with Trump. Sherrilyn, you’ve The Legal Defense Fund and other civil rights organiza- not support changes to argued that we should have seen the warning signs for Amer- tions were litigating cases in 2014 in Texas and North Caroli- the filibuster that would ican democracy years earlier. na. And in both of those cases, you had courts saying that the allow Senate Democrats Sherrilyn Ifill: I think that it’s really important for us not to legislatures had passed these laws for the purpose of discrim- to pass the For the begin with Trump. I have repeatedly described Trump as inating against Black voters.5 That’s kind of a big deal. That People Act with a simple an accelerant. But he was able to accelerate something that sounds to me like a democracy problem. That is a problem majority, he and a group already existed. One of the issues that I’ve been most frus- that existed before Trump. of other Democratic trated by is the failure of so many of those who really study Homans: In the past year, there have been many more senators spent much of democracy, and who see themselves as people who are com- state-level Republican legislative efforts to pass laws on vot- last summer drafting mitted to democracy and democratic ideals, to see the signs ing in the vein of the 2013 and 2014 laws you mentioned, the Freedom to Vote that were quite apparent long before Trump came into office. and also more novel legislation directly targeting the elec- Act, a bill that offered Things like voter suppression against Black voters, or police tion system — though very few of those bills actually passed. a narrower range officers killing unarmed Black people with impunity, were Congressional Democrats spent a lot of last year trying to of voting rights reforms respond to all this legislatively. Their first move was the For and more safeguards the People Act: a sweeping bill that Democrats passed in the against state-level efforts House (though not in the Senate) in 2019. It mostly addressed to establish partisan longstanding Democratic priorities regarding voting rights, control over election gerrymandering and campaign-finance reform, not the new systems. At the same election-related concerns, and it ran into total Republican time, Senate Democrats opposition and the unwillingness of some Senate Democrats tried to advance the to scrap the filibuster to pass it. After that, Democrats intro- John Lewis Voting Rights duced narrower bills like the Freedom to Vote Act and the Advancement Act, a John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, but so far they much narrower bill that have run aground on the same obstacles.6 Now we finally would have reworked have a small, bipartisan group of senators exploring whether and restored some it would be possible to at least fix holes in the Electoral Count provisions of the Voting Act, an archaic and confusing 19th-century law that Trump Rights Act, including tried to use to overturn the election in 2020. preclearance, that were struck down by Did the Democrats blow what might have been their one Shelby v. Holder. Both chance to avert a future constitutional crisis by making it, bills were blocked by Republican filibusters. Illustration by Pablo Delcan The New York Times Magazine 31

7 Since it was passed in effect, about the whole fight over voting — which is to changes in a way Republicans could embrace as not tar- in 1965, the Voting say, over race — in America? Or were the Republicans never geted at them and designed to give Democrats an electoral Rights Act has been going to go along with this anyway? advantage.8 Democrats made the Voting Rights Act part and reauthorized five Benjamin Ginsberg: The elections bills the Democrats pro- parcel of a partisan bill that was never designed to win any times, in all cases posed included the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, Republican support. during Republican which had historically gotten significant Republican support.7 Ifill: I did work on the bill, and there was a lot of attention presidencies and twice For whatever reason, the Democrats layered their propos- to making sure the bill was in fact not targeted at any par- when Republicans al extending the Voting Rights Act into a massive bill with ticular state. I think the truth is, having been freed from the held a majority in the numerous provisions that, from a Republican perspective, preclearance provisions, why would you want to now be back Senate. The most recent were all designed to gain them partisan advantage: taking under them if not being under them is working for you and reauthorization, a 25- redistricting away from legislatures by mandating commis- your party? I was in a meeting with about 13 Republicans year extension passed in sions, after failing to flip any state legislative chambers despite talking about these bills last summer, and I remember one 2006, was unanimously spending many millions of dollars; public funding from the Republican senator said: ‘‘Well, we’ve never been covered by approved by Senate U.S. Treasury for political candidates; endorsing statehood the Voting Rights Act. So why would we agree to a bill with Republicans and signed for the heavily Democratic District of Columbia to offset the nationwide coverage that would now suddenly cover us? Why into law by President party’s decline in rural states; changing the makeup of the would I impose on my constituents something that they’ve George W. Bush. Federal Election Commission; and trying to create a one-size- never had to comply with before?’’ fits-all set of voting rules in all 50 states. Including this political 8 Of the 15 states that wish list with the Voting Rights Act provisions was a political I think we in this country tend to think of civil rights legis- before 2013 required miscalculation and a huge disservice to the Voting Rights Act. lation as being about advancing the fortunes or the power of preclearance, it is By making it all such a partisan power play, Democrats poi- particular groups of people and not as pro-democracy legis- estimated that the act soned the well for Republican support, which meant they also lation. I started out as a civil rights lawyer in 1988, and one of would have released couldn’t win over Democratic senators who did not believe the lawsuits I was involved in was a voting rights case against seven: Arizona, California, the filibuster should be broken to pass a partisan bill. then-Gov. Bill Clinton. The first case that I put together myself Michigan and New York, Ifill: Ben is right that the Voting Rights Act had long been a that went up to the Supreme Court, the person who argued which voted for Biden in bipartisan bill and had received overwhelming Republican it with us for the Justice Department was the then-solicitor 2020, and Alaska, Florida support of each reauthorization. But the John Lewis Voting general, Ken Starr. So this is something of a new phenomenon, and South Dakota, Rights Advancement Act was a proposed amendment to the where it’s impossible for Republicans to imagine that they which voted for Trump. Voting Rights Act that was decoupled from the other provi- have something to gain in a piece of legislation that is really Among the states sions that Ben talked about, which, I agree, were much more pro-democracy legislation, because what they’re counting on with continued or likely to draw partisan resistance. But the only Republican is whether it would disadvantage them in the next election. expanded preclearance senator willing to vote for just moving that bill to debate was That’s not how Republicans voted in 2006, when the Senate requirements, six were Lisa Murkowski. Just one. voted 98 to 0 to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. Trump states and Ginsberg: But I think there were reasons for that. The John Lilliana Mason: The important thing is to remember that two were Biden states. Lewis act did not fix the coverage formula of which juris- the parties are not static objects. They have been changing dictions would be subject to preclearance of their voting consistently and gradually in a single direction since the 9 In his influential civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Republicans and Dem- 2008 book ‘‘The ocrats had to work together to pass that legislation, but the Big Sort,’’ the journalist legislation itself was a signal to Southern white conservative Bill Bishop described Democrats that this was maybe not their party anymore. the increasing But because partisanship is such a strong identity, it took self-segregation of a generation for those people to not just leave the Dem- Americans, with people ocratic Party but join the Republican Party. That process of similar religious happened so gradually that it was sort of hard to see for a and political views lot of people. What Trump did was to come in and basically and education levels solidify that trend. growing more geographically For a recent article, I worked with co-authors to look at concentrated since data from interviews conducted with people in 2011 and then the 1970s. again in 2016, 2017, 2018. You can predict who’s going to like Trump in 2018 based on their attitudes in 2011 toward Afri- can Americans, Latinos, L.G.B.T.Q. Americans and Muslims. And those are people coming not just from the Republican Party; they’re also coming from the Democratic Party, they’re independents. Trump basically worked as a lightning rod to finalize that process of creating the Republican Party as a single entity for defending the high status of white, Christian, rural Americans. 32 3.20.22

It’s not a huge percentage of Americans that holds these profession, and how much it has been part of this. We have beliefs, and it’s not even the entire Republican Party; it’s just to be looking at our professions, we have to be looking at the about half of it. But the party itself is controlled by this intol- faith community, we have to be looking at our educational erant, very strongly pro-Trump faction. Because we have a system. All of those are elements of what is going to decide two-party system, we effectively empowered 20 to 30 percent the future of American democracy. of the country that is extremely intolerant and doesn’t really Levitsky: I take your point, Sherrilyn, but I think there is a believe in democracy; we’ve given them a whole political party. difference. I think that for all the many weaknesses of other And the last time we did that was really around the Civil War. institutions, there is nothing within the judiciary, the media Homans: Sarah, I’m curious how that squares with your and the professions comparable to what is going on in the experience. You’ve spent the past several years working in Republican Party. various organizations to mobilize opposition to this faction Ifill: I agree with you, but I don’t think it’s possible to imag- within the Republican Party, but you’ve also been regularly ine creating a healthy democracy just by politically over- conducting focus groups to explore why Trump has elicited coming one party without also addressing the weakening so much support within that party. of the other institutions that are supposed to constitute a Longwell: I still try to really remain optimistic about the check on the excesses of political parties. How would it have goodness and the decency of a lot of Americans and of parts happened without the excesses in our media, the 24-hour of the Republican Party. I have to. I mean, the old Republican megaphone of Fox News and One America News Network? Party did support the Voting Rights Act. But there was this How would it have happened without these other unravel- recessive gene in the party that went through the Pat Buchan- ings that actually aided and abetted it, without the judicia- ans and Sarah Palins. The party would say, ‘‘Palin can have the ry itself ? Without the disinformation that social media has vice presidency’’ — like, she’ll be a nationalist-populist type, allowed on those platforms? and that’s going to sate this recessive gene. And of course, Levitsky: But it’s entirely possible to polarize and break down Trump turned it into the dominant gene. without social media, right? We did it in the 1850s and 1860s. The Chileans managed to do it in the 1970s; the Spanish did But I don’t want to let Democrats off the hook entirely here. it in the 1930s. And cable media exists in democracies across You know, when I started doing the focus groups, I would the world today, and only our Republican Party is going over ask G.O.P. voters who really didn’t like Trump why they voted the railing. I’m not saying the media is performing well, but I for him. And the No. 1 answer you would get was: ‘‘I didn’t think that the central problem is the Republican Party. vote for Donald Trump. I voted against Hillary Clinton.’’ A lot Ginsberg: If it’s the Republican Party’s fault and the Republi- of that is the longstanding hatred Republicans have for the can Party’s fault alone, what’s the solution? What can you do Clintons and probably a bit of sexism as well. But there is also about it? You have to recognize that the Democratic brand is a reaction to a Democratic Party that is moving left and has a as toxic in rural America as the Trump brand is in the salons more difficult time appealing to swing voters. It is increasing of Manhattan and Northwest D.C. There are lots of solutions negative polarization: I hate their side more than I like my being proposed, but they’re being discussed only by people side. And the cultural-war stuff is so much of it now. Whether who agree with one another. I mean, there’s nobody in this it’s critical race theory, defund the police or the fight over conversation, with the possible exception of Sarah, who has using pronouns, Democrats often sound like aliens to many the ability to impact the Republican Party at this point. The voters — including Black and Latino voters. Republicans have country is so divided that the red team and the blue team are been increasing their support among minorities, because not talking to each other, and the dismissal of one side by the often these groups are more culturally conservative in ways other is not going to solve the problem. that wedge them off from the current Democratic Party. Ifill: We’re only talking about political parties. And in my And this divide goes beyond the political. There’s a much view, that’s part of the problem, because a democracy has more fundamental and basic shift that has taken place in the many, many elements that hold it together. You need a func- country over the last 50 years, and that’s the ‘‘Big Sort’’ that tioning fourth estate. You need transparency, you need good Bill Bishop has described.9 We now have a country where information, you need education, you need the professions. people are more and more wanting to live with people like I mean, I’ve been on this tear about my profession, the legal themselves. Now, that certainly has an impact in our politics, but it’s not being driven by our politics. It’s being driven by Illustration by Pablo Delcan something deeper. Homans: Lily, one detail that I found fascinating in your book ‘‘Uncivil Agreement’’ is that according to survey data, since 2008 partisan enmity has increased much more rapidly than disagreement over the parties’ policy positions, which hasn’t changed that dramatically since the late 1980s. At this point, our arguments are not primarily about what the parties stand for but whom they stand for. Mason: The word ‘‘identity’’ keeps coming up, and this is a really crucial part of it. And remember that we have research about intergroup conflict, right? Don’t look at this as, like, a logical disagreement situation. We’re not disagreeing on what kind of tax structure we should have. We’re not just disagree- ing about the role of the federal government in American society. What we’re disagreeing about is increasingly the basic status differences between groups of (Continued on Page 47) The New York Times Magazine 33

THE WAR FasOidReTfHorEaRnAisIoNlaFtOedREInSdTigtehneoBursagzriloiaunp,preserve Ituna-Itatá has now Set been heavily deforested

— a grim illustration of the intractable forces destroying the Amazon. Photographs by João Castellano By William Langewiesche 35

On a sweltering afternoon in the wilds of the Brazilian Amazon, Edward Luz rode on the back of a motorbike into a forest clearing to confront a squad of the legality of the policing taking place there. Luz was visibly angry. He raised his smartphone to combat-armed environmental police who, for was raised in the Amazon by evangelical Brazilian record the encounter. The video began with him their own safety, had helicoptered in. Luz is missionaries, affiliates of a Florida-based group booming, ‘‘. . . the rights of my clients!’’ A small an anthropologist, a tall, powerfully built man called the New Tribes Mission, whose beliefs he group of settlers who arrived with him watched of 43. He is a right-wing activist and, figura- abandoned as a young man when he set off on from nearby. They did not appear on camera. tively speaking, a hired gun. On that February a vaguely Marxist college career. That career The commander said, ‘‘Sir, do you work for the afternoon in 2020, he wore tinted prescription stopped short of a Ph.D. when Luz decided to Environment Ministry?’’ sunglasses, a bushy beard and a radical haircut throw it all over and set himself up as a consultant close-cropped on the sides. He did not have for the diametrically opposed camp promoting Luz answered: ‘‘I am the anthropologist access to a helicopter. To get to the clearing, commercial interests in the region and arguing Edward Luz! I am here to enforce the ministeri- he traveled for eight hours by a ferry crossing against the idea of exceptional Indigenous rights. al order of Minister Ricardo Salles, whom I met and down muddy tracks from Altamira, a small Recently he had acquired a measure of fame by last Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020, at 14:26 in the fourth city in the state of Pará on the far side of the wide lending his energies to some of the most visible chamber of the Federal Public Ministry, where it brown Xingu river. forces shaping the Amazon today — not as we was agreed that no property of a population in a might wish them to be, but as they have evolved. situation of fragility will be destroyed.’’ The clearing contained a corral, a shed and Renowned anthropologists at Brazilian univer- a makeshift shack. It was an illegal homestead sities and government officials accused him of At the time, Salles was Brazil’s minister of the carved by settlers out of a 550-square-mile harboring hidden agendas toward Indigenous environment — a youthful-looking man in pale Indigenous reserve that is meant to be invio- peoples, a charge that Luz disputes. Some critics glasses who is seen to represent the far right late. The environmental police intended to expel feared him, though more because of the compa- of the rural upper classes and who, at a cabi- the settlers by burning their structures, as they ny he keeps than of any evidence that he might net meeting several months later, was recorded had burned more than 200 similar constructs resort to violence. recommending taking advantage of the media’s over the previous few weeks. The reserve is focus on the pandemic to ‘‘streamline’’ the Ama- called Ituna-Itatá after two small rivers there. The police he confronted in the clearing zon’s protections. Nominally, IBAMA worked It was established in 2011 for the protection of an were not of the sort to be pushed around. They under his direction. Luz continued to rant. Along isolated Indigenous group that has never been belonged to a federal agency called IBAMA (Insti- with two ultraright politicians, he had indeed met contacted by outsiders or fully confirmed to tuto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente), which was with Salles. Extrapolating from the meeting, he exist. Despite the reserve’s special status, it has formed in 1989 not to protect Indigenous groups said to the commander: ‘‘Was I clear? If any prop- become among the most invaded Indigenous but to enforce environmental laws, particularly erty here is destroyed, you are responsible and territories in all of Brazil since the election of those meant to counter deforestation in the Ama- will answer criminally!’’ the pro-development, anti-regulatory president, zon. The agency is famously despised by Bolsona- Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018 — a poster board for the ro, who as a junior legislator, after being ticketed The commander said: ‘‘So I am being clear Amazon’s eventual demise. for fishing in a marine reserve, proposed a bill with you. If you do not withdraw from this terri- prohibiting field agents from carrying weapons tory now, you will be arrested for invading Indig- The creation of Indigenous reserves is meant — a tantrum, even as a suggestion, that in the enous lands.’’ to serve a dual purpose: slowing deforestation context of a hostile environment some agents through broad restrictions on extractive activ- regarded as posing immediate lethal threats to Luz said, ‘‘Look, we have a problem with inter- ities (logging, ranching, farming, mining) while them. Such is the hostility toward IBAMA in the pretation here.’’ simultaneously protecting Indigenous cultures. Amazon, agents told me, that the enforcement The arrangement’s advantages may seem obvi- teams rotate through Altamira for only a few The commander said: ‘‘No, no, there’s no prob- ous from a distance, but they are ignored by weeks at a time. While there, they are tracked lem. What is your name?’’ large numbers of Amazonian pioneers whose by networks of informants and spies so dense main concerns do not include cultural diversity that even when carrying out raids by helicopter, ‘‘I am the anthropologist Edward Luz!’’ or the preservation of nature. These are Bolsona- they rarely achieve surprise. ‘‘So. You, sir, are inside Indigenous land.’’ ro’s people. Those who live in the forests endure ‘‘Right!’’ hardscrabble lives as wildcat miners, loggers and On the afternoon in question, Luz knew just ‘‘I’m ordering you to leave.’’ subsistence farmers. Ample documentary evi- where to find them. He got off the motorbike and ‘‘Under whose authorization?’’ dence exists that many in Ituna-Itatá also work strode toward an agent standing guard. The agent ‘‘If you don’t leave now, you will be arrested.’’ as agents of speculative land-grabbing schemes brought him up short at rifle point. Luz raised ‘‘No! Please, what is your document? Please and related forms of criminal enterprise. his hands. The commander, a tightly wound man show me the arrest warrant!’’ with a compressed smile, came up to confront ‘‘You are in flagrante delicto, sir.’’ In Ituna-Itatá, Luz was hired by a local associ- him. Close behind the commander came anoth- Luz said: ‘‘You are a public servant of IBAMA! ation of settlers to challenge the claim that the er agent, masked, cradling a weapon, while a You do not have that authority! I’m sorry.’’ territory was inhabited by an isolated tribe — and fourth agent, unmasked, stood to the side. Luz ‘‘OK, then, you are under arrest.’’ by extension, the legitimacy of the reserve and The agents closed on him hard. The video went shaky. As he fell, Luz could be heard say- ing: ‘‘I apologize! No, no! I apologize!’’ And also, ‘‘Keep filming!’’ 36 3.20.22

The Amazon forest is nearly the size of the Above: Edward Luz in the small settlement of Vila Mocotó. Deforestation in Ituna-Itatá. contiguous United States. It spreads into nine Opening pages: countries but lies mostly in Brazil. Within Bra- zil, a fifth of it has been set aside for the use one of the principal trans-Amazonian roads, a biodiversity — were already known. From the of Indigenous groups. Through a deliberative brutal 2,500-mile-plus east-west axis known vantage point of Ituna-Itatá, the land-grabbing process involving extensive cultural surveys, as BR-230, was largely built, passing about 100 was approaching inexorably upriver along the those lands have been divided among several miles to the north. It was unpaved for long Xingu, propelled by the economic boom that hundred reserves that collectively cover close to stretches and sometimes became impassible resulted from the construction near Altamira a half-million square miles, an expanse greater in the rainy season, but it ushered in a large of a large hydroelectric dam. The Asurini and than the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah new population of settlers who were devas- Kayapó Xikrin were protected by the reserves and Arizona combined. The largest reserves are tating the forests on an unprecedented scale. that FUNAI had staked out for them, but people the size of midsize European countries. There The consequences to the global environment from both groups continued to speak about fur- are more than 200 distinct Indigenous groups, — exacerbating global warming and reducing tive Indigenous peoples in the adjacent forests. the largest of which number more than 20,000 people, and the smallest in the hundreds. Alto- gether, according to a 2010 census, they number about 800,000 people, if ‘‘Indigenous’’ is narrow- ly defined. Among the hundreds of groups are at least 60 like the one believed by government agencies to exist within Ituna-Itatá: extreme- ly isolated or ‘‘uncontacted’’ bands that under Brazilian law are given special protections. The special status of such peoples, along with illegal land-grabbing and catastrophic deforestation, have made Ituna-Itatá a political flash point in the struggle between those who would preserve the Amazon and those who would exploit it. The number of isolated peoples in the Ama- zon is not known, but it is most likely in the low thousands. For lack of contact, those who are said to inhabit Ituna-Itatá have not been counted or named by the government. Indeed, if they exist, they are so furtive that they may not realize that they inhabit their own official pre- serve. Nonetheless, like all Indigenous groups in Brazil, they are overseen and aided (in this case from a careful distance) by a branch of the Ministry of Justice known as FUNAI (Fundação Nacional do Índio) that is roughly equivalent to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and is staffed by civil servants, some with a taste for adventure, but none to be confused with the hard-charging agents of IBAMA. FUNAI is the agency that created Ituna-Itatá. The reserve is wedged between two larger and older reserves whose people — the Kay- apó Xikrin to the southeast, the Asurini to the southwest — occupy established villages and are attuned to the modern world. As early as the 1960s, some among them mentioned that an unknown group might be living in the wild interfluvial forests where they sometimes hunt- ed. Though Brazil was still in the grip of a mil- itary regime at the time, it was beginning to move away from policies of forced assimilation and toward cultural accommodation. Nonethe- less, for decades afterward FUNAI did nothing largely because of the area’s isolation. It was assumed that if uncontacted people lived there, the immensity of the surrounding forests would provide them with natural protection. By the mid 2000s, however, the situation had changed. After three decades of national effort, Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 37

They told FUNAI that they had not interacted he himself has been threatened with death by the — rough-looking men and women who had with the strangers but saw footprints and other agents of land speculators and loggers. (Official assembled on a veranda for our arrival. Among clues to their existence. A neighboring home- spokespeople for FUNAI declined to speak on the them were people who claimed to be recently steader added to the information. He said he had record for this article.) At the time of his discover- displaced by IBAMA’s helicopter raids. They come upon ‘‘three brave Indians with long hair’’ ies in Ituna-Itatá, he was mostly concerned not to denounced their treatment and portrayed them- who fled from his presence. expose the unseen tribe to contact, including his selves as subsistence farmers trying to raise their own. That is the biggest challenge of the job, he families in a wholesome environment. I knew FUNAI has a division dedicated to maintain- said: the need to gather evidence while respect- that the IBAMA agents did not believe them, but ing the isolation of isolated groups. In 2009 it ing people’s desired isolation. After documenting those were the stories the residents told. On their dispatched agents from Altamira to look around. and photographing the signs, he retreated hast- smartphones, they showed me videos of what An Asurini hunter told them of having been sur- ily from Ituna-Itatá. He wrote up official reports they said were their homesteads being burned. rounded in the forest one night by unseen people that were closely held for the protection of the One scene was set to music. who hurled nuts at him and ran away. Another group and used to justify the continuation of the man spoke of having come upon a temporary reserve. Pohl has come to believe firmly in the A minister pulled up a chair for a formal inter- shelter. Eventually, the agents found footprints existence of the uncontacted people. He told me view. He said that even his church had been that, according to their Indigenous guides, were that after more than a decade, the fact that none destroyed. He mentioned that he had been on unattributable to neighboring peoples. It wasn’t have been spotted is evidence that, at least, ini- vacation at the time. I asked him if he intended much to go on, but protection of the obscure tially, the protective strategy worked. to rebuild. With an audience of parishioners in is the nature of the job, and when the agents attendance, he predicted that IBAMA would be returned to Altamira from their second foray, But now, as they invade, the settlers, loggers forced to retreat. I may have expressed some they filed a report suggesting the need for a and land speculators scoff openly at the protec- doubt. This was not the safest approach to take temporary reserve to create a haven until further tions. They say that the reserve was founded on in Mocotó at the time, and it seemed to anger information could be gathered. the wishful thinking of agenda-driven bureau- a small group of men who had been standing crats. They say that no Indigenous people reside together in the background. Others, however, The wheels turned slowly, but in 2011 FUNAI there now, and maybe never did, and that the were accepting and merely suggested that I seek provisionally set aside Ituna-Itatá for the group’s reserve is a put-up job by outside interests, most out a very smart man who could explain their protection. The area’s status would have to be likely foreign environmentalists or even, some- side: a certain anthropologist named Edward Luz. renewed every two to four years. The quest what illogically, the opposite: a gold-mining was then taken up by a newly arrived FUNAI company with plans for an open-pit quarry. With Luz had developed a local reputation for try- investigator named Luciano Pohl, who at 38 had the advent of Bolsonaro and his cabinet minis- ing to reduce the size of the Indigenous lands the strength to endure weeks in the jungle and ters, such views have gained the upper hand in belonging to another group, the Arara. Luz lost indeed to thrive on the experience. Accompa- the region. Under threat of violence, Pohl quit the argument against them, but the settlers in nied by a few FUNAI stalwarts and Indigenous FUNAI in November 2020 and in 2021 relocated Mocotó were impressed. He told me afterward hunters, he embarked on a series of extended his family to distant Manaus. that they said of him, ‘‘He’s not a leftist.’’ explorations of Ituna-Itatá, moving by pirogue and on foot and largely living off the land. On The settlers’ local base, meanwhile, has blos- So when IBAMA started burning buildings the assumption that uncontacted Indigenous somed. It is a ragged village called Vila Mocotó, in Ituna-Itatá, a member of the Mocotó settler’s peoples are intentionally so, and that any such which sprawls across denuded land several association contacted Luz at home in Santarém, group would be fleeing from the oncoming set- miles north of the reserve. Perhaps 1,000 peo- sending him a photograph of his brother’s tlers, Pohl and his companions pushed south- ple live there, in scattered wooden shacks and burned pickup truck. Luz drove to Altamira and ward into forests so remote that they were cinder-block houses. A single track leads to the challenged a senior IBAMA agent. According to unknown even to the guides. Pohl makes little settlement, several hours from the Altamira ferry Luz’s account, Luz said: ‘‘This is not Indian land. of it now, but the effort was extraordinary. Even- crossing, and is sometimes impassable in the It is just reserved for more studies. Why are you tually it led to the sort of evidence that Pohl was rainy season. Mocotó has electric power (recent- burning houses? Can you just hold off ? Can you looking for: saplings hacked by unusually dull ly brought in by the state of Pará), a diesel-fuel be more peaceful?’’ blades like those of handed-down machetes, depot, a cafe, a school, an automotive shop, sev- fragments of a temporary shelter — branches eral small grocery stores, an untold number of The agent, who prefers not to be named out bound with vines — and an area of crushed veg- pirated internet connections, a Facebook page of fear for his safety, remembers less-reasoned etation where people had bedded down. Some and at least two Assembly of God churches. Many wording. When Luz predicted that someone of the signs were fresh. It is possible that Pohl residents are armed and all, it seems, are angry. would die — meaning anyone would or could — was being watched at the time. More recently, Agents of FUNAI and IBAMA urged me to avoid the agent understood it as a threat. Luz went to in September 2020, a FUNAI colleague of his the place lest I be mistaken for an environmen- Brasília, where he met with Salles, then flew back named Rieli Franciscato was attacked while talist and assaulted. to Altamira and got himself arrested in Ituna-Itatá. tracking an isolated group that he was trying to protect from encroaching settlers in the It took me two weeks in Altamira to arrange On the afternoon of his arrest, Luz was hand- remote western state Rondônia. The group did for a safe visit. As it turned out, the gatekeep- cuffed, shuttled by IBAMA helicopter to Altamira not know that he was on its side. An unseen er was a man with a checkered past, known to and turned over to the police. Altamira is a vio- archer shot an arrow into Franciscato’s chest. have deployed gunmen against state officials. lent city. It is riddled with gangs and narcotics Franciscato said, ‘‘Ai!’’ yanked it out, staggered He praised Bolsonaro and posed for a picture and has at times had one of the highest mur- back and died. holding Donald Trump’s book ‘‘The Art of the der rates in the country. Gunfire can be heard Deal.’’ I did not argue with him. He made the most nights on the streets. Some of the police I asked Pohl if he had considered such risks necessary calls. After two forays, the first of which are themselves racketeers. Out by the airport when pushing so deeply into Ituna-Itatá. He said was defeated by door-high mud, I reached the stand the ruins of a small prison where in July yes, but pointed out that greater dangers exist settlement in heavy rain and, together with a Bra- 2019 five hours of gang fighting broke out that in Altamira, where FUNAI officials have been zilian colleague, met with a group of residents burned the facility and left around 60 inmates attacked for obstructing development, and where dead; 16 of them were decapitated. The guards looked on from watchtowers. Some prisoners recorded the battles on their mobile phones. As 38 3.20.22

Settlers in Mocotó meet with Edward Luz in 2020. best I know, none of the videos were set to music, appointment of Dias and was accompanied by named Erwin Kräutler, who is the author of but one of them included narration like that of various shady characters. Luz denies such char- ‘‘Indians and Ecology in Brazil’’ and lived under a sporting event. Altamira is that kind of place. acterizations of his companions but confirms the full-time police protection because of his advo- For the police there, Luz was just an annoyance. encounter. He and Pohl each say that on one of cacy for Indigenous rights. When I mentioned They booked him, then released him. those visits, he demanded copies of the original Luz to him, he frowned and asked if I knew that reports and that Pohl refused, saying that the luz means ‘‘light.’’ He said a better name for the But Luz was determined to maintain the reports were confidential for the safety of the iso- man would be Edward of Darkness. struggle. Twice — immediately before and after lated group. his arrest — he barged into the local offices of The father of Luz, FUNAI and announced that the new national Pohl is a man of obvious courage. Other staff Edward policy was to stop shielding uncontacted Indig- members in the office had been unnerved by the enous people and to usher them into the main- violence in Ituna-Itatá. Some sensed that they whose name is also Edward Luz, heads the Bra- stream of modern Brazilian life. This was false were being surveilled — an intuition that had to zilian offshoot of the New Tribes Mission today. and wishful thinking, but not beyond the imag- be taken seriously in those parts. When I asked The parent organization in the United States inable. Bolsonaro was in the process of naming Luz about this, he shrugged off their fear. Of his and its affiliates deploy about 3,000 missionaries an evangelical missionary named Ricardo Lopes visits to FUNAI, he said that he had proposed worldwide. It subsists on ample donations from Dias to lead FUNAI’s department for isolated a de-escalation to calm people down. But he evangelical churches throughout North America. peoples — Luciano Pohl’s bureau. Dias was an spread the video of his arrest through social In 2017 it changed its name to Ethnos 360, a few especially provocative choice. Previously he media from which it was picked up by national years after a child-abuse scandal in its boarding proselytized for the New Tribes Mission (Luz’s newscasts, where it sparked disapproving panel childhood group), and he was notorious for later discussions whose tone bolstered his credentials insistently intruding into the Javari Valley, an as a defender of impoverished settlers and a Indigenous territory near the Peruvian border consultant to the right-wing fringe. This seems that shelters one of the largest concentrations to have been his calculation. He became known of isolated groups in the world. as ‘‘that crazy anthropologist.’’ Before speaking to him, I went to see a retired Catholic bishop Pohl was in the FUNAI office during Luz’s vis- in Altamira, an eminent liberation theologist its. He told me that Luz gloated over the coming Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 39

Agents of IBAMA at the airport in Altamira. schools in Senegal and the Philippines. The group aircraft flew into another mountain — also at from overhead in the vicinity of two small rivers was founded in 1942 by a bright-eyed Califor- night, this time in Wyoming — again with a full in an inaccessible forest. They were so isolated nian named Paul Fleming. who as a young man loss of life. Fleming was one of those killed in that they barely needed a name for themselves, woke up one night in Los Angeles to find his the crash. According to the organization’s liter- Zo’é meaning ‘‘true human.’’ Previous fleeting mother kneeling beside his bed praying for his ature, upon impact the victims encountered the encounters showed that they wanted to be left salvation. It seems that the experience marked bright light of Christ. Over the decades since alone. The New Tribes Mission Brazil decided him. He became a missionary, shipped off to Fleming’s death, his followers have persisted to go after them. By 1985 the senior Edward British Malaya to save souls, caught malaria with this providential view of things. Publicly Luz had a built a station two days’ walk from and returned to California to heal. When sub- they have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic the Zo’é settlements. It included some wooden sequently he helped found the New Tribes by pausing their outreach. The same was true buildings and a dirt runway that allowed for Mission, it was to bring the Gospel to all the in Brazil, the elder Edward Luz emphasized to supply flights from Santarém. He called it Espe- world’s ‘‘unreached’’ peoples as he believed was me during a phone conversation. Another insid- rança, or ‘‘Hope.’’ required by the Bible to usher in Christ’s return. er told me confidentially, however, that many This remains the main purpose of the organi- within the group, anticipating the ‘‘end times,’’ I heard from his son that he saw himself as zation today. Even after the first missionaries privately rejoiced. progressive. He learned Indigenous languages. he sent out were murdered — stabbed to death He enjoyed Indigenous foods and appreciated in 1943 and buried in an Amazonian vegetable Into this mind-set, the younger Edward Luz Indigenous ways. He did not object to nudity garden — Fleming found the hand of God all was born in 1979 in the state of Goiás. His par- among Native peoples. He hoped to persuade around him. ents dedicated their marriage to evangelizing them someday to assume the burden of spread- Indigenous people. The family moved to San- ing the Gospel among themselves. Yet because By 1949 the New Tribes Mission had gathered tarém, a port on the south bank of the Amazon he could not accept the tribe’s isolation, he pro- sufficient funds to purchase its first aircraft: a River well situated for reaching isolated peo- voked its decline. This became obvious after 21-passenger DC-3, in which it began to shuttle ples. There were few restrictions on such activi- 1986 when the Zo’é stopped being shy. A band missionaries to South America. The following ties at the time. In 1982, word arrived of a bare- of them materialized at the mission station, year, the airplane wandered off course one ly known group called the Zo’é, who lived 200 planted a manioc garden and built an encamp- night and hit a mountain in the Andes, killing miles to the north of Santarém. They numbered ment nearby. The following year, the younger everyone aboard. Months later a replacement about 300 and inhabited settlements visible Edward Luz, the future anthropologist, arrived 40 3.20.22 Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times

for the first time. He was 7. He sat in the back vulnerability and a void. As part of a new nation- of inhabitants, including Luciano Pohl’s future of a single-engine Beechcraft looking down at al ‘‘integration’’ plan (‘‘Integrate not to forfeit!’’), guides, the Asurini and the Kayapó Xikrin. the uninterrupted forests below, wondering the generals resolved to conquer the wilds in what exception to the foliage might allow the imperial style, by building roads. In protest of the initiative, Kayapó from a airplane to land, and then, during the descent number of regions staged a media spectacle. into Esperança, with trees flashing by the wing- At the top of the plan was the Trans-Amazoni- Known as the Altamira Gathering, the event tips, wondering how the airplane could survive an Highway, the 2,500-mile lateral that parallels took place across five days in 1989 in an Altami- such a narrow runway. Afterward, he spent the the Amazon River south of its course and feeds ra community center. It featured 600 represen- first of several long stays with his family at the through Altamira before proceeding toward the tatives from as many as 40 Indigenous groups. station. He made friends with Zo’é children and Peruvian borderlands, days of rough travel to The participants performed ceremonies and began to learn their language. He now calls that the west. This is the road, still largely unpaved made speeches. Many dressed traditionally in experience the greatest privilege of his life. and incomplete, that passes 100 miles above colorful feathers. Reporters, camera crews and Ituna-Itatá and has ushered in so much destruc- advocates flew in from abroad, as did politi- But all was not well with the Zo’é. At the tion and conflict there. In a sense, the generals cians and celebrities, most notably the British mission station and in their forest settlements, meant it to do so from the start. Accompanied musician Sting, who had allied himself with an many grew sick and died from flu and malaria. by an offer of small homesteads, the road was upstream Kayapó leader known as Chief Raoni At first this posed less of a burden to the New intended to provide Brazil with a social outlet, Metuktire, and later toured Europe and the Tribes Mission than might be expected, perhaps relieving economic and political pressure pri- United States with him. because the organization was focused primarily marily from the country’s parched northeast, on the Zo’é’s afterlife. which had long been feared by the military As a consequence of the Altamira Gathering, government for its revolutionary potential. the dam initiative was forced into a decade of Brazil, meanwhile, was moving in new direc- The regime promoted the Amazon as ‘‘a land delays, resulting in an inefficient run-of-river tions. An early sign appeared in 1978, when an without men for men without land.’’ The claim redesign that accepted seasonal fluctuations attempt by the military regime to offer up Indig- was untrue, and soon the homesteading plan in the Xingu’s flow and, with it, reductions in enous lands to free-market forces (the so-called was riddled with problems. But over the years, electrical-generation capacity for roughly half Indian Emancipation Decree) provoked urban tens of thousands of people answered the call the year. Eventually, the structures were built. protests against the abuse of Indigenous peo- and came down the road anyway. Most of the In aggregate they were completed in 2019 as ples. Seven years later, following waves of unre- newcomers were very poor. Once they arrived, one of the world’s largest dams, diverting most lated street demonstrations, the dictatorship they found ways to stay. of the Xingu’s dry-season flow into excavated was forced from power. The change stripped channels that feed the generators’ turbines and the New Tribes Mission of a useful alliance, and Many who failed at homesteading ended up leave 60 miles of the riverbed largely denuded three years later exposed it to the new national in Altamira and a string of smaller towns. Oth- of water, interrupting the river’s ecosystem and constitution — the one that remains in effect ers remained in the forest as hired hands and threatening the natural balance of the region. today and mandates protections for Indigenous subsistence farmers. At first their clearings were A consensus exists that however spectacular groups. With Zo’é deaths outstripping religious confined to the proximity of the main roads, the Altamira Gathering may have seemed at the conversions, Luz turned to FUNAI for medical but as side roads proliferated and land specula- time, the completion of the dam meant that help if perhaps only to buy time. Shocked by tion and corruption grew, the invasion got out the protests had proved ineffectual and that the the abysmal conditions they encountered upon of control. By the late 1980s, it seemed for the Kayapó had been disregarded as usual. arrival, FUNAI officials soon shuttered the sta- first time that the very existence of the Amazon tion and banned the New Tribes Mission from might be threatened unless a sufficiently large But alternative understandings are possible. returning. (New Tribes Mission Brazil denies this network of self-policing Indigenous reserves An argument can be made that for the Indige- version of events.) FUNAI installed a medical was established. Self-policing would be the key, nous groups who were not directly dependent clinic to handle the immediate crisis and encour- which in turn would require the legitimization on riverbank living, the gathering was in the aged the Zo’é to embrace their earlier isolation. of special Indigenous rights, if not necessarily long term a success. It taught lessons about The Zo’é never quite did, but eventually they of cultural preservation. But such niceties went the power of spectacles, the ease with which gained a territorial reserve and slowly rebuilt largely unheeded by powerful forces in Brazil. the press could be enlisted, the sympathy that their population. The elder Edward Luz moved resides overseas, the potential for funding and, to other pastures, and with him went his family. The generals were pushed out in 1985, and most crucial, the need to frame initiatives with- the constitution of 1988 cemented the new in the views of foreign advocates. These were Among the toxic legacies of Brazil’s former democracy and guaranteed Indigenous rights, homegrown Amazonian insights, but they were military dictatorship, only deforestation in but every successive civilian government — noted within academic circles abroad, where a the Amazon still threatens the world. To the left, right, reformist, reactionary — continued dynamic new field of anthropological inquiry, extent that its effects spread into the global with the road building and policies that fur- the study of ‘‘dressing up’’ — of the importance atmosphere, it has raised doubts among envi- thered the destruction of the forest. Indeed, of costume and adornment — was born. The ronmentalists about the very validity of national it was under the first civilian government (led seminal thinker was a longtime observer of the sovereignty — particularly that of Brazil. This is by President José Sarney) that a military-era Kayapó, the late Terence S. Turner of the Uni- paradoxical because the military leaders were, hydroelectric project to dam the Xingu River versity of Chicago, whose article ‘‘The Social to a man, ultranationalists. Large-scale defor- at the Belo Monte cascades, downstream from Skin’’ helped shape the field. He started as a estation dates back 50 years, to the early 1970s, Altamira, was put forward. This was to be one conventional anthropologist, coolly observant when Brazil’s economy was booming partly of the largest dam complexes in the world. The of his subjects, but gradually began advocat- because of its investments in totalitarian-style design required the creation of 700 square miles ing for the groups he studied. He attended the megaprojects — monumental bridges, dams, of holding reservoirs, energy banks that would Altamira Gathering. Afterward he promoted the divided highways and a whole new capital city. drown untold numbers of trees, disrupt the riv- idea of Kayapó-made video productions to rein- These were seen to reflect Brazil’s modernity. erine ecosystem, bleed methane gas into the force Kayapó culture. The Kayapó embraced the To the military mind, the Amazon forest was a atmosphere, flood Indigenous lands and pro- idea to the extent of developing a distinctive foundly disturb the lives of many thousands cinematographic style that involves extensive The New York Times Magazine 41

Mining for gold in the Volta Grande area of the Xingu River. use of wide-angle lenses and drones. To simpli- turned 19. His mother wanted him to become For his master’s thesis, Luz went to Tocan- fy history, the Altamira Gathering became an a medical missionary. Instead, he went off to tins in 2004 to study the Xerénte, a group that exercise less in Indigenous pride than in Indig- the University of Brasília, where he discovered spoke Portuguese widely and had long been in enous power and, unexpectedly, in assimilation. the field of cultural anthropology. In the eve- contact with the outside world. The Xerénte Through stage-managed displays of tradition, nings he attended a Baptist seminary, where had previously been studied by a Harvard during those five days the Kayapó joined the he dutifully pursued a parallel degree. But he anthropologist named David Maybury-Lewis, modern world. began to change. To me, he said: ‘‘When I found who founded the Cambridge-based advocacy anthropology, I found myself. It was a science group called Cultural Survival, which empha- Edward Luz 9 at the time I was so curious about: the Indians, how they sizes Indigenous peoples’ economic empow- was live, what they believe.’’ I asked him if he had erment and self-determination, and who was lost his religion. He said: ‘‘I don’t know if you responsible for persuading Terence Turner to and enjoying his visits to the Zo’é station. He know someone who really believes. Believes in work among the Kayapó. Maybury-Lewis was knew of road-construction projects some- Christ. Believes in heaven and all the prophets. an activist, as both Turner and Luz were to where far away in the Amazon, but nothing of My father is just like that. I did not choose to become — all three of them insisting on the the Belo Monte dam, the Altamira Gathering be born in a missionary house. But I had to live inherent modernity of Indigenous groups, or the gathering strength of Indigenous rights with my parents’ religion.’’ though ultimately for opposite political ends. movements worldwide. For him the 1990s Having settled on studying one of the more slid by in the immediacy of childhood and He finished with the seminary in 2003, gradu- assimilated groups in Brazil, Luz concentrat- the certainties of his parents’ faith. In 1998 he ated from the university the same year and pro- ed his research on the small number of tradi- ceeded into graduate studies in anthropology. tionalists among them who clung to aspects He became an all-in academic. He frequented of their foundation myths, albeit modified to symposia. He wore T-shirts emblazoned with accommodate the arrival of Europeans. He saw Che Guevara. He did not mention his mission- his role as helping the Xerénte shore up their ary background. He said to me: ‘‘I recommend- defenses against the onslaughts of big com- ed to my dad not to work with isolated tribes. mercial farmers who were steadily approaching Not to reach out to them. Because it is too much with their huge tractor-tilled fields. To me, he responsibility. Heaven can wait, OK?’’ 42 3.20.22 Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times

said, ‘‘I thought this is exactly what I want to disappointed by what he found, but he contin- off. This raised the question of definitions. A do with my life.’’ ued with his studies. Brazilian sociologist named Sidnei Clemente Peres has written extensively about the connec- His Xerénte informants were dualists whose Two years later FUNAI dispatched him once tion between new territorial demarcations and world consisted of paired oppositions: the sun again on a survey mission, this time as a team ethnicity in Barcelos and has made the case that and moon, day and night, woman and man, leader tasked with creating a large new reserve the prospect of reparations has enabled previ- good and evil. He says they told him that they on the Rio Negro. It was 2007, long before Luz ously oppressed groups to renew their collective were the children of the sun and that before first heard of Ituna-Itatá. He was 28. The team life and reaffirm their identities. As a scholar, the Portuguese possessed technology — the was to be based in Barcelos, a former colonial Luz might once have made a similar case. How guns, the clothes, the cars, the computers — the capital 270 miles upriver from the Rio Negro’s Indigenous do you have to be to be Indigenous, sun offered it first to the Xerénte. The Xerénte confluence with the Amazon at Manaus. The and how is Indigenousness measured? How long said, What is that? The sun said, It’s a rifle: You town was the urban core of a huge municipal- must your ancestors have inhabited a patch of can kill whatever you want. The Xerénte fired ity of the same name — 47, 288 square miles the world for you to take possession of it now? the rifle and were surprised by the noise and of rivers and rainforests inhabited by numer- If you currently live in the manner of neo-Bra- smell. They said obviously we don’t want this ous Indigenous groups whose historical pres- zilians, should that disqualify you? And what is device. So the sun gave the rifle to the moon, ence was well documented. Prominent among the measure of the manner? Reasonably enough, and the moon gave the rifle to the Portuguese. them were the Baré and Warekena, who lived FUNAI relies on judgment, compromise and The sun also offered clothes to the Xerénte. The in dispersed villages along the Rio Negro and negotiation. In Barcelos this turned out to be Xerénte began to wear clothes, but the clothes its northern tributaries. These people had been difficult for Luz to provide. soon smelled and grew scratchy, so the Xerénte brutalized for centuries, and many had lost their gave them back to the sun, and the sun gave traditional beliefs and language. To me, he said, ‘‘I realized that in the city, them to the moon, and the moon gave them to there was no difference between the ‘Indians’ the Portuguese. And so on. Luz says he heard Luz told me that he approached the project and other Amazonian citizens.’’ Using a some- the story several times. After each recount- knowing that the claims were indisputable, as times derogatory Brazilian word for the mesti- ing, old women came to him and lamented was the need for restitution; he said that after zos of mixed Indigenous and European descent the decisions that their ancestors had made. the earlier disappointments he viewed the Bar- who constitute the majority of the Amazon’s ‘‘How stupid we were in the past! If we had celos assignment as a way to legitimize himself residents, he said: ‘‘This is caboclo territory! You accepted the technology, we would be rich now within the anthropological establishment. But lived for centuries as caboclos. Why now do you and the whites would be a poor tribe like us. his final FUNAI supervisor, who came aboard want to be an Indian?’’ They would be hunting like us, and we would partway through the effort, told me that she be traveling by car!’’ believed he had secretly opposed special gov- Luz returned to Brasília empty-handed and sub- ernment assistance from the start. Asking that mitted a report to FUNAI in which his skepti- This was not a theme that Luz wanted to hear, I not use her name out of fears for her personal cism showed through. His FUNAI supervisor but he came to see it as their legitimate choice, safety, she said, ‘‘His work was bad work,’’ mean- terminated the agency’s relationship with him and it resonated with memories from his child- ing she thought it was biased. She added: ‘‘He and dispatched a replacement team to patch hood. He told me: ‘‘I realized that these people took a position against those people. This is a things up. Luz admits that he failed in Barcelos, were not fighting development. They had cell- complicated subject because he does not under- but he blames the local residents, not his refusal phones and wore new bluejeans and sunglasses. stand who the Indigenous are and how many to compromise. And I was walking around in T-shirts with heroes were forced to hide their identity to survive. of the revolution on them, thinking I could help But Edward Luz is a missionary. He is trying to Two years after returning from Barcelos, he keep capitalism from continuing to destroy their get the missionaries back onto Indian lands.’’ spoke publicly about his perceptions. It was tribe. But the Xerénte were thinking the oppo- 2009. He went to the Brazilian Congress and site. They wanted to make up for lost time.’’ Luz denies being a missionary and told me described his suspicions of fraud. Initially, that he did not mean to make trouble, but that his message interested only the extreme right People who worked with Luz then remem- the first meeting in Barcelos proceeded awk- wing: disciplinarians who yearned for the for- ber him as a promising field researcher but wardly when he laid out unmarked topograph- mer military regime; evangelicals called the an unusually private one. Luz kept his doubts ical maps and the Indigenous representatives Three Bs for Bible, bullets and beef; oppressive to himself — ‘‘I did not want to mess with the countered with an electronic satellite image of farmers known as ruralistas; and a group of fas- establishment,’’ he told me. An influential pro- the forest on which they had superimposed their cist Catholics in a movement called Tradition, fessor who wishes to remain anonymous now request. He says it was an enormous expanse Family and Property. These groups overlapped. because of the increased polarization of Brazil almost as large as the nearby Yanomami reserve They saw Indigenous peoples as obstacles. under Bolsanaro recommended him for a doc- (at the size of Indiana, one of the largest in Bra- Bolsonaro once went on record asserting that toral program. Luz took a temporary contract zil) and included the city Barcelos. This was in the 19th century, the United States cavalry job with FUNAI to travel to the upper Solimões probably just an opening gambit, but Luz was had done things right. Today’s Brazilian Army River, near the border with Peru, and perform shocked. He said, ‘‘Wait, you also want the city cannot now do the same, but if the Indigenous the cultural surveys necessary for the demarca- of Barcelos?’’ peoples could be absorbed into the mainstream tion of three new Indigenous reserves. He said, of society, the conquest of the Amazon could ‘‘I felt like a hero because I was helping those ‘‘Yes,’’ they said. proceed unimpeded. With his warnings about guys to live like Indians.’’ According to Luz, the representatives rea- fraud, Luz played into that thinking. His univer- soned that Barcelos had been an Indigenous sity colleagues looked on in surprise. He says In 2005 FUNAI gave him another temporary village before becoming a colonial capital. he believed that he was politically neutral. He job, to go back to the upper Solimões and adju- They also argued that most of the city’s cur- criticized the academy for stylish thinking and dicate Indigenous claims that had been vouched rent residents were Indigenous. Surveys showed the field of anthropology for paternalism. for by another contract anthropologist. This that since the year 2000 the declared Indige- time it did not go so well. Luz came to believe nous population had indeed rapidly increased, His initial objections were mostly confined that the claims were fraudulent or inflated, and while the number of non-Indigenous residents to his area of expertise: the procedures used by he wrote them up as such. He says that he was (known to some as neo-Brazilians) had leveled The New York Times Magazine 43

FUNAI to conduct its surveys. Lengthy guide- ‘‘Yes, of course,’’ he said. new ones bred raw emotions. It was easy to lines including cultural and linguistic studies, Luz mentioned the Yanomami, who say that guess which of the invading homesteaders historical studies and archaeological evidence the sky will fall if it is overcome by a smoke they worked secretly for the land-grabbers. They mandate the process. But Luz came to believe call shawara that emanates from mining. Luz were the ones who were not being brutalized. that the process was often politicized and told me that he believes their thinking should Legitimate homesteaders had to band together arbitrary. In 2010, at a congressional hearing be respected. He said: ‘‘The shawara is their to keep their equipment intact and their build- in Brasília, he went further, questioning the cosmology, their apocalyptic mythology. OK, ings from being burned by thugs. formation of a certain Indigenous reserve and that’s very comprehensible to me. I have mine, proposing what he called ‘‘technical reforms’’ you have yours, they have theirs. But ask a Kay- When the government of President Lula to how such territories were granted. He apó on the Xingu river or a Munduruku on the da Silva, a left-wing populist, revived the plan maintained that his colleagues had fallen for a Tapajos. Ask them about gold mining. They have for the Belo Monte dam in 2010 — this time ‘‘sacred story’’ — that Indians will preserve the wanted to mine their land for the last 30 years.’’ unstoppably — Altamira boomed with workers forest and are environmentalists by nature — This has been true for some, not all. seeking construction jobs. Then as now, illegal but that this was in fact a lie. To me, he said: ‘‘My He went on: ‘‘Tribal mining has been out- logging led the invasions, bulldozing primitive colleagues would not speak to me anymore or lawed as one of the original conditions on Indig- roads deep into previously untouched territo- even be seen in my presence. It was as if I had enous reserves. But they are no more stupid than ry in order to harvest the rare hardwood trees become radioactive.’’ you and I. They know what precious metal is. called ipé, whose extraction opened the way for They know what gold is. They follow the market the wholesale logging and ranching to come. Luz left the Brazilian Anthropological Asso- on their smartphones. They’ve watched ‘Gold Given the obviousness of the logging roads ciation, which issued a statement emphasizing Rush’ on the Discovery Channel.’’ (which necessarily cross reserve perimeters that he did not speak in the association’s name. after approaching from the outside), you would Luz retorted that of course he did not speak in As Luz puts it, Amazon is a expect that they would stop at the edge of the the association’s name. He said the academics the Indigenous reserves, where logging is strictly wanted to keep Indians in the past and treat forbidden, but often they do not. them as if they were animals in a zoo. Bolsonaro rich but impoverished place. The dilemma is had used similar language but to insult Indians simple and intractable. Despite its size, the I set off with an IBAMA patrol that passed along as less than fully human. Luz expected people forest cannot accommodate all the demands a newly cut road within view of an Indigenous to accept his claim when he said that his own that are placed on it. It may endure in patches village. We followed the road 20 miles into a meaning was different. on some hard-fought reserves, but elsewhere reserve to an illegal logging site from which a it will disappear. In its place will come home- crew had just fled, leaving behind a fortune in He went home to Santarém in 2010 and set steads, followed by consolidated properties, felled ipé trees. The IBAMA agents expressed himself up as a consultant — an independent followed by denuded scrublands with dirt frustration about lacking the heavy equipment anthropologist with an unfinished degree and roads that turn muddy among mines that scar necessary to confiscate the logs or even suffi- no clients in sight. For Luz, his beliefs were the earth. The pressures are overwhelming. cient personnel to guard the site. Inevitably affirmed when a delegation of Zo’é leaders trav- The anecdotes swing to extremes. The strug- the illegal loggers would return after hours and eled the following year to Brasília to demand gle over Ituna-Itatá dates back to a time, more haul away the treasure. It was impossible that less isolation, not more. He acknowledged that than a decade before Edward Luz roared into the Indigenous residents did not know. When the Zo’é had suffered grievous injury from con- the clearing to confront the agents of IBAMA, I expressed surprise after my return, Luz called tact with his father and the New Tribes Mission, when the forest had been cut down for miles me naïve. He said: ‘‘If illegal loggers are caught but of the Indigenous as a category, he said: around Anapu, a lawless settlement on the by IBAMA, they get arrested. If they’re caught ‘‘They are tired of being poor. They are tired Trans-Amazonian, and territorial clashes were by Indians, they get killed. So what do you think? of living by making manioc flour, fishing and common. The most violent of them lay an hour No one is logging on that territory without Indi- hunting. They realize that they can have much to the south along the receding frontiers where an permission.’’ more. Many of them have smartphones and subsistence farmers were invading forests on internet, and they can watch videos. They see behalf of wealthy speculators filing fraudulent I thought he might be simplifying matters, that Indians in the U.S. and Canada — they have claims. The claims formed redundant grids on and I mentioned it to an anthropologist of out- oil wells, mining.’’ a confusion of maps, eventually including those standing authority, an emeritus professor of the that covered the lands of Ituna-Itatá. Forged universities of Chicago and São Paulo, Manuela I answered skeptically, ‘‘Some do.’’ deeds that needed to look historical were aged Carneiro da Cunha, who is the former president He mentioned that the Seminole Tribe in in boxes containing crickets that chewed the of the Brazilian Anthropological Association and Florida owns the Hard Rock empire. He said: documents’ edges and defecated on the sheets was instrumental in writing the Indigenous rights ‘‘The people here see that North American Indi- — an art form known as grilagem (from grilo for clauses into the constitution. Da Cunha is familiar ans can be rich. Maybe they are not rich, but cricket) that is widely practiced in rural Brazil. with the Kayapó, a former student of Claude Lévi- they can be rich. And our people ask: ‘And we are Around Anapu, early land claims soon achieved Strauss and highly respected in Brazil today. She condemned to poverty? Is that our fate?’ Brazil legacy status within established families, and is a formidable opponent to Luz and his clients. has to start listening to what they are saying. ‘We She disagreed with his portrayal but did not sum- have our land, we have our resources, we want marily dismiss the idea that corruption exists on to exploit them!’ ’’ He added, ‘‘I don’t know if I Indigenous reserves. make myself clear?’’ I said that he did but noted that many of the To paraphrase her, she said, look, this is Brazil. assimilated Indigenous peoples in Brazil have She said: ‘‘In mining — in gold, in diamonds, dispersed into the country’s urban slums and in logs — there is always an attempt to co-opt that some have been reduced to sheltering in Indigenous people. Corruption is always part cardboard constructs beside country roads. of the story. Men are more easily co-opted ‘‘Isn’t it possible that some want to join the than women’’ — some tribesmen, for example, modern economy and others do not?’’ have been recruited by illegal gold miners, or 44 3.20.22

Two boys sell ice cream on the main road of Mocotó burn at a settler’s clearing. as smoke rises from a garimpeiros, to allow work on their land — ‘‘There illegal. The claimants tended to be local oppor- Luiz Alberto Araújo was assassinated on Oct. 13, is always an attempt. But there is also resistance.’’ tunists of limited means but raw ambition. Their 2016, while sitting in his car at home in Altamira, claims were less absurd than they were cynical. in the presence of his family — shot seven times, It is well known, for instance, that logging They followed a tested Brazilian principle that then for good measure twice more, supposedly trucks regularly emerge from the Kayapó-Xikrin illegality often leads to law. for having tried to block development schemes. reserve hauling illegally harvested trees to the The killers arrived and left on a motorcycle and sawmills in Anapu. To combat these incursions, Pohl was disgusted. He told me that in late 2016 were never found. some in the same Kayapó group disseminate after the left-wing president Dilma Rousseff was videos of its members defending their territory removed from office (nominally for her proxim- Surveying Ituna-Itatá became increasingly with armed patrols that confront gold miners ity to corruption; Pohl calls it a coup d’état) and dangerous. Pohl told me that a riverbank logis- and settlers, tear down their structures and Bolsonaro’s establishment predecessor Michel tics depot was guarded by men armed with frighten them away. The Kayapó’s historic rep- Temer temporarily assumed her place, the illegal rifles, themselves fearful of calling down the utation as warriors is now mostly obsolete, but assertion of titles in Ituna-Itatá escalated. Accord- wrath of Amazonian warriors if they angered it may help them in their defense. Da Cunha’s ing to Pohl, a new crowd shoved aside the first Indigenous guides. According to him, if IBAMA hope is that the constitution has provided a generation of claimants, beginning the systematic approached the depot at all, it was only by structure that allows for such efforts sometimes invasion of the land and building Mocotó into a overflight. When Bolsonaro won the election to succeed. logistics base primarily for the maintenance of in 2018, the land-grabbers went rushing by the heavy equipment and the distribution of diesel thousands into the old-growth forests, where The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has fuel. I asked Pohl to consider that these were mere- they encountered no Indigenous opposition, varied with the ebbs and flows of the Brazilian ly the actions of the poor, squatting on land as either because the native residents had fled or economy, hitting a low point about a decade they have for generations elsewhere in Brazil in because they had never existed in the first place. ago. Luciano Pohl told me that in 2012 he found desperation to survive. He emphatically contra- Ituna-Itatá became a free-for-all, the most heav- only one homestead inside Ituna-Itatá and in dicted that, saying the invasion of Ituna-Itatá was ily invaded reserve in Brazil; from August 2018 2013 only a few but that greed for land there was the story of profound political corruption, finan- to July 2019, it accounted for 30 percent of the so intense that by 2016 the property maps of the cial corruption, moral corruption and calculation. deforestation within Indigenous lands. Across reserve were smothered in fraudulent claims, the Amazon, land-grabbers cleared so much ter- many of them overlapping and rampantly Pohl received his first death threats not long ritory so fast that during the accompanying dry after a municipal environmental official named Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 45

Answers to puzzles of 3.13.22 season of July and August 2019, when they set and admiration from the right-wing forces in fire to the bulldozed debris, the ensuing smoke power. In Ituna-Itatá, Luz got what he wanted. BODY LANGUAGE caused day to turn to night in distant São Paulo IBAMA was withdrawn from the reserve, and and made international news that the jungle itself the principal agents were demoted or fired as N EAR L Y B R O I L MR T LEST was burning. Given the extent of deforestation, it Bolsonaro’s administration wreaked vengeance might as well have been. against them for their attempts to enforce the H EAR Y E I NON I T OS HA A L TO law. The pandemic arrived at about the same The pattern repeated in 2020 to an even time, decimating the remnants of environmen- L EAR N T G A N G E S R I V E R B L I P greater degree, augmented by enormous wild- tal defenses and pushing Indigenous groups fires in the Pantanal grasslands to the southwest deeper into the reserves. Much to the gloating EAR N I N G N E A T O P A Y M E N S of the Amazon basin. Early that year Covid-19 of the right wing, the unseen Indigenous peo- was known to be approaching, but it had bare- ples of Ituna-Itatá remained unseen. S I E G E H OW N AM I NG ly touched down in São Paulo and had not yet entered the forests when IBAMA, despite the In December 2021, as required by Ituna-Itatá’s MP H C R E E P E R S SON I C ascent of Bolsonaro, the agency’s mortal enemy, provisional status, a FUNAI investigator pro- decided to proceed according to its still-stand- duced a report that recommended that the EL I SE I S L AM WE S B E L OW ing mandates and take action against the rad- territory should remain protected, as there ical encroachments in Ituna-Itatá. Given that continued to be evidence of the existence of SUPPRESSED FREES ASH IBAMA’s helicopter campaign ran counter to an isolated tribe. This was predictable given the Bolsonaro’s desires, the surprise was that the hard work that FUNAI had done on the ground. AST I S E L A S L EW T S E T S E agents were able to draw it out for months. It In late January of this year, despite a judicial was not, however, destined to succeed. decision affirming the territory’s protections, HOT RO L L S T A S H U T AHAN FUNAI headquarters in Brasília disagreed and The video Luz took of himself turned out to announced that after 11 years of failing to con- S AT EME R I T A P AT be effective. After his release, he sought out the clusively find an isolated tribe, it was time to senior IBAMA agent, this time at the agency’s remove Ituna-Itatá’s special status. This was AB L AZ E E AGE R THE B ACK Altamira base, and said: ‘‘Do you know why I predictable given the proximity of FUNAI’s am trying to get you to stop burning houses? leadership to the Bolsonaro administration. Fed- D I E T E R G R OW F I E F T E AM Do you even have a clue?’’ eral prosecutors of the famously independent Ministério Público Federal appealed and, fol- MI ND ED YOG I S B UDD YHO L L Y ‘‘Ah, because you work for the farmers. We lowing another judicial order in early February, know who you are.’’ FUNAI was forced to reverse itself and extend T I SNT PSA S E L I G I NL E T the area’s protections, but only by six months. ‘‘Man, I think you should rethink your view. I OOZ E S CAL LDESK I SH am here because your fires are doing nothing at It seems hardly to matter anymore. About all. Those settlers will not leave. Because many two years have gone by since the practical col- Y OUW I N AXL TR I ED of them have no place to go. They will never lapse of restraints, and in the decimated shell of go away. And they will continue to clear the the Ituna-Itatá reserve, as in much of the Brazil- P L UG L SD POACH CROS S forest to survive.’’ ian Amazon, deforestation has resumed in full force. The next dry season is fast approaching A L T A CH E TONGU E E K W I I G Over the period that followed, Luz’s efforts and the fires seem sure to intensify as one sort spread through the Brazilian political ether, of burning is replaced by another. P E R T HO L A S I R R E E E DD A exciting scorn among environmentalists and mainstream commentators on television but AB E S TIC OD E ON L E E S also in no small measure eliciting sympathy KENKEN ACROSTIC ALAN BURDICK, WHY TIME FLIES — The clepsydra, or water clock, ticks to the steady drip of water, which . . . drives a set of gears that nudges a pointer along a series of numbers . . . . Roman senators used them to keep their colleagues from talking for too long. A. After hours I. Ishiguro Q. Mortgage KENKEN B. Little J. Came first R. Epochs C. Atropos K. Knock off S. Floss Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined D. Now then L. Weekends T. Last-second E. Beating M. Heptad U. Iterate box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box. F. Update N. Yearling V. “Evermore” G. Ratcheted O. Tomorrow W. Stylus A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7. H. Dark ages P. Isochronal FREEWHEELING NORINORI BO AON I SS RNOC AONH MJ I EAL VI Answers to puzzle on Page 48 SPELLING BEE Healthily (3 points). Also: Alley, athlete, elate, elite, ethyl, eyelet, eyeteeth, health, healthy, heath, lately, lathe, latte, layette, lethal, lethally, lithe, tattle, tattletale, teeth, teethe, telehealth, telltale, telly, theta, tithe, titillate, title, tittle. If you found other legitimate dictionary words in the beehive, feel free to include them in your score. 46 KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2022 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.

Democracy encourages or gives a fist pump to — acts of principled people, who are silent. It’s the silence political violence or declares it ‘‘legitimate polit- of the Republican Party that is most surprising (Continued from Page 33) ical discourse,’’ that is a really troubling sign. to me and most upsetting. We’ve described the Anderson: What we’re seeing, I liken it to a land, problem in this conversation, but the much more people that have existed in America for a very sea and air attack. The land attack is on voting difficult part is figuring out what to do about it. I long time. One of the things that Nathan Kalmoe rights. That is one of the ways that you begin to think that’s what Sarah and I as Republicans have and I found in our forthcoming book is that if you undermine democracy. The sea attack are these a particular obligation to do. But I don’t know look at Democrats and Republicans who really, attacks against teaching critical race theory and how you bring the people within the Republican really hate each other and call each other evil ‘‘divisive’’ topics, so you can erase people from Party who should be speaking out to do exactly and say the other party is a threat to the United American history and erase the role of various what you say, Steve, which is to make clear that States, the best predictor of that is how they think people in American history. And the air attack this violence and election denial is not acceptable. about the traditional social hierarchy. is the loosening of gun laws that we’re seeing Homans: Steven, one clear takeaway from ‘‘How in Texas, Tennessee and Georgia. This is a full- Democracies Die’’ is that the resolution to dem- White Democrats and Republicans had basi- blown assault on American democracy that’s ocratic crisis really has to come from within the cally identical levels of racial resentment in going after voting rights, that’s going after edu- party that is incubating the anti-democratic 1986; today they’re 40 points apart. So one of cation and that is reinforcing political violence movement. This was what the center-right par- the most passionate divides that we’re seeing as an acceptable method of bringing about your ties in Germany and Italy failed to do in the between the parties right now, more than it political aims. That’s where we are, and that’s 1930s, which delivered Hitler and Mussolini to has been in decades, is, does systemic racism why this moment is so dangerous. power. But other European center-right parties exist? Does systemic sexism exist? Have we done Ifill: I will share with you some of the most in Sweden and Belgium, for instance, succeed- enough to overcome it? Have we gone too far? depressing moments for me in the past two years. ed in expelling fascist movements within their When Trump made that an explicit conversa- One, of course, was Jan. 6 — and as you said, Sarah, ranks in that same period. tion instead of a dog whistle, we actually had to not just Jan. 6 but the subsequent lining up of Levitsky: But I think the Republicans will not start talking about it. And now we’re having this Republicans to say this was OK or to be silent. reform themselves until they take a series of extremely difficult conversation as a country, and The second one was during the massive protests electoral defeats, major electoral defeats — and it’s never going to go well. It’s just not. There’s no that happened following the release of the video given the level of partisan identity that Lily possible way for us to have this conversation and of the killing of George Floyd, when the adminis- describes, and given an electoral system that is stay calm and rational and reasonable about it. tration assembled a constabulary that stood on the biased toward the Republicans through no fault We’ve never done it before. It’s just very messy, steps of the Lincoln Memorial with masks on. We of their own, that’s not going to happen. and it’s going to be messy, and it’s going to get didn’t know where they were from, whether they Ginsberg: Well, part of that is, to me, a complete- even uglier than it currently is. were National Guard. We had no idea what their ly inexplicable series of strategic decisions by the Homans: With that in mind, we should talk names were. Their badges weren’t visible. There Democrats. To much of the country, the current about the resurgence of overt political violence was something so antidemocratic, something so Democratic disarray does not present a viable that we’ve seen in this country in the last two crude about that, that truly frightened me. alternative. I mean, I hate to go back to the small years. Obviously this is a country that’s had a politics of it all, but honestly, look at what the whole spectrum of political violence over the And then the third one was the killing by Kyle Democrats in Congress have done legislatively course of its history, even its relatively recent Rittenhouse of two people in Wisconsin, and the in this session. They control all three branches history. But the thing that really struck me in reaction to that — because again, I’m presuming, of government, but they’re constantly squabbling 2020 was that we saw things that really looked whatever you believe happened in the interac- among themselves and failing to pass much of like partisan violence. tion, that most of us who are parents would rath- their agenda. I know these debates over the issues Levitsky: From a comparative perspective, it er our children not have killed people by the time they’re having among themselves are heartfelt. is really troubling to see mainstream parties’ they’re 18 years old. That was a kind of an article But as a strategy, their infighting only makes sense reactions, or lack of reaction, to acts of political of faith among us, as parents: that he would have if they’re either trying to lower expectations for violence. You’re right, Charles, we’ve seen peri- been treated as a child who engaged in a trau- 2022 and 2024 — which they have done masterful- ods of violence before — a lot of violence in the matic activity, and not instead hailed as a hero. ly — or if they’re trying to reward Republicans for late 1960s and early ’70s, for instance. But it was The Republican Party had been the party that bad behavior, which is what the polls say they’re not partisan violence in the same way that we’re regularly wagged its fingers at the Black com- about to do in the 2022 elections. The Republicans potentially seeing now. And one of the things munity about our family values, and his mother are the bad actors right now, that’s absolutely about democratic breakdowns in Europe in the was greeted with a standing ovation at a G.O.P. accurate and true, but the Democratic Party is ’20s and ’30s and in South America in the ’60s dinner. These were the three moments where I contributing to this by its own fecklessness and and ’70s is that without exception, they were pre- thought, This is so off the rails. The places where failing to present a viable alternative. ceded by periods of paramilitary violence that I would have thought, you know, some Repub- Levitsky: Some of that is obviously true. I think was tolerated, condoned, justified, sometimes licans might say enough is enough. what’s needed in the short term to preserve encouraged by mainstream political parties. Homans: Ben, you worked for the Republican democracy, to get through the worst of this Party for decades as an election lawyer. Did the storm, is a much broader coalition than we’ve When acts of violence occur, mainstream par- way in which the party metabolized Trump’s put together to date. Something on the lines of ties need to close ranks in defense of democra- response to the 2020 election, and the Jan. 6 true fusion tickets that really brings in Repub- cy. The left, right and center need to stand up attack, surprise you? licans — maybe not a lot of the electorate, but and, essentially in unison, publicly and forceful- Ginsberg: The whole thing, honestly, has shocked enough to assure that the Trumpist party loses. ly denounce these acts and hold perpetrators me. It’s not so much the elected officials who That would mean bringing in a good chunk of accountable. That’s what needs to be done. And were giving the fist pumps on Jan. 6, because that Bush-Cheney network that’s out there — that in cases when that happens, like Spain during they were sort of predictable in doing that. It’s in private says the same things that I’ve said, its 1981 coup attempt or Argentina during its the many people within the party whom I know but that has thus far been (Continued on Page 49) 1987 military uprising, democratic institutions and have known for years who are good, decent, can be shored up. But when one or both main- stream political parties is silent or winks at — or The New York Times Magazine 47

Puzzles SPELLING BEE SNAKE CHARMER NORINORI By Frank Longo By Patrick Berry By Prasanna Seshadri How many common words of 5 or more letters can you spell using the letters in the hive? Every answer Each answer begins in the correspondingly numbered Shade certain cells so that every outlined region has must use the center letter at least once. Letters may space and proceeds clockwise around the S, ending exactly two shaded cells. Every shaded cell must share be reused in a word. At least one word will use all 7 in the space before the next consecutive number. an edge with exactly one other shaded cell, like a letters. Proper names and hyphenated words are not The chain of 11 answers will snake its way around the domino. Dominoes cannot touch, except at their corners. allowed. Score 1 point for each answer, and 3 points grid twice. for a word that uses all 7 letters. Ex. Rating: 9 = good; 19 = excellent; 29 = genius 71 > A 98 YH 2 3 E TI 12 6 L 5 11 Our list of words, worth 32 points, appears with last week’s answers. 4 10 Clues 1. Vehicle from Avis or Hertz (2 wds.) 2. Fellow 3. Momentarily (3 wds.) 4. Like poodle skirts and beehive hairdos 5. Poet ___ Khayyám 6. Part of London associated with Cockneys (2 wds.) 7. Devoid of growth 8. 1 on the Mohs hardness scale 9. Country whose name derives from the Latin word for “silver” 10. It might be behind a revolving bookcase (2 wds.) 11. Specialties 12. Work as a mixologist (2 wds.) CRYPTIC CROSSWORD By Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon ACROSS 23 Wash Los Angeles 7 Holy figure held 1 2 345 6 7 8 9 Love one’s share beneath the surface back by Kamala (4) 9 10 of fuss and bother? (7) (9) 8 Court room made 25 Less serious match, of boards (6) 10 Mission of Texas say (7) 15 Awful democrat is 11 12 in the style of being a blowhard? Missouri (5) 26 False claim (10) maintained by an 11 Backstabbing, extraterrestrial (5) 17 Jumping around corrupt senator (7) 27 Roll in a ball much? (8) 12 Big cat wandering (9) 13 14 15 El Prado (7) 18 Storage option Le 13 Cook while Duc Tho developed splitting baloney DOWN (3,5) (5) 1 Not easily upset, 19 Conjectures he 16 17 18 19 convict keeps on introduced to 14 Hollywood’s Fisher the move (4-4) conservatives (8) and Cheadle had an affair? (7,2) 2 One who predicts 20 Collapsed, like 20 21 22 16 Prominent reason changing foster guys (6) for failing to get a care (10) 21 A second-rate dinner reservation? 3 B-plus pooch (6) route out of the (7) country (6) 23 24 25 18 Passage Tristan 4 Salt injected into 22 A deity in the adapted (7) tree top (8) Keystone State 20 Lucky talent, 5 Fishing enthusiast temple (6) catching fish in a left in outrage (6) 26 27 can (9) 6 Sing at Christmas 24 We hear you make sweaters. What’s 22 Purple goose’s tail in a divided state standard for feather (5) (8) measurements? (4) 48

Democracy But can I ask — because I rarely get this oppor- ‘‘You know how you’ve been in these meetings, tunity and Ben is here — I’m wondering, what and you’ve been wondering whether to call the (Continued from Page 47) do you see? Are there avenues to get in to the person Black or African American, or felt uncom- party that you have known and to tap into some fortable making a joke that might seem sexist? largely unwilling to speak out publicly — and remaining moral integrity and vision of people You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just having them in many cases on the same ticket. who are in that party? be you, man. Just be you.’’ He sold that. And that Ginsberg: Your question does point up the prob- was incredibly attractive. And that means something that we have not lem. I’m not at all in lock step with the current Mason: On the other hand, we’ve never explic- seen enough of in the last couple of decades, Republican Party, but I’m as close as many on itly talked about equality in a productive way which is real political sacrifice. It means that life- the left get to interacting with a partisan Repub- without also encountering violence. True multi- long Republicans have to work to elect Demo- lican. We are so polarized that the different sides ethnic democracy is an elusive goal, and it’s not crats. And it means the progressives have to set just are not talking to each other at all. It seems clear that we know how to get there. aside a slew of policy issues that they care deeply to me that if there is an avenue that’s going to Anderson: What is so scary is that, you know, about so that the ticket is comfortable to right- work, it has to be that we all swallow hard and what generally happens is that if you have a com- wing politicians. And we’re nowhere near that, again start talking to people with whom we really mon enemy, it causes a coalescence among these neither in the Bush-Cheney network nor in the don’t agree, and maybe think we don’t respect, disparate groups. Covid-19 was that common Democratic Party. Having talked to a number of to see if there is common ground. We need, as enemy, and instead, you saw greater fissioning Democratic elected politicians, I can tell you that a country and as individuals in communities, to between folks, greater division with this com- we are nowhere near Democrats being willing to take the really difficult step of figuring out how mon enemy that has killed almost one million make those kinds of political sacrifice. But that to start having those conversations. Americans. We couldn’t pull it together. We is what is needed. Longwell: Part of what has changed is that Repub- couldn’t rally around. We couldn’t agree on basic Longwell: Republicans have to lose elections, licans have decided that it’s no longer important facts. That fissioning tells me how in trouble we and the Democrats have to build a sufficient to be tethered to the truth. Even if Republicans are. I worry greatly about our democracy because pro-democracy coalition, one that spans from don’t explicitly repeat Trump’s lies about the where we should be able to see us coming togeth- Liz Cheney to Liz Warren, to defeat this author- 2020 election, they help add credibility and fuel er, instead of a ‘‘we’’ moment it is an ‘‘I’’ moment. itarian version of the Republican Party. My to his claims by auditing elections and pushing And we’ve got to get to the ‘‘we.’’ We have got to criticism of Democrats is this: I’ve always been bills under the guise of ‘‘election integrity’’ even get to the ‘‘we.’’ focused on the national debt. Big issue for me; though there’s no evidence of widespread voter Homans: I wonder, though — is there a ‘‘we’’? real deficit hawk over here. I still care, but I now fraud in 2020. Just ask Trump’s attorney general, I’ve been thinking about this, watching the war have higher-order concerns because I think Bill Barr. You guys know who is most worried in Ukraine, which, besides bringing the matter American democracy is at stake. If you believe about democracy being under attack? of democracy’s global health to the fore, has so that the Republican Party is the existential threat Mason: Republicans. clearly centered on the question of how nations that we have all just laid out, and I agree that it Longwell: Republicans! There’s a good CNN define things like cultural identity, sovereignty is, then the only thing to do is win elections and poll on this that asks, do you think American and an agreed-upon history — and what they defeat antidemocratic Republicans. democracy is under attack? 46 percent of Demo- define them against. Are Americans anywhere crats said ‘‘yes,’’ 46 percent of independents said close to having a shared answer to that question And right now, this insane authoritarian ‘‘yes’’ and a full 66 percent of Republicans said themselves? Have these events changed your party appears poised to kick Democrats’ butts ‘‘yes.’’ That’s because Republicans labor under thinking at all about the fragility — or resilience in 2022. Why? Democrats keep putting forward the delusion that the 2020 election was stolen. So — of democracy, or suggested any lessons we unpopular ideas. We’re being told they’re popu- they are the most concerned about democracy. should apply to the United States? lar, but they’re not. Voters weren’t interested in The people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 Levitsky: I think it’s too early to tell. This is pre- ‘‘transformational change’’ from the Build Back thought they were fighting for democracy. cisely the sort of issue that should bring our lead- Better plan. They wanted Covid under control. ers together, as it has in most Western democ- They wanted gas prices to be lower. They don’t So ‘‘democracy’’ can be kind of an opaque racies. It certainly is good to see many leading want runaway inflation. Even voter ID is pop- term for voters. The public doesn’t really care Republicans taking a strong stance against the ular — and I’m not saying you should run on about democracy the way we are talking about Russian invasion, but I am skeptical that the voter ID, but there needs to be a sense among it in this conversation. And one of the reasons I MAGA faction will come around in any serious Democrats of, how do we reach the swing voters reach for politics as the best solution is that there way. And given the extremism of the Republi- on the center-right that do think the Republican has to be a lever by which we defend democracy can base, it’s hard to imagine many Republicans Party is going too far? Why aren’t they talking to by winning elections. giving Biden the support he needs. In short, I’d Republicans from the beginning about how to Mason: One possible scenario is that we are just be mighty pleased if Russian militarism helped put together a voting rights bill that could pass? in the middle of this very bumpy part of a very bring our parties together, but I’d also be some- Ifill: I agree with you that the big tent is the way, necessary road that we have to drive down. And what surprised. but I’m skeptical that we get there on the kind ultimately, we might get to a better place, to a Homans: Is there any reason to think there’s an of logical proposals that in the past might have smoother part of the road, or the wheels fall off alternative to the very bumpy road ahead that attracted a coalition. Going back to the voting the car, right? We just don’t know what’s going Lily talked about? bill: The summer of 2021 was devoted to giving to happen now because we’re in the middle of Levitsky: The crossroads that American democ- Joe Manchin a chance, which he requested, to it. It feels totally chaotic because it is chaotic. racy is at right now are pretty damn close to shop to Republicans a more modest and prag- And Trump’s presidency allowed us to see that unique. I mean, we are on the brink of some- matic bill, which did include voter ID. We real- for the first time. thing very new and very challenging. So it is not ized that that’s what people like. I think we’re at Ifill: Something that we underestimate, that easy to find solutions, best practices elsewhere; a point right now where the offer of the sensible Trump sold, he sold a kind of freedom. Those the creation of a truly multiracial democracy is deal does not seem to be the kind of thing that rallies, you know, ‘‘punch him in the face,’’ uncharted territory. people are prepared to coalesce around because ‘‘grab women by the P’’ — what he offered is: of just what you described. There’s a kind of a madness in the air. There’s a kind of a decadence. The New York Times Magazine 49

Puzzles Edited by Will Shortz EXES & NOS 1 234 567 89 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 By Brad Wiegmann 17 18 19 20 21 Brad Wiegmann is a national security lawyer for the 22 23 24 25 Department of Justice in Washington. He says this puzzle reminds him of an old Steven Wright line: ‘‘I almost had 26 27 28 29 30 a psychic girlfriend — but she left me before we met.’’ This is his third puzzle for The Times, all Sundays. — W.S. 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 ACROSS 72 Baloney 48 49 50 51 52 53 1 Band of supporters 73 Bad signs for a bank 54 55 56 57 58 5 Something absolutely robber necessary 59 60 61 62 63 64 75 Academic journal with a 10 ‘‘____ and Janis’’ (comic strip) Breakthrough of the Year 65 66 67 68 award 14 Oomph 69 70 71 72 73 74 77 U.K. track-star-turned- 17 Word from the French for politician Sebastian 75 76 77 78 ‘‘high wood’’ 78 Mishmashes 79 80 81 82 18 Washed out 79 Swindled 83 84 85 86 87 88 20 Dock 80 ‘‘Then I had a fling with a 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 21 Something a winner may Pittsburgh Penguin, but I run into knew he . . . ’’ 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 22 ‘‘It’s tough finding the right 83 Cuisine featuring som tam 104 105 106 107 person. My first boyfriend was a perfectly nice atheist, 86 Drill command 108 109 110 111 112 but he . . . ’’ 88 Feel another’s pain 113 114 115 116 24 Tour de France seasons 89 Cavalryman of old 117 118 119 120 3/20/22 25 Side dish at a fish fry 91 Big ____ (Olympic 4 Crossword solving option 44 Total jerk 77 Journalist who was the 26 Main component of snowboarding event) 45 Boxing highlight first woman to guest-host Saturn’s rings 5 Watchmaker since 2015 46 Apply to ‘‘Jeopardy!’’ 92 Whimper 48 Jokesters 27 Lena of ‘‘Enemies, a Love 6 It lands on the White 49 Some native Alaskans 78 Hard stuff that jiggles Story’’ 93 Starters, for short House’s South Lawn 50 Tile work 80 ‘‘We’ll be in touch!’’ often 51 Leadership position 81 Dr. of 112-Down 28 ‘‘So then I dated a fun couch 97 Outback speedster 7 ____ Bator, Mongolia 53 Bit of a chuckle 82 Counterpart of full, in a potato, but he . . . ’’ 56 Rubberneck 98 Keep rhythm, as a 8 On the ____ 57 ‘‘A house divided against way 31 Nonstarters? conductor might 83 Wise guys? 9 Fastened, in a way ____ cannot stand’’ 84 One might be smoke-filled 33 Toeing the line 101 Wisconsin town with a 58 Rubylike gem 85 Not surprisingly clothing namesake 10 Making change 60 Richard of ‘‘Chicago’’ 87 Big name in hot dogs 34 Fútbol cheer 61 Native people for whom a 90 Face on a penny, familiarly 104 ‘‘I was in a serious 11 Well past the freshness 92 Strong suit 35 Italian wine region relationship with a hippie, date, say state is named 94 Regulate but he . . . ’’ 62 When doubled, a candy 95 Cupid’s love 36 ‘‘30 for 30’’ airer 12 ‘‘My Fair Lady’’ composer 64 Quick with a clapback 96 Mideast currency unit 106 Org. issuing vaccine 66 So-called ‘‘Father of 99 Features of some halls 39 The 1 in {1,2,3}: Abbr. standards starting in 2021 13 Actor/comedian who was a regular on Johnny Liberalism’’ 100 Mucky substances 40 Lab vessel 107 It may be part of a solution Carson’s ‘‘Tonight Show’’ 67 Conflict taking a couple of 102 Twin sister of He-Man 103 What, in multiple senses, 42 Camphor, e.g. 108 Together, in music 14 Meathead seconds? 70 Soccer star Messi, to fans might get tipped 45 One getting depressed 109 Fading sea name 15 Military uniform feature 73 Capital of Fiji 105 Take place? during exams? 74 ‘‘How ____ Your Mother’’ 106 Redding who wrote 110 ‘‘Finally, I started seeing a 16 Bluish-gray shades 76 Beloved site for the Irish 47 They’re found near traps charming magician, and he ‘‘Respect’’ . . . ’’ 19 Scintilla … and French 111 Crispr material 48 ‘‘Then my friend set me up 112 See 81-Down with a recluse, but he . . . ’’ 113 Pan, in part 21 ‘‘Shameful!’’ Puzzles Online Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles: 52 Comedian Mort 114 Fun-size 23 Alley-____ nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). For the daily puzzle commentary: nytimes.com/wordplay. 54 Classic Hawaiian folk song 115 Kind of thesis 29 Possessive types? 55 Superman and others, for 116 Weekend warrior’s woe 30 Way to go: Abbr. short 117 Happening offline, to a 32 ‘‘You’re so wrong about 56 Book with a notable world texter that!’’ premiere? 118 Relaxation 37 Lead-in to Cat 59 What middlemen do 119 Devotee of Haile Selassie, 38 Something that all but 60 Noisy beachgoer informally three U.S. presidents have had while in office 62 Bun in a bamboo steamer 120 Bit of kitchen waste 41 ‘‘Time out’’ in the N.B.A. 63 Internet encryption inits. DOWN 1 Big name in pricey cigars 43 What makes the short list? 65 Binary 2 You can’t say it doesn’t 66 ‘‘I dated my rock climbing count instructor for a while, but he just . . . ’’ 3 Lizzie is one, in the ‘‘Cars’’ movies 68 ____-Pacific 69 Not sparkling 71 Blast-furnace supply 50