R Street Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization. We are a free market think-tank with a pragmatic approach to public-policy challenges. Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government. We work extensively on both state and national policy and are dedicated to building broad coalitions and working with a wide array of groups who share specific policy goals.
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
What a 16th-Century Mexican Woman Taught Me About Myself
Mar 29, 2026
Sometimes it takes centuries to discover who you are.
This Women’s History Month, I honor Malinche, one of the most controversial women in Mexico’s history. In my work over 25 years to discover and tell her story
For over 500 years, Malinche has been brutally portrayed as the whore and ally of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was thrown into his path, gifted to him along with 19 other women, in 1519. Her mastery of languages made her valuable to him and also put a target on her back.
Over time, this young, Indigenous woman became propagandized as the main instigator behind the downfall of the Mexica/Aztec empire. This trafficked teen bravely interpreted words for Cortés and Moctezuma, and because of that, has been blamed for the colonization of Mexico for the last five centuries.
A movement to reframe Malinche’s story in Mexico began last year with cultural events to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples’ Day. President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, “We have a working group of anthropologists, historians, and philosophers studying this important, much-maligned figure, and it is very important to vindicate her.”
Understanding Malinche’s life is especially critical today. A global culture where women and girls are routinely sex trafficked extends far beyond the heinous acts of Jeffrey Epstein and his cowardly associates. Throughout history and today, women and children who have been victimized are robbed of their voices and humanity by the powerful and connected. It was recently reported that Cesar Chavez, icon of the Chicano civil rights movement, groomed and assaulted minor girls and raped and abused renowned Latina activist Dolores Huerta. Secrets that have been kept by the survivors for decades sent shockwaves throughout the Latino community.
As a Mexican-American woman growing up in the 60s in a middle-class suburb of Chicago, I thought Malinche was one of those Mexican words– like cabrona; words you never said out loud because you would get into trouble. As people believed she was responsible for the destruction of an empire, her name was spoken with as much condemnation as a swear word.
My father was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and came to the United States as a journalist in 1949. My mom was born in a Chicago neighborhood that was razed to make way for the University of Illinois at Chicago campus; her parents were from Jalisco, Mexico.
I grew up hearing Spanish but speaking in English because my mother was afraid her children would be marginalized. Spanish was the language of my father’s heart and his work as a radio announcer. It was the code my mother and I spoke when we didn’t want people around us to know what we were talking about.
By the time I was in my teens in the 70s, I knew Malinche was the name of Cortés’s interpreter during the Spaniards’ conquest of what is now known as Mexico.
After I read the Spaniard Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s True History of the Conquest of New Spain, her story was still vague, but a few things struck me: she was handed over to Cortés as a war prize at 18, she was fluent in three languages and the Spaniards named her Marina. She quickly gained fluency in Spanish during her journey to reach Moctezuma and the city of Tenochtitlan. She survived the Spaniards’ destruction of that magnificent city and Mexico.
Díaz writes that “she betrayed no weakness but a courage greater than that of a woman.”
I needed to know more about this young woman who was able to speak for armies, captains, ambassadors and royalty. My obsession with Malinche led me to later write a novel about her, Malinalli, her Nahuatl name.
There are no letters or journals in her voice, so everything is filtered through the eyes of the Spaniards, including Cortés and Diaz, who wrote first-person accounts of the conquest, and the Dominicans and Franciscans who arrived years after Tenochtitlan, today’s Mexico City, fell.
Cortés mentions her only twice in five self-glorifying letters to his Emperor Charles V of Spain; in one letter, calling her Marina, and la lengua, the tongue or interpreter.
The local chieftains called her Malintzin (which the Spaniards misheard and mispronounced as Malinche) and Malinalli. Some people thought she might be an ancient sorceress named Malinalxochitl or Wild Grass Flower.
I read everything I could find about Mesoamerican matriarchal cultures, Tenochtitlan, anthropological and archeological records, studies, and Mesoamerican histories, both ancient and recent. I read the stories of Mesoamerican gods and goddesses – Malinalxochitl, Huitzilopochtli, Ix Chel ––with fantastical tales that rival the Greeks’ Zeus, Athena, and Mars.
For years, I wrote drafts of her story in my free time from my advertising career, creating six versions of my novel. I needed to tell this story about how awe-inspiring Malinche was.
I relished the research and writing without fully realizing that I was digging into the history of my father’s and grandparents’ homeland, la patria, and that I was unearthing my connection to my Latinidad. The more I engaged in my heroine’s world to capture it through her eyes, the more I could see myself more clearly.
I am Mexican. Soy Mexicana. But then I wondered if I was Mexican enough to tell this story. Voices from the past haunted me.
“La gringa,” they called me, the American. And la güera.
I heard these names hurled at me in the U.S. and in Mexico throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Today I interpret güera to mean “the white girl,” but it was a word I didn’t fully understand when I was young. The word was not spoken with love.
I wondered if people called my green-eyed mother güera to her face, or my maternal grandmother Jesús, whose naturalization papers described her as White, complexion Fair; or my paternal grandmother, Adela, whose embrace was soft and smelled like warm pan dulce.
What a 16th Century Mexican Woman Taught Me About Myself was first published on Latino News Network and republished with permission.
Veronica Chapa is the author of the award-winning novel Malinalli.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
Man receives a tax refund check from the government; Indoor background
Getty Images
The Tax-Season Trap: When Refunds Become a Child Care Safety Net
Mar 28, 2026
Most parents are more than happy to receive a tax refund. That money can help pay bills, fund a long-overdue vacation, or simply offer breathing room. But for too many families, especially Black families, that refund is not extra. It too often becomes a temporary relief from a child care gap created by school systems that are no longer designed around the realities of working families.
Schools are supposed to be structured in a child’s best interest. In practice, hardships are built into an antiquated design. Seventy percent of Black parents work service-essential nine-to-five roles, yet schools dismiss in the early afternoon. Parents are left scrambling to find and pay for before- and after-school care, babysitters for holidays, teacher workdays, and full-time summer camps. Those gap hours and summer care costs average to about $400 to $500 per week. For many households, that equals an entire paycheck.
While headlines celebrate the “Big Beautiful Bill” and the $2,200 Child Tax Credit (CTC), the reality for many families is a math problem that simply is not mathing. The Child Tax Credit is separate from the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), which offsets only a portion of child care expenses against taxes owed and does not provide a broad refund for most families. Schools create an expensive care gap with half days, holidays, professional development days, and extended breaks. Add in sick days, and they rarely align with the average 11 days of PTO most workers receive each year. For African American parents, the situation is even more fragile. One report shows that 30 to 40 percent of Black parents have no paid sick days at all.
On average, parents spend between $4,000 and $6,600 per year covering care during school closures. That number alone explains why so many families feel squeezed. The broader tax credit story makes the gap clearer. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, families received up to $3,000 per child, which is closer to filling the actual child care gap. By 2024, that support dropped to $2,000. Now, this administration wants us to celebrate a $200 increase that brings the total to $2,200 in 2026.
This small increase does not bridge the $4,000 minimum child care gap. A once-a-year check does not pay a once-a-month childcare bill. Some might say this sounds like it is about entitlement. No, it is about infrastructure to support a robust workforce. The current tax system has retreated from families while child care costs continue to climb.
Staying home with a child who has a runny nose is often framed as a simple parenting decision, but for many African American families, it is a financial risk. One survey shows that 76 percent of African American households report living paycheck to paycheck. Missing work to cover child care gaps can mean missing rent, utilities, and a financial spiral that takes months to recover from.
That is not entitlement. It is a broken system, and if we want real change, we have to address the design flaws. We need to bridge the hours between 7 AM and 7 PM for working families. Teacher professional development can happen after school or online. Half days should be eliminated completely. Weeklong breaks should be aligned in schools across the state, so families with children in multiple districts do not have to juggle different calendars. When schools are closed, affordable full-day care options should exist.
Families earning under $100,000 per year need meaningful subsidies that reduce monthly costs. Child care centers also need accessible funding to lower tuition without compromising quality.
Employers must also adapt. Workplace holidays should better align with school calendars. Parents who can work remotely should be allowed to do so. The pandemic proved that remote work is possible in many industries. At the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic, an estimated 60 to 70 percent of full-time employees were working from home. Also, paid parental leave must be standard if employers require in-office work. Some companies offer monthly child care perks for employees on websites like Care.com as part of their benefit package. Employers cannot continue to demand full availability from parents while ignoring the structural gaps that make availability barely possible.
Tax refunds mean you overpaid taxes and were never meant to be survival checks. Yet for many working families, especially Black families, that is exactly what they have become. Until we redesign school schedules, workplace expectations, or tax policies to reflect the real cost of raising children, that annual refund will continue to serve as a reimbursement for a predictable failure we Americans keep pretending is normal.
Janice Robinson-Celeste is a former educator and the founder of Successful Black Parenting Magazine, a multi-award-winning publication that empowers Black families. She is a Public Voices fellow of the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
Keep ReadingShow less
Demonstrators protest Department of Homeland Security assigning ICE agents to work alongside TSA agents at O'Hare International Airport on March 27, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. The travel disruptions continue as hundreds of TSA agents quit or work without pay during a partial government shutdown. U.S. President Donald Trump said ICE agents will be deployed to U.S. airports on Monday, with border czar Tom Homan in charge of the effort.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
DHS Shutdown Becomes Democrats’ Leverage to Curb ICE Tactics after Minnesota Deaths
Mar 28, 2026
WASHINGTON – For more than a month, Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security while demanding that the agency limit Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in ten specific ways after federal agents killed two people during federal immigration operations in Minnesota in January.
“We will not continue to allow what we’re seeing on the streets. Thousands of Americans, of immigrants, of our neighbors from Chicago to Minneapolis are saying ‘enough is enough,’” said Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.
Democrats’ push for immigration enforcement reform has fueled a funding standoff on Capitol Hill that triggered a partial shutdown of DHS in mid-February after lawmakers failed to reach a funding agreement. The shutdown followed their dispute over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, including the January deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Amid the backlash, President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of 700 federal agents from Minnesota and sent border czar Tom Homan to lead immigration enforcement, who later announced the wind down of the operation, but also stressed support for Trump’s goal of widespread deportation of undocumented immigrants.
“We are not surrendering the President’s mission on a mass deportation operation. If you are in the country illegally, if we find you, we’ll deport you,” Homan said at a press conference in Minneapolis last month.
On Capitol Hill, the budget standoff raised a broader question about whether Democrats can realistically use the DHS funding fight to force changes to federal immigration enforcement while Republicans control Congress.
Democratic leaders have made 10 demands in the DHS funding bill to restrict ICE officers’ aggressive tactics as a condition for funding Homeland Security. The demands include removing face coverings, identifying themselves during operations, and less aggressive force standards.
“They have the leverage to withhold the funding, so the issue is what do you do with it?”
Georgetown Law School supervising attorney Sophia Genovese told Medill News Service.
Genovese pointed to the shutdown in the fall when Republicans entered the negotiations expecting Democrats to eventually concede, and Democrats ultimately agreed to a deal without securing the policy changes they had demanded.
She said her concern is that if Republicans hold out long enough again, public attention could fade and Democrats could face similar pressure to fold.
“The public strongly supports this. This is an issue that’s going to keep coming up,” Genovese said. “But the fear is if they’re going to capitulate and fold and continue to allow this crisis to occur again.”
In recent months, Democrats have also introduced a series of bills to advance their push for ICE accountability.
At a news conference in February, Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Reps. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore. and Derek Tran, D-Calif., introduced the “ICE and CBP Constitutional Accountability Act”, which would allow individuals to seek civil damages if U.S. Customs and Border Protection or ICE officers violate their rights.
Rep. Salinas criticized Trump’s 2025 budget bill that awarded more than $170 billion towards border and interior enforcement, and said the legislation would check ICE and CBP by targeting funds from the 2025 budget bill and using those funds to compensate victims.
“Without accountability, there are no consequences. And without consequences, they will keep violating the Constitution,” Salinas said.
That same month, Rep. Ramirez introduced the “Melt ICE Act”, a bill that would end funding for immigration detention and enforcement under DHS and redirect the money to community services. She said continued funding for DHS fuels human suffering and called for abolishing ICE.
“It must be dismantled piece by piece, and we need something new, a system that actually honors our rights, a system based on dignity, humanity,” Ramirez said.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said he hopes Democrats can secure significant reforms to ICE's operations, but he is skeptical that Trump will support meaningful change and would instead veto the bills.
“He’s had a very bad policy. He’s the person who appointed Noem during the rampage in Minneapolis, and he’s really politicized the whole issue so I don’t think he has confidence in reasonable reform,” Welch told Medill News Service. “ICE should be subject to all of the same standards in training, engagement, and warrants that apply to police enforcement in every community across the country.”
Genovese said the proposed legislation falls into several categories, including bills aimed at shrinking the immigration enforcement system and reducing deportations, measures that seek to reform agents’ conduct without limiting enforcement, and others she said would have little practical impact.
“Are all of these bills feeding into an overall reduction of the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement apparatus, or are these pieces of legislation just simple appeasements for the public? And so that’s something the Democrats need to think critically about,” Genovese said.
Genovese argued that even some Republicans are beginning to recognize the need for limits on immigration enforcement.
“They are disappointed with the immigration enforcement actions they are seeing,” Genovese said. “Even if not every single bill passes, I think Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to get some of these bills passed.”
Indeed, in March, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced two days of sharp questioning from Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees over her leadership and the administration’s immigration crackdown.
“What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that turn out are American citizens,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said heatedly to Noem. “We’re beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong. It’s the exact opposite. The way you’re going about deporting them is wrong.”
Soon after the hearing, Trump fired Noem as homeland security secretary and nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as her replacement.
Rep. Ramirez told Medill News Service that both parties must ask whether they are standing up for their constituents, the rule of law, and the Constitution, and to take action without making excuses or delaying the work.
“Are they going to continue to make excuses and not have a spine and allow Donald Trump to continue to terrorize their communities? So I think it's really important that right now, we're building the case to be able to actually ‘melt ICE’,” Ramirez said.
Gloria Ngwa is a Journalism and Psychology Student at Northwestern University.
Keep ReadingShow less
shallow focus photo of Statue of Liberty
Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash
Construct or Destruct: The American Promise is at a Crossroad!
Mar 28, 2026
In my US History class, I asked a simple question: What keeps democracy alive[DK1]? Most students answered, “good leaders” or “strong laws.” One student paused and said, “People who know how to listen to each other.” That answer is at the heart [DK2] of the American Promise and may matter more than any election.
America has always been defined as much by its promises as by its policies. From the Declaration of Independence to modern political speeches, leaders and thinkers alike have tried to answer a central question: What is America supposed to be?
Today, that question feels more urgent than ever.
Political speeches promise prosperity, security, and national strength. Yet beneath those promises lies a deeper question: not just what policies should change, but what kind of people must we become for democracy to work?
Today, that question feels more urgent than ever.
Political speeches promise prosperity, security, and national strength. Yet beneath those promises lies a deeper question: not just what policies should change, but what kind of people must we become for democracy to work?
What Is the “Promise of America”?
America is not just a place. It is a promise! Early Americans worked until they fell and slept until they worked because they believed in the promise, despite its imperfections. They still believed that all people deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness[DK3]; that government should exist for the people; and that each generation must protect and improve this promise. America isn’t guaranteed to be great forever. Every generation either builds on the promise or breaks it.
Construct Systems and Destruct Systems
As part of my Human Resources Development graduate studies I learned that societies move in one of two directions: towards a Destruct System [DK4] that (1) Produces fear, rewards division, and simplifies complex problems into slogans; (2) Fails to develop the skills citizens need to function in a democracy, and (3) Replaces responsibility with blame, or a Construct System that: (1) Develops human potential (2) Builds skills, responsibility, and cooperation (3) Expands opportunity and participation.
Construct Systems that invest in developing citizens. Destruct Systems depend on controlling them. Where we put our resources reveals our values. To date, we have perfected our skills and technology to guarantee the destruction of 20 million people in one hour, yet we cannot guarantee constructive growth and development of one American child for twenty years. We are not so much helpless victims as we are active perpetrators.
Regardless of which political party is in leadership, a country can sound strong, look successful, have powerful leadership, and still be drifting into a Destruct System if the truth is bent, people are divided, and responsibility is avoided. America fulfills its promise only when it becomes a Construct System!
Democracy Does Not Survive on Opinions. It Survives on Capabilities
Psychologist Albert Bandura, one of the most cited social scientists of the modern era, described a concept known as self-efficacy—the belief that individuals and communities can influence events through their actions.
Bandura wrote: “People’s beliefs in their capabilities to produce desired effects by their actions play a key role in how they behave.”
When people believe their actions matter, they participate. When they feel powerless, they withdraw. The long-term health of a democratic society depends on the capabilities of its people and their capacity to listen, especially when they disagree; evaluate truth, cooperate across differences, and take responsibility for the common good. When those capabilities grow, society becomes constructive. When they weaken, society becomes destructive.
A Warning Sign We Can Measure
Recent data suggests that civic capability may be under strain.
According to Gallup, trust in major US institutions has fallen below 30% for the first time in modern history. This decline reflects not only dissatisfaction with institutions, but also a weakening of the shared civic trust that democracies depend on.
At the same time, research from the Pew Research Center shows that political polarization has reached historic highs, with large portions of Americans viewing those on the other side not just as wrong, but as a threat! These are not just political trends. They indicate a system drifting away from a Construct System.
The good news is that civic capability can be strengthened.
Research in education, psychology, and civic engagement points to practical steps that help societies move toward constructive systems:
- Teaching media literacy and critical thinking through organizations like the National Literacy Project, the Encampment for Citizenship, and the James Baldwin Project.
- Creating spaces for respectful civic dialogue, like local libraries and YM/YWCAs
- Strengthening community institutions that encourage cooperation, such as branch NAACP and ACLU chapters.
- Developing leadership models that combine authority with accountability, such as student government for our youth and school board deliberations in local government.
These solutions do not eliminate political disagreement. Democracy depends on disagreement. Rather, they improve the way disagreements are handled.
The Crossroad for the American Citizen
America does not lose its promise all at once. It shifts—gradually—based on the choices of its people. We don’t just inherit democracy—we either develop it, or we watch it decline. When future generations look back, they will ask:
· Did we allow fear to dominate our politics? Fear makes people willing to trade freedom for promises of safety.
· Did we invest in human development, or did we educate for information rather than wisdom?
· Did we choose division and polarization and talk past each other instead of with each other?
· Did we watch as rising inequality made opportunity more dependent on ZIP codes than on talent?
Societies decline not only because of leaders, but because of everyday choices made by everyday people. America is testing whether we will become a society of builders—or a society of destroyers. The choice is ours… for now.
Steve Davisis is the founder & CEO of The Institute for Human Relations, Inc. (IHRinc.org), is a human development strategist. Mr. Davis is a veteran educator, human development practitioner, and organizational leader with more than 30 years of experience in educational leadership, social justice, and sports science. He played in the Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl football classics under legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More
Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization