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Magazine


Issue 108, Spring 2020

The Oxford American’s spring issue includes a fascinating opus on Afro-Cuban religions in Miami, Ben Fountain’s short story about a woman existing in a bewildering in-between place after the death of her mother, and an epic reported feature by Emily Gogolak with photographs by Gabriella Demczuk on Dilley, Texas, home of the South Texas Family Residential Center.

Plus: a community searches for a mass grave in Thibodaux, Louisiana, KaToya Ellis Fleming resurrects the work of novelist Frank Yerby, and Casey Parks profiles a New Orleans principal who has an innovative plan to prepare black students for college.







Editor’s Letter: The Messy Middle, by Eliza Borné

POINTS SOUTH


Career Girl Meets Rock Star, by Malinda Maynor Lowery 

The Wild, six love poems by Seth Pennington and Bryan Borland

Nothing Stays the Same, by Jeanie Riess

The Virgin, a story by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

What Is Lost, by Wei Tchou 

The Ghosts of Georgetown County, by John Thomason

FEATURES


An Intersection at the End of America
A portrait of Dilley, Texas, home of the largest immigration detention center in the United States
by Emily Gogolak

Cane Creek
A story by Ben Fountain

Persons Unknown
A community’s search for a mass grave in Thibodaux, Louisiana
by Rosemary Westwood

On Sacred Ground
Afro-Cuban religions find a home in Florida
by Jordan Blumetti

Sense of Strength
A New Orleans principal’s innovative plan to prepare black students for college
by Casey Parks

OMNIVORE


You Never Can Tell About a River
My search for Frank Yerby and our Augusta, Georgia
by KaToya Ellis Fleming

Buh Black Snake in New England
A prep school teacher, Walker Percy, and the power of Gullah folktales
by Benjamin Anastas

Local Fare: 
Getting the Look
by John T. Edge

 

Art by:  Emerald Arguelles, Dale Niles, Joe Rudko, E.A. Bethea, Maria Sturm, Matthew Finley, J.T. Blatty, Tim Davis, Bess Adler, Justin Cook, Gabriella Demczuk, Tatiana Trouvé, Nina Robinson, Alberto del Pozo, Casey Parks, Romare Bearden, Nathan Gelgud, and Walker Evans 

Cover: “For Nakeya” (2019), by Emerald Arguelles