Introducing Cascadia Journal
Yesterday, the US Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling that allows the Trump administration to continue to kidnap Venezuelan immigrants living in the US and send them to prisons in El Salvador without any due process. It's just one of a thousand cuts this administration has inflicted on the rule of law in its first two months in office.
It's abundantly clear that this administration considers the US constitution an inconvenient impediment to its authoritarian ambitions. From my little apartment in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, I've sat in front of my laptop doomscrolling my feed on Bluesky every day – and like many of us, wondering what I can do in response.
This newsletter is part of the answer to that question.
I'm a freelance journalist who's lived most of my life in Cascadia, the bioregion in the upper left-hand corner of North America that's home to a diverse assortment of ecosystems, from lush rainforests to arid sagebrush deserts. Stretching from Northern California to Southeast Alaska and encompassing most of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, it's also home to a diverse assortment of 16 million people.
During the first Trump administration, I created an online forum for news, essays, poetry, and photography called Cascadia Magazine. Though that project didn't survive the pandemic, my passion for the Pacific Northwest has never ebbed.
Whether traveling to northern British Columbia to report on a First Nation's efforts to assert it sovereignty and protect salmon or exposing how the Seattle Police Department knew that an officer who struck and killed a pedestrian had a deeply troubled history but hired him anyway, I'm deeply committed to reporting on the issues critical to those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest.
Cascadia Journal represents a turn toward the place I call home.
I don't believe journalists need to conceal their values in pursuit of an impossible ideal of objectivity. I believe in science, human rights, the rule of law, having empathy for the most vulnerable people in our society, and the importance of writers asking difficult questions of people in power. While some news outlets – not to mention universities, law firms, and and leaders of the Democratic opposition – have kissed Trump's ring in order to preserve their power and access, Cascadia Journal will have none of that.
I'm proudly anti-fascist, and what I'll be writing about here will be focused on protecting the people of the Pacific Northwest from authoritarianism and right-wing policies dedicated to destroying human rights and the social safety net.
I will confess (and yes, this is what journalists call a buried lede, the real topic of a piece, hidden several paragraphs in) that I now firmly believe the future of Cascadia will be less connected to the United States, which is quickly becoming a failed, fascist state. I'm interested in exploring ways our bioregion can go its own way, become more resilient, and more independent of the US federal government. Washington state, where I live, is ranked 45 out of 50 states in terms of the imbalance between federal taxes paid and funds returned to the region.
I believe we as a bioregion can do better.
What I'd like to explore at Cascadia Journal are the stories of how people across Cascadia are building a bioregional identity and becoming proud of their autonomy. I'll be writing weekly essays on politics, the environment, and the arts in the Pacific Northwest – as well as daily curated posts on the latest developments in news and culture across Cascadia. If you previously subscribed to my former email newsletter, Cascadia Daily, you have a inkling of what I'll be doing here, though I'll warn you – I'm going to be more opinionated and dive deeper into the question of whether Cascadia can or should peacefully assert its independence.
My weekly essays are free for everyone to read. If you'd like to also receive Cascadia Journal's daily digest of news and culture from across the Pacific Northwest, a monthly subscription of $5 a month (less than the cost of a double-shot oat milk latte) will get you access to everything I'll be writing here. For $10 per month you'll get all that plus invitations to social meetups across the region.
I hope you'll join me on this journey.
--Andrew Engelson
If you have questions or comments feel free to contact me at cascadiajournal@protonmail.com. If you'd like to unsubscribe from this free subscription to Cascadia Journal, please use the link below or send me an email.
Illustration credit: Cascadia map by Lauren Tierney, CC BY-SA 4.0
