Sue Ogrocki/AP

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

When former President Donald Trump’s lawyers talk about his defense for the federal and Georgia Jan. 6 charges against him, one recurrent theme is that Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

His request of Vice President Mike Pence to pause the Electoral College vote count, or his phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” 11,780 votes, was shielded free speech, they say. As a citizen, the then-president was entitled to petition government for “a redress of grievances,” as the First Amendment explicitly says, the Trump team adds.

Much of what Mr. Trump has been indicted for is not just speech, but “political speech,” Trump attorney John Lauro said on CNN earlier this month.

“There’s nothing more protected under the First Amendment than political speech,” Mr. Lauro said.

Many legal analysts are skeptical this approach will work in a courtroom. There is no First Amendment right to engage in a conspiracy to break the law, they point out, and Mr. Trump has been charged with urging others to take illegal actions.

Nor is “political” speech actually uniquely protected under the law, they say.

But some experts add that there are fuzzy lines in First Amendment jurisprudence. It is an area of law that is not as settled as one might think, given the Constitution’s age.

Judges in Trump cases may also be reluctant to slap pretrial speech restrictions on a former president and current political candidate who is adamant about First Amendment rights, even if he makes inflammatory comments about his legal situations.

“The basic point is that there are areas of uncertainty,” says Frederick Schauer, a professor and First Amendment scholar at the University of Virginia School of Law. “Raising a First Amendment defense might, depending on the facts, not be completely frivolous.”

“Aspirational asks” 

Mr. Trump may face judgment on his Jan. 6 defenses sooner than he had wanted. His lawyers had asked that the federal trial on charges filed by special counsel Jack Smith be delayed until 2026. But on Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected this position and set a trial opening date of March 4, 2024 – during the presidential primary campaign season.

Given that schedule, the former president’s legal team has seven months to set defense strategy. But in television and other media appearances so far, their statements have outlined a general approach, with the First Amendment as a backbone.

Trump lawyers have acknowledged that it is possible to commit a conspiracy crime with words alone. But they say there is no connection between Mr. Trump’s false assertions that he had won, his various phone calls to other officials, his lobbying of Mr. Pence, and illegal activities.

Those were “core political speech” and “aspirational asks,” said Mr. Lauro on “Fox News Sunday” earlier this month.

“President Trump did not issue any executive orders or do anything in terms of using levers of executive power. He simply petitioned and asked,” said Mr. Lauro.

In contrast, Mr. Smith, in his indictment of Mr. Trump for Jan. 6-related offenses, noted that the former president has a right, like every American, to speak his mind about the election. He even had a right to say, falsely, that fraud had swayed the election outcome and that he had won.

But Mr. Trump did not have the right to use speech to pursue illegal means of subverting the election results, the indictment said. Prosecutors charge that he did just that by pushing to illegally obstruct the Jan. 6 congressional Electoral College vote count, engaging in efforts to organize false slates of electors in key states, and pushing state election officials to use illegal means to change their vote counts, all efforts dependent on “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit.”

Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump sits between his attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro as he faces charges before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya that he orchestrated a plot to try to overturn his 2020 election loss, at federal court in Washington, Aug. 3, 2023, in a courtroom sketch. At far left is U.S. special counsel Jack Smith.

Political dissent vs. overturning an election

Some experts note that pursuing charges that depend heavily on speech can involve difficult prosecutorial decisions. For instance, prosecutors did not pursue a charge of incitement against Mr. Trump for his speech to a crowd of supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, many of whom later stormed the U.S. Capitol building.

“If [federal prosecutors] said the speech Trump gave on Jan. 6 incited a riot, I would’ve been willing to defend him on that,” says Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Furthermore, there are legal restrictions on how speech can be linked to allegedly illegal conspiratorial action. Under Supreme Court decisions, such speech must advocate illegal activity, the speaker must be urging imminent action, and it must be likely that the illegal action will really occur.

Urging in the abstract that people ought to rob banks to bring capitalism to its knees would be protected under the First Amendment, says Professor Schauer. Urging particular people in a nonpublic manner to rob a bank and give the speaker some of the money would not.

“So a lot may depend on the fuzzy line between protected advocacy of illegal activity and unprotected criminal conspiracy,” says Professor Schauer.

Some experts say Mr. Trump’s lawyers’ description of his activities as “political” speech may be more of a rhetorical flourish than legally meaningful.

Political speech is often presented as axiomatic of the type of speech that the First Amendment is designed to protect, says Gregory Magarian, a constitutional law professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. That does not make it a special category, he says. Speech is speech.

The loser of an election is allowed to say they really won, even if everyone around them is saying otherwise. 

“But if the loser is the president and he is using the power of the office to overturn an adverse election result, that’s way off in its own ZIP code in terms of protecting political dissent,” says Professor Magarian.

Complications from campaigning

As a defendant in multiple criminal cases, Mr. Trump is now subject to direct judicial curbs on his freedom of speech. Yet he is also a candidate for the highest elected office in the country – and campaigning involves lots of speaking. The tensions inherent in this situation are obvious, says Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law in Florida.

“Political candidates usually get broad First Amendment protections. However, criminal defendants often have their speech rights and associations rights curtailed to protect the integrity of the criminal justice system,” says Professor Torres-Spelliscy by email.

Judges can order criminal defendants not to speak to witnesses, or say anything that could intimidate anyone involved in their trial or possibly taint a jury pool.

In 2019, a federal judge tightened a gag order on Trump associate Roger Stone, for instance, after he posted on social media a depiction of the judge next to a target. Mr. Stone was on trial at the time for lying to Congress and witness tampering.

This month, a judge jailed accused crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried for allegedly contacting potential witnesses against him, and other forms of witness tampering.

Mr. Trump has already been warned by Judge Chutkan that there are limits to what he can publicly say about his federal Jan. 6 trial as a political candidate. The warning followed a social media post by Mr. Trump that threatened he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him.

But Judge Chutkan may be reluctant to impose further restrictions on Mr. Trump’s speech, in part because that would be unprecedented, and in part because Mr. Trump might actually want such a fight over what he would surely term a “gag order,” says Professor Magarian.

The entire scope of the Trump Jan. 6 prosecutions is “going to be one of the biggest conversations that a lot of people have seen in a long time about First Amendment rights,” he adds.

Donald Dardar navigates his skiff boat through the bayou as dark rain clouds gather, ready to unleash across Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. His wife, Theresa, sits at the bow and points to an abandoned home. Two years ago, Hurricane Ida blew off its roof. Living here, where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico, residents find little easy protection from the elements.

The terrain of southeast Louisiana has been drastically altered by the combination of hurricanes, sea-level rise, and the construction of canals and levees during the past half-century. And yet, the sparsely populated area had been repeatedly overlooked by state and federal coastal restoration and protection projects. 

As a result, the Dardars, members of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe whose ancestors lived here for thousands of years, have watched their homeland wash away at an alarming rate. Ms. Dardar gestures to a narrow strip of wetland where live oaks, killed by saltwater intrusion, jut from the grasses. 

“The land used to go much farther back, with many more trees, and cows would roam there,” she says. As water salinity increased, duck sightings and freshwater fishing in the bayou have become things of the past.

So in 2001, Terrebonne Parish residents decided to act. They funded their own levee – with construction now well underway – and have more recently begun coastal restoration projects to protect key lands from erosion. It’s a long-term battle with no guarantee of success, but so far, the levee and rows of oyster shell-filled bags along the coast seem to be working.

“People started to realize there was no help coming to us and that we must help ourselves,” says Norby Chabert, a former three-term state senator for Terrebonne and the neighboring Lafourche Parish, in a phone interview. The consequences were clear if they didn’t act. Just 4 miles away, more than 98% of Isle de Jean Charles has already disappeared. Nearly all the families living there have relocated. “It was a matter of survival,” he says.

The efforts by Terrebonne Parish residents to stay above water are a window into how low-lying communities are responding to rapid coastal erosion with multi-pronged approaches. While strategies may vary from state-assisted “managed retreat” to big-money federal infrastructure projects, they also come down to locals learning how to work together and make hard choices. 

Millie Brigaud/The Christian Science Monitor.

Live oak trees were killed by saltwater intrusion line Bayou Pointe-au-Chien in Montegut, Louisiana.

A recent crisis with a long history 

Roughly a football field of wetlands disappears every 100 minutes in coastal Louisiana and the Mississippi River Delta. Beyond devastating ecosystems, the changing landscape has contributed to almost a century of rising flood risks. 

“There were a lot of canals that were cut for oil and gas drilling in the 1930s, which likely contributed to Louisiana sinking,” says Alex Kolker, an oceanographer, geologist, and climate scientist, whose research lab is based in Terrebonne Parish. “In addition, the area doesn’t get much sediment from the Mississippi River. This area was naturally cut off, positioned along a limb of the river that was receiving less and less river water. That’s also what led to the saltwater intrusion that kills freshwater vegetation,” he explains.

Climate change has also contributed to the region’s environmental emergency, though its effects have only been tangible in southern Louisiana since the 1990s, says Dr. Kolker. 

“Skin in the game”

“It only became a crisis in my lifetime,” says Mr. Chabert, who is in his late 40s. It took a long time for reality to set in. There was a sentiment of disbelief, he says. People were used to living off the land, following crawfish, alligator, crab, shrimp, and duck seasons. But low yields set off alarms. 

Storms also pushed the parishes to recognize their precarity. By 1985, home-devouring floods struck every few years instead of every few decades. 

In 1992, the federal government authorized an assessment of the region’s hurricane protection needs. By 2000, “minimal” work had been done, says Reggie Dupre, a former state senator and director of the Terrebonne Levee & Conservation District.

Millie Brigaud/The Christian Science Monitor

A shrimp boat is docked in in Bayou Pointe-au-Chien in Montegut, Louisiana, June 7, 2023. Southern Louisiana is threatened by saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion. Fishing communities have observed rapid changes to ecosystems seasons in recent decades.

So a year later, he and five politicians and businesspeople from Terrebonne Parish asked then-Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster how to build their own levee. “I don’t believe in handouts, but I do believe in helping hands,” Mr. Dupre recalls the governor saying. They struck a deal: The parish would raise a levee tax, and the state would match it dollar for dollar. It worked. The tax passed by a slim margin. 

“We had to show we had skin in the game,” says Jerome Zeringue, who was levee district director at the time. In Republican strongholds like Terrebonne, convincing the public to add their first local sales tax was no easy task. “We had to develop public trust and to establish credibility in the levee district,” says Mr. Zeringue. 

Since then, the parish has built on its momentum of cooperation and trust. Before federal money was made available through the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021, Terrebonne Parish built approximately $600 million of the Morganza to the Gulf Hurricane Protection System – enough to start making a difference, although significant portions of the planned 98-mile system remain unfinished.

If asked, Terrebonne residents would raise the levee tax in a heartbeat, says Mr. Chabert. 

Oysters, trees, and more soil

But the Dardars felt more needed to be done to stop erosion. Levees protect the community from storms but do little to stop erosion within them. 

“This land is where a lot of our ancestors are buried,” Ms. Dardar says as the skiff approaches one of Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe’s sacred burial grounds, at risk of washing away. “All these mounds, we have a connection to them. ... We don’t want our ancestors’ hard work to be forgotten,” she says.

Millie Brigaud/The Christian Science Monitor.

Theresa Dardar stands near her skiff boat in Bayou Pointe-au-Chien in Montegut, Louisiana, June 7, 2023. She and her husband, Donald, are leading efforts to protect the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe’s burial mounds that are at risk of coastal erosion.

The Dardars spent four years searching for a solution. In 2019, they secured a grant to build their first “living shoreline” around a mound in the neighboring Lafourche Parish. Partnering with Louisiana nonprofit Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, they now regularly collect 30-pound bags of oyster shells from New Orleans restaurants and place them where mound land runs into canal waters. 

Oyster spat (seeds) circulate throughout the water, fasten to the empty oyster shells, and grow. Eventually, the beds become large enough to house other life, like crabs and fish, and strong enough to keep water from reaching the burial mounds.

For their efforts, the Dardars were recognized in June 2023 by the nonprofit coalition with a Coastal Stewardship Award. (Mr. Dupre, the former state senator, won a Lifetime Achievement award at the same time.) 

Other Terrebonne residents – many of them members of the region’s five Indigenous communities – have followed in the Dardars’ footsteps. With grants and nonprofit partnerships, residents have organized tree plantings and projects to push dirt back into old canals. These aim to prevent further erosion, and gradually restore marshland and natural sedimentation. 

Gardner Goodall, who is native plants coordinator for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and has worked on a number of projects with the Dardars, is inspired by Terrebonne residents’ intimate connection to land and commitment to preservation. “There is no silver bullet” in addressing climate change and coastal erosion, he says. “I think it’s kind of beautiful the way we’re addressing coastal restoration here. We need bulldozers and cranes for big infrastructure projects, and we also need volunteers on the ground. Neither one of them can work on its own,” he says.   

In fact, to some extent, this community-driven approach to coastal protection and restoration is turning traditional power dynamics on their heads, says Devon Parfait, chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw, a sister tribe to the Pointe-au-Chien. “Typically we see a top-down approach, with big institutions making decisions with little to no community input,” he says. When there is work in underfunded communities, “it’s treated as a check box. ... Community outreach happens after the creative process and big decisions have already been made.”  

Terrebonne may not be the most densely populated parish, but it’s home to cultures that exist nowhere else. Its seafood and energy industries help feed and fuel the country, and its ecosystem is essential to the planet, Mr. Parfait explains. 

In contrast with the top-down approach of doing things “for the greater good,” where resources are allocated to the greatest number of people, he says, “I’m not approaching things for the greater good, but for the good of all.”

When Santa Ana police arrived to arrest her drunken older brother in the midst of a family dispute, Aimee Rivera recalls feeling confused and desperate.

Still, amid the flashing lights, handcuffs, and tears, Ms. Rivera experienced a surprising level of support and empathy from the officers in her home – particularly the female officer who comforted her mother. Rather than treating her and her parents roughly, like stereotypical TV officers who barge in and badger victims and suspects, they were respectful. Instead of barking orders at the family, they were gentle.

“Santa Ana PD was very helpful and professional during and after the arrest,” she explains today. “I appreciated their take on the incident,” as they gently separated family members and objectively questioned each one.

The presence of that female officer, and the team’s softer touch, planted a quiet idea in the high schooler’s mind: She could be a police officer.

That idea was in the background through high school and then college. Two years ago, it took new shape: Working in a vitamin shop, she met a customer who was impressed with her attention to detail and presentation skills. He was a Santa Ana police officer who told her bluntly, “You could be a great police officer.”

And, through a national effort that the SAPD has signed on to – the 30X30 Initiative, sponsored by the New York University Policing Project, which aims to make 30% of sworn police officers female by 2030 – Ms. Rivera now expects to formally apply to the Santa Ana agency. Santa Ana’s approach has offered Ms. Rivera and dozens of other potential female recruits personalized training tips for passing the rigorous physical agility test and relationships with the department that help them envision roles for themselves in law enforcement.

Cathi Douglas

Potential police recruit Aimee Rivera prepares for the rigorous physical agility test she'll take to apply to be an officer with the Santa Ana Police Department in California. Here, in July, she worked on upper body strength following coaching tips she got from the department, which aims to entice more women into a law enforcement career through professional and physical fitness coaching and mentoring, even before they apply.

The department is intentionally engaging with women, creating direct and lasting contact long before they apply to become officers – even before they imagine the idea themselves, says the SAPD’s Sgt. Maria Lopez, who helps lead the program that starts contacts with girls as young as elementary school.

Ms. Rivera’s upcoming application is recognition that police work is “more than writing tickets and riding around in a police car,” and can offer female officers outstanding careers in the male-dominated field, says Commander Rosa Ponce de Leon, the top woman in the SAPD. She’s helping create what law enforcement experts call an extraordinary nurturing program for female recruits.

“Women bring a whole new important dimension to our work that should be acknowledged,” says Alex Gammelgard, president of the California Police Chiefs Association and chief of police in Grass Valley.

The SAPD serves a largely Hispanic community. Violent and property crime rates range above national averages. One of more than 300 agencies committed to the 30X30 Initiative, the 356-member agency now has 35 female officers. Nationwide, just 12% of officers are female, with a mere 3% in leadership positions. 

Particularly after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in 2020, public demands for reform have grown. Adding a distinct female approach is a re-balancing effort to improve the depth and scope of the force in the Santa Ana community, says SAPD Chief David Valentin.

“There’s scientific evidence that women have a different skill set than their male counterparts,” he explains. “Women tend to be great communicators, and men can learn from that.”

“I am on their radar”

“Like most women who are committed, educated, and grounded, I didn’t see police work as an option,” says Commander Ponce de Leon. Only after serving in the Air Force and then interning with the Los Angeles Housing Authority did she recognize the connection that her knowledge of the law and a dedication to community service had to law enforcement. 

The SAPD is encouraging such recognition by “creating relationships” long before an applicant comes through the door, says Chief Gammelgard.

Indeed, before Ms. Rivera’s formal application, she says the department’s sworn and non-sworn women enthusiastically rallied to support and encourage her.

A 2020 California State University, Fullerton graduate with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, Ms. Rivera worked part time for the university police department before graduation. Since then, she’s attended several SAPD recruiting events, where she’s met female officers and police department leaders who’ve become guides, cheerleaders, and coaches. She recently was one of 30 graduates of the SAPD’s 11-week Community Police Academy.

“I am on their radar,” Ms. Rivera says. “They’re on my side. I’m not just a number or statistic. They’ve really taken me through things and helped me.”

That “radar” begins early and can take creative forms as police officers visit high school career fairs, college softball tournaments, community meetings, and various local and regional events.

Sarahi Apaez

Martha Toro nears the finish line in a 500-yard sprint during a March physical agility class offered to help ready women to apply to be officers in the Santa Ana Police Department.

Ms. Rivera was one of over 100 prospects attending the SAPD’s first hiring expo for women in October 2022. The event – scheduled again this fall – introduces women to the department and application process.

Several months later, Ms. Rivera participated in the department’s first female training class. The event was a critical step, says the SAPD’s Sergeant Lopez, because potential female recruits often cite physical agility as their key barrier in the application process. 

Designed to help future female officers pass the department’s agility test, the spring event drew nearly 50 women. The training event – including a 165-pound dummy drag and a sprint to a 6-foot wall climb – was a vital step for Ms. Rivera.

“It was an important way ... to give me a gauge, showing the things I need to work on,” she says. She needs to concentrate on mastering a 1 ½-mile run in under 14 minutes and upper body workouts to succeed at an obstacle course and wall climb.

Not just recruiting but changing culture

In Santa Ana, commitment to the 30X30 Initiative is three-pronged, with education, recruitment, and retention as top priorities. Educating women to see themselves in policing roles is key.

Female Santa Ana officers at the job fair and training class discussed careers one-on-one with potential recruits. “We have our department ... addressing any hesitation, answering questions from women,” Sergeant Lopez says. “They get to know us and some of our backgrounds, and we help them address certain characteristics they may possess that are useful in law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, notes Chief Gammelgard, “you can’t just recruit – you must design a culture where women are an important part of the whole.”

With that in mind, the SAPD is revising recruitment materials, says Commander Ponce de Leon: “We want you to be who you are and remain who you are. So we must transition to a more modern way of describing what we do for a living.”

The SAPD also positions its officers as role models.  

“They need to see that this female officer ‘grew up just like me and is a police officer today – and that could be me,’” says Commander Ponce de Leon, who had few role models herself when she joined the force 21 years ago. 

Ms. Rivera, for example, says she’s been impressed with Sergeant Lopez’s determination and strength of character in their many interactions. Sergeant Lopez, in turn, says Ms. Rivera exhibits the grit and motivation necessary to complete the extensive application and review process, which for Ms. Rivera is a bit longer now because she’s recovering from a hip flexor procedure.

The recruitment team recently spoke to competitors at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, a Southern California softball tournament attended by the nation’s top women’s teams. Officers often speak to Marines stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton, visit commercial gyms, and pursue career fairs and classroom speaking opportunities. The department offers a QR Code to potential recruits via social media that connects them to recruitment officers, beginning a dialogue that continues online and in person.

“They begin to see police not as the enemy, but people who are here to help,” says Commander Jose Gonzalez. “It plants a seed that there’s a career option there, that being a member of law enforcement is an honorable and notable profession.”

As a future SAPD officer, Ms. Rivera says she hopes to help change the department’s culture – and to treat citizens with the professionalism, respect, and objectivity her family experienced from the lone female officer who assisted that difficult night of her brother’s arrest.

A summertime tradition that had been slipping away appears to be making a comeback: More teenagers are getting summer jobs. Including my own teenager.

My 15-year-old daughter landed her first job this summer as a dishwasher at the local wood-fire pizza place making $16 an hour. And I was bursting with pride and unsought advice.

For a teenager, having a summer job is a beautiful growing experience and rite of passage – even if one realizes this only in hindsight. And for a parent, watching your child endure this rite of passage is an exercise in learning to let go.

We parents have a habit of romanticizing our own childhood experiences as both harder and better. We believe the struggles we went through – those long walks to school barefoot in a snowdrift, uphill both ways – built resilience and self-sufficiency. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that first summer jobs are still as hard and boring – and wonderfully character-building – as they were when we were kids. 

After her first shift, my daughter issued a litany of grievances. She’s on her feet for hours on end! The water is scalding hot! She’s too busy to eat dinner! And every time she turns around, the sink is piled high with greasy pots and pans covered in baked-on cheese and sauce! 

I panicked. “Is she gonna make it through the summer?” I whispered to my husband later that evening. 

He assured me she’d be fine.

Over the next few days, I tried talking to my daughter about what she could do differently. I coached her on how to ask her manager for a 15-minute snack break. And I offered her a pair of rubber gloves. My daughter would have none of it. 

As the weeks wore on, she got the hang of things. Oh, she still complains. But she told me that she’s gamifying the most efficient system for washing silverware, that the line cooks have an amusing middle school sense of humor, and that the head chef is developing a fried jalapeño appetizer that she gets to taste-test before it hits the menu. Plus, there’s the money.

When I was 15 in the early ’90s, I worked my first summer job at Ed’s Deli, a ramshackle cafe steps from the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine. My boss was a stout, no-nonsense woman named Wanda, and my duties were the very definition of scutwork. I stocked the beverage refrigerators, took out trash, scrubbed formica tables, refilled ketchup and mustard bottles, and hoovered floors. 

Those were long, hard, dull days. But they were magical, too. I remember the salty camaraderie of the kitchen staff, the communal daze that befell us after the lunchtime rush, the icy relief of the cooler on a steamy summer day, and, in retrospect, what the job taught me. 

At Ed’s, I learned what it means to work: to be a competent, contributing member of a team. I learned the importance of showing up on time, pitching in on busy days, and being pleasant and cheerful to customers even when they were anything but.

Most importantly, I learned how to interact with, and take direction from, adults who weren’t my parents, my teachers, or my coach. Teenagers are notoriously oblivious to practicalities, and I was no different. But I saw how co-workers and managers anticipated problems and took initiative. Soon enough, I was doing the same. When a customer spilled iced tea, I grabbed a mop. When we ran out of milk, I volunteered to run to the store. 

The other day as my daughter was unloading our dishwasher at home, she confided that during her first week at work, she didn’t understand how to punch in and out on the time clock. “So, I told my boss the clock wasn’t working for me and I texted him my hours,” she said. “But later on, I watched a few other people clock in and figured it out.”

“You know, sometimes it’s OK to ask for help,” I said. 

As soon as I saw her wounded look, I regretted my words. Why was I correcting her when she’d eventually found the solution on her own?

Both my daughters are growing up in an era in which parents do a lot for their kids. We chauffeur them to and fro, seek out enriching activities and extracurriculars, and keep assiduous tabs on their schoolwork. 

As a Gen Xer raised by boomers who were more hands off in their parenting style, I bristle at this state of affairs. I sometimes find myself tempted to emulate my parents’ benign-neglect approach, but I also want to ensure my children have every advantage. I’m not necessarily proud of my inner tiger mom.

Some days, it’s hard to see my daughter frustrated or unsure of herself, but I can’t “tiger mom” her through her first summer job. That would defeat the purpose. This is her chance to grow, learn, and gain independence and responsibility. 

My husband reported that when he picked her up from her shift last night, she got in the car breathless. “My boss asked me if I wanted to do some salad prep,” she said excitedly. 

When I heard the news, I beamed. A promotion already!

1 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride

In Chicken Hill, the Black and Jewish neighborhood of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where immigrants and longtime residents strive and struggle, Chona Ludlow runs the local grocery with a fearless, open heart. When an attack at the store leads to an orphaned boy’s arrest, community members rally. Frank and affectionate, this latest triumph from James McBride stresses the challenges of accessing America’s promises.

2 Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett

A mother recounts her days as an actress in Hollywood and summer stock theater to her three grown daughters. Set on a northern Michigan cherry farm during the pandemic, the quiet novel awakens gratitude for life’s lessons. 

3 Three Fires, by Denise Mina

Denise Mina delivers a taut imagining of the rise and fall of a religious zealot in late 15th-century Italy. Girolamo Savonarola, a proud young man smarting from rejection and appalled by church corruption, embarks on an increasingly militant moral crusade. It doesn’t end well. Weaving together present-day lingo and dry asides, Mina spotlights the traits and tragedies that lead to fanaticism. 

4 The Last Ranger, by Peter Heller

Peter Heller’s adventurous novel centers on a Yellowstone National Park ranger with a poet’s heart and a troubled past. The ranger’s endeavors to solve mysteries, keep the peace, and safeguard a cherished friend are reverence in action. Heller’s lyrical prose captures gorgeous natural landscapes, captivating wildlife facts, wolf folklore, and a vibrant community of characters.

5 The Continental Affair, by Christine Mangan

A woman convinced she’s irredeemable. An upstanding man dogged by his past. Purloined cash – and the crooks who want it back. Christine Mangan’s novel plunks these characters and that loot into Europe in the 1960s; the resulting slow-boil pursuit by train, bus, and foot recalls James Bond. But this is no romp. The troubled protagonists wrestle with regret, forgiveness, and a longing for home. 

6 Good Fortune, by C.K. Chau

This retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” in New York’s Chinatown ticks all the right boxes. When Darcy Wong’s company offers to buy out the failing community center that Elizabeth Chen cherishes, sparks fly. 

7 Necessary Trouble, by Drew Gilpin Faust

Drew Gilpin Faust is an acclaimed Civil War historian and the first woman to serve as president of Harvard University. Her new memoir is both a moving personal narrative and an enlightening account of the transformative political and social forces that impacted her as she came of age as a privileged white girl in segregated Virginia.

8 The Women of NOW, by Katherine Turk

This illuminating account tells the story of the National Organization for Women through three diverse but little-known core members. In recounting their achievements and struggles, Katherine Turk highlights both the radical roots of the women’s rights group and its lasting impact on American society.

9 Dream Town, by Laura Meckler

Laura Meckler examines the history of racial integration in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and the parallel struggle for racial equity in the city’s public schools. She anchors each chapter with the narrative of a person who helped the town, bringing to life this story of perseverance in the face of imperfection.

10 Daughter of the Dragon, by Yunte Huang

Chinese American actor Anna May Wong’s 40-year stage and film career ranged from bit parts in the 1920s to supporting roles in big-budget hits. Yunte Huang exposes the racist policies and conflicting attitudes that limited her rise. Wong persevered; her individuality and style still inspire today.

Reuters/file

Girls dressed in Han clothing prepare for an event to mark the traditional Qixi festival, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day, at a park in Beijing, China.

A relatively new indicator for China’s economy was released last week. It showed that the number of couples who registered to marry during the traditional Qixi Festival, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day, had gone up. Both the festival, held on Aug. 22 this year, and the statistic have become far more important to the ruling Communist Party. In January, China reported the lowest number of first-time marriages in nearly 40 years. And the country’s population declined for the first time in 60 years, a result of a dramatic drop in births.

The long-term challenges of these demographic shifts remain uncertain. Yet Chinese leaders are eager to discern what motivates today’s young people to fall in love, get married, have children, and stay married. Their worries were supported by a recent survey from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It found 42% of college students are OK with staying single.

“In the past, society emphasized family interests, and individual survival was directly connected to one’s family, so the point of marriage was mainly to continue the family line,” stated a recent article in the state-run Global Times. “Yet in modern society, marriage has a new name – marriage of love.” During the Qixi Festival, for example, the city of Xian texted residents with a message of “sweet love, marriage and childbirth.”

For many women, new pro-birth incentives from the government, such as honeymoon discounts and caps on dowry payments, are not enticing enough. Women still face workplace discrimination and worry about the high cost of raising children and coping with China’s high-pressure educational system. “If they want more babies, they need to let us start families on our own terms instead of pushing us into an old-fashioned one-size-fits-all model that requires women to abandon careers and dreams,” one young woman, Ann Pei, told Al Jazeera.

The party’s top leaders held a special meeting in May on how to promote family-friendly policies. One finding that may have interested them was an informal survey by the Global Times. It discovered that young people want romantic relationships that put “shared values” above material interests, such as finances, appearance, and family background.

That spirit of equality in relationships has been echoed in Hong Kong’s debate over its low fertility rate. One lawmaker, Tik Chi-yuen of the Third Side party, suggests young people would see a better future in getting married and raising children if Hong Kong allowed universal suffrage.

In a 2015 book, a philosopher at Peking University, Huaihong He, foresaw the need for China’s leaders to look deeper at what people want. Ideas like universal love and equality “pervade every aspect of our lives and represent our ultimate life goals. And they exist on their own plane. They cannot – and should not – be forced, and modern society increasingly accepts that fact.”

The party has launched a pilot program in 15 provinces to change the “outdated, unwholesome betrothal culture and traditions” in China. Yet what it is also trying to find is what young people expect from a loving relationship.