Reporter shares stories about Latin immigrants, thanks to your help
As an Argentine immigrant who spent most of my formative years in South Florida, the Report for America assignment I took on — covering our region’s diverse Latin American diasporas — proved to be a homecoming. Over the course of my two years at el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald, my mission was simple, but important: to embed myself within MiamiDade’s immigrant communities, earn folks’ trust, and report from a grassroots perspective on real-life people and
stories. Doing my job well meant elevating voices most don’t hear from, and helping even longtime Miamians understand our community a little bit better, or with more nuance.
Looking back, I’m particularly proud of my coverage of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis and the disproportionate toll it took on the communities I report on. My pandemic coverage started last spring, with stories about the existential threat the coronavirus posed to the livelihoods of hospitality industry workers and domestic workers. Later, I explored how many of those workers were struggling to send money to loved ones back home, an interruption of decadeslong flows of remittances with potential life-or-death consequences.
During Florida’s coronavirus summer surge, I reported on the spread of COVID-19 across South Dade’s plant nursery workforce, a result of employers’ limited interest in adhering to public health guidelines (for some workers, testing positive meant losing their income stream and becoming homeless). Later in the fall, I turned my attention to the sustained exclusion of undocumented immigrants from pandemic-era safety nets. And when the vaccination campaign began, I contributed to the Herald’s coverage of the barriers blocking some immigrant communities from getting the shot, from misinformation to stateimposed ID requirements.
There’s another contribution I’m proud of: my coverage of the ongoing racial reckoning in our majority-minority community, sparked in part by last summer’s protests. At the time, I wrote how some protesters felt the Hispanic community wasn’t well represented in the call for police accountability. Later, I spoke with Hispanic families from varied racial backgrounds across the county to learn more about the difficult conversations about racism that were starting. I also covered Afro-Latinos’ response to the immediate and ongoing backlash the
Black Lives Matter movement triggered within our community.
Looking back, the coverage precipitated many comments from readers, some angry, some thankful, almost all thoughtful. Again, it felt like a conversation was starting.
And last but not least, an enduring highlight of my RFA tenure was fulfilling my contract’s requirement to meet and mentor the next generation of journalists. I did this through regular visits with the talented staff of Miami Senior High School’s student paper, the Miami High TIMES (fun fact: the TIMES is the oldest scholastic newspaper in the county, having begun publication in 1923; for a fascinating look at what was on the minds of Miami high schoolers from past generations, I recommend diving into the TIMES’ archives, available online). As the very first staff of the paper wrote at the end of the 1924 school year, “Those that are leaving have come to the parting of the ways.” As I get ready to say goodbye to my time at the Herald, I keep with me the hope that the students I worked with may one day also have the opportunity to contribute to South Florida’s great tradition of local journalism.
For that to happen, reader support is essential.
Lautaro Grinspan: @laugrinspan