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limited by state law. Hello.

1:24

Hello. So

1:26

good to see you. I'm in Fort

1:28

Green, Brooklyn, and I'm meeting up with

1:30

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer, Andrea

1:32

Elliott. Andrea and I are

1:34

standing on a sidewalk in front of an

1:37

imposing red brick building. There

1:39

are leafy trees scattered around on a

1:41

trimmed lawn. And it turns

1:43

out that this place means a lot

1:46

to Andrea. What an incredible

1:49

privilege to share this space with you.

1:51

Oh my God. This pavement we're standing

1:53

on is like sacred ground as far

1:55

as I'm concerned. I know. Are you

1:57

teary-eyed? Yeah. What's going on? bringing

2:00

back a lot. Tell me, tell me everything

2:02

that you're feeling. Well, this

2:04

is where it all began. In

2:07

fact, Andrea's life is forever

2:09

intertwined with this location. It's

2:12

a shelter known as the Auburn

2:14

Family Residence. A rusted

2:16

black fence surrounds the building. I

2:19

can see benches near the entrance and

2:21

hear kids play nearby. It

2:24

looks like a welcoming place, but it

2:26

wasn't that way when Andrea first came

2:28

here. The story begins more

2:30

than a decade ago, when

2:32

Andrea began to report on Dasani Coates,

2:35

an 11-year-old girl who is black and

2:37

who lived in that shelter. Andrea, who

2:39

is an investigative reporter for The New

2:42

York Times, also met Dasani's family

2:44

at that shelter. Andrea

2:47

published a series of articles at The New

2:49

York Times about Dasani in 2013,

2:52

and she kept on reporting on her and

2:55

her family for more than eight years. That

2:58

reporting material eventually turned into

3:00

a book titled Invisible Child,

3:03

Poverty, Survival, and Hope

3:06

in an American City, and

3:08

it won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction

3:10

in the year 2022. The

3:14

book opens with stories about Dasani's

3:16

family. At that point, they were

3:18

living in the Fort Greene shelter, which

3:20

is where we are standing right now. It's

3:24

actually literally where it began, where we're standing, like,

3:26

in this spot that

3:29

I staked out in those early days as I

3:31

was trying to find a way in, and

3:34

not just a way into the

3:36

shelter in this world, but into the heart and

3:39

mind of a child, right? I hadn't found

3:41

the kid. I

3:43

just was pacing back and forth, back and forth, talking

3:46

to whomever was willing to

3:49

talk back, because a lot of

3:51

people just didn't want to talk to me. Andrea

3:53

tried to keep a low profile at first.

3:56

She spent months talking to people coming in and out of

3:58

the shelter, trying to keep a low profile at first. The

4:00

better understand what life was like on the

4:02

ins. And aback

4:04

by mind I was thinking I need

4:06

a child who couldn't really narrate hurt

4:08

fans who can share. It said it's

4:11

talking. To the moms and the kept saying

4:13

you gotta talk to this one mother whose

4:15

family of ten sharing a room which is

4:17

right was right there on the fourth floor,

4:19

all of them crammed into one five. Hundred

4:21

and twenty square foot room. And

4:24

that was dishonest family and I'll never

4:26

forget the moment I sadly set eyes

4:29

on them, they walked out. Of

4:31

that entrance in single file

4:33

with sir, know the mom

4:36

off the front like a

4:38

drill sergeants to. This is

4:40

how she trained her children.

4:43

To survive. You can't mess with us.

4:45

Don't Am Friday with us. And we

4:47

are. We're orchestrated, We work. Together

4:49

we don't. Come apart.

4:53

And and she just gave me this guy.

4:55

Who the hell are you sort of

4:57

like looked like a dead in the

4:59

icon as their which he later explained

5:01

to me was have practiced car move

5:03

but like us especially for it and

5:06

we started talking and like for every

5:08

ten words that she said the squeaky

5:10

little voice interview and done it was

5:12

the voice of her daughter to Sunday

5:14

who just wanted to see flooding him

5:16

and everything that came out of the

5:18

kids mouth. I was. Practically.

5:21

Crying from gratis it is.

5:23

It's like he was hilarious.

5:25

So smart. So why is

5:27

for an eleven year old

5:29

so self aware? Tests and.

5:31

Eager to church is like my dream come

5:34

true. There. Was a certain

5:36

type of. Life force that swirled

5:38

around his family. And especially

5:40

dishonest who is named after the. Bottled

5:43

water. Her. Mom whose name.

5:45

Is so no. Saw this expensive

5:47

bottled water as a sign of

5:49

an indulgence that the family could.

5:51

not afford but that they dreamed of shoes on

5:53

the honorable she woke up every morning and looked

5:56

at her window as the empire state building to

5:58

see what color it was lit up Just

6:00

outward looking and outward reaching, wanting

6:03

to beat everyone else at pull-ups,

6:06

wanting to be the fastest kid on the block, wanting

6:08

to interrupt your mother every 10 words

6:11

to tell me the real deal. She's

6:13

just expressive and she was aspirational, like

6:15

her name. That's all the

6:17

good stuff, right? When

6:19

I realized the bad stuff that

6:23

she was covering up in a

6:25

way or not sharing as readily in the

6:27

beginning, learning that she

6:29

was on the honor roll went from, wow,

6:32

that's impressive, to, oh my

6:34

God, that's a miracle. At

6:36

the time, both of Dasani's parents

6:38

were addicted to drugs. The

6:41

family went through periods of homelessness, they

6:43

struggled to get enough food to eat, and

6:46

there were moments when their eight children were separated

6:48

from them and kept by child

6:50

protective services. For

6:53

all of that exertion and energy

6:55

and reaching, there

6:57

was also so much

6:59

pain. There was more

7:02

loss in that little

7:04

11-year-old body than most adults will

7:06

ever see. This isn't a

7:09

story of the one who got out. It's a story

7:11

of all of the kids who, despite

7:13

the many gifts they bring, are trapped

7:15

in, are kept inside, and

7:18

it's because of forces that are way beyond

7:20

their own control. And so that's what

7:22

I came to learn. In the beginning, I was like, this is

7:24

a special kid. We're going to see magical

7:27

things happen, and we're going to learn something

7:29

maybe about how you escape this world.

7:32

And in fact, what I came to see, not

7:35

just in that year, but in the many years that followed, is

7:38

this is not a world that we should want

7:40

to escape. It's a world we want to face.

7:47

For Infoturomedia and PRX, it's

7:49

Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. Today,

7:52

a conversation with journalist Andrea

7:55

Elliott on documenting life on

7:57

the margins of power and on the

7:59

role of journalism. of conscience. Invisible

8:11

Child won the Pulitzer Prize in the

8:13

category of general nonfiction in 2022. But

8:18

that wasn't Andrea's first Pulitzer

8:20

Prize. Fifteen years

8:22

earlier, in 2007, for

8:25

the New York Times, Andrea won

8:27

her first Pulitzer, this

8:29

one for feature writing, specifically

8:31

for her post-9-11 reporting on

8:34

Muslim communities. Andrea

8:36

has worked at the Times for 21 years,

8:38

where she's currently an investigative reporter.

8:40

And before the New York Times, Andrea

8:43

was at the Miami Herald, covering crime,

8:45

immigration, and Latin American politics.

8:48

Her bond with Latin America runs deep.

8:51

She's the daughter of a Chilean mother and an

8:54

American father. Andrea's

8:56

reporting has always centered on

8:58

covering people living at the margins of

9:00

power. On today's

9:02

episode, we're going to talk about

9:04

how Andrea's bicultural upbringing helped her

9:07

to better connect and report on

9:09

communities that she's not a part

9:11

of. And we're also going to

9:13

talk about how journalists like Andrea

9:15

or myself, who are, in a

9:17

way, outsiders in the mainstream media,

9:20

can help to bring issues like systemic poverty

9:22

and injustice to the forefront

9:24

of the American conscience. Now

9:27

we're going to continue the conversation

9:29

with Andrea Elliott, this time from

9:32

our studio in Harlem, New York

9:34

City. When

9:40

I say Andrea, tell us about your arrival story. I

9:42

mean, you were born in this country, right? But

9:45

it's your family's arrival story. And

9:47

it's a pretty intense arrival story.

9:50

So my family comes

9:52

in two parts, very much like I

9:54

do. So there's the American side,

9:57

which is my father, who is from

9:59

a... Small town outside of Buffalo,

10:01

New York. And. Who

10:03

went to Harvard on a

10:05

full ride from a public high

10:08

school and then went. As

10:10

a Harvard law student to t

10:12

like and they're in Nineteen Sixty

10:14

Eight. At a picnic

10:16

helped a very beautiful law student

10:19

named Medea Gloria that of a

10:21

sudden for a metal. Helped

10:24

her onto a horse, And

10:27

that is where our family began

10:29

service and with that sister. They.

10:32

Fall In Love. And she came

10:34

to the United States to.

10:36

Make a life with my dad. But.

10:38

We wound up. As a

10:40

family planting roots of all places

10:43

in steam, so Virginia is where

10:45

it took my first steps. it's

10:47

ways but my first four years

10:50

of life. And it

10:52

is. Also the place

10:54

where. A. Lot of

10:56

our Chilean family arrived. Fleeing.

11:00

Too late for their safety. After

11:02

Gen. Augusto Pinochet took power in

11:04

a violent coup and Nineteen Seventy

11:06

three. In

11:15

fact, on a date that

11:17

is auspicious, right? that happens

11:19

on September Eleventh. Nineteen Seventy

11:21

Three. So you this

11:23

little girl you're growing up on this

11:25

farm in Virginia, Washington D C, the

11:27

capital is very close by. You understand

11:29

that you're American through and through. But

11:32

also there's all this. Spanish been

11:34

spoke am sure I understand anything

11:36

other than the weird little. The

11:40

like bubble that. I

11:42

was growing up in which, which

11:44

was this mismatch of things. It.

11:46

Was fourth of July and the flag.

11:48

And at the same time mostly

11:51

Spanish. Running through my ears

11:53

and out of my mouth actually does my

11:55

first language. Actually one of my

11:57

first favorite words was. seated And

12:01

I kept hearing about this place called

12:03

Chile. Chile. I was just

12:06

surrounded by this constant longing for this place

12:08

called Chile, which I didn't know anything about

12:10

because I was, we couldn't

12:12

go there. And so I had

12:14

to imagine it. And I remember imagining it very

12:17

much as a globe,

12:20

as this kind of spheric thing

12:22

filled with little things

12:24

that were rico, like cakes and

12:26

beautiful things, like little birds that were

12:28

chirping. And this is the image that

12:30

comes to mind. And I think

12:32

that was a weird thing to

12:35

witness as a young child was a bunch

12:37

of grownups crying over something that I couldn't

12:39

see. You

12:45

were seeing your mom crying? Oh,

12:47

yeah. I mean, basically my mother's brothers,

12:49

Tomas and Lucio, fled for their lives.

12:52

They were leftists. They were on the wrong list.

12:54

Because this is when the right wing dictatorship

12:57

with a lot of support from the United

12:59

States and the CIA takes over

13:01

in Chile. Oust,

13:04

a democratically elected president

13:06

who tended left socialist

13:08

independent. And so

13:10

young people like your uncles were

13:12

being murdered and disappeared. And they

13:14

find refuge in this farm. So

13:17

this was back in the

13:19

era where you could send a paper

13:21

airplane ticket by mail, which my father

13:23

kept doing, to fetch my grandmother. And

13:26

then we'd go to the airport to pick my

13:28

grandmother up and off the plane would come another

13:30

uncle. Literally, like you

13:33

could just take the plane ticket and board

13:35

it as someone else. And that was then.

13:38

And so we had a kind of constant

13:40

stream of people coming to seek

13:42

refuge. So let me ask you this.

13:45

How did you feel? What did you identify

13:47

with? Because I wasn't born here. So

13:50

I definitely knew that while

13:52

I was close to Americana, I

13:55

was not American. But how did you

13:57

see yourself then? I wish I could say I was

13:59

blind. aware of it and

14:01

had profound thoughts

14:05

as a child to offer about this. But

14:07

I actually think the way that most kids

14:10

relate to an experience is not

14:12

to see it as different so much as to

14:14

just see it as the thing that they're in and

14:17

you just adapt. And so if I

14:20

look back on that period, specifically like

14:22

sort of the time when I started

14:24

going to first grade, which is

14:26

really when the issues or the

14:28

questions around identity would first arise, those

14:32

were just really

14:34

exciting moments in which I

14:37

tried to pass for whatever was around me.

14:39

And so what I do remember

14:42

is sometimes feeling like

14:44

we were different or weird

14:47

or not like everyone

14:49

else. And I think

14:52

that always made me aware

14:55

of difference from a

14:57

very early age. I never felt like I

14:59

was fully one thing. And so

15:02

this hyphenated identity, this hyphen

15:05

that links Chile and America,

15:07

that's how I saw myself. I am

15:09

Chilean American. I'm both

15:11

things. You know, it's

15:13

just always hoggling

15:16

between those two and never feeling like

15:18

you're one thing entirely. I think

15:21

it's a thing that leads a

15:23

person to be curious about other people.

15:26

Which leads me to that precise issue,

15:28

right? Because in your career,

15:30

I know that the first time I start

15:32

noticing your Bailang is around

15:34

September 11th. This was when

15:36

you focused on covering what was

15:38

happening with the Muslim community in

15:41

New York City and beyond. And

15:43

you really went into deeply

15:47

into this community and helped so

15:49

many people humanize the

15:52

entire Muslim community that after September

15:54

11th was being demonized,

15:58

criminalized in many ways. And I'm not I'm wondering

16:00

how you think about your outsiderness as

16:02

what you just said. It means that

16:04

you're curious about these other communities. It

16:07

means I'm curious about everything. And I

16:09

think if I have one talent,

16:12

it's to see the story that's hiding

16:14

in plain sight. And that's what happened

16:17

with the beat I created around Islam in post

16:19

9-11 America. It was

16:21

a huge story that we

16:23

were missing. And I had just gotten to the newspaper,

16:26

by the way. This was 2003. So

16:28

it's a couple of years after the terrorist attacks.

16:31

I was at the Miami Herald prior to that.

16:33

And there's something about arriving fresh.

16:35

You just see things that other people don't

16:37

see, right? And I

16:39

mean, this was ground zero, literally, right? So

16:41

the paper had been focused on

16:44

two stories. The story of

16:47

the victims, obviously, and the story of the perpetrators. And

16:49

those were the major stories to be covering. But

16:52

there was this third community,

16:54

right? It was basically

16:56

kind of this weird hybrid of

16:59

the other two, right? They were

17:02

seen as the perpetrators, and yet they were

17:04

really victims because they belonged to

17:07

the 99% of Islam that does

17:09

not actually carry out violence. The

17:12

only reason I noticed it is

17:14

because I was sent out on a breaking news assignment.

17:16

I literally was told, in

17:19

500 words, capture what

17:21

it's like to be Muslim and American

17:24

in Brooklyn right now. It's going

17:26

to be a sidebar to a big news

17:28

story that's running the next day. And

17:32

I actually went to Midwood, Brooklyn, and

17:35

within five hours, I had in

17:37

my hands a beat

17:39

that would consume me for the next seven years. Now,

17:42

was I the right person to tell

17:45

that story? Absolutely not. I always say I'm the wrong person

17:47

for every story. I think you have to go in as

17:50

a journalist feeling that.

17:52

If you want to get it right, you

17:55

need to know that you're going to be humbled over and

17:57

over and over again. But I went

17:59

in as a reporter. And I went in

18:01

curious, and so that

18:03

was how it happened. You

18:06

end up bringing your first Pulitzer for

18:08

feature writing in 2007, a lot of

18:10

it because of

18:12

this kind of work around the Muslim

18:15

community. And at that point,

18:17

one of the things that you did is that you

18:19

also, you had a capacity

18:21

for empathy. Because we bring into

18:23

our stories as much as we try to

18:25

be separate from them our own stuff.

18:30

And what do I mean by stuff? It's not just family

18:32

history. It's the history of the heart, right?

18:34

It's the ways in which struggles

18:37

have played out in our own lives

18:39

that then enable us to connect

18:42

with people we're writing about, even though we're supposed

18:44

to be so separate. And so, quote

18:47

unquote, objective, actually the thing

18:49

that gets the story is that connection so

18:51

often. When

18:56

we come back, I continue my conversation

18:58

with Andrea Elliott. And we're going

19:01

to talk about the so-called rules of

19:03

journalism and how Andrea navigated ethical

19:06

challenges while reporting on Dasani

19:08

and her family. Stay

19:10

with us. Not de valles. Support

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odoo.com/Latino. That's

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odoo.com/Latino. Odoo. Modern

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management made simple. Hey,

20:03

we're back. And

20:05

when we left off, we learned about

20:07

how Andrea Elliott's upbringing as a

20:10

Chilean American helped her to better report

20:12

on communities that she wasn't always a

20:14

part of. Let's

20:16

get back to my conversation with

20:19

journalist Andrea Elliott about her Pulitzer

20:21

Prize-winning book, Invisible Child. You

20:27

were able to find your way into

20:31

being recognized as a great journalist and writer at the

20:33

New York Times, not an easy feat. So

20:35

you tell the New York Times, you boss

20:38

woman say we need to cover childhood

20:41

poverty, homelessness, homeless families, something

20:43

is happening in our city.

20:45

Yeah, well, this has its roots in

20:48

a very personal place, which is both

20:50

the place of motherhood and

20:53

that's a figurative place and then the literal

20:55

place. So I was on maternity leave with

20:57

my second baby and

20:59

having been

21:02

in the postpartum territory, it's

21:04

not easy. And I also

21:06

though was thinking, God, what do

21:08

I want to do next? I

21:10

have this pause, this incredible moment

21:12

of respite. And I

21:14

pulled off of my shelf, this book

21:17

that was like covered in dust because we

21:19

don't do the best job at home. From

21:24

high school. But there was this

21:27

like eternal classic by Alex Kotlowitz called There Are

21:29

No Children Here, which is beautiful

21:31

work of narrative nonfiction about these two brothers

21:33

growing up in the projects in Chicago. Hadn't

21:36

looked at it since high school and I start reading

21:38

it again. And that's when

21:41

the light went on and it was just a new

21:43

idea. It was like, well, how much has changed? It

21:45

was literally just a question. It was just a question.

21:47

And the first answer I got to

21:49

that question led to a whole

21:51

new set of questions because it was shocking. That was

21:54

nothing's changed, almost nothing. Sure,

21:57

the safety nets got a little better. Basically,

22:00

20 years after this book

22:02

came out, we had the same child poverty rate

22:04

in America, one in five. Like,

22:06

one of the biggest child poverty rates in

22:09

the world, by far the worst

22:11

among superpowers. So why? And

22:14

then that just led me down the path of wanting to

22:17

write about child poverty, and I've made a pitch

22:19

to do it, and was very

22:21

lucky to have the editors that I have, who

22:24

we were very aligned. So,

22:26

Andra, one of the things about your work with Invisible

22:28

Child is that you make it clear that, yes,

22:31

this is a story about one child, one

22:34

family, but frankly, you

22:36

make this into a story about our country. This

22:39

is a story about systemic issues

22:41

of poverty and deep racism in

22:44

one of the world's most advanced

22:46

capitalist, industrialized, and wealthiest cities. Can

22:49

you talk a little bit about this decision to say,

22:51

look, it's not about just this shelter in

22:53

Brooklyn. This is about centuries

22:55

of history in our country. So

22:57

what did you set out to do? What

23:00

I can tell you about the

23:02

process itself was sheer terror. It

23:07

was maybe a year or two

23:09

into reporting out the book to

23:11

try to do

23:14

right by all of the signposts

23:16

that I had encountered as a

23:19

reporter while reporting the original series

23:22

that I started to see, oh my God,

23:24

this is a story about everything. That's how

23:26

it felt. It's a story about everything in

23:30

America. What was most important

23:32

to me was, I think,

23:34

to allow the book to

23:36

follow the same process that I had

23:38

experienced as a person in design

23:42

presence. I

23:44

went in thinking it was one

23:46

particular story. It was one thing.

23:49

It was one of the things called homelessness, which

23:51

is a label. It's

23:54

a label that we give to a problem. And

23:58

I then proceeded to say, that

24:01

each label was a signpost leading

24:03

to another label, which then led

24:05

to another label, and they were

24:07

interconnected. You couldn't understand homelessness without

24:09

looking at poverty, and you couldn't

24:11

understand poverty without looking at race,

24:13

and you couldn't look at race without looking at centuries

24:17

of trauma, essentially. And all of

24:19

these things ran through this family. So

24:26

you first published a series of articles

24:28

about Dasani in The New York Times in

24:30

2013, and

24:33

well, because it's The New York Times,

24:35

right, Dasani gets this extraordinary attention,

24:37

right? I mean, she's at

24:39

the mayor's inauguration with Bill de Blasio. People

24:42

start sending her money. She starts

24:44

getting offers. And for you, Andrea,

24:47

this presents like this

24:49

critical and strange challenge as

24:51

a journalist. There's

24:53

a lot I will never know about the

24:56

impact of my presence. What

24:59

I can say with all certainty is that

25:02

in the aftermath of the series running, Dasani's

25:05

life momentarily changed. She went from

25:07

invisible child to most visible child

25:10

in the city. And

25:13

that stayed that way for,

25:15

I would say, a few weeks. And

25:18

then all the attention waned. Money

25:21

came in to legal aid. Legal aid

25:24

set up a trust for the family.

25:26

The family chose mostly not

25:28

to take that money, but

25:31

to put it away for college. They were

25:33

trying to be disciplined. They wanted all the

25:35

same things that other parents want. I

25:37

really believe that. And it's kind of

25:40

striking to me how little changed ultimately,

25:42

given the impact of the series had.

25:44

I was expecting more of a kind

25:46

of foundational change. And what I saw

25:49

was that the problems of poverty run so

25:51

deep and they are so intractable that this

25:54

minor kind of

25:56

influx of attention and even funds

25:58

for college really did little to

26:02

change the family's life. And

26:04

so then it became, well, what am

26:07

I following? Because I continue to follow her

26:09

life. What am I

26:11

seeing unfold that

26:14

really is just an authentic experience

26:18

of a family struggling with poverty?

26:21

But the core thing was, and this is,

26:23

again, why did

26:25

Dasani become the central character of

26:27

your work is because Dasani is

26:29

a deep individual

26:32

complex, and she is not actually

26:34

gonna let herself get pushed around. And

26:36

the thing that you write about, right,

26:38

was that she was like, I'm

26:40

not gonna change who I am to

26:43

be here in this place of so

26:45

much privilege. And

26:47

that's a pretty extraordinary story for a

26:50

child, a young woman who

26:52

is said to be a victim, to

26:56

not have voice, to, you

26:58

know, et cetera. No, she's actually,

27:00

she never saw herself as a victim. She

27:03

always had a voice. And

27:06

that's why I always have a problem with the idea of giving

27:08

a voice to the voiceless. The

27:10

voicelessness is in our own context, right?

27:13

It's that we haven't allowed for those

27:15

voices to be heard. Those voices are

27:17

heard by others. She was not invisible.

27:21

This title comes from Dasani. It

27:23

came from her own observation about

27:25

how she wasn't seen. She

27:28

sees herself. She can see herself with a mirror. Her family

27:30

can see her. Her community can see her. But

27:33

this broader world that's totally out of

27:35

her reach where these extremes coexist as

27:37

well of wealth and poverty,

27:40

in that world, she wasn't seen. And

27:43

so she was seeing her

27:46

invisibility. Did

27:54

you ever have a situation where your editors said,

27:57

you know what, we think you're just getting a little bit

27:59

too close. need to pull back a little bit.

28:02

Did you pay for that pizza pizza? You

28:04

know, those kinds of things. Those

28:07

kinds of conversations were constantly happening.

28:10

Because you had to say, look, she got

28:12

out of school. She was hungry. I bought

28:14

her a slice of pizza. Let's talk about

28:16

the rules of journalism and how misaligned

28:18

they are with the

28:20

reality of vulnerable people when you're

28:23

actually writing about folks on the

28:25

margins, right? So the rules

28:28

are important. They keep

28:30

our work sacrosanct,

28:32

hopefully, or at least integrity-filled.

28:35

They're worth defending. And

28:38

those rules include things

28:41

like, we can take

28:43

a source out to lunch, but we're going to

28:45

pay. We're not going to allow the

28:47

source to treat us. OK, fine.

28:50

I know the places where city hall reporters

28:52

take their sources. What was

28:55

to stop me from taking Chanel to the same

28:57

place? Which I did. And at the time, it's

28:59

probably way more now, she balked

29:01

at the fact that a hamburger was $16. She

29:03

said, do you know what I could do with $16? I

29:06

said, but I want you to experience, because I'm allowed,

29:08

under our rules with this credit card that says New York Times

29:10

on it, to take you to lunch.

29:13

You are my source. So let's meet here and

29:15

have lunch. Usually, we would go to places like

29:17

McDonald's. This was kind

29:19

of a one-off. But I

29:21

always think back to that moment because of the way she

29:24

challenged me. But if you just gave me the $16, but

29:26

I can't. And

29:28

what about that? And how weird is

29:30

that rule? Because what if the

29:33

transaction for the person is the food

29:35

itself? Then how

29:37

does that rule work? The rule

29:40

is, no cash can exchange hands. We don't pay people

29:42

first orders, obviously, and for a very good reason. But

29:45

then it becomes much more complicated when you look

29:47

at the norms of the newsroom, at

29:50

the kind of structure of rules that

29:52

assume that the source and the reporter

29:54

belong to the same class. Correct. Right?

29:57

I think a lot of the conversations

29:59

early on. on, which were so

30:01

important, were about whether or

30:03

not to step in, whether or

30:05

not to intervene. It wasn't about

30:08

money because our rules were clear, but it was what

30:11

if you see something that

30:13

merits actually getting

30:16

in the middle of things

30:18

because otherwise you are accepting

30:21

suffering as a reporter, which is

30:23

just unacceptable, right? A child can't suffer in front

30:25

of you without you wanting to do something about

30:27

it or even morally being obligated to do something

30:29

about it. And so that

30:32

became this constant, constant struggle that

30:34

we were wrestling with in the

30:37

newsroom. Very specifically, it centered

30:40

around Dusseini's tendency

30:43

to get into really brutal, violent

30:45

fights after school. And

30:48

the photographer Ruth Fremson, who's a war

30:50

photographer, and I would break these fights

30:53

up because we are the responsible adults, right? We're

30:55

hanging out with Dusseini. We don't want to

30:57

see this kid we care about get beaten

31:00

up or beat up anyone else. What

31:02

are we supposed to do? Just watch kids

31:04

tear apart each other? No. So

31:07

I talked to Chanel. I was like, we've had

31:09

a meeting at the newsroom. We feel really uncomfortable

31:11

watching Dusseini get into fights, but we do feel

31:13

that it's important to capture the reality. If

31:16

she gets into another fight in front

31:18

of me, do I have your permission

31:20

to simply observe what happens? And she was like,

31:22

absolutely. Like, why are you breaking up the fights?

31:24

This is part of our culture. Who

31:26

are you to be judging

31:28

our culture? And, you know, there

31:30

are people, by the way, within Chanel's

31:32

culture who would also argue with her and say,

31:34

that's not our culture. So there's lots of perspectives.

31:37

But I was there to tell this woman's story. And

31:40

so we agreed the next time we would

31:42

not intervene. And it was probably

31:45

the worst moment of my life as

31:48

a reporter because I watched Dusseini get

31:51

beaten up. So

32:00

I find it interesting that two

32:03

Latinas who win Pulitzer's,

32:06

you with your book, myself with the

32:08

Suave Podcast, and yet

32:11

the both of us are constantly questioning

32:13

our field, pushing

32:16

journalism, pushing these

32:18

ethics that were created by,

32:21

I don't know, Joe? Madman

32:23

era newsroom norms.

32:25

And I wonder what you think about that,

32:27

the fact that the both of us, right,

32:30

we kind of are these outsiders who

32:32

are deeply on the inside. And yet

32:34

the both of us are saying, but the humanity

32:37

of this, but there's a system

32:39

here that is so much bigger

32:41

than us. And so what is our responsibility? I

32:43

think I love that you frame it like the

32:45

two of us as Latinas. I think it's

32:48

a broader family of reporters of

32:51

different backgrounds, including

32:53

people like Casey Parks. The Washington

32:55

Post or Alex Patlow is in

32:58

other words, it's journalists of conscience.

33:00

And I tie it back to Frederick

33:03

Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Jovita

33:05

Ivar, they're journalists, but

33:08

they were journalists of conscience. And you don't have to be not

33:10

white to be a journalist of conscience. Where

33:13

I was going is just like journalists who

33:15

are getting these stories that

33:18

are not typically seen, heard,

33:21

or even known. Right. That

33:24

requires engaging with

33:26

parts of America that don't follow

33:30

the same rules as these

33:32

organizations that we represent. And

33:34

so that then naturally

33:37

brings to the surface this

33:39

kind of reckoning, right? What

33:43

are the rules? What should they be? There

33:45

is no guidebook really

33:47

for this kind of reporting, reporting

33:49

on the vulnerable. And

33:51

so what do we do? And I think one

33:53

thing we do is we square with the reader. So

33:57

that's where the integrity I think

33:59

it's pretty. of the work is, if

34:02

I've crossed the line, I'm going to say that

34:04

I did, and here's how and why, and just

34:07

so you know. These were the

34:09

rules, and these were the times where maybe

34:11

the rules ended up getting

34:13

forgotten. So

34:16

Andrea, you know, we try to

34:18

be as transparent as we possibly

34:20

can, try to be as honest

34:22

as we possibly can, and

34:25

yet our profession, the profession of

34:27

journalism, we're being attacked left and

34:29

right, and we continue to lose

34:31

people in our profession. For example, in

34:33

2023, it's being called the

34:36

Great American Layoff of Journalists, which

34:38

yeah, it included futuro media, which

34:40

broke my heart, but many of

34:42

the journalists laid off across

34:44

the country were Latinos and

34:46

Latinas, many of them who

34:48

report specifically about these communities

34:50

that are vulnerable. So how

34:53

are you, Andrea, kind of

34:55

processing this moment of understanding

34:58

our profession in this precise

35:01

historical moment? What I

35:03

always come back to is regardless

35:05

of the business model, regardless of

35:07

the fluctuations of the market, regardless

35:09

of the way that people

35:12

are getting their news and how that

35:14

shakes up newsrooms and budgets, the

35:17

hunger and need for

35:20

human story is permanent.

35:22

It is so central to our existence as

35:25

people, and I have to believe that

35:28

because that's a fact, that

35:31

stories are as important as the air

35:33

we breathe, that journalism

35:36

will find its way. I

35:39

have to believe that. We're

35:41

basically in end times. And

35:43

then what does that look like? You

35:46

have to have that hope. And the hope isn't

35:48

even in, oh, we're going to figure it

35:50

out. No, it's that we

35:52

need stories. We need, we

35:54

survive on other people's stories. We

35:57

are carried forward by the examples of others.

36:00

The story is so central to who

36:02

we are as people. And so therefore, there

36:05

will be a way. Andrea

36:12

Elliott, thank you so much for all of

36:14

your work. Thank you for being a great

36:16

colleague and a great journalist, great writer. Maria

36:18

Inoujosa, you are my long

36:20

time hero. And I couldn't be happier

36:22

to be on this show with you.

36:24

So thank you for having me. This

36:46

episode was produced by Reynaldo Leaños Jr.

36:49

It was edited by Marta

36:51

Martinez. It was mixed by

36:53

Stephanie Laboe. The Latino USA

36:55

team includes Victoria Strada, Andrea

36:57

Lopez Maria Arzegorzado, Dorimar Marquez,

36:59

Mike Sargent, Noor Saudi and

37:02

Nancy Trujillo. Penny Lea

37:04

Ramirez is our co-executive producer. Our

37:06

senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our

37:08

marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our

37:11

theme music was composed by Zegner

37:13

Ogunos. I'm your host and executive

37:15

producer, Maria Inoujosa. Join us again

37:18

on our next episode. In the

37:20

meantime, you can find us on

37:22

all social media platforms now, including

37:25

TikTok, YouTube, and you know, I'll

37:27

see you on Instagram at the

37:30

next episode. Goodbye. Bye. Latino

37:36

USA is made possible in part by

37:38

WK Kellogg

37:40

Foundation, a partner with communities

37:43

where children come first. New

37:45

York Women's Foundation, the

37:47

New York Women's Foundation, funding women

37:50

leaders that build solutions in their

37:52

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37:55

radical generosity. And funding

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cultural. of Health is made possible in

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part by a grant from the Robert Wood

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Johnson Foundation. Exactly.

38:09

It was like, wait, what is

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the subway doing right underneath my

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apartment? All right, well, we

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made it. We survived the second New

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From PRX.