Phuong Ly is founder of Gateway California, a nonprofit that helps journalists connect to immigrant sources. The project was developed during her recent year as a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. She began her journalism career at the Charlotte Observer and then spent seven years at The Washington Post, writing about crime, religion and education, with a focus on immigrant communities. In 2006, a portfolio of her stories won the American Society of Newspaper Editors/Freedom Forum Award for Outstanding Writing about Diversity and was included in the book “Best Newspaper Writing 2006-2007.”
Growing up, I discovered the easiest way to get rid of someone soliciting from door to door: Just say your family doesn’t speak English. Most visitors turned away quickly.
Occasionally, a church group would really persist and invite… Read more
Is it time to stop using the term “minorities”?
The word has long been used to describe people who are not white. But changing demographics make the term outdated and oxymoronic.
Consider the word usage in these stories:
Should journalists call Jose Antonio Vargas an illegal immigrant or an undocumented one?
Discussions about how to refer to an immigrant who isn’t authorized to live in the U.S. have popped up periodically in newsrooms. But Vargas’ recent New… Read more
California Watch’s stories about earthquake safety problems in schools reached hundreds of thousands of people through a statewide network of radio, TV and newspaper partnerships.
But the ones most affected by nonprofit news agency’s investigation were the ones least… Read more