在…之后 2016年美国.S. 总统选举, journalist Paola 拉莫斯 ’09 set out on a cross-country quest to try to understand what binds and defines the Latin American community — and her own place in it. 拉莫斯, who grew up between Madrid and Miami and is now a correspondent for VICE 新闻, 微软全国有线广播电视公司, 和Telemundo, traveled to all corners of the nation to hear from overlooked Latino voices, from California’s lush Central Valley to the Walmart in El Paso, 德州, 2019年哪里有23人遇难. 拉莫斯 distilled her observations in her illuminating new book, Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity, which was released just two weeks before Election Day 2020. 对于拉莫斯, 谁是酷儿, “拉丁”这个词,” a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage, got to the heart of her pursuit — “It captured the stories of all these people under one umbrella, 跨越了这么多不同的身份,她写道。. We caught up with 拉莫斯, who had just returned to Brooklyn after many months on the road.
How did your background influence your decision to become a journalist?
My parents are both journalists and immigrants [Paola’s father is Jorge 拉莫斯, a Mexican American news anchor and journalist; her mother is Gina Montaner ’87, a Miami TV station managing editor and syndicated columnist and the daughter of exiled Cuban author Carlos Alberto Montaner]. The narrative growing up involved discussions about the Castro regime or Mexico, 以及我父亲决定离开墨西哥的原因, 这是因为审查制度吗. The core of my upbringing was watching them write, 看着屏幕上的他们, 在报纸上阅读. 我选择了其中的一串，那就是政治. When I was at Barnard, I was a political science major. [Through my work] I’ve been able to observe and understand where the balance of power is — sometimes that’s been through politics and sometimes that’s been through journalism. I’ve had the privilege to go back and forth between both.
你写这本书的动机是什么?
差不多正好是四年前, when I was working in Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. My fancy title was Deputy Director of Hispanic Media. 差不多两年了, 我确信在选举日那天, 面对唐纳德·特朗普这样的人, Latin Americans would show up in overwhelming numbers. Turns out that less than 50% of eligible Latino voters showed up. As a campaign and as a country, we didn’t understand who they were. 我也想弄明白我们是谁. And then when “拉丁”这个词” popped up — and it was increasingly among us in 2016 — it, 对我来说, was very telling of a community that was more diverse and changing than I realized.
What was most surprising to you, as you traveled the country and reported for this book?
Going into places that I thought I knew and discovering things I didn’t know. Even in 纽约市, there’s a big and powerful community of Latino Muslims. Never once had I read about it or come face-to-face with it. 也, going into places like the Midwest that I thought were going to feel cold and foreign and abstract [and instead] were more beautiful than I expected. 但是回到迈阿密的家, which is at the center of politics — everyone is trying to figure out what happened in Florida [in the November 2020 election] — was the culmination of everything for me. 在整个过程中我感受到了很多.
You essentially went on a listening tour to write this book. It strikes me that when politicians talk about listening to their constituents, this is the epitome of what they should be doing.
书是图片的百分之一, 我希望它能鼓励政治家, 尤其是民主党, to go back to these battleground states and put away biases and dig into this community. It takes listening and wide eyes to see things we haven’t seen before. 有拉丁裔黑人, there are women who are fighting for abortion rights — it’s an extremely complex and nuanced community.
Throughout all of these stories, there is this ache to feel like you belong in this country. I hope that [this feeling] also translates into real power, that [Latinx people] end up running for office, 投票, or getting the job they want or being in leadership positions. We can talk about this in a thousand ways — so long as these are just stories, 它们不会转化为权力. 但我认为我们正朝着那个方向前进.
十大电竞游戏综合排名在你的生活中扮演了什么角色?
Barnard gave me a lot of confidence that I didn’t have. 我搬回了美国.S. from Spain when I was going into my junior year of high school. Barnard had a lot to do with my ability to write this book. 我对自己的皮肤和自我感觉很舒服. Being gay and being Latina and having diverse friends became normal, and I became proud on campus. 直到今天他们仍然是我最好的朋友. 参加政治科学研讨会, 写论文, and getting the basics of politics is where it started for me.
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