Sonia Nazario (born September 8, 1960 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

) is an American journalist mostly known for her work at ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. She has spent her career writing about social and social justice issues, focusing especially on immigration and immigrant children who come to the United States from Central America. In 2003, while working at the Los Angeles Times, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her six-part series titled "Enrique's Journey," which followed the harrowing story of a young Honduran boy's journey to the US when he was sixteen years old. "Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother" was published as a book in 2006 and became a national bestseller.

Early life and education

Nazario was born in

, but grew up both in

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. She permanently moved to the United States during the

Dirty War The Dirty War () is the name used by the military junta or National Reorganization Process, civic-military dictatorship of Argentina () for its period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983. During this campaign, military and secu ...

in Argentina. Nazario is a graduate of

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

and holds a master's degree in

Latin American Studies Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, histor ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. She has received the honorary doctorate from

Mount St. Mary's College Mount Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles (known as Mount St. Mary's College until January 2015) is a private, Catholic university primarily for women, in Los Angeles, California. Women make up 90 percent of the student body. Founded in 1925 ...

in 2010, and the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from

Whittier College Whittier College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Whittier, California. It is a Hispanic-serving institution, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and, as of spring 2024, had 815 ...

in 2013.

Career

In 1993, Nazario left the ''Wall Street Journal'' for a second time and joined the ''Los Angeles Times'' to write about social issues, including those dealing with Latinos and Latin America. The following year, she won a

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California. In 1995, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to the Staff of the Los Angeles Times for local reporting of spot news for their 1994 coverage of the first day of the Los Angeles earthquake. In 1998, Nazario was a finalist for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

for Feature Writing for her story about what life was like for the children of drug addicts. Her photographer for the project, Clarence Williams, won the

Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, poc ...

for photos taken to accompany the story. In 2002, Nazario finished work on a six-part series, entitled "Enrique's Journey", about the experiences of Latin American children who immigrate to join their parents in the U.S. The newspaper series won more than a dozen national journalism awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the

National Association of Hispanic Journalists The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) is a Washington, D.C.–based organization dedicated to the advancement of Hispanic and Latino journalists in the United States and Puerto Rico. It was established in 1984. NAHJ has appr ...

Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence. The story also garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for her accompanying photographer, Don Bartletti. In 2006, Nazario published a book, '' Enrique's Journey'', which significantly expanded her newspaper series. It became a national bestseller and won two book awards, the 2006 California Book Award silver medal, and the 2007

Christopher Award The Christopher Award (established 1949) is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, films and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit". It is given by The Christophers, a Christian organizatio ...

. It has been published in eight languages and has been adopted by 54 universities and scores of high schools nationwide as their "freshman read" or "all-campus read."

Activism

A year after moving to her mother's native Argentina from Kansas, Nazario and her mother came across a pool of blood on the sidewalk, right at the onset of the country’s “Dirty War.” She asked her mother about the blood. “The military killed two journalists today, for telling the truth about what’s going on here,” Nazario recalls her saying. At only 14 years old she decided on the spot that she would become a journalist. She wanted to join those speaking out against injustice. Nazario began writing stories on children deprived of school breakfast programs or growing up with drug-addicted parents. Her turning point into becoming a true activist was joining the board of Kids In Need of Defense, a nonprofit which provides legal aid to unaccompanied immigrant children. She then began writing opinion pieces in The New York Times about immigration as well as giving many lectures a year. She continued by testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and presented a TEDx talk on the subject.

References

Citations

General sources

* *

External links

Collection of columns written for ''The New York Times''

Nazario's official blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nazario, Sonia Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing winners Williams College alumni Living people The Wall Street Journal people University of California, Berkeley alumni American people of Argentine descent Los Angeles Times people People from Kansas 1960 births American women bloggers American bloggers 21st-century American women