Leslie Berestein Rojas Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter
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Leslie Berestein Rojas is KPCC's Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter.
An award-winning journalist with several years’ experience reporting on immigration issues, Berestein Rojas most recently covered immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She has retraced the steps of migrants along desert smuggling trails, investigated immigrant detention contractors, and told the stories of families left behind in Mexico’s migrant-sending towns.
A native of Cuba raised in Los Angeles, Leslie has also written for Time, People, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. She has reported from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Stories by Leslie Berestein Rojas
Jeremy Lin, professional sports, and those 'underlying racist tropes'
By now much of the country is familiar with the headline scandal this weekend involving New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin and ESPN, which on Saturday posted a headline with the phrase "chink in the armor.
Jeremy Lin, pro sports, and those ‘underlying racist tropes’
By now much of the country is familiar with the headline scandal this weekend involving Knicks star Jeremy Lin and ESPN, which on Saturday posted a headline with the phrase “chink in the armor.”
In the news this morning: NYPD spied on Muslim students beyond NY, Lin 'isn't fazed' by racially offensive headline, ICE employer audits, mo
NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast - Wall Street Journal According to a report and other documents obtained by The Associated Press, the New York Police Department's surveillance program targeting Muslims went far beyond New York, with police monitoring Muslim student websites at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges.
Posts of the week: Syrian unrest and social media, a bittersweet family keepsake, more
This week's posts have covered things ranging from a hamburger menu in Spanglish to interracial marriage. But among the favorites have been a couple first-person posts, one which gathered the accounts of Syrian Americans uneasily following the violent unrest back home, and another from a fourth-generation Japanese American who recalled the story of a family keepsake, a souvenir of his mother's imprisonment in a Wyoming internment camp during World War II.
'It's important for us to capture the remaining stories': On Japanese American internment
Earlier this week, I posted an essay from the son of a Japanese American internment camp survivor called "The Pencil Box." In it contributor David Toyoshima recalled how his mother, the grandchild of Japanese immigrants, managed to take a small prized possession with her to a internment camp when she and her family were forced to leave their farm, rounded up and incarcerated, as were more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Interracial marriage: Who is most likely to 'marry out,' and where
A popular Q&A on this site last year explored who is more or less likely to marry outside their own racial or ethnic group, why, and where in the U.S. they are more likely to do it.
In the news this morning: A proposed ban on undocumented students in GA, ICE shooting in Long Beach, Gingrich woos minorities, more
Senators: ban illegal immigrants from state colleges, universities - Atlanta Journal-Constitution A group of Republican lawmakers is proposing legislation that would ban undocumented students from the state's public colleges and universities.
A two-week suspension for 'John and Ken': Reactions?
Reaction to the temporary suspension of John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of KFI 640 AM's "The John and Ken Show" has been growing since it was announced this afternoon, with the duo given a time-out until February 27 after making what the station is referring to as "insensitive and inappropriate comments about the late Whitney Houston" that I won't repeat.
'Oprime el red button and order': Do burgers in Spanglish satisfy?
In a popular post last week, Latino media and social tech guru Giovanni Rodriguez addressed why it is that English-language content - and Spanglish content, in a growing number of cases - has become a favorite tool of advertisers trying to reach Latino customers.
Does school principal's letter blame Miramonte's 'children of undocumented parents' for what happened to them?
This one can be filed under "When schools send out questionable correspondence to journalist parents," among other things: A mini-flap is emerging in the wake of the Miramonte Elementary School teacher lewd-conduct scandal in South Los Angeles, this time having to do with the non-Latina principal of another elementary school in a more affluent part of town.
'It was never going to be an easy road': Two filmmakers on immigration reform post-2001
The Migration Policy Institute has posted an insightful Q&A with the two directors of How Democracy Works Now, a 12-part documentary series that follows the trajectory of immigration reform plans from the optimism-filled days of mid-2001 through the period following the terrorist attacks of that September 11, and what has happened since.
In the news this morning: Napolitano grilled on 'amnesty,' Alabama immigration law protested, interracial marriage on the rise, more
Napolitano grilled on immigration enforcement - San Antonio Express-News While pushing her budget request before Congress, the Homeland Security chief was grilled by House Republicans who told her they saw President Obama's "policy of selective deportation of unlawful immigrants with criminal records as a program effectively granting amnesty to millions of other undocumented immigrants.
The pencil box: A Japanese American family's souvenir of internment
February 19 marks the 70th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's signing of United States Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps, including families with children.
Chimichanga fight! A political war of words over Latino voters, the GOP and deep-fried burritos
What's all this business with chimichangas today? It's the second-time that the Arizona-bred culinary weapon of mass destruction has made the political scene lately, but this latest go-round is miles from Phoenix.
As 'Linsanity' grips basketball fans, how big of a factor is race?
The rapid rise of New York Knicks basketball star Jeremy Lin has been a source of explosive pride for Asian Americans. And perhaps not surprisingly, the Los Angeles-born, Palo Alto-raised Harvard grad's success has also prompted its share of racially divisive cracks.
