BILINGUAL SPANISH

Owen Racer

Before joining Cascadia Daily News, Racer reported on intergenerational farming in Ecuador and El Salvador for The Guardian, documenting how consumerism, climate change and emigration collide on farms that future generations decide to inherit or leave. In Washington, D.C., he covered the IRS and Congress for Bloomberg. In New York City, he reported on maternal health disparities, riding the city’s subways with mobile mental illness teams to explain how the increasingly popular model of mental health care impacts the workforce. From producing audio stories on mental health for NPR stations WHYY and WVXU in Cincinnati, Ohio, his hometown, to photographing youth impacted by gun violence in New Orleans, his reporting crosses topics and mediums. During the 2024 presidential election, he was the lone U.S. correspondent for The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s English-language media outlet, covering campaigns, foreign policy and Congress. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

Patricia Serrano

Prior to joining Enlace Latino, Patricia Serrano was a freelance reporter, podcast producer, and host at Enlace Latino Podcast, where she covered immigrant communities in western North Carolina. Her work focuses on immigrant rights, cross-cultural stories, and grassroots responses to natural disasters. Originally from Argentina, she began her journalism career working in news agencies and later as a freelance narrative reporter and communications specialist. Patricia has experience as a co-producer for Radio Ambulante, including an episode about Guatemalan immigrant Juana Tobar, and has also co-produced bilingual audio documentaries such as Dreaming las Américas. She studied journalism at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and continues to develop independent audio journalism projects. Based in Asheville, she is bilingual in Spanish and English. In her free time she enjoys reading and hiking along the Appalachian Mountain trails.

Simmerdeep Kaur

Before joining the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Simmerdeep Kaur was the lead reporter at the Redwood City Pulse, where she covered city government and launched the newsroom’s first-ever podcast. The series featured in-depth interviews with Redwood City Council candidates ahead of the 2024 elections. Kaur’s odyssey into journalism began as an undergraduate, working as a part of her university’s editorial team and interning at several newsrooms in India. As a Master’s student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, she was determined to reinvent herself and go beyond writing. She acquired data skills by learning Python and tools for visualizations to serve as a strong supplement to her stories. Kaur is a firm believer that in an era of growing threats to press freedom, robust journalism is more essential than ever. Over the past three years, she has reported on a wide range of topics, including police brutality, threats to press freedom, AI warfare, and the dangers of lithium-ion batteries.

Amaya Edwards

Prior to joining Santa Cruz Local, visual journalist Amaya Edwards worked as the visuals intern for the San Francisco Chronicle and freelanced for different news organizations throughout the Bay Area, including the Oaklandside and San Francisco Chronicle. Edwards earned a bachelor's degree in photojournalism with a minor in race and resistance studies at San Francisco State University in 2022. She was a recipient of the Fran Ortiz grant during her time at SFSU, allowing her to work on her documentary photo essay about Black women doulas and their commitment to Black maternal health justice in and around Oakland.

Gabriella Chavez

Gabriella Chavez covers growth and development on the Gulf Coast of Alabama for Gulf Coast Media. Chavez graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and an outside concentration in public health and health sciences. During her senior year, Chavez worked on an international reporting project in Costa Rica, where she explored the limits of ecotourism, focusing on the intersections between tourists and animals. Her journalism career began in college, where she reported for WUFT News and the Independent Florida Alligator, the university’s independent, student-run paper. As the El Caimán reporter, she covered the Hispanic and Latino community beat, reporting on issues affecting local Latinx populations, including cultural events, education, immigration and local policy. At WUFT News, she covered stories on science, environment and weather in North Central Florida. Chavez was born in Miami, Florida, was raised in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and is fluent in Spanish. Outside of the newsroom, she enjoys reading and running.

Io Yeh Gilman

Before joining Mission Local as an RFA corp member, Io Yeh Gilman interned there in 2024, covering Pride, crime, homelessness, animals, and more. Born and raised in San Francisco, she previously reported on the city while working at The Lowell, her high school’s newspaper. In college, Gilman led Fifteen Minutes, The Harvard Crimson’s weekly magazine. She edited features and long form stories and wrote about a variety of topics including right wing attacks on DEI programs, climate change, science research, and more. Gilman holds a bachelor’s degree in History and Science from Harvard University and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Alejandra Molina

Alejandra Molina is a senior reporter and youth mentor at Boyle Heights Beat. Prior to joining the Beat, Molina was part of the team that launched De Los, a new section of the Los Angeles Times exploring Latinidad in L.A. and across the country. Before that, she was a national reporter for the independent and nonprofit Religion News Service as part of a global religion journalism initiative with the Associated Press and the Conversation. There, she covered Latinos and spirituality. As a staff writer, you can also find her bylines in newsrooms under the Southern California News Group, where she covered city, immigration and breaking news beats. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, LAist, and the Washington Post. She grew up in the L.A. region, including El Monte and Pomona.

Amanda Pérez Pintado

Amanda Pérez Pintado covers health for the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), a nonprofit investigative newsroom. Some of her recent work has focused on Puerto Rico’s prison health care system. Before joining the CPI, she reported on science and politics for El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest daily newspaper. She previously worked as a reporter for USA Today and as a Report for America corps member at Investigate Midwest, a nonprofit news site based in Champaign, Illinois. Pérez Pintado holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus and a master’s from New York University. She has taught journalism courses at her undergraduate alma mater and Sagrado Corazón University. Pérez Pintado is a native of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and a lover of books and horror movies.

Camilla Forte

Camilla Forte is a visual journalist based in Chicago. Before joining Borderless Magazine as a Catchlight/Report for America corps member, Forte was the multimedia producer for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit newsroom focused on covering innovation and inequality in education. She holds a B.A. in photojournalism from Columbia College Chicago. As a student, she was a Borderless Pathways Photo Fellow, participated in the New York Times Institute and was the director of photography of the Columbia Chronicle. Forte is a member of Diversify Photo, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association. She is a big fan of the Great Lakes, reading for pleasure and kindness.

Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

At the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, our mission is to provide the news and information people in southeast Washington need to make informed decisions about their health, safety and economic well-being. Our 11 journalists deliver news via unionbulletin.com, a three-day print newspaper and social media. We are part of The Seattle Times Co., which believes decisions about the U-B and local are best made by the people who live and work here in the community.