Fleeing Violence, Mexican Journalist Seeks Asylum in US

February 13, 2009

Recently, as the term “war” has been used in this country, the focus has been on Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza. But for the past couple of years, war is exactly what has been happening just south of the U.S. border. And the violence there is getting worse.

Reporter Emilio Gutierrez Soto

The war in Mexico is about the control of the flow of drugs being consumed in the U.S. Some 10,000 people have been killed in this violent struggle over the past three years. And Mexicans are hard pressed to know what’s really happening as the country recently became the second most dangerous region of the world for journalists, after Iraq.

Latino USA contributor Monica Ortiz Uribe begins the story of Emilio Gutierrez Soto.

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A Conversation with Emilio Gutierrez Soto

Since 2000, at least 24 journalists have been killed in Mexico and seven are officially listed as “missing” by Mexican authorities since 2005. Emilio Gutierrez Soto was a reporter for El Diario de Noroeste in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. His reports critical of the Mexican military’s drug war earned him death threats. He spoke with Maria Hinojosa.

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The Get-Tough Sheriff of Maricopa County

Sheriff Arpaio meets with members of the press

Inmates marched before reporters

Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona calls himself the “toughest sheriff in America.” Much of what he does is controversial and critics say he rarely makes a move without alerting the media. Arpaio not only advocates for local law enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, he practices it. His latest move is to house “criminal aliens” in tents. Reporter Rene Gutel sent us the latest from Phoenix.

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UPDATE: In a letter made public on 13 February 2009, members of the House Judiciary Committee, writing to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, allege Sheriff Arpaio “has evidenced blatant disregard for the rights of Hispanic residents of the Phoenix area.” The lawmakers express their concern that Arpaio is “displaying like trophies” individuals who are in pretrial detention, not having been convicted of any crime. They further express their belief that “members of the Latino community—whether U.S. citizens or foreign-born, whether they are legal immigrants or undocumented—feel under siege.” You can find the full text of the letter here.

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Welcome to the new website for Latino USA!

We’ve spent the past two months designing the pages before you. Maria and I felt strongly that we could provide a greater service to our listeners by making some changes online. We hope that work is evident.

Years ago, I was fortunate to be working at All Things Considered when the opportunity came to work closely with the fledgling unit called ‘NPR Online.’ The result was NPR’s first attempt to wed the web to radio in a meaningful way. I’m proud of that early attempt at providing greater context for our radio reporting, and I hope the new Latino USA website accomplishes some of the same goals we had then: allowing listeners to dig deeper, to explore ideas, to offer meaningful feedback, and engage the journalists and one another in conversation. A shout-out to MJ Bear for the willingness to work with a radio producer who didn’t know HTML from a hole-in-the-wall.

One measure of how things have changed is that it’s no longer surprising to find the work of radio journalists online. And this week’s reporting from Rene Gutel and Mónica Ortiz Uribe are two excellent examples. Look at the photographs they provided us for their stories. Our colleagues in TV and in print may laugh at us radio folks, but we’re still a little amazed when we can put a picture with a story. These two—both excellent radio reporters—each has a great eye for the compelling visual.

Many thanks to James Reese, Bob Hemby, and Paige Maguire of KUT Radio in Austin, the home of Latino USA. They have shown enormous patience with the work of the past few months and we are grateful for all their help. Thanks, too, to Stewart Vanderwilt and Hawk Mendenhall, los jefes at KUT and two of the program’s biggest supporters.

Veteran radio producer Katie Davis joined us this year and is the project manager for “New American Voices.” Her creativity and energy are finding new ways onto the air and onto your web browser, and we’re glad of that. The radio we produce each week gets spun through the big brains, hearts, and ears of Walter Morgan, Mincho Jacob, and Angela Maldonado. I’m grateful for their passion, insight, and good humor.

Alex Avila is beginning his responsibilities as Senior Online Producer now. This website will be his bread and butter from here on out, and you’ll notice his careful attention to detail. Wish him well.

And I would like to offer my deep gratitude to Andrew Wimmer, a longtime friend and collaborator. We have done a lot together over the years, and his help to realize this new website gets added to my long list of things for which I’m grateful.

So, why the model train? Building a website is a little like playing with a model railroad. You have an idea in your head of what you want the site to do and you sketch out the design. Then you start laying track and building things up. Then you run the train and see where the cars jump the track. You fix that spot and run the train again, seeing where the cars jump the tracks now. You keep doing that until the site behaves the way you want it to most of the time.

We’re turning it over to you, the listener, now. Run the trains as fast as you can — and let us know how we can make Latino USA online even better.