WHYY: Examining how journalists report on the immigrant experience
December 5th, Al-Bustan and WHYY presented the panel discussion Reporting on Immigration: Both Sides of the Story - featuring panelists Emma Restrepo, Laura Benshoff, Perla Lara and Jeff Gammage, along with Fernando Chang-Muy and Vena Jefferson.
December 6, 2017 | Written By Kyrie Greenberg
“This notion that people are coming to America for anything more than a better life for their children — and I might get emotional, because I’ve lived it — is insulting. Immigrants … come here for access to money to have a better life for themselves and their children. Mothers leave their children and come to a foreign country alone to work menial jobs because they want a better life. That is immigration. It is not an escaping of criminals. It is not rapists coming to a country to hide. It is seeking a better life in a world that so many times works against women. It is a mother and father wanting their child to be able to go to college so she can provide for herself and she in turn can provide for her own children. That is immigration, and the media does a piss-poor job of representing that.”