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Author Archives: Teresa Puente

Teresa Puente has spent her career reporting on immigration and Latino issues in the U.S. and has also reported extensively from Mexico. Previously, she was a staff reporter at the Chicago Tribune and was on the editorial board at the Chicago Sun-Times. Early in her career, she worked as a reporter for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach and The Orange County Register. Her recent journalistic work has been published in TIME, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Hill, The Miami Herald, Latino magazine, In These Times and more. Puente also is a senior facilitator, coach and mentor with The OpEd Project, a social venture that helps promote and publish underrepresented voices in the media.
Puente, an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach, teaches News Reporting and Ethics, Social Media Communication and Bilingual Magazine Reporting & Production. Her students publish the Spanish-language magazine Dig En Español, the first magazine of its kind in Long Beach.
Puente received the Studs Terkel Award from Public Narrative for her coverage of Chicago’s diverse communities. She has served on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the California Chicano News Media Association and JAWS – Journalism & Women Symposium. She is a past president of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Puente holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and a bachelor’s degree with a double major in journalism and political science from Indiana University-Bloomington. Before returning to Long Beach, she taught journalism for 10 years at Columbia College Chicago. She was also a visiting assistant professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and taught journalism and communications at the Tecnológico de Monterrey campus in Guadalajara, Mexico.

teresa@latinomedia.org
Posted inOpinion

COLUMN: Stop the attacks on drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community

by Teresa Puente

The Dodgers controversy happened as many states are moving to ban or restrict drag shows.

Tennessee was the first state in the country to ban drag performances in public spaces and anywhere in the presence of someone under 18 years old. The law was set to take effect April 1 and now is tied up in the courts. A dozen other states have proposed similar legislation against drag performances, including Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.

Posted inOpinion

COMMENTARY: WRITERS STRIKE IS A CALL FOR MORE REPRESENTATION IN HOLLYWOOD

by Teresa Puente

The strike underscores that Latinos, who make up 19% of the U.S. population,
are already severely underrepresented not just as writers but in all roles in Hollywood.

U.S. Latino representation in Hollywood went down for the last quarter of 2022 to 2019 levels.
Only 2.6% of lead actors in shows, 1.4% of showrunners, and 1.5% of directors were Latino in 2022, according to the Latino Data Collaborative Think Tank.
The think tank is the research branch of the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC) and they released the 2022 Full-Year LDC U.S. Latinos in Media Report this month.

Posted inOpinion

COLUMN: I’m not a mother but I mother

by Teresa Puente

So this Mother’s Day I want to acknowledge all the women who technically aren’t mothers but who mother. They are hermanas, tías and amigas. Some of them like me wanted children but weren’t able to have them. Others have chosen not to have them. Let’s honor their choices too and their right to make that choice.

Posted inOpinion

COLUMN: Migrants killed in fire reveals broken immigration policies

by Teresa Puente

But what the fire reveals is broken immigration policies in the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico is detaining and holding migrants, including those expelled from the U.S. They don’t have the facilities or the resources to do this humanely.
Under U.S. immigration law, migrants fleeing persecution can request asylum regardless of how they arrive on U.S. soil. But the Biden administration proposed a more restrictive immigration rule to take effect in May.

Posted inOpinion

COLUMN: CALÓ NEWS elevates Latino/a/x voices

by Teresa Puente

Latino voices are rarely seen in the opinion pages of mainstream media. For example, only 4% of opeds published by the Los Angeles Times featured Latino writers, according to a 2020-2021 study by the UCLA Latino Politics & Policy Initiative.

Here at CALÓ NEWS we have elevated the voices of Latino/a/x journalists but also of Latino/a/x professors, doctors, activists, community leaders and students.