Making History While Making a Home
I thought that writing an article about the history of Iowa's Latino Heritage Festival would be easy because I was part of it from the start. But, that actually made it more difficult. As a journalist, you must be neutral. When you're personally invested in a story, it can come out in your writing and make it biased. That can isolate your audience. Unless it's a commentary or opinion piece, the writer is supposed to be a vessel of information, not a portal to their personal experience. Interviewing for this story, I talked to friends I've known for over twenty years. We laughed over some of the hard lessons we learned, and got teary-eyed remembering some of the more touching moments we experienced. We remembered those who worked alongside us and have since moved on to other projects, states and realms. But, the story wasn't about how I was in the trenches with them, it was about their take on how it happened. I couldn't write about how scared I was that I woul
