December 2010

Hearing Immigrant Voices

Mohsin Zaheer, editor of Sada-e-Pakistan, an Urdu-language newspaper in the City, and a Feet in Two Worlds fellow, reporting from the site of the proposed Islamic community center in the Financial District.

Though the newspaper business has seen brighter days, Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska still has a job as a journalist with the Polish-language paper Nowy Dziennik, one of 380 community and ethnic newspapers in the City. Ten years ago, Ewa came from Poland largely to further her career, but writing only for Dzienniklimited her exposure to the paper’s loyal, but small, readership.

“When you work with ethnic media, you have to deal with limitations,” says Mohsin Zaheer, a journalist of 20 years currently reporting for two Pakistani news outlets in the City. “You get stuck with your day-to-day work and don’t get to try new things.”

Limited media and language platforms stymie not only the ethnic press, but also hampers the opportunity for vibrant public conversation. “Experiences of immigrants are too often described in the English-language press only by people looking in from the outside,” says John Rudolph, producer of Feet in Two Worlds, a program started in 2005 at The New School Center for New York City Affairs to bring the marginalized voices of immigrants to their fellow New Yorkers.

As part of the Knight Community Information Challenge, a two-year grant of$110,500 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has been matched by a two-year grant of $80,000 from The Trust to expand Feet in Two Worlds.

“It has been a great opportunity to work with editors producing stories for broader audiences. They have shown me how to put my local reporting into a wider context,” says Ewa. “I have produced stories for The World on Public Radio International, and am now one of the go-to Polish sources for journalists and editors from The New York Times and other outlets. Feet in Two Worlds has helped me find my professional niche.”

“I had very little idea about blogs and multimedia, and now I have learned the importance of social media,” says Mohsin, who is new to the program. “I was not a regular user of Facebook, and now I use it as a way to communicate with community members and sources.”

This year, the program is emphasizing digital media—offering workshops on creating websites, podcasts, and blogs, and using Twitter and other social networks. Some Feet in Two World fellows will also receive hands-on training in radio production, including field recording, voice technique, documentary storytelling, and sound editing. Stories will be published at news.feetintwoworlds.org and in other local, national, and international outlets.

“As a city of immigrants, we have prided ourselves for our ability to embrace newcomers from all over the world and the unique contributions they make to New York’s cultural, social, and economic life,” said Pat Swann, senior program officer at The Trust. “But the recent discourse on the proposed Islamic cultural center in the Financial District has been anything but civil and is a symptom of fissures that are created when there has been little dialogue. We think that this project will contribute to increased conversations among the City’s residents and better understanding.”