 As an Emerson Fellow at the New America Foundation, I'm focusing on immigration and competitiveness. What I try to do in my work is show how federal and state policy actually impacts people on the ground. So a big project that I'll be pursuing with radio work and some long-form journalism is looking at the president's recent Deferred Action proposal. And that's where the DREAM Act, which would have allowed young adults and teenagers who had been brought to the United States before the age of 16 the opportunity to become citizens never became law. But President Obama, almost three months ago now, so back in July of 2012, proposed that this group of immigrants be allowed to remain in the United States without fear of deportation and provide them with work permits. So what has been interesting for me to see is communities that I've followed for a long period of time where whole groups of El Salvadoran teenagers, for example, dropped out of high school, this has had a real measurable impact on the decisions they make in their day-to-day life. A lot of them are trying to get GEDs, obtain some kind of vocational training. It's provided a window for a return on investment that a lot of them are trying to take advantage of. So what I try to do in my work is keep abreast of what's going on policy-wise, but then really try to connect it to what happens on the ground. My mother is Venezuelan. I spent a lot of time in Latin America growing up, and then after I graduated from college I spent several years there. I covered Capitol Hill for Business Week for four years. I also did some policy journalism at the Washington Monthly and I enjoyed that reporting, but I always felt like there was this odd quality to it. It felt like covering something in a vacuum where you would write a lot about behind-the-scenes battles, but then it was sort of a question of what actually happens when this is propagated in the world. So when I moved to New York City, it's such a dynamic place and its immigrant community is so huge and because I speak Spanish and some French, I felt like I was in a unique position to try to bridge that, to have a good enough grounding in the policy that I would sort of look for or have a sense of what to look for in communities. It took a long time to find groups of people, but it happened over a period of six years. I feel very grateful to have the fellowship to make good on all of that effort or the connections that I've made.