Author and award-winning Los Angeles Times journalist Mr. Soudi Jiménez was interviewed by Dr. Juan Casillas Núñez, chair of SBCC’s Modern Languages Department, at a SBCC lecture/book presentation on October 15, about Mr. Jiménez’s new book, Ecos Migrantes (Migrant Echoes) as part of SBCC’s Lecture Series on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Jiménez came to the U.S. from his native El Salvador in 2005 at the age of 28 to work as a diplomat in El Salvador’s Los Angeles Consulate office, a job he kept for seven years. He had already earned a BA degree in journalism from the University of El Salvador before leaving his country. Arriving in Los Angeles, he noticed Hispanic people picking up the free Spanish-language newspaper Hoy Los Angeles, published by the Los Angeles Times. Years later, when the Times was looking for a Central American journalist to cover the city’s large Central American community, Jiménez applied for the job and got it.
That was 13 years ago. He still writes for the paper, which has since changed names to Los Angeles Times en Español. However, in 2019, the newspaper began publishing online only. Jiménez has said he felt sad ever since that the articles he writes are not available on paper, where ordinary people without Internet can read them.
Jiménez has written dozens of articles profiling Central American and Mexican immigrants over his 13 years at the newspaper. With the issue of immigration so prominent nowadays, he decided to collect some of those stories and publish them together in book form, making them available for posterity.
His mission with this book is to show that immigrants come here to work, with so many doing jobs that others don’t want to do, and to show that immigrants are making the U.S. better by being here and making the contributions to society that they do. He firmly believes that all of us working together is what makes the U.S. strong.
He also points out that not all immigrants, and especially not all their descendants, are doing grunt labor. He mentioned that children of immigrants are working in all kinds of jobs, making contributions to American society at NASA, in Congress and government, and as doctors, attorneys, teachers, professors, artists, authors, and journalists, as well as every other part of society.
Originally, he selected 40 stories for the Ecos Migrantes book. Then, on the advice of his editor, he decided to pare them down to 27 stories that are not just topical but will have enduring meaning 20 years from now. The subjects of the stories come from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, and Jiménez interviewed every one of them personally. He invited them all to the event when his book was released in February of this year, and many of them happily attended.
Jiménez points out that many of the challenges and conditions that immigrants face are the same, regardless of where they come from or what documentation they have, mentioning the difficulty of adapting to a new culture, and of missing one’s native land and family back home. He hopes this book will connect with immigrants regardless of where they come from — from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, or anywhere — giving hope, sharing stories of both challenge and success, and showing everyone, immigrant or not, the value that immigrants bring to America.
After the lecture, Jiménez answered many questions from the audience, and signed books for students and others who came forward to buy his book, having warm conversations with each one. This book is written in Spanish, but he gave his presentation in English (with just a little Spanish mixed in), and he intends to get the book translated into English soon.
