Sam Quinones

Sam Quinones
Born Claremont, California
Residence Los Angeles, California
Education University of California, Berkeley
Occupation Journalist
Known for Reporter for the Los Angeles Times
Notable work Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration; True Tales from Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx

Sam Quinones is an American journalist. He is best known from his reporting in Mexico and on Mexicans in the United States. He was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to 2014.[1][2]

Early life and education

Quinones grew up in Claremont, California. He graduated from Claremont High School in 1977 and then attended the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with B.A. degrees in Economics and American History.

Career

Journalism

He took his first journalism job in 1987 at the Orange County Register. The next year he moved to Stockton, California, where he spent four years working as a crime reporter for the Stockton Record. In 1992, he moved to Seattle, where he covered county government and politics for the Tacoma News-Tribune.

He left for Mexico in 1994 where he worked as a freelance reporter. Quinones returned to the United States in 2004 and now works for the Los Angeles Times, covering immigration-related stories and gangs.[3]

In 2013, he took a leave of absence from the paper and is working on a book about the opiate epidemic in America, focusing on abuse of prescription painkillers, primarily Oxycontin, and the spread of Mexican black-tar heroin, primarily by men from the town of Xalisco, Nayarit. The book will be published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Press in New York City.

He wrote in November 2012 about efforts to rework the Mexican Indian governance system known as usos y costumbres (uses and customs), which has become seen as disadvantaging migrants to the United States and pitting them against people who had remained in their villages.[4]

Books

Other professional activities

In 1998, he was selected as a recipient of the Alicia Patterson Fellowship, for a series of stories on impunity in Mexican villages. In 2008, he was awarded a Maria Moors Cabot prize, by Columbia University, for a career of excellence in covering Latin America.

In 2011, he started a storytelling experiment, called "Tell Your True Tale", at his website, www.samquinones.com. The site aims to encourage new writers to write their own stories. At last count it had more than 50 stories posted.

In February 2012, Quinones started "True Tales: A Reporter's Blog" about “Los Angeles, Mexico, migrants, culture, drugs, neighborhoods, border, and good storytelling.”[7]

He has lectured a more than 50 universities across the United States. In 2012, he gave a lecture at the University of Arizona entitled “So Far from Mexico City, So Close to God: Stories of Mexican Immigrants" and of Mexico's Escape from History.”[8]

Personal life

Quinones now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.[9]

Awards and honors

References

  1. Roderick, Kevin (March 3, 2014). "Sam Quinones moves on from LA Times". LA Observed. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  2. "Sam Quinones". Columbia Journalism School. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  3. "2008 Maria Moors Cabot Prize winner". Columbia Journalism School. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  4. Quinones, Sam (November 20, 2012). "Bonds of tradition are a financial bind for Oaxacan migrants". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  5. Dagoberto, Gilb (April 22, 2007). "GO NORTH, YOUNG MEN / FREEDOM, AS MUCH AS MONEY, PROMPTS MEXICAN MIGRANTS TO TAKE GREAT RISKS". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  6. Arellano, Gustavo (May 13, 2007). "The Road Oft Traveled". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  7. "Mexico, USA: Journalist and Author Sam Quinones Starts Blogging". Global Voices. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  8. "Award-Winning Journalist Sam Quinones to Lecture at UA on Nov. 19". The University of Arizona. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  9. "INTERVIEW WITH SAM QUINONES". LA Bloga. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  10. Lorne Manly (January 18, 2016). "National Book Critics Circle Announces Award Nominees". New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  11. Alexandra Alter (March 17, 2016). "‘The Sellout’ Wins National Book Critics Circle’s Fiction Award". New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2016.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 25, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.