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Commentary from the heart of the American melting pot. Two columns and one blog item per week. Also in Spanish.
Photo by James Kegley
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"My column is about the American experience -- how it has evolved during my generation and what it feels, sounds, smells, tastes and looks like through the eyes of the daughter of Latin American immigrants."
"Because my personal story is very much about the way the great American melting pot bubbles and churns, the topics I write about most -- education, health, politics, business, public policy, culture -- reflect the diverse experiences and the issues that result from our country’s rapidly changing demographics."
Ours is, historically, a nation of immigrants, each new generation facing its hardships with adventurous hearts and determined minds. And each has brought an additional sense to the meaning of "American" -- a new pattern weaved into an ever-growing tapestry, a new harmony composed beneath an on-going melody, a new spice stirred into a simmering stew.
Esther J. Cepeda is living the quintessential American story.
She was born in Chicago within shouting distance of Wrigley Field to parents who came from Ecuador and Mexico to join family and seek a better life. Having spoken only Spanish until she entered kindergarten, Cepeda absorbed English by watching "Sesame Street" and by reading newspapers, of which there were four or five in her home every day. Her parents, who had been professionals -- a computer engineer and a secretary -- in their native countries but who toiled at blue-collar jobs in Chicago, endowed her with the desire to be inquisitive and enlightened.
Cepeda's interest in journalism budded at "age 6 or 7" when she began watching public affairs shows on TV. In pursuit of her dream, she earned a degree in journalism at Southern Illinois University and attended classes at the Medill School of Journalism's Integrated Marketing Communications program. But she set the dream aside, choosing to start a family and then to teach elementary school in the Chicago suburbs.
Still, Cepeda kept an ear to local politics. And she noted that the news reporting didn't feature anyone who looked like her, or whose name sounded like hers, or who was a child of recent Latin American immigrants.
So Cepeda began contributing columns on politics to the weekly Lake County Journal. She liked it so much, she left teaching after two years to find a full-time reporting job. She wrote to the Chicago Sun-Times, and pointed out that its Latino voices were woefully few in number. She was hired. After a stint as a reporter, Cepeda became a columnist.
Because so many people lose sight of America's immigrant history, the debate over immigration and citizenship emits more heat than light. Esther J. Cepeda's columns enlighten her readers about our communities and their residents, who, as they bring their cultures to America, become, themselves, Americans in every way.
Cepeda writes two columns and a blog item each week for The Washington Post Writers Group. She lives in suburban Chicago with her husband, who is a novelist and schoolteacher, and their two sons, three Chihuahuas, two guinea pigs and two gerbils.
