Southern Calif. Public Radio-NPR launch Argo Network w-Multi-American blog on immigration and cultural fusion:

Leslie Berestein Rojas, curator of KPCC Southern California Public Radio's Multi-American blog on immigration and cultural fusion.

KPCC Southern California Public Radio is part of NPR’s Argo Network for hyperlocal news. SCPR’s role in this network is its new Multi-American blog on immigration and cultural fusion in what site curator and past NAHJ member Leslie Berestein Rojas is calling “the new Southern California.”

An online explanation of the blog states: “In Southern California, generations of immigrants are creating a new fusion of cultures, expanding and evolving the definition of “American.” Multi-American is your source for news, conversation and insight on this emerging regional and national identity.

We’ll report on immigration policies and politics that affect Southern California residents, on the new mashups of culture that are beginning to define the Multi-American landscape, and on something broader: immigration as a topic that defines America.

The site’s curator is KPCC’s Leslie Berestein Rojas, an award-winning journalist with several years’ experience reporting on immigration issues.

Leslie most recently covered immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She has retraced the steps of migrants along desert smuggling trails, investigated immigrant detention contractors, and told the stories of families left behind in Mexico’s migrant-sending towns. A native of Cuba raised in Los Angeles, Leslie has also written for Time, People, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. She has reported from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Multi-American is both a news project and a discussion forum. It’s also part of a partnership between Southern California Public Radio and NPR involving a dozen public radio stations around the country, among them 89.3 KPCC, in which we’re experimenting with filling the gaps left in news coverage by a shrinking media industry. KPCC’s Jason Kandel is managing and editing the project.”

Check out more by visiting KPCC’s Multi-American blog at: http://multiamerican.scpr.org/about.

NPR is a partner in NAHJ’s Parity Project.