Intersections

Most recently I served as a producer and correspondent for VICE News Tonight on HBO (2015-2016). Just before that, I was Mexico bureau chief and correspondent for VICE News (2014-2015), covering Mexico and Latin America, and managing a corps of freelance correspondents across half a dozen countries. Before that, I served a year as Editor of VICE Mexico, overseeing its monthly print magazine and the VICE site for Mexico/Latin America.

I reported from all over Latin America and in much of Mexico on assignment for VICE. Our crews covered the case of the missing 43 students in Mexico, major opposition protests in Argentina, a series of bombings in Chile, a coca-producing cult in the Peruvian Amazon, and a special forces Olympics competition in Colombia. I hosted a documentary on the rise of "Mexican black tar" heroin, and ate my way through Oaxaca as part of my work for Munchies. I also had a food column in Spanish called "Mal del Puerco."

I am author of a non-fiction book, "Down & Delirious in Mexico City," published by Scribner in 2011. The Spanish translation is published by Editorial Océano, as "El bajón y el delirio."

Previously, I worked as a researcher and reporter in the Mexico City bureau of the Los Angeles Times (2010-2013), where I covered breaking news and wrote news and features for the L.A. Times print edition. There, I covered the 2012 presidential election and the "end of the Mayan calendar" in the Yucatan Peninsula.

I started my professional career in Los Angeles, as a metro reporter at the Los Angeles Times (2002-2006). After four years of covering just about everything under the sun in L.A., I switched over to the LA Weekly (2006-2007), where I covered the first days of the 2006 immigrant rights marches, the battle over bacon-wrapped hot dogs on the streets of L.A., and the 2006 presidential election in Mexico.

Some of my other writing homes have been Gatopardo magazine in Mexico, Art in America. I've written for Swallow Magazine, NYT's T Magazine, Flaunt, California Monthly, The Guardian, and others.

On radio, I host for Round Earth Media, a non-profit journalism project producing radio specials for hundreds of public radio stations across the United States. Those specials are "Mexico Uncovered" and "Immigration Uncovered." A few times I've shown up on "Latino USA" and "All Things Considered" on NPR.

I was born in 1980 in San Diego, where I grew up in the neighborhoods of City Heights, Shelltown, and Southeast. We also lived for a period in Chula Vista.

I studied English on a Regents' & Chancellor's scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley. There, I served one year as editor-in-chief and president of independent student newspaper The Daily Californian (2000-2001), an incredible experience. I was proud to volunteer at the Raza Recruitment & Retention Center, to encourage more first-generation Latino college students to give Cal a shot.

Ever since, I've been honored to speak at my alma mater and at colleges and universities across the country, including UC Riverside's Writer's Week, Zócalo Public Square, UNAM, el Tec de Monterrey, and elsewhere.