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FI2W Fellowships

About Fi2W Fellowships

Fi2W fellowships pair journalists from immigrant backgrounds and communities of color with veteran reporters, editors, and audio producers. Fellowships are designed for working journalists who want to learn new skills and advance their careers. We offer reporting fellowships that typically last for four months, and a year-long editing fellowship. Working with their mentor through weekly communication and meetings, fellows develop a story or series of stories. The work of Fi2W fellows is published on our website and our podcast platform, as well as by partner organizations which include public media outlets, online news sites, and outlets that serve immigrant audiences.

  • Fi2W fellows have won numerous awards from The Society of Professional Journalists, the Asian American Podcasters Association, the AP of Michigan, and the Ippies, which honors community journalism in New York.
  • Our fellows have reported from New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Puerto Rico, New Hampshire, Michigan, Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, and other parts of the U.S.
  • The Fi2W network of alumni extends to New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Toronto, San Francisco, Boston, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well as overseas locations in the Philippines, Latin America, and Western Europe.

CURRENT FI2W FELLOWS:

Paulina Velasco, Reporting Fellow, is a multilingual reporter and audio producer based in Los Angeles, California. She has made narrative documentaries and interview shows for ten years for a variety of outlets, including Marketplace, LWC Studios, Slate, Pacifica Radio, and local NPR member stations. She writes for The Guardian about immigrants’ experiences in Southern California and particularly at the San Diego-Tijuana border—just ten miles from where she grew up.

Iggy Monda, Editing Fellow, is a born-and-bred New Yorker. When he was young, he dreamed of being the second coming of Derek Jeter. Unfortunately, while Jeter is 6’3”, Iggy…is not. But he is a multilingual journalist of average height that has produced audio series, video explainers, and written articles for Religion of Sports, Yahoo! Finance, NBC’s Today.com, and Overtime. Iggy has covered a range of beats from the business of Aeroterror between Venezuela and Hezbollah to the anti-vax movement in the US. He most recently hosted Roughhousing, a six-episode series that puts a spotlight on the phenomenon of hazing in high school sports.

“I wouldn’t be the journalist that I am today and write in English if it wasn’t for Feet in 2 Worlds. After being part of their fellowship I went on to freelance at PRI’s The World, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, AP, and magazines. Their incredible team of producers and editors helped me make the cross-over and realize the value of stories from immigrant communities that needed to be told beyond the Spanish publications where I worked.”

– Valeria Fernandez, Feet in 2 Worlds fellow, 2009. Managing Editor, palabra from NAHJ and recipient of the 2018 American Mosaic Journalism Prize from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

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