Sonia Nazario

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Sonia Nazario (born 1960) is a feature writer for the Los Angeles Times. She holds the distinctions of winning the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and of being the youngest writer to be hired by the Wall Street Journal.

[edit] Career in Los Angeles

After leaving the Los Angeles Times for a second time, Nazario moved to California and joined the Los Angeles Times in 1993 to write about local issues, specifically those dealing with Latinos and or Latin America. The following year, she won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California.

In 1998, Nazario was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her story about the children of drug addicts in Los Angeles. Her photographer for the project, Clarence Williams, did win the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for photos taken to accompany the story.

In 2003, Nazario finished work on a multi-part story, entitled Enrique's Journey, about the experiences of Latin American children who immigrate to join their parents in the U.S. The newspaper series won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, the James Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence. The story also garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for her accompanying photographer, Don Bartletti.

In 2005 Nazario published a book, Enrique's Journey, which expanded on her newspaper series.