And Now for Something Completely Different- Day Laborers

I've been in school for a few months now, learning how to become a kick-ass journalist. In my (and my 15 classmates) quest to do so, I had to cover a "beat," old school.

What is a beat (n.) when it's not violence (v.) or a vegetable (beet)?

When reporters are assigned a beat, they cover a certain issue or organization over time. That way, they get to know a lot about it and write more in-depth about that thing. (They also get stuck never writing anything too negative about anything on the beat so they don't burn their sources. The beat-o-sphere is small.) Triathlon could be a beat, but not for school. (Darn.)

So, I was on the immigration beat in Mountain View this quarter. I spent a lot of time at the Day Worker Center getting to know people as best I could with a mashup of Fritalian (I learned French and Italian, but not Spanish. Not good for covering CA's immigration.) and English.

On Monday, I spent time with Isaias, one of a million immigrants trying to find work in CA.

Here is his story:

And for extra credit, here's a story on the Day Worker Center's Director, Maria Marroquin.

I haven't just been riding my bike in the Santa Cruz mountains, although I can see how a girl could make a quarter of doing only that.