Shereen Marisol Meraji
Shereen Marisol Meraji tries to find the humor and humanity in reporting on race for the NPR Code Switch team.
Her stories center on the real people affected by the issues, not just experts and academics studying them. Those stories include a look at why a historically black college in West Virginia is 90 percent white, to a profile of the most powerful and most difficult-to-target consumer group in America: Latinas.
Prior to her time with Code Switch, Meraji worked for the national business and economics radio program Marketplace, from American Public Media. There, she covered stories about the growing wealth gap and poverty in the United States.
Meraji's first job in college involved radio journalism and she hasn't been able to shake her passion for story telling since. The best career advice Meraji ever received was from veteran radio journalist Alex Chadwick, who said, "When you see a herd of reporters chasing the same story, run in the opposite direction." She's invested in multiple pairs of running shoes and is wearing them out reporting for Code Switch.
A graduate of San Francisco State with a BA in Raza Studies, Meraji is a native Californian with family roots in Puerto Rico and Iran.
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When it comes to women's shoes, fashion often trumps function. But as women age, comfort starts to compete with style. Cue the rise of the trendy comfort shoe.
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Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, was the first American identified as a victim of the Paris terrorist attacks. She was an exchange student from California State University, Long Beach studying industrial design.
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In the Women's World Cup, the U.S. and Sweden battled to a tie Friday night.
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They've been supporting the men for years. But for the first time, the American Outlaws — a growing and influential U.S. soccer fan group — will cheer for the women's national team at a World Cup.
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For 27 years, Romy Vasquez has been working with Boy Scouts in South Central Los Angeles, where, he says, it's easier to find a gang to join than a Boy Scout troop.
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LaToya Ruby Frazier's photography tells the story of the black community living in the shadow of Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill through portraits of her grandmother, her mother and herself.
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Crystal Harden-Lindsey is a principal at a public charter school for middle and high schoolers. "You just have to pray that they'll make it back to school the next day," she says of her students.
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A surprising number of gifted seniors are not applying to the Ivy League universities and selective colleges they'd be sure to get into.
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Following the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson, Ferguson residents are hoping to take this Thanksgiving to grow and heal their community — and give thanks to one another.
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In Ferguson, Mo., some residents spent Tuesday cleaning up looted and vandalized businesses near the police station — some for the second time since the August shooting sparked public outcry.