Covering Us

In this episode of OP Talks, sociologist Rev. Dr. Tony Lin talks to New York Times National Correspondent Edgar Sandoval about his start in journalism, writing about Texas, and the nuances of the U.S. Latino experience. In particular, Sandoval discusses his experience of reporting on the mass shooting that occurred on May 24, 2022 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Sandoval was born in California and spent part of his childhood in his parents' Mexican home state of Zacatecas, before settling in South Texas. While still in college, Sandoval got his start in journalism at The McAllen Monitor, his hometown newspaper, where his first job was writing obituaries. After graduation, he worked newsroom jobs that took him to California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and New York. He spent almost three years writing about the assimilation of Latino immigrants in Pennsylvania; the articles are anthologized in The New Face of Small-Town America: Snapshots of Latino Life in Allentown, Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), which captures "vivid portraits of the people and families behind the demographic statistics." In New York, Sandoval worked for the New York Daily News for a decade before joining The New York Times in 2019, where he is now a National Correspondent based in Texas. Coming full circle, he currently writes about South Texas people and places for the NYT’s National Desk.