Feet in 2 Worlds tells the stories of today’s immigrants

Since our founding in 2004, Feet in 2 Worlds has brought the work of immigrant journalists from communities across the U.S. to public radio and online news sites.

Our areas of special interest include food in immigrant communities, climate change, the role of immigrant voters in U.S. elections and arts and culture.

Hundreds of immigrant journalists have gone through Feet in 2 Worlds’ unique and highly successful training programs — including fellowships, workshops, and internships — enhancing their skills and allowing them to advance their careers. Fi2W alumni have gone on to jobs at WNYC, The New York Times, Buzzfeed, The Associated Press, WHYY, WDET, PRI and many other news organizations.

Fi2W stories appear on WNYC, WDET, NPR’s Here and Now, PRI’s The World, and in numerous online news outlets such as Huffington Post, The Nation, NPR’s The Salt, Yes Magazine!, Slate, Africa Is a Country and Latino Rebels. We host live events, in person and online

Fi2W journalism has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, along with the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) for the Food in 2 Worlds podcast series, the AP of Michigan, and the Ippies Awards, honoring excellence in New York’s ethnic and community media.

Fi2W works with journalists from a broad range of immigrant communities as well as students at The New School, the University of North Carolina,  NYU, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan. PR. and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Our very first effort was a one-hour radio documentary called ‘Feet in Two Worlds: Immigrants in a Global City’ broadcast in May 2005.  

Feet in 2 Worlds, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, fiscally sponsored by the Institute for Nonprofit News.

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Listen to the documentary

 


Why Feet in 2 Worlds? The Impact Matters.

Our Team

Staff

John Rudolph, Executive Producer and founder, is a radio journalist with more than 44 years experience as a program host, reporter, editor and producer of documentaries and news reports. John produced the award-winning documentary Feet in Two Worlds: Immigrants in a Global City, which was the debut for Feet in 2 Worlds. Starting in 1999 he worked with WNYC to chronicle the life of the city in programs such as Six Months: Rebuilding Our City, Rebuilding Ourselves, a documentary series that explored the impact of the 9/11 attacks, and New York in Black and White: The Sixties, Civil Rights and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis, named “Best news special/documentary, First Place” for 2000 by the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association. He produced and hosted Culture Lessons: Stories of Students at Manchester Central High School, winner of the 2007 RTNDA/Unity award. This documentary, produced for New Hampshire Public Radio, tells the story of a public high school with a large immigrant and refugee population. John has taught journalism at The New School, The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine and Boston University.

Jocelyn Gonzales, Technical Director and Senior Producer, is the Director of PRX Productions.  Formerly she was Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast, Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, from Public Radio International and Slate Magazine. She’s a sound design professor for film and new media at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and her work as a culture producer has appeared on Soundcheck, Marketplace, Musicians Radio, Weekend America, Radiolab, Minnesota Public Radio, Re:Sound, and Pop Tech Jam. She was part of the original production staff that launched Studio 360, and she was the producer for Dish, Now Hear This!, and The Conversation on WNYC. During 10 years at The New York Times, Jocelyn produced the weekly Popcast, New York Times Book Review, and Times Insider podcasts. She produced the Mash-Up Americans podcast at American Public Media, and Signal, the science and medicine podcast of StatNews.com and Boston Globe Media, and currently mixes the How It Is podcast for Hello Sunshine.

Martina Guzman, Senior Producer, is an award-winning reporter and nationally recognized journalist who writes about race, justice, and culture. Based in Detroit, she is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants and a graduate of the Journalism School at Columbia University in New York City.

Hali Bey Ramdene, Food Editor is a writer, editor, and photographer whose work explores food, well-being, art history, and the origin of our curiosity.

Anne Noyes Saini, Food Editor, produces The Sporkful food podcast and is co-creator of the MOTHER podcast. She covers food culture, immigration, women, and the elderly in New York City — especially in Queens, where she lives. She has contributed to NPR’s The Salt, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Narratively, Serious Eats, VICE, Feet in 2 Worlds, Real Cheap Eats and City Limits magazine.

Alejandro Salazar Dyer, Development Coordinator, is also the Alumni Coordinator for OneBeat, an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in collaboration with New York-based music organization Bang on a Can, that employs collaborative original music as a form of cultural diplomacy. Additionally, Alejandro serves at the Program Director for Feel the Music, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides participatory music and art workshops to children, families and adults impacted by trauma, loss or illness. A graduate of Hunter College, he is an active musician, and has toured and recorded with Zula, Gemma, and Air Waves, among others.

Quincy Surasmith, Editing Fellow and Managing Editor, is an audio producer and journalist based in Los Angeles, California. He is the host and executive producer of Asian Americana, a podcast featuring stories of Asian American culture and history. Quincy is also a co-founder of Potluck: an Asian American Podcast Collective, and is an alumnus of NPR’s Next Generation Radio. Previously, he was the producer-editor for the podcast #GoodMuslimBadMuslim and produced at Southern California Public Radio/LAist.

Rosalind Tordesillas, Podcast Editor, is a Philippine-born social scientist trained in attitudes research. For over ten years she conducted surveys for Consumer Reports, providing content for its publications and support for its advocacy efforts. She has graduate degrees from the New School and NYU in Social Psychology.

Fi2W Interns

Katelynn Laws, Intern, is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill majoring in English and Comparative Literature with a concentration in writing, editing, and digital publishing at the College of Arts and Sciences. She focuses her storytelling on everyday people and what they can tell us about the larger world around us.

Board of Directors

Martina Guzman, Chair — Race and Justice Journalism Fellow at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights (Detroit). Former Fi2W fellow.

Von Diaz — Adjunct Professor, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Former Fi2W fellow.  Former Fi2W editor.

Anne Donohue — Dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, associate professor for journalism, College of Communication at Boston University.

Valeria Fernandez — Freelance journalist and filmmaker (Phoenix, AZ).  Former Fi2W fellow.

Karen FrillmannExecutive Producer, Narrative Unit WNYC News, Contributing Editor, The New Yorker Radio Hour (New York).

Jocelyn Gonzales – Director of PRX Productions, Senior Producer and Technical Director, Fi2W.

Sarah Kramer — Freelance producer (New York). Former Fi2W editor.

Aaron Leaf — Editorial Content Strategist, The Toronto Star (Toronto, Ontario). Former Fi2W editor.

John Rudolph – President, Executive Producer and founder.


Editorial Policy

Feet in 2 Worlds is an independent news organization and retains full authority over its editorial content. 

Our news judgments are made independently and are not based on or influenced by donors. Our parent organization, the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, does not participate in our editorial decision-making.

Since our founding in 2005, we have always upheld the highest level of journalistic ethics and practices. We cede no right of review or influence over any of our editorial content.

We are dedicated to reflecting the diversity of communities we serve in our staff and contributors, as well as in our editorial choices and priorities.

We disclose our donors and key stakeholders on our website.

Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services, actions or opinions.

We recognize and appreciate that our nonprofit model relies on donations and that our donors expect us to retain our independent editorial judgment and scrupulous adherence to journalist standards, as do our media and academic partners and our readers and listeners.

 

Our Supporters

Feet in 2 Worlds is grateful for the generosity of our supporters.

Feet in 2 Worlds is supported by The Ford Foundation, the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation, the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation, the Listening Post Collective, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, an anonymous donor, and readers like you.

Our Partners

WYNC, New York Public Radio

 

Listening Post Collective

 

Self Evident: Asian America’s Stories

 

Slate

 

Yes! Magazine

 

PRI’s The World

 

WDET, Detroit’s Public Radio Station

 

The FilAm

 

Voices of New York at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

 

NPR’s The Salt

 

Universidad Del Sagrado Corazón

 

Former Managing Editors

Mia Warren is an audio producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Previously, she produced for StoryCorps and reported for Marfa Public Radio in far west Texas. Mia is the co-creator and executive producer of Feeling My Flo, a podcast for tweens and teens all about menstruation. She got her start in audio storytelling in Lima, Peru, where she documented stories in the Japanese Peruvian community on a Fulbright fellowship.

Rob St. Mary has been involved in storytelling since he started an underground student newspaper while still in high school. Since then he has become an internationally-renowned award-winning writer, radio & podcast host/reporter/producer, journalist, filmmaker, and crowdfunding professional. Rob is best known for his career in radio/podcast journalism with stints at WJR (Detroit), WOOD (Grand Rapids), WDET (Detroit), KAJX (Aspen), and the Detroit Free Press. During his time in commercial & public radio, Rob won over two dozen state awards for individual, investigative, and feature reporting. He was also a two-time regional Edward R. Murrow Award winner from the Radio-Television News Director’s Association. As an author, Rob received Michigan Notable Book Award honors in 2016 for his first project, “The Orbit Magazine Anthology.” A Knight Arts challenge winner, Rob is currently in process on a project documenting Detroit’s late 1970s punk rock scene. Rob is always interested in new ideas and enjoys collaboration with driven, creative people. He lives in Hamtramck with his wife & best friend, Erin Carr.

Mei-Ling McNamara

Rachael Bongiorno

Von Diaz

Aaron Leaf

Manolia Charlotin

Sarah Kramer

Diego Graglia

Aswini Anburajan