As part of our partnership with Enlace Latino NC, we’ve hired a part-time community coordinator to work alongside the rural Latinx and immigrant communities our journalism is serving.

Ariana GarcĂa is from Lenoir, N.C., where she is currently based. She’s a recent graduate of Queens University in Charlotte, where she was the community service chair for the Latin American Student Organization.
Ariana will be planning and coordinating events, traveling to distribute information and stories, and working with local partners to figure out how to close the information gap in areas with Spanish-speaking populations.
“I’m excited to work with Southerly and Enlace through connecting with the Latinx community and building connections,” she said.
Ariana will work closely with Victoria Bouloubasis, our correspondent in North Carolina, who is covering the intersection of environmental issues and economic mobility in Latinx communities, as well as other immigrant and refugee populations. Some of the topics we’re exploring are how communities are responding to the economic stress of climate change; solutions for housing insecurity and displacement; the $15 minimum wage battle and other labor policies; and the resilience of rural Latinx communities and their economic futures post-pandemic.
We hope this hire is the first of many community coordinators in the rural South, as part of our mission to ensure journalism about the environment and all that it intersects with reaches the audiences we’re aiming to serve.