On Oct. 15, 2008, 1,460 immigrants took the oath at the Masonic Auditorium and exited the as new U.S. citizens. They were part of the last group of naturalized citizens still able to register to vote for the presidential elections. And they were already thinking about how they would cast that first vote.
EN ESPAÑOL
The following videos are in Spanish- Click “ENGLISH AUDIO” to hear the translation
We also interviewed Charles Macnulty from the San Francisco Department of Elections.
Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.
More by Lydia Chávez
