Sonia Nazario headlined the UMKC Division of Diversity and Inclusion’s 14th annual César Chávez lecture this week. 

The lecture honors César Chávez, organizer of the Chicano Movement in the United States and founder of the United Farm Workers. It is meant to raise awareness of the continual struggle for civil rights, including humane working conditions, dignity, equality and access to opportunity for all. 

Nazario is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose stories have tackled difficult issues such as hunger, drug addiction and immigration. She spent decades reporting and writing about social issues for newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

Below are some highlights from the lecture, which was held virtually this year. 

On winning her first Pulitzer: 

I wrote about this army of children migrating north alone through the true story of one boy, Enrique, whose mother left him in Honduras at just 5 years old. Then, 11 years later he decides to set off to go and find her. I met Enrique in northern Mexico when he was mid-journey. He was on his eighth attempt to enter the United States. He had been deported seven times. 

I then made the same journey he had made. I traveled for three months, 700 miles, half of that time on top of seven freight trains. What I witnessed changed me. Children who had lost arms or legs from trying to jump on trains were trying to reach the United States to find opportunities that I honestly took for granted. 

On advocacy: 

In 2008, I left daily journalism to write books. At that time, I decided to wade into advocacy gingerly. More and more, non-engagement to me felt wrong. Keeping silent about some of these issues felt amoral. But my readers pushed me to do more. 

When I talked about immigration, they didn’t understand me saying, “Here is the problem, you should get involved to fix it.” Their issue was, why did a journalist like me, who knew an issue so well after decades of covering it, feel entitled to put the issue to their readers and expect them to figure out a solution. 

I joined the board of a nonprofit started by Microsoft and Angelina Jolie called Kids in Need of Defense. I fought alongside my colleagues there to help recruit wonderful pro-bono lawyers to represent immigrant children in court for free.

I’ve had dozens of students hear me speak over the years and decide in that moment, I am going to become a lawyer and then return to another talk years later, “I am now representing those immigrant children you told me about.”