FEATURES
Explore my longer-form projects, including a candidate overview and a four-part series on collective bargaining at my former school district.
ASIAN AMERICAN CIVIC PARTICIPATION
STEPPING INTO CIVICS: THE DIFFERENT PATHS OF ASIANS TO POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
May 26, 2023
My first foray into magazine-style writing, this story explores the complex considerations Asian Americans keep in mind when entering public service — sense of duty, erasure, career stability and personal interest, just to name a few.
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Though this is one of my longer articles, I realized throughout the reporting process that I’d only scratched the surface of this topic. The experience has reinforced my goal of producing long-term coverage that explores different aspects of a community.
(Design Credit: Wendy Zhu, Photo Credit: Jessie Chen)
EVANSTON ARPA DATA INTERACTIVE
HERE'S HOW EVANSTON HAS ALLOCATED $42 MILLION OF ITS ARPA FUNDING OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS
March 1, 2023
My editor originally budgeted a medium length explainer on how Evanston’s government was allocating federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. However, I realized 600 words couldn’t do this subject justice, and this piece turned into a 3000-word interactive tool I completed throughout Winter Quarter.
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Combining through dozens of city documents, I’ve to date cataloged how Evanston has allocated $42 million of its $43.2 million in ARPA funding, and plan to update the piece as City Council continues to assign the money. I collaborated with The Daily’s then-recently formed Data Visualizations desk, members of which helped bring this story to life with an interactive Tableau dashboard.
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(Data Visualization Credit: Kota Suzuki, Ava Mandoli and Annie Xia)
SCHOOL DISTRICT UNION CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
In August 2021, our school district and teacher union still hadn’t negotiated a contract for the year. The federal government even dispatched a mediator to bring the two sides closer at the bargaining table.
I followed the process closely, interviewing the union president 11 times. I also filed FOIA requests with the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board when they failed to meet a legal deadline to post both sides’ contract proposals and reached out to district officials, though they mostly rejected requests for comment.
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I’m proud of how we covered what can be a very dry topic with the intensity and attention to detail it deserved. This coverage also provided a great opportunity for me to train new staff and get them excited about reporting.
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(Photo Credit: Katie Dalton/Central Times)
