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Manny Crisostomo, Photojournalist, Sacramento Bee
Reporter Stephen Magagnini and photographer Manny Crisostomo traveled to Thailand in March to meet the "Leftover People" -- Hmong squatters living at Wat Tham Krabok.
They traveled with two of Sacramento's Hmong success stories: Tsong Tong "T.T." Vang, a travel agent and host of a Hmong radio show, and May Ying Ly, director of the Hmong Women's Heritage Association. Vang and Ly provided invaluable introductions, advice and translation help.
Magagnini and Crisostomo then spent three months on assignment for the Sacramento Bee tracing the journey ahead for the refugees, from the temple camp to Hmong neighborhoods in Sacramento and Minnesota, the new Hmong capital; from the Third World to the First.
They interviewed hundreds of Hmong refugees on both sides of the globe, dozens of federal and local government officials - ranging from the temple camp's Thai commander to Sacramento's mayor - and representatives of refugee assistance groups and Hmong self-help organizations.
Magagnini has won national recognition for a decade of covering race issues and ethnic communities for The Bee. Among his honors was an award for distinguished writing about diversity from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for "Orphans of History," a September 2000 look at Sacramento's Hmong community. That background left him well-poised to describe the prospects and pitfalls facing this next wave of refugees.
Crisostomo brought to the coverage an extensive background in documentary photography, which helped him win a Pulitzer Prize for photos depicting life in an inner-city high school, published by the Detroit Free Press. A native of Guam, Crisostomo came to The Bee a year ago after teaching photography at San Francisco State University.
zReportage Story:
The Leftover People
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