Deepa Fernandes

Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow

Deepa Fernandes began working in radio as a daily news reporter in Sydney, Australia. From there she lived in Latin America and worked as the producer and sound engineer on a 26-part documentary series with indigenous communities in Ecuador. She eventually landed in Cuba where she worked as a daily features producer for Radio Havana Cuba. Fernandes has also been the producer of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! in New York.

Fernandes has won two independent journalism awards: one for her 60-minute documentary on the lives of six Cuban women and the other for a half-hour feature on the practice of arranged marriages in the Indian community in Australia. Fernandes has also won multiple awards for news reporting and radio documentary productions from The National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

She is the founder and co-director of People's Production House, a media justice training and production institute for youth and immigrant workers. Fernandes also won a 2003 OSI Community Fellowship, enabling her to create of Radio Rootz: Youth Media Collaborative, which teaches radio reporting skills in schools and community groups in New York City. She is the author of Targeted: National Security and the Big Business of Immigration (Seven Stories Press, 2007), which, according to Tom Hayden, “carefully documents specific immigration policy abuses and courageously denounces the institutions and policies that make them happen.” Her writings have appeared in The Village Voice, The Nation, In These Times and Alternet, among others.

Selected Articles and Appearances:

Toxic Trailers Redux: When Did FEMA Know?
Article | Mother Jones | March 25, 2008

Guest Workers in a Strange Land
Article | TheNation.com | October 26, 2007

Ordering the Tides to Stop
Op-Ed | TomPaine.com | June 11, 2007

This Alien Life: Privatized Prison for Immigrants
Article | CorpWatch | February 5, 2007

Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration
Appearance | Democracy Now! | January 25, 2007

Deepa Fernandes at the National Conference for Media Reform
Appearance | National Conference for Media Reform | January 2007

Returning to Life
Interview | Alternet | July 18, 2005