Season 3, Episode 6: Mirta Ojito, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author

Mirta Ojito is a Cuban-born journalist, professor, Pulitzer Prize winner, Emmy Award winner, and author whose work explores immigration, identity, belonging, and the meaning of freedom. She came to the United States as a teenager in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift, an experience she later chronicled in her first book, Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus. Ojito went on to work for the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and The New York Times, where she shared the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.” She is also the author of Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town and the national bestselling historical novel Deeper than the Ocean, her first work of fiction. Ojito has taught journalism at New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Miami and currently serves as a senior director for News Standards at NBCUniversal. Her journey from Cuba to an award-winning career in American journalism reflects a life shaped by storytelling, resilience, and the freedom to pursue new possibilities.