Mandalit del Barco

Mark Finkenstaedt

As a general assignment correspondent based at NPR West, Mandalit del Barco has covered stories on a wide variety of topics ranging from immigration, race relations, police, and street gangs to Latino politics, Hollywood, and urban street culture (including hip hop dance, music, and art). She has also produced half-hour documentaries about gangs in Central America, Latino hip hop, L.A. Homegirls, Frida Kahlo, New York's Palladium ballroom, and Puerto Rican "Casitas." Her news reports and feature stories filed from Los Angeles and abroad can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday, and Day to Day.

Her reporting has taken her throughout the United States and further afield to places such as El Salvador and Honduras (to report about street gangs exported from the U.S.), Mexico (to report about immigrant smugglers), China (to help cover the United Nations' Women's Conference in Beijing), and Peru (where she worked on a documentary and taught radio journalism while on a Fulbright fellowship and a fellowship with the Knight International Center For Journalists).

del Barco moved to Los Angeles in 1993 from New York City, where she worked as a reporter for NPR member station WNYC. Before WNYC, she worked on the production staff of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon.

Prior to coming to NPR, del Barco reported for The Miami Herald and The Village Voice, and freelancing for various publications. She has written articles for Latina Magazine and has produced stories for the weekly radio show Latino USA, which is distributed by NPR. Her stories have appeared in several books, including "Las Christmas," and "Las Mamis." She continues to mentor young journalists through NPR's "Next Generation" project, and on her own throughout Latin America.

Born in Lima, Peru, to a Peruvian father and Mexican-American mother, del Barco grew up in a small town in Kansas and in Oakland, California. She began her journalism career as a reporter, columnist, and editor for the Daily Californian while studying anthropology and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Master's degree in journalism from Columbia University with her thesis, "Breakdancers: Who are they, and why are they spinning on their heads?"

For those who are curious where her name comes from, "Mandalit" is the name of a woman in a song from Carmina Burana, a musical work from the 13th century put to music by composer Carl Orff. The guys from Car Talk also pay homage to her in their phony end credits as "inventory manager Mandalit del Barcode."