This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Transcript:
Hernandez: Paul C. Kelly Campos recently joined our team as a community engagement reporter for Report for America. He will be focusing on this year’s election for the next few months, and we’d like to introduce him to you. Paul, welcome to The Public’s Radio.
Kelly Campos: Thank you for letting me be here.
Hernández: It’s a pleasure. Paul, tell me a little about your background. Who are you?
Kelly Campos: Who am I? I mean, well, my name is Paul. My friends call me Pauly. My dad calls me (speaks Irish). My mom calls me El Gordo. My dad is from Galway, Ireland. My mom is from Managua, Nicaragua. But I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically this town just outside of the city called South, uh, San Francisco or South City if you know growing up there, the industrial city. It’s right next to SFO, so a lot of noise pollution and all that stuff, but looking back, it’s a great place, if that makes sense.
Hernandez: How did you get into journalism? What does journalism mean to you?
Kelly: I came up with this idea because I read this book by Gabriel García Márquez called: “El Amor en los Tiempos de Colera”, “Love in the Time of Cholera.” It was just an incredible novel. I’ve never read anything like it. … I don’t know, I just remember reading it and thinking in class, “I want to do that.” And learning more about him and finding it interesting, learning more about his biography. Gabriel Garcia Marquez valued his career as a journalist in Mexico City more than his Nobel Prize for Literature. And so I thought, even though I love poetry and literature, I actually want to write. And I found that journalism was a good practical way to do that, or a good practical way to do that at the time. At first I didn’t have a great passion for news or anything like that. But when I kind of got into it, I wrote some stories about the Nicaraguan community, my community. There are a lot of them, there used to be a lot more of them in the San Francisco Bay Area, after the Sandinista Revolution and the Contra Civil War, but as the Bay got more expensive, a lot of them were scattered to the winds. So it was nice to write about them, but it was the first time I immersed myself in that community. And that was the point for me where I realized why I want to do this now.
Hernández: What should people know about you?
Kelly Campos: I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I don’t know. I think if you can interview someone, you can play Dungeons and Dragons. I don’t know. That’s something people should know about me. I don’t take myself too seriously, but I take what I do very seriously.
Hernández: I think that’s why we’ll get along well. I used to play D&D a long time ago anyway. Paul, tell us about the efforts you’re making to engage the community during this year’s election.
Kelly Campos: I think it’s important to keep in mind that we want to provide election coverage that is informed by you and for you. For us, for us. We want to hear from you and know what’s important to you. So we’ll be engaging with you in a variety of ways. You might see me walking around downtown or wherever, trying to talk to people about their opinions on the election. We’ll have opportunities for you to share your opinions with us online. And we’ll be holding hearings in September to talk about voting and elections, but really we want to hear what you like about your community and what you think could be better. What we hear from you will help shape our election coverage going forward.
Hernández: OK, you’re new to Rhode Island, so welcome again. I wanted to do a little “this and that” on the topic of local food. What Rhode Island delicacy would you most like to try, pizza strips or hot wieners?
Kelly Campos: In Oakland, where I lived before, I really like to eat hot dogs on the street after a good show. Well, I guess the hot dogs, because I have, I think pizza strips sound, that kind of sounds like what it is.
Hernández: Stuffies or Rhode Island Clam Chowder. Which one?
Kelly Campos: Clam soup.
Hernández: Do you have a lot of experience with clam chowder? I’m just curious.
Kelly Campos: I mean, yeah, my dad makes really good clam chowder. There’s a lot of great clam chowder in the Bay Area.
Hernández: Okay. All right. There you have it. How about this one? Del’s frozen lemonade or coffee milk?
Kelly Campos: Man, I don’t know. Probably Del’s frozen lemonade. I saw a couple stands when I was walking around, you know, interviewing people on the street, on College Hill and stuff. I mean, that looks pretty attractive to me, you know, especially because it was so hot. I’ve kind of gotten used to it because California is always the same. And I have long hair, so the heat and the humidity makes my hair a little frizzy, so I’ll probably go for that lemonade, that Del’s lemonade.
Hernández: Okay, Paul, what else would you like to add?
Kelly Campos: I have a question for the folks out there. What would you like to know about voting and elections in Rhode Island and the South Shore? You can tell me by filling out a short form at thepublicsradio.org/2024elections. I’d love to hear from you. And if you have any tips for me or want to get in touch, you can email me at [email protected].
Hernandez: I spoke with Paul C. Kelly Campos, the new civic engagement reporter for The Public’s Radio. It’s a pleasure. And again, welcome.
Kelly Campos: Thank you very much.
Hernández: And to follow our election coverage and share your election questions with us, visit thepublicsradio.org/2024elections. For Public Radio, I’m Luis Hernandez.
