Kayla Young is a bilingual reporter covering immigration, race and equity for WFAE, an NPR member station in Charlotte, North Carolina, and La Noticia, the state’s biggest Spanish-language paper. Young grew up in Greeley, Colorado and for the past five years she has lived in Grand Cayman, reported for the Cayman Compass newspaper, and worked as a freelancer for the Center for Investigative Journalism, The Economist Intelligence Unit and ABC News. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, Young moved to Santiago, Chile, where she covered student protests and breaking news. Since then, she has reported on South Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the U.S.
Beat: Charlotte's growing Latino community
This reporter uses their fluency in Spanish to investigate and report on the issues of immigration and deportation facing the Latino community that no one else is covering. For example, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office are currently in a battle over detentions that has captured national attention, including the president’s. What is not being covered is the impact of raids, detentions and deportations on families, communities and businesses in North Carolina. The reporter investigates the effect of raids and deportations that further isolate an already marginalized community from access to law enforcement, affordable housing, education, health services and more. The reporter writes about services and assistance that Latinos can access without fear of retribution. The reporter also covers the Charlotte immigration court, one of the toughest in the nation with the second highest deportation rate in the country this year. La Noticia uses its connections and the trust they have built within the Latino community to connect the reporter with people who have undercovered stories, and need to be amplified.