Sonia Nazario, journalist and best-selling author, is the keynote speaker for Missouri State University’s 2016 Public Affairs Convocation, which will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. Nazario is the author of “Enrique’s Journey,” this year’s common reader at Missouri State.

“‘Enrique’s Journey’ was selected as the common reader because it is closely related to this year’s public affairs theme, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Perspectives on Self-Government,’” said Mary Ann Wood, director of public affairs support at Missouri State. “The book exposes readers to a culture that they may not be aware of and triggers thoughts of how this may affect their own lives and understanding of the world.”

The common reader, which is read by all freshmen in their First-Year Foundations course, is selected each year by a committee of faculty, staff, students and community members.

Immigration and its impact on individuals

Nazario’s lecture will focus on her book, which tells the story of a Honduran boy’s struggle to find his mother in the United States. As a speaker with a reporter’s eye to the truth, Nazario humanizes the issue of immigration, posing new perspectives that fall on both sides while offering solutions destined to change the national dialogue.

A book signing will follow the lecture in the lobby of Hammons Hall.

The Public Affairs Convocation lecture is free and open to the public, and no ticket is required to attend.

A lifelong dedication to advocacy

In 1994, Nazario won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California. In 1998, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on children of drug-addicted parents.

Her book “Enrique’s Journey” has won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence.

A graduate of Williams College, Nazario has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of California-Berkeley. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates by Mount St. Mary’s College and Whittier College.

For more information, contact Wood at 417-836-5073.