Each year, The New York Public Library gives the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism to a journalist whose work brings clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. As a member of the Library Review Committee, I spend the year reading the best that investigative journalism has to offer and I am honored to present to you one of the five finalists: A Good Provider is One Who Leaves by Jason DeParle, who won the Bernstein Award in 2005 for American Dream.

Thirty years ago, Jason DeParle was a young American journalist in Manilla, Philippines who was reporting on global poverty and life in shantytowns. He stayed with Tita Comodas and her family on and off for nearly a year, and kept in touch with them as the kids grew up. In this book, he follows Rosalie, the middle child, as she trains to be a nurse, works in several countries in the Middle East, has a family (and is separated from them), applies for visas, and eventually lands in Texas. He also acknowledges that his personal involvement with the family isn’t a typical journalistic engagement, but the “long relationship affords a perspective that strict deadlines usually don’t.” 

DeParle masterfully uses a singular story to illustrate the interconnected forces that shape human migration—poverty at home, opportunity abroad, and the continuing (and now international) pull of the American Dream. His transitions between the family’s story and the broader analysis are seamless and compelling. Within each chapter, he relays a part of the Comodas family experience, and then situates it in the broader context. He makes it clear that while each family has their own specific circumstances, this experience is far from unique. Those global conditions have ripple effects on an individual’s sense of self worth, the modification or sacrifice of family relationships, and professional training and expectations. 

Particularly enlightening is his reporting on Rosalie’s experience as a new immigrant in the United States—what it was like to assimilate, how the hospital work differed between Texas and the Middle East, what it was like after her family arrived (they had never all lived together before). Imagine becoming a “new parent” to your own kids who are preteens and teenagers, in a country that is unfamiliar with a language you don’t speak. DeParle examines shifting gender expectations within migrant families, and differences in experience for different professions—nannies or chauffeurs or nurses, for example. He also lays out the policies and social norms that impact immigrants in America. His strength is in introducing the reader to a single family, and through their story, illuminating and explaining the reality of a complex global phenomenon with more than a hint of optimism. 

And for more outstanding investigative journalism, learn about the other Bernstein Award finalists for 2020.

More about the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism

The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987 through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. Each year, finalists are selected by a nine-member Library Review Committee, and winners are then chosen by the Bernstein Selection Committee. Authors must be working as journalists, or have worked in journalism for a significant portion of their careers, whether as reporters or commentators in newspapers, magazines, or broadcasting. A book's subject matter must be journalistic in nature, with potential for influencing public opinion or policy and drawing public attention to important current issues or events of global/national significance.