
Mandalit del Barco
As an arts correspondent based at NPR West, Mandalit del Barco reports and produces stories about film, television, music, visual arts, dance and other topics. Over the years, she has also covered everything from street gangs to Hollywood, police and prisons, marijuana, immigration, race relations, natural disasters, Latino arts and urban street culture (including hip hop dance, music, and art). Every year, she covers the Oscars and the Grammy awards for NPR, as well as the Sundance Film Festival and other events. Her news reports, feature stories and photos, filed from Los Angeles and abroad, can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Alt.latino, and npr.org.
del Barco's reporting has taken her throughout the United States, including Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco and Miami. Reporting further afield as well, del Barco traveled to Haiti to report on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. She has chronicled street gangs exported from the U.S. to El Salvador and Honduras, and in Mexico, she reported about immigrant smugglers, musicians, filmmakers and artists. In Argentina, del Barco profiled tango legend Carlos Gardel, and in the Philippines, she reported a feature on balikbayan boxes. From China, del Barco contributed to NPR's coverage of the United Nations' Women's Conference. She also spent a year in her birthplace, Peru, working on a documentary and teaching radio journalism as a Fulbright Fellow and on a fellowship with the Knight International Center For Journalists.
In addition to reporting daily stories, del Barco produced half-hour radio documentaries about gangs in Central America, Latino hip hop, L.A. Homegirls, artist Frida Kahlo, New York's Palladium ballroom and Puerto Rican "Casitas."
Before moving to Los Angeles, del Barco was a reporter for NPR Member station WNYC in New York City. She started her radio career on the production staff of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon. However her first taste for radio came as a teenager, when she and her brother won an award for an NPR children's radio contest.
del Barco's reporting experience extends into newspaper and magazines. She served on the staffs of The Miami Herald and The Village Voice, and has done freelance reporting. She has written articles for Latina magazine and reported for the weekly radio show Latino USA.
Stories written by del Barco have appeared in several books including Las Christmas: Favorite Latino Authors Share their Holiday Memories (Vintage Books) and Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember their Mothers (Vintage Books). del Barco contributed to an anthology on rap music and hip hop culture in the book, Droppin' Science (Temple University Press).
Peruvian writer Julio Villanueva Chang profiled del Barco's life and career for the book Se Habla Espanol: Voces Latinas en USA (Alfaguara Press).
She mentors young journalists through NPR's "Next Generation", Global Girl, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and on her own, throughout the U.S. and Latin America.
A fourth generation journalist, del Barco was born in Lima, Peru, to a Peruvian father and Mexican-American mother. She grew up in Baldwin, Kansas, and in Oakland, California, and has lived in Manhattan, Madrid, Miami, Lima and Los Angeles. 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 a 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 in the 20th century by composer Carl Orff.
-
The Michelin Guide is returning after a pandemic hiatus. They aim to celebrate resilience in restaurants and restaurateurs.
-
To get into the role, Seyfried watched Davies' old movies, read her autobiography and listened to old scratchy recordings. She says playing the silver screen star was the ultimate dress-up dream.
-
Judas and the Black Messiah has made Oscar history as the first Best Picture nominee with an all-Black producing team. And it's not the first time producer Charles D. King has made Hollywood history.
-
The first season of Netflix's hit Regency romance series starred Regé-Jean Page as the smoldering Duke of Hastings — but when the series returns, it will pick up with a new love story, and no Duke.
-
The 63rd annual Grammy Awards were given out Sunday night. And while the stars were on display, it was a very different kind of ceremony for music's biggest night.
-
Roblox, the online gaming platform, is going public on Wednesday. During the pandemic lockdown it's become a virtual playground, and the company has seen a surge in users, with millions now active.
-
You're Leaving When? is a witty memoir of Gurwitch's many middle age misadventures — and it doesn't even cover the stage IV lung cancer diagnosis she received in the midst of the pandemic.
-
On March 5th, conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic return to the Hollywood Bowl to launch the second season of their virtual concert series, Sound/Stage.
-
The 78th Golden Globes were held Sunday night, and it was a very different kind of awards ceremony due to the pandemic. Big winners included the TV series The Crown and the filmNomadland.
-
The 2021 Sundance Film Festival will be mostly virtual this year. Highlights include a documentary from Questlove, a biopic about Rita Moreno and films made during the pandemic.