THE GREENROOM SPOTLIGHT: JENNY CASAS & SEBASTIÁN HIDALGO

Studio IX:

Jenny and Sebastian, thank you both for being here and for taking the time. Let’s start with the basics. Who are you? And what do yo do?

Jenny:

My name is Jenny Casas. I am a reporter for a show called The United States of Anxiety out of WNYC. I am an audio producer who cares a great deal about Chicago. I’m currently based in New York, though deeply in love with the city of Chicago. I do a lot of stories about municipal inter-workings, black and brown history, and reflections on concepts that I personally find interesting. So those are my big thing. I am a bad liar. I love people and my favorite thing to do is to jump into Lake Michigan in the summer.

Sebastian:

My name is Sebastian Hidalgo. I am an independent visual journalist from Chicago. A lot of my stories focus around housing insecurities, mental health, high property taxes, everything related to inheriting whatever land trauma Chicago has imparted upon people who weren’t born there, especially those who are newly arrived.

My work is inseparable to the way that I live because in most cases I have a huge stake in everything that I cover—in the topics that I cover. I believe that that makes me a good fit. Instead of being too involved, I'm always trying to look for growth in every story. And for the people who are reading it as well.

Studio IX:

How did you get into it? Tell us a bit of the backstory of how you arrived at what you're doing?

Sebastian:

Every time I'm asked that question, it's super complicated. But in the very short form of things, I got into it by witnessing the passing of my grandfather, which was in the northern part of Mexico—in Obregón. I am the youngest of three children, so my mother would take me around and was always carrying me in her arms. I was the baby, so I was just always around. When I witnessed my grandfather's passing it wasn't super sad or traumatizing in any way, but I learned so much from him, from the man who had just passed, more than I did in his life. I grew curious from that, hungry to explain, to understand where our life—our generational trajectory—took us. Why we were in Chicago and not Obregón, Mexico. Throughout the years, it just kind of evolved and I started denormalizing a lot of the things that I had normalized growing up in Chicago. I returned back home. I started questioning why I was the only one dealing with a severe case of asthma in my neighborhood. Why do we have to sleep on the living room floor on the weekends? I started questioning it. I realized that there was something much deeper to all of it. That's where I started.

Studio IX:

What about you, Jenny?

Jenny:

I wanted to be a long-form magazine writer. That was my big dream when I was growing up. And after college I had an internship at a magazine and lived in my car in Los Angeles. I wasn’t making any money and I thought, "This is it. I'm living the dream. I'm working for a magazine." Then somebody told me that I needed to diversify my skillset. So I applied for an internship at a public radio station in San Francisco. I had never listened to public radio. I had never listened to radio at all. Working at the station, I thought: "This is so useful"…as a medium for sharing people's stories. I found myself completely moved by different stories which, in print, would never have impacted me the same way. I thought, "This is the thing I need to do." And that desire took me out of California and to the Midwest. It was that realization—that there was a lot of power in audio…in hearing people's voices. We are such empathetic creatures, and I think being able to hear it from somebody makes such a difference.

Studio IX:

What do you value most about the work? I would say ‘what do you enjoy most,’ but it might not necessarily always be enjoyable.

Sebastian:

I think there's a balance there because in journalism I don't really like what I'm seeing most of the time. And at the same time I have this unwavering love for people—a desire for them to really enjoy the work that I'm doing. But that balance is probably one of the most difficult things to do. And there's a bit of both in a lot of the work that journalists do. And I think that's a healthy way of looking at it. "This stuff is kind of messed up and I don't like to see it and I want to do something about it."

Jenny:

I'm just deeply curious about lots of things. Part of the thing that I enjoy the most or value the most is being able to be professionally nosy. Asking questions can sometimes be rude, but as a journalist, it's just…"You're getting to the bottom of it." And I agree completely with Sebas, I have a really hard time with a lot of the things I see in the industry right now. And so the thing that I value about working in this way is trying to create information that is useful for other people…that there is a service component to it…to all of my work.

I think our news media in general is so obsessed with scarcity. Everything is about how bad things are. And so, another thing I value is the opportunity to reframe around abundance and reframe around where things are working—what people are able to do despite whatever is happening.

Sebastian:

What Jenny’s talking about. That's tough work. Just to be in that mindset, I feel like it takes so much out of you.

Studio IX:

Have you guys worked together before?

Jenny:

Yes. When I first moved to Chicago I used to be a team leader for a fellowship at City Bureau, which is a hyper-local civic journalism lab. I met Sebas on the street. One of my friends introduced us and we ended up getting to work together. He was the photography fellow. I was the team leader and we worked on this piece about a new restorative justice court that was opening on that side of Chicago. I'd only worked with photographers in a very limited way before that, but working with Sebas was different.

I had never interacted with somebody whose professionalism was so deep and so thoughtful. He was so committed to doing everything that needed to be done, to be able to tell the story accurately, tell the story with care, tell the stories safely. To not put people in danger, reveal their identities if they didn't want to be identified. And since then we've collaborated on some things here and there.

Sebastian:

Yeah. That was 2017. And when I met Jenny I was really considering leaving Chicago. I was in a space where I was creatively—or just professionally—unhappy. When I was selected to be City Bureau's photographer I spent the most time with Jenny's piece because she was really open to my being around, asking my own questions, working in a way that was refreshingly collaborative. I learned so much just in working with Jenny and Sarah. When you have that form, that spirit to collaborate, you want to collaborate with one another and your sources want to collaborate with you. And for me that's what makes really good work. And that's true with photography as well. It's hardly ever just a person with a camera. There's always a shared agreement between people. And that's something that I took away from watching Jenny report on a story and the way that she asked questions. She knew how to get through that point to that point, which made my job a little easier.

Studio IX:

So let’s talk a bit about the piece you two are presenting for The Greenroom. How did it come about? What drew you to want to make it, Jenny?

Jenny:

Yeah. So I was in New York. I had only been there for about six months. Sebas and I had left Chicago at the same time, driving in opposite directions on the same freeway. He was going to California for a fellowship with CastLight; and I was going to New York for this job. As soon as it became clear that the pandemic was not going to be safe or good for anybody in New York, I knew I needed to go back to be with my community. So I returned to Chicago.

That summer, while enjoying time with friends by the lake, one of them pulled out this poem of 45 questions…“45 Questions to Ask While Waiting”. And we just went around, picking up and asking each other these questions. They're so linked, just…each of the questions are intense. I love intensity, so I was like “this is great.” You can get right to how people feel and who they are. You also learn a lot about people's instincts. That's exactly what journalists or journalists like me are looking for. Questions that really force people to say, "This is my line in the sand."…“This is what I care about.”…“This is what matters to me”.

So I was thinking about all this waiting that we were going to be doing; how all of our relationships were changing. The people we might be stuck with or the people who we're interacting with. People we're trusting to keep us safe. Everyone is reevaluating how they’re interacting with others. And so I thought, "This is what I'm going to do with my time in Chicago.” I'm going to talk about these 45 Questions and how we’re all doing in this pandemic. And, of course, Sebas was one of the people I called.

“Please answer the phone. I'm going to interview you and ask you some questions."

Studio IX:

Beautiful. Thank you both.

Jenny & Sebas:

Thank you.