🤝 Meet Our Fellows: Leslie Hurtado

Leslie Hurtado is an award-winning, bilingual environmental reporter whose family has lived in Cicero and Berwyn, IL, for generations. Inspired by their resilience, she joined Cicero Independiente, where she translated dense findings into clear steps families can use, seeing firsthand the power of amplifying community voices. In 2020, she collaborated with friends to combat pandemic misinformation, delivering critical updates to Spanish-speaking residents.

Her reporting centers on environmental injustices, pollution, limited green spaces, and accountability. Her Ability Park series, which examined a playground built on historically contaminated land, earned a Peter Lisagor Award for best environmental coverage. A two-time City Bureau Civic Reporting Fellow, she investigated environmental impacts tied to Little Village’s industrial-corridor expansion, including demolition dust. Her work has been co-published with Borderless Magazine, Inside Climate News, WBEZ, and South Side Weekly. She has also been recognized with a regional Edward R. Murrow Award and the Chicago Headline Club Watchdog Award, turning data into actionable insights for the communities she calls home.

Community Fellowship Applications open: January 16, 2026.

1. What specific reporting decisions or ethical considerations were most critical in shaping the investigation that ultimately received the Peter Lisagor Award, and why?

When reporting on my first story Rooting Out Risk: Cicero’s Challenge to Build a Safe Park, one of the most important decisions was choosing to prioritize public safety over a community-driven narrative. Cicero has a long history of industrial contamination, frequent flooding, and air quality issues tied to nearby polluters, which place residents at heightened environmental risk. 

While we originally planned to interview young people, we realized it was critical to first share environmental information before the park opened. This led us to closely review more than 2,000 pages of environmental and remediation documents and explain the risks in clear, accessible language.

We recognized that trust with young people takes time. Rather than rushing youth interviews, we focused on long-term engagement so their voices could be included responsibly in future reporting. We believe that young people are the future stewards of Cicero and deserve reporting that helps them and their families make informed decisions about their environment.

Ultimately, this investigation was shaped by a responsibility to act before harm occurred. By publishing findings before the park opened, clearly explaining arsenic, lead, and flooding risks, and showing how contamination could spread, the reporting gave residents information they had not received from officials.

2. How did engaging directly with Cicero residents influence the framing, sourcing, and verification of environmental data throughout the project?

For the story, we combined in-person community engagement with calls to experts familiar with Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) remediation policies. When many experts were hesitant to speak due to professional risks, community voices became especially important. We knocked on doors, spoke directly with residents, and followed up for additional interviews.

Residents shared long-standing knowledge about the Phil Fuentes Ability Park site, explaining that the park was built on land once used for metal scrapping and describing visible remnants and concerns about air quality. We later connected with a parent of a child with a disability, whose perspective brought the story into focus, showing what was at stake and reinforcing why accountability matters for a park meant to serve children of all abilities, raising questions about whether families most affected were meaningfully consulted during the planning process.

3. What challenges did you encounter when translating technical environmental and public-health information into accessible, bilingual reporting, and how did you navigate them?

When reviewing documents from the Illinois EPA, much of the information was highly technical, relying on acronyms and data tables with percentages that required comparison. I focused on identifying the highest levels of contamination and then reviewed Illinois EPA standards to understand what is considered legally acceptable. Experts explained that even when contamination levels meet legal limits, the presence of contamination across a site can still pose serious concerns, especially if it is not removed.

We explained these findings in clear wording and provided translations for Spanish-speaking readers. We included an interactive tool that allowed readers to see contamination levels across the site and visualized how rising groundwater during flooding could spread contamination through sewer systems and surrounding areas. In Cicero, it is extremely difficult to get answers from local township leaders. Moving forward, I want to be more resilient by visiting leaders directly, attending board meetings, and not being discouraged by their responses. At the end of the day, the goal is to uncover the truth. Personal opinions about me or my team do not change our responsibility to seek answers on behalf of the community.

4. Your Altavoz Lab Community Fellowship centers on taking this reporting on Ability Park and engaging the local community to advance the story and find solutions. How are you going about this?

In reporting on Rooting Out Risk and its follow-up coverage, we focused on explaining technical findings in a clear language. The second story showed that the park opened before the Illinois EPA issued a No Further Remediation (NFR) letter, which confirms a site meets state safety standards. By continuing the reporting, we showed families that their concerns mattered and that the newsroom would stay with the story. While this series centers on one park, it reflects a larger need for clean air and safe land.

In line with Altavoz’s mission, we paired careful document review with in-person outreach by knocking on doors and speaking directly with residents. We also attended youth events, including back-to-school fairs, where we invited young people to draw their dream park on an erase board. We took Polaroid photos of them to mark the moment, and an illustrator later recreated their drawings for the first story. Their visions reflected hope and imagination, showing a desire for parks that truly represent them.

5. Looking back, what aspects of the reporting process would you approach differently, and what does that reflection offer to fellows pursuing long-term, community-accountable investigations?

Throughout this project, I learned that long-term engagement requires patience and trying different approaches to build trust. When people see that you care and are there to serve them, conversations happen more naturally. Showing up, reaching out to organizations, and introducing myself has helped build stronger connections. I have also learned that while data and documents are essential, community voices are just as important.

For reporters doing community-based work, I encourage early reflection on who your priority sources are and who is most impacted. Those voices often shape the direction of reporting in meaningful ways. Identify them early and connect with the people they trust, such as families, educators, and community organizations. Make time to meet regularly, as building trust often leads to deeper connections and brings more voices and more heart into the story.

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