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Paola Ramos is a host and correspondent for VICE and VICE News, as well as a contributor to Telemundo News and MSNBC. Ramos was the deputy director of Hispanic media for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, a political appointee during the Obama administration and served in Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Finding Latin-X: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity is her first book (Vintage, October 20, 2020).
On your nightstand now:
I've been on the road nonstop these days covering different stories ahead of the election. I miss my nightstand! These days, I'm traveling with Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers. Amidst the craziest of news cycles and the division our nation is facing, the book is giving me a really useful frame of reference for which to disarm my own biases.
Favorite book when you were a child:
As a kid, I spent a lot of my childhood in Spain and grew up reading The Adventures of Tintin. In high school, I also remember being struck by Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones--it opened a whole new dimension of storytelling--and by Laura Esquivel's magic realism through Como agua para chocolate.
Your top five authors:
The past couple of years, Elena Ferrante. At the moment, Isabel Wilkerson. Always, Junot Díaz and Richard Blanco--I've always felt seen by their words. For inspiration, Barack Obama.
Book you've faked reading:
I know I've had to read Don Quixote by Cervantes 100 times in school. I also know there are definitely passages that I skipped in school.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Junot Díaz's This Is How You Lose Her. I read it during a breakup, and it's stayed in my heart like one.
Favorite line from a book:
"And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end." --This Is How You Lose Her
Book that changed your life:
Of Love & War by photojournalist Lynsey Addario. I'm a very visual storyteller, and Addario's book made me realize you don't need to separate the visual from the literal, the images from the written. You can do both. She has an incredibly ability to find hidden beauty in every dark space she walks in--and that's impacted the way I approach storytelling today.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. In one cover and image, they were able to break all sorts of stereotypes and taboos about Latinos. That's all I needed to buy the book.
Book you hid from your parents:
Honestly, I don't remember ever hiding books from my parents! They're both journalists and, even if I tried, they'd probably find it!
Five books you'll never part with:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series--devoured all of them, would do it all over again (if I had more time these days). The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates keep me grounded in America's reality. Barack Obama's Change We Can Believe In will forever remind me of that initial hope that drove me into politics in the first place--it's important to never let go of that spark, especially now. And Ed Morales's Latinx gives me an instrumental historic lens from which to talk about and understand the ever changing Latinx community.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman. It's one of my favorite books and movies of all time. Reading and watching Elio innocently falling in love with Oliver and navigating his sexuality in such a brave way--I could read it over and over again.