Gente de NAHJ: Venezuelan journalist navigates success while facing an uncertain future in the U.S.
In the past few months, Rashel Cedeño, a Venezuelan immigrant and a journalist at Univision Sacramento, has been on a roller coaster of emotion.
“Times could be scary,” said Cedeño, who has Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and is seeking asylum in the U.S. “It’s so important right now to speak up, to push even harder in the face of uncertainty.”
In February the Trump administration announced it would no longer extend TPS to Venezuelan migrants, putting her future in the U.S. in peril. Four months later, Cedeño won six regional Emmy Awards for her work covering farm workers in California.
“It’s been so hard to separate the journalist from the immigrant,” said Cedeño. “I can talk about what the process is like for an immigrant because I’m living through it.”
More than 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS in the U.S. following more than a decade of humanitarian and social strife in their home country. Cedeño arrived in Miami in 2018. Since then, she has been through ”intense and hard paths” in order to find a permanent solution.
As a journalist, one of her priorities is to be able to contribute to her community.
During the 2025 NAHJ Conference, Cedeño was on a team that won the Elaine Rivera Civil Rights and Social Justice Award for her story “El Precio del Campo” in which journalists from Univision Sacramento showcased what farm workers, especially undocumented ones in California, have to go through.
“They are the ones feeding the nation,” she said. “Ironically, they do not make enough money to put food on their own tables.”
In the current political climate, Cedeño said it is important to show the reality of different immigrant communities, like hers and the farm workers she covers.
“My hands were shaking,” Cedeño said after realizing she won.
Oriana Torre is a bilingual journalism student at the University of Florida, specializing in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Latin American Studies. She is also the Executive Producer for the university’s Spanish-language broadcast news show and is currently completing an internship with NBC Telemundo Boston. You can reach her at ori8torre [at] gmail [dot] com or on Instagram @Ori_Torre.
