A columnist walks into another columnist's newsletter …

Boston Globe

2 days ago

The goal of this crossover? To introduce our readers to each other and reveal a little more about ourselves in the process. With the help of editor
Renée: What is your biggest journalistic regret?
Marcela: Nearly 10 years ago, I met United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and I kind of blew it. She was in town for an event at then-Wheelock College and I had been asked to introduce her on stage. We met briefly beforehand and I was floored by how much she knew about me — she had done her homework and knew who I was, what I did, and where I worked. I'd been told I couldn't formally interview her so I didn't prepare any questions. I should have brought them anyway, or improvised. Instead, I froze. It was definitely a lesson: Always be ready with questions.
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Q: If you weren't a journalist, what would you be and why?
A: I would be a
Q: What's the last book you read and would you recommend it?
'
Q: A runaway trolley is hurdling down a track. If you do nothing, it will hit a basket of puppies. You could flip a switch, though, and it will instead hit an endangered right whale. What's the moral thing to do?
A: This is easy: I would save the puppies without hesitation (surprise, surprise!). First of all, the whale is probably dying already because
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In all seriousness,
Q: If you were participating in the
contest, what would your sculpture depict?
A: It'd be a meta concept: My dog Santo, on his back,
Q: Who would you want to trade places with for a day?
A: Someone with the confidence and the voice to sing beautifully in front of a large crowd. I would sing Robyn's '
Q: Complete this sentence: 'The worst person in Boston is ______ .' Explain.
A: I really wanted to name names here but my own legal counsel — my husband — advised me against it. So I'll go with drivers who double-park and people who drive at exactly the speed limit or lower. As a deeply impatient person who learned how to drive in Mexico, where offensive/aggressive driving is sort of the norm, I can't possibly have enough wrath for slow drivers.
Q: You were born and raised in Mexico, but are now an American citizen. What does it mean to you to be an American?
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A: Becoming a US citizen was a deliberate choice. To me, this country is about possibility, reinvention, and growth. The fact that my US citizenship was something I didn't inherit, I believe gives me a certain clarity: I love this country for what it allowed me to do and become, but I can also see its contradictions. It's a nation of both opportunity and exclusion, inequality, and freedoms for some but not for others. Being an American is complicated but to me it also means participating — voting, reporting, speaking up — even when the system is imperfect.
This is an excerpt from
, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Marcela García.
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Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at