Dorian Merina
Dorian joined KPCC in 2013. He covered immigration, crime, climate change, education and arts & culture before taking over the military and veterans beat.
Dorian has reported on how L.A.’s new Crenshaw train line is changing historic Leimert Park and how Mexico's crisis of missing persons affects Southern California families searching for lost loved ones. He's mined public records to show how L.A.’s immigration courts continue to deport child migrants at high rates despite the Obama administration's change in policy. He's contributed to Take Two's special on the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Riots and the week-long series "After Saigon." Dorian has also contributed to KPCC's "Officer Involved" investigation on police shootings. He's contributed coverage to both the men and women's World Cup games in 2014 and 2015 as well as covered L.A.'s hosting of the Copa América.
Before coming to KPCC, Dorian reported from Southeast Asia and spent a year documenting indigenous oral poetry in the Philippines on a Fulbright grant. His own poetry earned a Poetry Foundation Award in 2008 for the film, "Migrations."
He speaks both Spanish and Tagalog and just enough Bahasa Indonesia to find his way through the food stalls in Jakarta.
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13,000 Afghans who helped American troops are waiting for special visas to come to the U.S. Their lives could be in danger as they wait.
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Hundreds of veterans - who served in the U.S. military as non-citizens - were later deported for committing civilian crimes.
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Non-citizens are eligible to serve in the U.S. military. But even as veterans, they can still be deported if they commit crimes after they leave the...
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Thousands of military households rely on government food assistance programs, but the Pentagon doesn't track how many service members have trouble...
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Improv comedy classes at Second City in Hollywood help veterans learn to perform, laugh, and build confidence.
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The stores offer low prices for service members and retirees. But taxpayers pay more than a billion dollars a year to subsidize them.
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A Southern California project is transforming steel shipping containers into apartments for homeless veterans. They're inexpensive, durable, and...