Esmy is a staff reporter for The Boston Globe investigating the racial wealth gap.
As a journalist, she enjoys unraveling complex stories and has covered some of the most timely subjects including immigration and mental health, with an emphasis on how historic inequities and policy failures still impact marginalized communities today.
Selected Works
For Decades, ICE Has Detained Immigrant Children Without Explanation. New Documents Pierce its Secrecy.
Reveal and The Center for Investigative Reporting
Lost Patients is a deeply-reported, six-part docuseries examining the difficulties of treating serious mental illness through the lens of one city's past, present and future.
NPR & The Seattle Times
Enterprise & Investigations
In some Boston hospitals, patients get lawyers too — The Boston Globe, May 2024
The puzzling rise of defendants too sick to stand trial in WA — The Seattle Times, July 2023
How WA’s plan to transform its mental health system has faltered — The Seattle Times, April 2023
Explainers & Features
What we know about trauma’s effect on our health, and how people can recover — The Seattle Times, September 2022
23 couples, one mass celebration in Washington farm town* — KUOW, July 2019
*This story earned an Edward R. Murrow 2020 Regional Award for Feature Reporting
Breaking News
2 dead, 3 hurt in shooting at The Gorge during electronic music festival — The Seattle Times, June 2023
King County officials propose $1.25 billion plan to fund mental health services — The Seattle Times, September 2022
American-Iranians say they were detained at the Canadian border. Border officials deny it — KUOW, January 2020
Special Projects & Freelance
Now what? Young Latinos struggle post-election to find their place in US* — The World, December 2020
*This story earned first place for nationally-edited news coverage with the Public Media Journalism Association
Supreme Court takes on a case of treaty rights vs. state taxation — High Country News, February 2019
I’m saying goodbye to Seattle. Here are the 8 places I’ll miss. — The Lily | The Washington Post, June 2018
Appearances & Interviews
Lifting the Fog: Mental health & the Workplace — Moderator for the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, 2023
Guest on Allison Raskin’s podcast Emotional Support Lady — December 2022
Panelist for The Seattle Channel — May 2022
Guest lecture for graduate journalism students — University of Washington, 2023-2021
Moderator for Townhall Seattle — September 2020
Guest appearance on NPR's 1A — WAMU 1A, March 2018
39 Under 39 — The Yakima Herald, February 2018
As a DACA recipient, public radio reporter Esmy Jimenez faces an unknown deadline — Current, February 2018
About
Esmy Jimenez is a senior reporter for The Boston Globe currently investigating the racial wealth gap in the region. Throughout her career she has reported from immigration detention centers and jails, in a bullet-proof vest and helmet during the 2020 protests for racial justice, and from apple orchards and Indigenous reservations covering wildfires, landslides, and even a massive farmworker wedding.
Jimenez first started reporting as a local NPR correspondent in rural Washington state and then joined Seattle’s KUOW station covering immigration under the Trump Administration. During that time she earned a regional Edward R. Murrow award for feature reporting and was also an investigative fellow with Reveal & The Center for Investigative Reporting, writing on the detention of immigrant youth at a secret facility. A separate national collaboration earned her a first place Public Media Journalism Award for the coverage of young, Latino voters leading up to the 2020 election.
In 2021, she joined The Seattle Times as part of its inaugural team covering mental health. The team earned a Best of the West award for explanatory writing and in 2024 launched the nationally syndicated podcast Lost Patients based on her reporting. Jimenez has also been a fellow with ProPublica’s Data Institute, The Maynard Institute, and NPR’s Next Generation Radio early-career program. She was the founder and past president of Periodistas Northwest, a new chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Jimenez is a proud first generation high school and college graduate where she studied environmental science at the University of Southern California. Before entering the world of journalism, she was (briefly) an Alaskan farmhand, state park aide, and barista.