Port of Entry is a journalism platform dedicated to the “After” of the immigrant story. By 2050, the United States is projected to become a majority-minority nation, with immigrants and their descendants driving the pulse of American growth. Yet much of modern immigration journalism remains trapped at the border — focused on policy, enforcement, and politics.
Through interviews, narrative journalism, and reported essays, Port of Entry documents the lived experiences of immigrant and diasporic communities across generations. We bridge the gap between the first-generation arrival and the grandchildren growing up in the U.S. today, drawing on oral histories and community archives to record stories that traditional institutions often overlook.
This isn’t just a record of where we came from. It’s a map of where we’re going.
Who’s behind it
Hi, I’m Jennifer — a literary journalist, memoirist, and creative writing instructor who grew up as the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens, New York. Which means I have been living this beat my entire life.
I’ve spent nearly two decades reporting on immigrant and diaspora communities, and my work frequently appears in The New York Times, The Guardian,The Washington Post, NPR, Harper’s Bazaar, and ELLE, among others. I’ve reported from all over the United States, Bangladesh, India, Russia, UAE, etc.
I started Port of Entry because I kept seeing my community covered from the outside in—as policy problems, as border statistics, as cautionary tales or inspiration porn. I wanted to build something that covered immigrants the way we actually live: complicated, funny, grieving, ambitious, code-switching at the dinner table, arguing about who we are and who we’re becoming.
As a solo parent raising the American-born grandchildren of immigrants in the same borough where I grew up, this work is personal in the way that only the thing you were always meant to do can be.
