Gerry Hadden is an author and journalist who began his public radio career in 1995 at public radio station KPLU in Seattle. In 2000, NPR sent him to Los Angeles, then to Mexico City. From 2000 to 2004, he served as NPR’s Mexico, Central America and Caribbean correspondent and covered presidential elections in Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua. He extensively reported on immigration, drug trafficking and the varied cultures and characters of Latin America. He also frequently traveled to Cuba, where he reported on US-Cuba relations, the economy, the arts and daily life under Fidel Castro. Four years after watching Jean Bertrand Aristide be sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Hadden, in 2004, covered Aristide’s flight from power amidst an armed rebellion. That same year, Hadden moved with his family to Spain. He covers Spain and other parts of Europe from Barcelona for The World, although his stories have taken him as far as Cape Verde, Istanbul and Kyiv. Hadden says that reporting for public radio is the most interesting job he’s ever had besides driving a taxi in New York. When Hadden is not reporting, he spends time with his partner, Anne, and their three children.
Hadden is the author of the NPR memoir, “Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti,” and the novel, “Everything Turns Invisible.”
Salvaging family photos after the Valencia floods
When natural disaster strikes, people can lose anything and everything. But what survivors often say they miss most are the lost photos. In Valencia, Spain, photo restorers have been collecting and cleaning images pulled from the mud and returning them to grateful owners.
Migrants from Africa reaching Spain in record numbers
Spain received more than 46,000 migrants in 2024. This, despite the dangers and tougher border controls at the fence-line between Morocco and the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta. To skirt security, migrants are swimming farther and farther out to sea, and sometimes drowning.
Worsened by climate change, Morocco’s 7-year drought threatens food stability
Across much of North Africa, a punishing drought is now entering its seventh year. In Morocco, wheat, a staple of people’s diet, is withering. Livestock are dying. Scientists say climate change is making the normally dry region much drier, and that things will worsen as global temperatures continue to rise.
Meet Barcelona’s pigeon super-feeders
Barcelona, Spain, has a major pigeon problem, like a lot of cities. But the heart of the problem, government officials say, are the super-feeders: some 350 local residents who don’t just toss a few breadcrumbs from a quaint park bench, but distribute bags of food that attract massive flocks of birds.
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