Hey, everybody!

When I started this newsletter a year ago, I had no idea what it would be. After a bit of trial and a lot of error, it has landed on what feels like an authentic and important focus: Investigative journalism for the people, out of my home state of New Mexico but with an eye towards the nation and world.

The original title I gave my main newsletter here, “Alisa Writes,” was one I came up with because that was all I knew I’d be doing here. Writing.

But with the clearer mission focus, I’ve decided it was time for a little brand tweak. Don’t worry. Nothing else is changing.

Alisa Writes is now THE PUGILIST with Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez.

I chose the name because it was how my reporting and writing 1 professor at Columbia Journalism School described me in job reference letters he wrote for me after graduation. “Alisa Valdes is a pugilist with a mind that gives off sparks like flint on steel.”

I remember as a young woman being afraid that word, “pugilist,” which means “fighter,” made me sound unlikable. But as a woman in her middle life, I embrace it. I am a fighter. I fight for the poor, the marginalized, the working class, for regular people caught in a system intent upon exploiting and crushing us all. So. Yeah. I fight. And I’m damn proud of that.

Alisa