How Do You Write a Story About Separated Families?

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I wanted to make sure that the reader kept in their mind throughout the story the families who were impacted. I've had a lot of people tell me that they're, you know, having nightmares after reading the story. And maybe there should have been more, actually. But it's a very painful story. You know, i really wanted people to get to the end of the piece. That was my editor's main goal. And so we tried to strike a balance. I don't know if it was the perfect one, ye.

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer for The Atlantic covering immigration. Her latest article, on the secret history of U.S. government’s family-separation policy, is ”An American Catastrophe.”

“Interviewing separated families, I’ve found, is just on a whole other scale of pain and trauma. I’ve watched people have really intense PTSD flashbacks in front of me. I never wanted to risk asking a family to open up in that way if I didn’t know that I’d be able to use that material. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time in a way that causes them pain.”

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