The road to Everest
Soraya Keiser, an international relations and journalism major at Bethel University, uses her never-ceasing passion for history, people and writing to tell important stories of diverse cultures.
By Alyssa Malyon | Reporter
Soraya Keiser flipped through delicate pages of the National Geographic Magazine, her mind expanding with infinite possibilities for her future. As an 8-year-old who always had her head in a book, the awe-inspiring photographs and stories seemed to jump off the pages, planting big dreams in her little mind.
The life Keiser envisioned for herself changed with every turn of the page. At first, she clung to the idea of becoming a marine biologist. Then, studying viruses as an epidemiologist. Next, she set her sights on climbing Mount Everest.
“I don’t know exactly when it hit me, but the one thing all of these have in common is that they are written by someone,” Keiser said. “I think that’s where my love for writing comes from.”
Now in her third year at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, 20-year-old Keiser has traveled to the Guatemalan highlands to report on immigration and public transportation, Kansas City to document the undocumented, Lithuania to study international relations and will soon write a story on a multi-ethnic girls soccer team in Kosovo.
At Bethel, Keiser secured a spot on The Clarion, a student-led news magazine, working as a part-time freelance writer for four months before taking on the role of a full-time news reporter. Keiser quickly discovered her love of writing feature stories on relevant issues, personality profiles and important issues.
“I’m really proud of what a hard worker [Soraya] is. When she’s in Minnesota, she’s always juggling three or four jobs and working really hard on school and extracurriculars.” — Rebecca Keiser
Keiser threw herself into the world of reporting, writing profiles on Native American, Ukrainian and Black students at Bethel, followed by feature stories on the Nonviolent Peaceforce and community peace activists in the Twin Cities.
“I’m really proud of what a hard worker [Soraya] is,” Keiser’s mom, Rebecca, said. “When she’s in Minnesota, she’s always juggling three or four jobs and working really hard on school and extracurriculars.”
After a year of gaining journalistic experience through her classes and work at The Clarion, Keiser was hired as a storytelling intern for a non-profit and its donor magazine: ECHO Global Farm in Fort Myers, Florida. The following summer, Keiser wrote stories and interviewed members of the community as a reporting intern for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
“At a small school, I’ve had an opportunity to do what I wouldn’t have been able to at a bigger school,” Keiser said. “And I would not have had the opportunity to do as much as I have in such a short amount of time.”
In January 2022, Keiser traveled to Guatemala with a team of journalists, graphic designers and photographers from Bethel for an international storytelling program called Textura. For three weeks, Keiser and her classmates collaborated with students from Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City, forming relationships, learning from one another and telling stories.
Keiser was paired with the art director for The Clarion — 2022 graduate Bryson Rosell — and Majo Díaz, a senior international relations student from FMU to venture into the heart of Guatemalan culture and society.
“We always said that our team was one of the best ones because everybody had their own role. [Soraya] was a writer, I was a translator and the story-seeker, and Bryson was all about the photos and design.” — Majo Díaz, Guatemalan student partner
Their task? Listening to members of the community who needed their stories heard.
“We always said that our team was one of the best ones because everybody had their own role,” Díaz said. “[Soraya] was a writer, I was a translator and the story-seeker, and Bryson was all about the photos and design.”
During a game of cards, Díaz informed her group about a contact she knew named Mardoqueo Tian, who attempted to cross the United States-Mexico border undocumented and failed.
“At first Bryson and I were like, ‘This is a really big topic. We don’t feel qualified. We don’t have enough time,’ ” Keiser said.
Regardless of the logistics, the team took the hour-and-a-half-long bus ride into the Guatemalan highlands to have a preliminary interview with Díaz’s contact.
Upon arrival, the team set their equipment aside, rolled up their sleeves and began making tortillas from scratch with Tian’s family. As they got their hands dirty in the small kitchen, Tian’s uncle shared a compelling story about his attempt — and the attempts of his son and nephew — to emigrate to the United States. That led them to Mardoqueo Tian.
Hoping to find work as an undocumented immigrant, Tian embarked on a treacherous 3-month-long journey to cross the border in pursuit of a better life for his family. Working in the fields of Guatemala all day to receive a daily pay of about $4.50 was not nearly enough to support his wife and children.
The interviewing process came to an abrupt halt when two red lines appeared on a COVID-19 test. One by one, Keiser, Rosell and Díaz fell ill and had to quarantine. No longer able to travel to conduct interviews, Keiser and her team sat on their hotel beds and worked with the content they had gathered.
“The story that’s published is from all of the information we had gotten during that time,” Keiser said. “But it felt unfinished.”
Keiser and Rosell, still contagious, had to remain quarantined in Guatemala for multiple days after the rest of Bethel’s Textura team ventured back to their snow-covered campus. The two were accompanied by their journalism professor, Scott Winter, and reporter for The Seattle Times Paige Cornwell.
Masked, spread out and full of ideas, Keiser, Rosell, Winter and Cornwell met to discuss possible next steps for their immigration story.
“This is a big story,” Winter said. “What if we included more than just one family?”
“We like to joke that Scott’s a dreamer. He has all these big plans that don’t always happen, and he makes it sound so simple when it’s not really.” — Soraya Keiser
Winter proposed applying for a research grant from the Edgren Scholars Award at Bethel University to expand on this global issue in multiple locations, highlighting different families’ stories.
“We like to joke that Scott’s a dreamer,” Keiser said. “He has all these big plans that don’t always happen, and he makes it sound so simple when it’s not really.”
But this dream came true.
When Keiser and Winter received the grant after an application and a month of meetings, they immediately got to work on their short film documentary, which has been going on for almost a year.
A colleague of Winter’s informed him of a community of undocumented immigrants living in Kansas. With the money the team received from their grant, Keiser and Winter — or other members of the team — traveled to Kansas five times this past summer to film interviews and daily life activities, familiarizing themselves with the immigrant community. They also met up with a border photographer in Connecticut before returning to Guatemala for a final field shoot.
“It kind of shows a different side of immigration. It humanizes the subject.” — Soraya Keiser
The two narratives from Guatemala and Kansas City created a textured, parallel story. Keiser’s documentary, tentatively titled “It’s Worth Dreaming” — is now in the editing process with Guatemalan partners from past Textura classes.
“The first time I watched it was so weird because I was there for every single one of those shots, and they created this really cool documentary,” Keiser said. “It kind of shows a different side of immigration. It humanizes the subject.”
At 20 years old, Keiser has has flown across the world — Guatemala, Lithuania, and soon Kosovo — covering meaningful stories, receiving multiple national and regional awards for her work.
At 30, who knows…? Keiser may still flip through the pages of National Geographic to find a photo of herself standing at the top of Mount Everest. Whatever the future holds for Keiser, it’s worth dreaming about.
Soraya Keiser’s Collegiate Awards
National — 2022 Associated Collegiate Press Awards
- 1st Place: Ernie Pyle Human-Interest Profile for “A bus, a brocha and bullet holes” by Soraya Keiser
- 1st Place: Pacemaker 2022 ACP Feature Magazine for Textura Guatemala | Editors Rachel Blood, Soraya Keiser and Bryson Rosell
- 5th Place: In-Depth News Story of the Year for “Devastation from a distance” by Sarah Bakeman and Soraya Keiser
Regional — 2022 SPJ Region 6 Mark of Excellence Awards
- 1st Place: Best Student Magazine for Textura Guatemala Staff | Editors Rachel Blood, Soraya Keiser and Bryson Rosell
- 1st Place: Feature Writing for “A bus, a brocha and bullet holes” by Soraya Keiser
- Finalist: In-Depth Reporting for “Devastation from a distance” by Sarah Bakeman and Soraya Keiser
State — 2022 MNA College Better Newspaper Contest
- 1st Place: General Excellence for The Clarion | Editors Rachel Blood, Soraya Keiser and Bryson Rosell
- 1st Place: Investigative Reporting for “Sexual assault and harassment cases underreported on campus” by Morgan Day and Soraya Keiser
- 1st Place: Sports Story for “A long way to go” by Caden Christiansen and Soraya Keiser
- 2nd Place: Social Issues Story for “Devastation from a distance” by Sarah Bakeman and Soraya Keiser
