Long-form narrative 1 has become the sacred totem of American journalism and, to judge from some of the chapters in this book, of many non-American journalists as well. It is held up as the best way to balance journalism’s contradictory pressures. On the one hand, constructing dramatic tales infused with emotion provides a way to attract and keep the easily bored audience. On the other hand, narratives go beyond the politicians’ sound bites to humanize issues, to show the concrete impact that policies have “on the ground.” As New York Times immigration reporter Nina Bernstein once publicly remarked, “individual stories are a powerful way to convey larger forces.” 2

Against this US journalistic conventional wisdom, I argue in this chapter that personal narrative and structural context are not so easily reconciled. In its search for melodrama, personalized narrative journalism can give short shrift to structural complexities, power dynamics, and diverse perspectivessuch as those characterizing immigration. Even when narrative connects the individual to larger trends (as with the classic “she is not alone” transition paragraph), its register tends to be descriptive rather than explanatory.