Peggy Orchowski

Dr. Margaret (Peggy) Sands Orchowski, Ph.D., is the credentialed Congressional Correspondent for the Hispanic Outlook on Higher Education magazine in Washington, D.C. She writes 3-4 feature stories a month plus a monthly column, “Uncensored.” She was previously BillAnalysis Editor at CQ in DC; a reporter for AP in Peru; an InterAmerican Press Association fellow in Argentina; a press officer for the United Nations in Switzerland; and a staff reporter and feature writer for her hometown newspapers in Santa Barbara, California.

Her book, “Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria” (Rowman & Littlefield, June 2008), was recommended by Gov. Bill Richardson as a “must read for everyone in Congress and in every DC think tank.” She has given over 60 book presentations at foreign affairs and public policy organizations and book stores (including Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.) and has appeared on television and public radio talk shows in 15 states. She was featured in C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Sept. 29, 2010 and her op eds on immigration have appeared in US News & World Report Opinion, AOL.com, the Indianapolis Star and the Atlantic Journal Constitution, among others.

Peggy lived and worked for over 10 years abroad, speaks and works in four languages easily and raised her two children in three. She earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. at the University of California at Santa Barbara, another M.A. at Occidental College as a CORO Fellow and a B.A. in journalism and Latin American studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

She was a director of the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1983-84, organizing, recruiting and managing 125 multilingual staff of the National Olympic Committee Department at the UCSB village. She is currently the chairperson of the National Press Club’s Freelance Committee. She is also an avid swimmer, tennis player and chamber music violinist.