Lester Holt

UC Merced is the University of California's newest campus and lies among farm fields in the San Joaquin Valley, 2 1/2 hours east of San Francisco and not far from where I spent most of my childhood. It's a part of California that has suffered deeply from the recession with high unemployment and a skyrocketing home foreclosure rate.

At the end of the day, I'm reading the news. I'm not digging ditches. I'm not fighting fires. It's a long day, and it's a lot of responsibility, and it can be a little bewildering sometimes with the schedule. But, you know, it's a job, and they pay me well to do a job.

I'm one of those people who is colour blind to a certain degree. And that doesn't mean I'm not acutely aware of race in our country and abroad and in the world. I know what's going on, and I'm very aware of it.