Why I traveled 4,700 miles from Chicago to Lithuania

Why Lithuania? That's the first thing my editor asked when I proposed applying for a Pulitzer Center grant for journalists to report international stories. The center's Richard C. Longworth Media Fellowships help journalists write about global issues impacting Chicago and Midwestern readers. Chicago has huge ties to the tiny nation northeast of Poland and across the Baltic Sea from Sweden. About 60,000 Lithuanian Americans live in the Chicago area. Upton Sinclair's famous socialist novel "The…