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As La Ciudad continues to find ways to better support the Spanish-speaking community of Commerce City, an appreciation begins to sprout for the news outlets that are already here.
La Ciudad’s goal is not to compete to be the only source for bilingual news in Commerce City or in Colorado, but to instead collaborate with other news outlets with the same goal. Through collaboration, we can grow together and help our community even more. As they say in Spanish, “Un pueblo unido, jamás será vencido.” (“United people will never be defeated.”)
From the mountains to the Denver metro area, Spanish or bilingual news outlets help increase information to our Spanish-speaking communities of Colorado. El Sol del Valle, a Spanish news outlet that sprouted from its English counterpart The Sopris Sun and founded by Raleigh Burleigh in 2021, represents the diverse experiences of the Spanish-speaking community in Carbondale.
Burleigh was an exchange student to Chile when he was 16 years old. He was able to get a sense of what it was like to live in another culture, which inspired him to study International Affairs in college. He also got a certificate in journalism, specifically International Media, at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Burleigh later landed in a small town in Argentina at a community radio station and was moved by the news coverage of the station.
“They were the vigilantes paying attention to what was happening with the land and the water. They were really a catalyst for people getting together and asserting their power to have a say in how those things got done,” Burleigh said.
Growing up in Carbondale, Burleigh remembered that half of his class was Latino, and he was excited when the opportunity to start Spanish news initiatives came while he was working at Carbondale’s local radio station KDNK and at The Sopris Sun.
“A big part of Sol del Valle for me was not only to fill an information need, but also to celebrate the Spanish language and all the diverse cultures that we have here in the valley,” Burleigh said. “Not only are there different countries, but it’s also different levels of literacy, varying interests and experiences in terms of newly arrived immigrants or some folks who might be fourth- or fifth-generation immigrants in the valley, but still carrying a Latino identity. It’s a very diverse community with different needs and interests.”
El Sol del Valle partners with various news organizations that focus on the local issues of the Roaring Fork Valley, such as Chalkbeat and The Post Independent. As they go into their third year, Burleigh is excited to continue celebrating the diverse cultures and identities that come from the Spanish-speaking population in the valley.
Burleigh is also excited to welcome the new editor of el Sol del Valle, Bianca Godina, in an effort to have someone who’s more representational overlooking El Sol del Valle.
Moving from the mountains and closer to home, La Voz Colorado recently celebrated its 50th anniversary in producing bilingual news for Colorado.
“I think that you need to get information out on resources available for your health, education, housing, and there are so many things that are overlooked because the person did not understand or does not communicate well and maybe they only speak Spanish,” said La Voz’s now owner, Pauline Rivera, who has worked with the news outlet for 15 years. “We feel that’s why it was founded in 1974 because the need was there for people.”
Rivera grew up in the small town of Costilla, N.M., and then came to Denver, which she perceived as very bilingual because of the diversity in the Spanish-speaking population of Colorado. Rivera runs a column called ‘Mis Recuerdos’ (my memories) for La Voz as an effort to build trust with the community and to highlight the different experiences one has growing up Hispanic.
“This column tells experiences of how we learn to work with other people, how we valued community leaders that helped the community, the things we were afraid of, and that’s from the time that I was a little girl all the way into adulthood,” Rivera said. “There are so many Hispanics that identify with my experiences. There were stories on religion, food, and stories on special people in the community,”
Rivera explained that while you can provide information and resources in Spanish, the main important thing to building and keeping your audience is authenticity and sincerity.
“That’s why Mis Recuerdos was developed, to relay experiences that hopefully others have experienced and get them to trust you and trust your word,” Rivera said. “Be sincere because (the readers) will see right through you.”
Rivera said plenty of publications and even businesses go into the world of bilingualism, but don’t make an effort to do their homework, such as appropriate language use or establishing a genuine connection with their audience and their culture.
“It’s how you treat (the Hispanic community) and how honest you are to the reader,” Rivera said.
Rivera recognized that it’s easy to move onto a different audience due to having so much information, but none of that works if you don’t leave a space to highlight the community and their stories.
Jesus Sanchez Meleán, editor of El Comercio de Colorado, emphasized the importance of considering the entire Spanish-speaking community and how it will continue to grow in terms of diversity and identity. From beginning in Venezuela and moving over to El Comercio now for 10 years, Sanchez Meleán has observed that while the Spanish-speaking population grows, the coverage stays somewhat the same while evolving in their own way.
“There has always been interest in these 10 years of a solution in the immigration area,” Sanchez Meleán said. “I saw since there was no protection of local driver licenses, and now we see how migrants who arrive can obtain funds to rent a home. There has been a progression in which the state has become much more protective of migrants.”
Sanchez Meleán also discussed violence and how, since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, the constant tragedies have affected coverage. However, there has been some light in that time as well.
“I have seen the Hispanic community enter various activities and spaces, which was something that one didn’t think about,” he said. “Cultural Hispanic groups can now perform at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. It’s something that one might see at the Cultural Mexican Center. Now there’s a Hispanic presence in various spaces that is permanent.”
As the Spanish speaking community grows, the world of communication also grows with faster means of communication and being able to stay up to date.
“The sad thing about that is that the area of communication has deteriorated, and professional communication looks as if it has been weakened. Nowadays, the attention is only given to those who are influencers of communication who don’t have the process of elaboration of the news that involves verification, data research, and context,” Sanchez Meleán said. “It can be worrying, but at the same time it is motivation to be able to differentiate ourselves by maintaining the technique of producing quality news compared to what is superfluous content but has no further meaning.”
Sanchez Meleán discussed a couple of ways for news outlets to differentiate themselves, by finding different perspectives and by having at least two or three sources of information.
“The basic technique of journalism is to verify and obtain different points of view,” he said. “It’s important to understand the changes that come. To understand the new needs, the new themes and overall, to understand both worlds.”
Sanchez Meleán said that it’s important to acknowledge the differences and changes within the Spanish-speaking communities and to not assume that just because news is in Spanish doesn’t mean it will identify with everyone who speaks Spanish.
“Now, the Chicano world is a portion of the Hispanic world in general. So understand that there is a Hispanic demographic that has changed, not just the Chicano world,” he said. “Now there are other visions of more recent migrants, and they … have different points of view on one hand. On the other, understand that the media should help these new migrants navigate through a society that is different and help them succeed in the new circumstance that they’re in.”
“Let’s serve, help, and inform so that people can move successfully in the new society,” Sanchez Meleán said.