Spanish-language Newspapers Research Articles

Localizing (or Not) Climate Change in Spanish-Language Newspapers in the United States

ABSTRACT Most research on climate change news coverage has examined individual countries or cross-national comparisons and has focused largely on mainstream news outlets. Scholars have not thoroughly examined ethnic media that serve as a main source of information for minoritized people, such as Latin American immigrants, the primary audience for Spanish-language publications in the United States. This study examines Spanish-language newspaper coverage of climate change in the United States using thematic analysis. Results show that news coverage during 2010 and 2013 was very limited, followed by a positive trend between 2014 and 2019. Coverage dipped in 2020 and 2021. Results show that the coverage resembles coverage in mainstream English-language media, and does not localize the issue for their audiences, which suggests a significant information gap for millions of immigrants.

Visions of an Industrial Lakefront Utopia in the Calumet Frontier: City Planning and Repatriation in an Ethnic Mexican Colonia , 1900–1934

ABSTRACT: Nestled at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, East Chicago, Indiana, became the site of massive-scale industrialization in the early twentieth century. This effort, in turn, fueled massive-scale migration into the region. During the 1919 Great Steel Strike, the steel industry began to recruit thousands of ethnic Mexicans to serve as steelworkers and laborers across the region. Institutional and community forces segregated the ethnic Mexican community into a portion of the city called Indiana Harbor. Within this neighborhood, individuals worked to forge a community complete with institutions such as Catholic churches, a Spanish-language newspaper, and businesses. However, city planners and potential residents came to believe that the community represented a problem for the city's growth. In the 1930s, members of East Chicago's American Legion Post 266 orchestrated a repatriation campaign to alleviate the financial burden of public relief. The campaign targeted the ethnic Mexican community, whose presence was labelled as undesirable and a potential source of job competition in the region's exhausted economy.

Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser

Reviewed by: Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands by William S. Kiser Robert Wooster Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U. S.—Mexico Borderlands. By William S. Kiser. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. Pp. 262. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) In this, his fifth book published since 2011, William S. Kiser continues to burnish his reputation as a prodigious researcher, productive writer, and keen analyst of the mid-nineteenth century southwestern borderlands from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Using an impressive variety of manuscripts, official documents, English- and Spanish-language newspapers, and secondary books and articles, Kiser demonstrates the often-overlooked significance of northern Mexico to the American Civil War and Greater Reconstruction (meaning the imperial struggles for hemispheric dominance as well as the fate of slavery and the former Confederate states). The weight of the evidence is indeed overwhelming: countless Confederate and Union political officials, army officers, diplomats, and [End Page 585] rogue leaders envisioned the northern borderlands of Mexico as a means of furthering their national and personal ambitions, more often than not through such "irregular diplomacy" (7) as fantastical schemes, filibustering, bribes, tariffs, and secret personal deals. By 1864, the occupation of much of the region by Emperor Maximilian I's imperialists only increased the potential stakes, as the French presence promised even more meaningful opportunities for a Confederate resurgence. As Kiser rightly insists, however, "the localized nature of borderlands diplomacy" (28) greatly complicated the dreams of outsiders. State governors Ignacio Pesqueíra (Sonora), Luis Terrazas (Chihuahua), Santiago Vidaurri (Nuevo León), and Albino López (Tamaulipas) stubbornly sought to maintain their local sovereignty while continuing to further their own personal interests as they balanced official and unofficial diplomacy with the external forces. Bandits, smugglers, and non-state regional strongmen such as Patricio Milmo, Juan Cortina, Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Victorio also sought to exploit these rivalries through financial machinations and open warfare to further their own causes, which invariably featured a greater emphasis on local rather than national interests. To transform the complex variety of ingredients into a comprehensible narrative, Kiser sensibly organizes his work into five chapters: one on the pre-Civil War diplomacy that had shaped the region; one each on the Mexican northwest (Chihuahua and Sonora) and northeast (Nuevo León and Tamaulipas) before mid-1863; and one for each of these regions following the French intervention. A concluding essay seeks to bring borderlands diplomacy into the present day. Built upon the foundational publications of historian Jerry Thompson along with Kiser's own studies, Illusions of Empire makes the strongest case in print for the importance of Mexican diplomacy to the United States during the Civil War era. Furthermore, it offers important analytical opportunities for Texas historians beyond the southwestern borderlands. Traditional scholars, including this reviewer, have tended to compartmentalize the complicated experiences of the Lone Star State in the mid-nineteenth century into segmented time periods and regions. That research has been invaluable in establishing a basic narrative. But a deeper understanding of the Texas past now requires something of a paradigm shift. Rather than shaping our investigations around unique eras like the antebellum years, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and approaching our studies from the perspective of separate regions—the South and the Confederacy, the American West, and the southwestern borderlands—we need to begin the more complicated but infinitely more rewarding task of emphasizing, as Kiser suggests, a "more expansive vision" (7) of the interconnectedness of these experiences. [End Page 586] Robert Wooster Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (emeritus) Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association

El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez

Reviewed by: El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa by Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez Juan M. Gallegos Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez, El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2021. 445 pp. Hardcover, $75; e-book, $75. In El feliz ingenio neomexicano: Felipe M. Chacón and Poesía y prosa editors and translators Anna M. Nogar and A. Gabriel Meléndez recover the written works of noted neomexicano author, publisher, and journalist Felipe M. Chacón. Chacón, a member of the esteemed New Mexican Chacón family, carved out a historical presence during New Mexico’s Territorial Period and the early years of New Mexico’s statehood through his contributions as a journalist, including his time as editor at Spanish-language newspapers like La Voz del Pueblo. A recent addition to the Pasó Por Aquí series published by the University of New Mexico Press, which has spearheaded efforts to recover New Mexico’s unrecognized literary heritage, the book recognizes the work produced by a member of a historically unaccounted for population whose literary production has been relegated to largely unexplored archives. [End Page 82] The book is organized into five sections: both editors’ introductions, an explanation of the translation process, the Spanish transcription of Chacón’s writing, the English translation, and an index. Each scholar wrote separate introductions to the book, with Nogar “examining the aesthetic and creative dimensions” of Chacón’s writing and Meléndez “adding to the sociohistorical understanding of Chacón as an author and of Poesía y prosa as a publication” (5). The appendix is a short one with images of Chacón, selected published poems, and the cover of the original edition of Poesía y prosa. At the core of Nogar and Meléndez’s book is Chacón’s Poesía y prosa. Chacón’s book is divided into four primary parts: a prologue written by New Mexico historian Benjamin Read, and three chapters of poems and prose. While touching on a number of topics and providing a short biography, Read defends Chacón’s decision to write in Spanish. One poem in particular, “In Mexico,” written in Spanish and English, is of particular interest to both Read and Nogar, who argue that Chacón uses his bilingualism to speak to a bilingual population and “to critique Anglo incursion into New Mexico, to comment about the imposition of social conditions and political dynamics onto nuevomexicanos, and to poke fun at those who would demand that nuevomexicanos speak English, while they themselves do not learn the dominant community language, Spanish” (Nogar 31–32). Poetry serves as the dominant genre with sixty of seventy-one selections being original poetry. The poetry’s content runs a gamut of topics, including the personal and the political. Poems like “A Mi Hija, Herminia” and “A Mi Hijo, Felipe” capture a more intimate side of Chacón, while his political poems like “To the Homeland” reflect topics such as his pride in being an American. A short story, a novellete, and a selection that is perhaps a piece of creative nonfiction are the only examples of Chacón’s prose in the book. In addition to his original poetry, Chacón includes translations of poets like Byron, Dryden, Longfellow, and his uncle, Pedro C. Chacón. The book can be seen as a companion to or a continuation of Meléndez and Francisco Lomelís’s work in The Writings of Eusebio Chacón (2012), which collects the writing of Chacón’s cousin, Eusebio [End Page 83] Chacón. Considering the similarities between the two books, this book is highly recommended for those who are familiar with Meléndez and Lomelís’s work. Overall, El feliz ingenion neomexicano opens new avenues of research for those studying the historical literacies of neomexicanos, the Southwest, and Latinxs, whether these literacies are framed by sociocultural, historical, or literary frameworks. It fills an enormous gap in Latinx literary studies, and in many ways serves as a call for the recovery...

Alluring translations after the Spanish-American War

This article presents a case study of a Spanish-language newspaper, The Puerto-Rico Eagle, published in Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War in order to identify the various ways in which the practice of translation manifests and to what ends these translations are used. This inquiry seeks to reconcile two approaches to translation history – first, to understand the history of translation practices in this colonial context and, second, to recognise the role that translation played in this colonial time and space. Bringing together these two approaches to translation history, this article provides preliminary insights into the multi-faceted nature of translation in Hispanophone news­papers, be it an unmarked effort to influence and persuade readers, a means to establish authority and inspire confidence, or a sensational act worthy of news coverage unto itself. In doing so, the article points toward potential avenues for future inquiry into translation in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean with newspapers as a site of translation activity.

Mexican-Origin Newsmakers: Utilizing Health in La Opinión Microfilm for Data Collecting and Methodology.

The Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión, in microfilm format from the 1960s, shows how the margins of archival repositories are filled with the voices of marginalized communities. Archival data about the Mexican-origin population has proven scarce throughout the twentieth century; not until 1980 was the term “Hispanic” added to the census and the group categorized in governmental repositories. This paper takes the reader on a journey through the depths of the Los Angeles County Library, into the fourth-floor basement where the entirety of La Opinión is stowed away in reels. This paper covers the challenges and rewards of archival research as well as the process of conducting archival research. Equipped with lived experiences in Mexican enclaves in Los Angeles, the researcher recognizes the voice of the community in ads, announcements, political cartoons, and throughout the margins of the newspaper. This article also offers an analysis of the opinions from the community about health care and raises questions of whether health-care services sufficiently met the needs of the community.

ДИНАМІКА ВИКОРИСТАННЯ СЕМАНТИЧНИХ НЕОЛОГІЗМІВ У ІСПАНОМОВНОМУ ПУБЛІЦИСТИЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ ПІД ЧАС ЕПІДЕМІЇ COVID-19

The article is dedicated to the analysis of cases of the use of semantic neologisms created in Spanish-language newspapers due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the materials of Spanish-language journalistic publications of the pandemic period, the article examines and analyzes cases of the use of such semantic neologisms. The study of semantic neologisms allows us to trace the changes that the realities of the epidemic have made on the meaning of units already existing in the language. The article pays attention to the characteristics of the use of neologisms in different sections of Spanish-language newspapers and the dynamics of their use compared to publications before the spread of the epidemic. A neologism is a new lexical unit that appears in the language, as well as a new meaning of an already existing unit or a new phrase. A semantic neologism is a new lexical unit that appears in the language due to the acquisition of a new meaning by a word, or by the preservation of the original meaning and the acquisition of an additional one by the same lexeme. Journalistic discourse is a type of institutional communication aimed at informing and influencing the mass addressee in the public-political, social-cultural fields and the mass media.

Before Their Music Stopped: Manila’s Spanish Military Regimental Bands at the End of the 19th Century

Utilizing the contemporary daily, Spanish-language newspapers surviving from the final three decades of 19th–century Manila, this study investigates the extensive activities of the eight regimental bands stationed in Manila, the Philippines. Even though these dailies served as powerful tools for the imposition of colonial subjugation and disenfranchisement on the indigenous Filipino population, they also reveal that the regimental bands were the most active musical ensembles during that era. This review of the papers began by chronicling the frequency of the many free, weekly, outdoor concerts that total more than 2,700 performances.  A related goal was to identify as many of the musical pieces presented in band arrangements during these performances. The newspapers also published additional valuable articles that discuss a variety of unique or unusual events involving the regimental band’s contributions to major military maneuvers, special occasions of state in honor of the Royal Family, and a set of seven concerts performed on consecutive days by one band during a major, religious feast.The dailies also permit us to follow the work of the bands during a period of crisis and some danger. From August 1896 to December 1897, the Spanish Military was engaged in a war with Filipino insurrectionists fighting for independence. The Military command responded to this threat in two ways that affected the bands. The first was the creation of a new regiment of indigenous-heritage soldiers to protect the capital from invasion by their countrymen. That new regiment, The Loyal Volunteers, also had a new band attached to it. Like all the bands, this new one was made up entirely of Filipino men.  A second response affecting all of the bands was the order for the Band Masters to include in their public concerts a steady stream of newly composed works promoting the Spanish propaganda opposing the war. Though the revolt was ended with a peace treaty in late December 1897, just four months later, on 1 May, the fate of the Spanish colony was sealed when the U.S. armed forces invaded the Philippines. As the Spanish Military regiments exited the country, the work of the bands ended. A new period of brutal colonial subjugation of the Filipino people had commenced.

A History of Latinx Immigrant Activism

A History of Latinx Immigrant Activism

One Woman's Experience of Migratory Grief: The ‘Woggy Girl’ Crónicas in Spanish-language Newspapers in Australia

ABSTRACT This article examines the phenomenon of migratory grief through an analysis of crónicas by Bolivian-born medical doctor Clara Espinosa, who migrated to Australia in 1988 and wrote under the pseudonym ‘Woggy Girl’. Crónicas are newspaper columns that comment on aspects of daily life, social habits and the concerns of communities. They have appeared in Spanish-language newspapers in Australia since the late 1970s. A selection of Woggy Girl's crónicas are examined to determine what these narratives reveal about Espinosa's migratory journey and her process of adaptation to the host language and culture – which involved relinquishing her primary identity as a senior medical specialist. Espinosa identified this process as being one of grief, which she chronicled through the newspaper columns that are the focus of this study. Drawing on migratory grief theories from psychological and psychiatric disciplines, this article analyses Woggy Girl's crónicas to determine what they reveal about the author's self-diagnosed journey through migratory grief. I conclude that crónica writing provided Espinosa with a mechanism through which to process the myriad of emotions that accompanied her migratory grief journey, until such time as she was able to carve out a new identity, positioned closer to that of Australian mainstream society.

Gazeta de Amsterdam: History and content analysis

One of the most interesting Spanish-language newspapers of the second half of the seventeenth century was published by a Jewish printer, David de Castro Tartas, and appeared in Amsterdam at least from 1672 and at least until 1702, allegedly with continuity, under the title Gazeta de Amsterdam. It was partially based in translations of news items from other Dutch-language newspapers of its time, but at the same time it included news items presumedly collected in Castro’s (and, in the latest years, Manuel Texeira’s) office and addressed to a community of Jewish who were born as Catholics in Portugal and Spain, emigrated to the Republic of the Netherlands due to religious tolerance. David de Castro Tartas launched another Italian-language newspaper, Gazzetta d'Amsterdam. Since new issues of both newspapers have been found recently, we propose to complete the history of Castro's activity as newspaper editor, not only printer. Using content analysis, we try to underline the importance of this Spanish (and Italian) language printer and editor in the reproduction of material translated and adapted from other newspapers and in the production of news items originally managed in his office.

Puerto Rican Colonialism, Caribbean Radicalism, and Pueblos Hispanos’s Inter-Nationalist Alliance

Drawing from Earl Browder’s papers, this essay examines the Communist-sponsored, New York Spanish-language newspaper Pueblos Hispanos (1943–44), arguing that the publication staged an uneasy alliance between the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and the US Communist Party by positioning Puerto Rican independence as central to a wider decolonial Caribbean and postwar world order. By analyzing Pueblos Hispanos’s practice of “inter-nationalism”—a term the author proposes to denote the flexible strategy used to mediate between competing political interests and which can serve as a model for understanding the compromised collaborations between Communist and nationalist leaders in the Caribbean—this essay expands our understanding of Communist influence in Caribbean liberation movements and begins to reinsert the contributions of early-and mid-twentieth-century Puerto Ricans, and more widely, Spanish caribeños, within a Marxist-inflected Caribbean radical tradition.

Vulnerability, precarity and the people in debates over immigration in local newspapers

Mexican immigrants to the United States increasingly migrate to relatively new places such as Washington state, which now places in the top eight destination states. States wield increasing power to manage migration and negotiate residency at local scales. Although studies focus on migration debates in national and alternative media, little analysis has been done on newspapers in rural communities where migrants work and settle. We examine local English- and Spanish-language newspapers in rural Washington state to demonstrate how English-language newspapers legitimated competing interests and discourses of vulnerability versus precarity, whereas Spanish-language newspapers constituted a collective for rights connected historically to other subaltern groups. We then evaluate the potential for disrupting dominant discourses by local newspapers.

Language and translation practices of Spanish-language newspapers published in the U.S. borderlands between 1808 and 1930

AbstractThis article examines the impact of the anglicizing language policies implemented after the annexation of the U.S. borderlands to the United States on language use by describing the language and translation practices of Spanish-language newspapers published in the U.S. borderlands across different sociohistorical periods from 1808 to 1930. Sixty Hispanic-American newspapers (374 issues) from 1808 to 1980 were selected for analysis. Despite aggressive anglicizing legislation that caused a societal shift of language use from Spanish into English in most borderland states after the annexation, the current study suggests that the newspapers resisted assimilation by adhering to the Spanish language in the creation of original content and in translation.

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor as framed by Spanish-language and English-language news media

As Latinas assume greater roles in U.S. politics and the judicial branch, are media depictions reflective of these new roles or do negative minority stereotypes persist? This study compared the frames used by The Miami Herald, an English-language newspaper and El Nuevo Herald, its Spanish-language counterpart, during Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination and confirmation as the first Hispanic associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The study explored whether the stronger media identification of the Spanish language newspaper influenced the types of frames used to depict Sotomayor’s rise to the high court. This investigation found that El Nuevo Herald emphasized Sotomayor as a successful woman and pioneer. The Miami Herald highlighted the ideological themes of partisan politics. As a result, the greater cultural identification with the audience may avoid manifest negative stereotypes, but may exclude this audience from political and judicial discourse.

PARTICIPACIÓN Y PERFIL DE LOS USUARIOS QUE COMENTAN NOTICIAS DE CIENCIA Y SALUD ONLINE: ESTUDIO DE CASO

El receptor de noticias se ha convertido en un actor principal en el entorno online, ya que ahora es capaz de participar en ellas realizando comentarios, amplificándolas o compartiéndolas. El presente estudio de caso analiza el tipo de participación y el perfil de los usuarios que realizan comentarios a noticias online de temática científico-sanitaria. Se aplica un análisis de contenido a 2970 comentarios recogidos en noticias sobre la relación entre carnes rojas y procesadas y cáncer publicadas en el periódico de habla hispana con mayor audiencia en Internet, elpais.com, entre el 26 de octubre de 2015 y el 1 de febrero de 2018.

Political mobilisation and public discourse in new immigrant destinations: news media characterisations of immigrants during the 2006 immigration marches

ABSTRACTIn 2006, millions of immigrants engaged in boycotts and marches for immigrant rights. Many of these protests occurred in new destinations, places with little prior history of collective mobilisation by non-citizens. We focus on the U.S. South, a region noteworthy for the recent, unprecedented growth in its non-citizen population and its unexpected role in the 2006 protests. Drawing from a unique dataset of immigration-related news stories from ten newspapers across the South from 2005 to 2007, we examine variation in public immigration discourse during this ‘unsettled’ period of heightened political mobilisation and marked public anxiety around immigration. We supplement this analysis with a close examination of immigration news coverage in English and Spanish-language newspapers in South Carolina. Regional analysis reveals minimal shifts in public immigration discourse during this time period; however, the South Carolina case study reveals subtle yet noteworthy variation in the cultural categories used to label immigrants, the moral characterisations of immigrants, and the salience of the immigrant-native boundary. The English-language press increasingly portrayed immigrants from Mexico as cultural threats. After the marches, the Spanish-language press emphasised immigrants’ work ethic. These findings have implications for our understanding of social dynamics in new destinations and the cultural dimensions of political mobilisation.

Convergence through conflict: A case study of a US Spanish-language publication’s efforts to grow a national audience

Abstract Drawing on literature related to convergence and conflict in diaspora, this manuscript describes how one long-standing, immigrant, regional Spanish-language newspaper in the United States responded to economic pressures by employing the highly contested topic of immigration to build a larger, more diasporic audience. A comparative analysis of two weeks’ worth of print content and content published on its Facebook page, its primary digital platform, found a larger proportion of immigration stories online than in print. Furthermore, although immigration was the third most frequent subject of online news stories, behind crime and entertainment stories, immigration stories were the most popular stories as evidenced by audience ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. These results lend support to the idea that so-called ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ can refocus and redirect diasporic audiences around new conflicts in countries of residence.

ToastingMéxicoin the American West:BrindisPoems and Political Loyalties of Women’s Mexican Patriotic Clubs

AbstractBrindis poems were popular in the nineteenth century. Accompanied by the raise of a glass, their verses were meant to celebrate a person or event. Only two decades after the Mexican-American War, Latinas/os living in the newly annexed territories of the American West found themselves using the brindis genre to declare their loyalties to Mexico against a new invader, France. Among the most ardent supporters of the Mexican army’s fight against French imperialism were lower and middle-class Latinas who formed Mexican patriotic clubs exclusively for women in California and Nevada. This article examines one brindis series recited by women of the Patriotic Club of Mexico of Virginia City, Nevada, and two series of such poems by women of the Zaragoza Club of Los Angeles published in 1865 in the San Francisco, Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Mundo. By reading the printed brindis as a trace of the original vocal and performative gesture, this article asserts that the verses of these women were a three-fold protest: first, through their performance in the public sphere, these Latinas disrupted their political disenfranchisement as women; second, they contested outright European tyrants; and third, by verbalizing anti-colonial sentiment more broadly, they protested their annexation by the U.S. in a shrouded, but powerful way. The article explores some of the most salient stylistic features of the brindis poems, including the mocking tone of most of the rhymed verses, call and response technique, and gendered rhetoric of patriotic “deber” or duty.

Ethnic newspapers and low-income Spanish-speaking adults: influence of news consumption and health motivation on cancer prevention behaviors

ABSTRACTObjective: Ethnic newspapers have the potential to reach and influence various cultural and ethnic subpopulations traditionally underserved in the United States. The current study sought to explore how ethnic news consumption interacts with health motivation to predict cancer prevention behaviors in a sample of Spanish-speaking adults.Design: Participants (N = 100) completed a survey in Spanish, with items measuring demographics, acculturation, health literacy, health motivation, ethnic newspaper consumption (for two papers: La Viva and La Raza), and cancer prevention behaviors.Results: Results indicated consumption of ethnic newspapers correlated positively to acculturation, and cancer screening utilization. In hierarchical regression analyses, the interaction of consumption of an ethnic newspaper (La Raza) and health motivation predicted two of the six prevention behaviors assessed: avoidance of fatty foods and screening behavior.Conclusion: The study provides evidence that consumption of Spanish-language newspapers enhances the likelihood that individuals with high levels of health motivation will engage in healthy behaviors. This finding highlights the utility of utilizing Spanish-language newspapers to reach underserved populations.