One of the tracks I was excited to see spring forth from the work at last year’s Allied Media Conference was a Spanish language track that centered the work of media makers working in Spanish.

Medios Caminantes: Medios creando, fronteras derrumbando
Coordinators: Palabra Radio and Peoples Production House

Medios Caminantes, es el primer espacio de habla hispana en la historia de la AMC, producto del esfuerzo colaborativo que se desarrolló en la reunión durante el AMC2009, facilitada por Palabra Radio y Peoples Production House.

Medios Caminantes, esta buscando apoyar y avanzar en la promoción de medios de comunicación basados en la organización de la comunidad inmigrante latina y del caribe radicados en los Estados Unidos. Enfocados en construir una red de medios comunitarios hispanos, este espacio promoverá el intercambio de recursos y modelos de organización entre los mismos participantes (Organizadores y creadores). Durante el AMC2010, Medios Caminantes nos enfocaremos en compartir e intercambiar las habilidades radiales en talleres practicos y talleres sobre como usar la radio como herramienta de organización; Medios Caminantes tambien tendrá un foro abierto para compartir los diferenetes modelos sobre como usar la creación de medios para empoderar a la comunidad inmigrante de habla hispana y generar ideas para la continuidad de este espacio.

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Medios Caminantes, the AMC’s first Spanish-language media track, was initiated during the Spanish-language caucus, hosted by Palabra Radio and People’s Production House during AMC2009 .

Medios Caminantes will support and advance Spanish-language media-based organizing in Latin@ and Caribbean immigrant communities throughout the U.S. With a focus on building a Spanish-language community media network, this track will promote the exchange of resources and organizing models between Spanish-speaking media organizers. Medios Caminantes will focus on the sharing and exchange of radio communication skills with hands-on production trainings, workshops on how to use radio as an organizing tool, and a radio building workshop. Medios Caminantes will also have an open forum to discuss models for using media to empower the Spanish-speaking community and to generate ideas for next year’s track.

Medios Caminantes roughly translates into walking medias which for me seemed like the perfect metaphor for the on the ground work I heard about and participated in through two workshops.

The first workshop I attended from the Medios Caminantes Track was Repensando La Comunicacíon.

This workshop first gave background information about how English and Spanish language mainstream media in the United States relies on basic stereotypes of “Latinidad” in the stories presented and base much of their background information, presented as fact, from white supremacist organizations and individuals.

Then a short panel consisting of Spanish language independent media makers presenting their models of organizing. This included independent radio producers in Arizona who started when they saw a need to share truthful information about what was happening in the state regarding the anti-immigration laws and Voces Moviles, who use mobile phone technology to organize and share information.

Then the participants in the workshop were presented with a fictional situation and we broke up into groups to create a representational news account.

While the stats were not surprising, they are always a good reminder as a way to center our work.

The second workshop I went to in the Medios Caminantes track was Open Source Internet Radio with Flujos-Vivos Live CD

The Flujos-Vivos Live CD is an operating system completely comprised
of free open source software that lets you stream audio over the
Internet. It includes diverse applications, from Web navigation to
instant messaging, sound editing, audio format conversion, extracting
audio from a CD and Internet radio streaming. In this workshop, we will
introduce the Flujos-Vivos tool to community radio groups in the
United States (and anyone interested in starting a community radio
station!). Our objective is to support radio enthusiasts in using free
open source software to produce their programs.

Este Live-CD flujos-vivos es un sistema operativo integrado
completamente por Software Libre en base a la distribución Debian y está
orientado a la publicación y transmisión de audio en el Internet.
Dispone de diversas aplicaciones que lo hacen adecuado a cualquier tipo
de tareas relacionadas con el audio y el Internet, desde navegar por
Internet o usar mensajería instantánea, editar audio, convertir
formatos de audio, extraer audio de un disco compacto y, por supuesto,
hacer streaming. Una de las principales características de un live-cd
es que el sistema está preparado para ser utilizado directamente
desde el CD, sin necesidad de realizar ninguna instalación o modificar
los datos del disco duro de tu computadora. En este taller, daramos a
conocer la herramienta Flujos-Vivos a las comunidades de radios
comunitarias radicadas en los Estados Unidos. A través del taller
explicaremos en que consiste esta herramienta y su uso. Nuestro
objetivo principal es facilitar el acercamiento de los radioastas al
uso de los softwares libres y de fuente abierta para la realización de
sus programas.

This workshop basicallyused a CD created by the Flujos Vivos Collective based in Mexico. The cd allows you to boot your computer as a Linux machine and includes a variety of open source software to start your own streaming radio station.

I must admit that this workshop felt a little overwhelming pero I found the walkthrough helpful and want to try and use one of my old laptops that has a problem with the OS to start a streaming radio station. Radio VivirLatino anyone? The Flujos Vivos Collective shared the CD free of charge as well as handouts. You can also access a downloadable file to make your own Live CD on their website.

Let’s see how this goes this summer.

The fact that there was a Spanish language track at the AMC brought up many issues for me. I have collaborated with people before who would use the fact that I work primarily in English as a way to delegitimize my identity as Latina. Even though I am fairly fluent, I feel my guard go up because of the ways I have been attacked for using Spanglish. Participating in these two workshops reminded me that Spanish is my language too and how I want to incorporate it in my work here and in other spaces.