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“Maquilajournalism” or the death of the U.S. Latino journalist

12:55 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism|California|Media · 3 Comments

28 Oct 2005

Latino residents of the San Francisco Bay Area got a big disappointment this week when Knight-Ridder, the company that owns the San Jose Mercury News, announced that they would be eliminating their Spanish-language publication, Nuevo Mundo. It seems that just when there is a boom in demand for Spanish-language content to respond to advertisers’ needs to reach the market, Nuevo Mundo is making a sudden exit.

The Rabbi habla español

8:05 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Religion · 4 Comments

25 Oct 2005

A synagogue in Florida is looking to attract Latino congregants and is using the preferred tool of marketers these days — español:

Beginning next month, Sabbath services at Temple Beth Torah/Tamarac Jewish Center will be conducted in Spanish and Hebrew.

Spanish religious services will continue the second Friday of every month in an effort to entice the Argentines, Cubans, Peruvians and Colombians to attend.

It is just part of the movement in Broward and Palm Beach counties to attract Latin American Jews and to change with the new demographics.

I am admittedly ignorant about Jewish culture, but I never knew that synagogues were in the business of recruiting new congregants to the religion the way Christian churches are. Or are they reaching out the an already existing base of Spanish-speaking Jews? And is that base so large so as to constitute a decision to conduct services in Spanish?

Temple Beth Torah Rabbi Michael Gold says he sees this addition as a chance to grow his 600-household synagogue that started in 1972 in a small storefront. Gold isn’t sure how many Spanish speakers attend now, but he thinks there are about 20 to 30 families. He’s pretty certain that number is going to grow. Services in English and Hebrew will remain at 6 p.m. Fridays.

The need to change toward becoming multilingual “is a reality,” Gold said. “If we do this once a month, they would bring family, and they’ll bring friends and they’ll become part of the mainstream.”

I think it’s great for Spanish to be available at all houses of worship for whomever would like to receive service in their native language — I’m just surprised that the demand is so presumably high. I’m also surprised that an ancient religion such as Judaism is more open to reaching people in their native language than so-called modern Fortune 500 companies. Latino marketing in the synagogue — who knew?

Via / The Orlando Sentinel and Hispanic Tips

Inglés sin barreras?

1:08 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism|Entertainment|Marketing · 1 Comment

24 Oct 2005

Is a Latino artist’s career “sin barreras” when they decide to record in English, like Shakira, Ricky Martin, etc. or can they make it big without going crossover and recording only in Spanish? The Boston Globe has a very interesting piece that ponders this very question:

But Leila Cobo, Billboard magazine’s bureau chief for Miami and Latin America, doubts these artists can achieve a high level of success unless they embrace English. ”If you want to do some kind of crossover,” Cobo says, ”usually you do need to have some language connection. Reggaeton is just the big exception to all the rules. And even so, these artists are doing collaborations with people who are singing in English, and that’s going to prove to be their entryway.”

While I personally don’t like to see Latino artists go crossover — I think the lyrics end up suffering and the performances seem forced at times — it has worked for quite a few artists. Paulina Rubio comes to mind. The opposite has happened for Thalia. As much as she tries, with her bigwig producer husband behind her, Engligh-language audiences just don’t warm up to her. Should she care? The Globe goes on:

With more than 41 million Latinos living in this country and an international Latin audience willing to purchase the music, is the crossover audience even important for a Spanish-language artist?”You do need it,” Cobo says. ”If you’re an artist and all you want to do is play concerts, no. But if you’re a label and want to sell albums, yeah. Because Latin America is very, very pirated.”

Apparently the only genre that doesn’t have to worry about what language it produces music in is reggaeton. No one can really understand what they are saying anyway.

Via / The Boston Globe and Latin Music News

The Latino shift towards cable TV

1:06 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism|Marketing|TV · Comments Off

21 Oct 2005

Who knew when we were growing up and cable first burst onto the scene that twenty years later not only would we have a over ten news channels on “basic” cable, but we would also have a Spanish-language version of almost every channel available for purchase? CNN en español. ESPN en español. Discovery en español. The list goes on and on, but these bigger name channels are only the beginning. Now, not only are big names like MTV and HBO looking to replicate their mainstream market channel models in the Latino market, but there are more and more original programming concepts being thrown into the mix. According to the Miami Herald:

General-interest Spanish-language broadcasters will continue to dominate ratings and advertising sales well into the future, said Leland Westerfield, managing director of Harris Nesbitt, but the growth of niche channels such as SiTV, CasaClubTV, ESPN Deportes and others is poised to take off.

“The vast majority of Hispanic households will be receiving television through cable by the end of the decade,” Westerfield told the audience at the Hispanic Television Summit…”This reminds me of where the [general] market was in the late ’80s, early ’90s.”

And the prediction is that this trend will only grow:

During the past year, some two dozen cable channels aimed at Hispanics, in both English and Spanish, have sprung up with special-interest programming ranging from travel and home to youth and automotive.

Westerfield said more Hispanics will sign up for cable and satellite simply because “there’s a hunger for culturally-relevant programming. There is ample demand among viewers for choice of programming.”

One thing to keep in mind is that this growth cannot be attributed solely to high demand on the part of Latino television viewers. It’s also because advertisers are falling over themselves to market to Latinos and are forever clammering for new outlets by which to do this. Money being pumped into these networks by advertisers is what has truly made this shift possible. Want to market to Latino tweens? We got a channel for you. What about Latino automotive aficionados? Ford, step right up.

In this day in age, if Latinos are going to consume it, marketers are ready to fling their dollars at it. The question used to be, “how many channels do we really need?” Now, it’s how many channels in Spanish do we really need? At some point burnout will be reached. I’ve gotten to that point with cable TV, and I’m sure it will happen to viewers of Spanish-language programming in the future as well.

Via / The Miami Herald and Hispanic Business

A journey through the life of “wanderers”

12:31 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Books|Immigration · Comments Off

17 Oct 2005

Translation Nation, a book by Pulitzer prize-winning author Hector Tobar, isn’t just another rhetorical analysis of the “immigration situation” in the United States. This book, released by Riverhead Books, goes into the trenches to tell the real-life stories of people of all kinds who have ventured from their homes to make a new life in our country — those who Tobar calls “the wanderers”:

Tobar begins on familiar terrain, in his native Los Angeles, with his family’s story, along with that of two brothers of Mexican origin with very different interpretations of Americanismo, or American identity as seen through a Latin American lens-one headed for U.S. citizenship and the other for the wrong side of the law and the south side of the border. But this is just a jumping-off point. Soon we are in Dalton, Georgia, the most Spanish-speaking town in the Deep South, and in Rupert, Idaho, where the most popular radio DJ is known as “El Chupacabras.” By the end of the book, we have traveled from the geographical extremes into the heartland, exploring the familiar complexities of Cuban Miami and the brand-new ones of a busy Omaha INS station.

Translation Nation has already received high praise from critics from The New York Times and The Washington Post as a work which explores the complexity of immigration and the link shared by all Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Via / The El Paso Times and Penguin Books

Yo hablo coreano

2:20 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism · Comments Off

26 Sep 2005

I love stories of mestizaje, of cultures and languages intertwined, I guess because I am a mixed bag of idiomas and etnias myself. For that reason, today’s LA Times article on what I would call “the new face of bilingualism” made me smile. Not only does it speak to new immigrants’ capacity to adapt in the US, but also to the growing importance of Spanish in the world. This piece offers perspectives from Latinos who are learning Korean, and Koreans learning Spanish, as they live their lives side by side in Los Angeles’ Koreatown:

“At the beginning, English was very important – and it still is, if I need to go to a government office or court or get a license,” Aliaga, 32, said as he sat behind a small display case in his soccer-supply shop in Koreatown.

“For me, (learning Korean) is as important because I lived in Koreatown. Now I am able to communicate with Koreans.”

“In California, Spanish is more important than English,” said Paik, a Seoul native. “I haven’t found any inconvenience because I don’t speak English. … I don’t need to speak English. If you can speak Spanish, you can drive, employers can have clients, you can order in restaurants, you can do anything.”

Welcome to the new America.

Latinos & TV in the U.S

6:44 am By Blogs Media · TV · Comments Off

22 Sep 2005

An excellent essay about latinos and TV writted by John Sinclair: From Latin Americans to Latinos: Spanish-language television and its audiences in the United States

Two versions: English | Spanish:

(…) The 1960s – Chicanos, SICC and SIN

Spanish-language television in the US began as early as 1955, but it was not until 1961 that there were the beginnings of a network. In that year, the Spanish International Communication Corporation (SICC) launched its first station in San Antonio, followed by stations in other strategic locations over the next ten years, namely Los Angeles, New York and Miami. Programming was supplied by the Spanish International Network (SIN) from Mexico, the principal in these companies having been the founding father of the Azcárraga dynasty subsequently associated with Televisa in Mexico, although their manager was René Anselmo, a US Hispanic.

(…) Trends in the new millennium

As the situation appears in the last quarter of 2004, there has continued to be internationalization in the US Spanish-language television industry, other main trends being the expansion of the present networks, the diversification of the programming on offer, and the continued concentration of the industry in Miami.

There is further internationalization in the ownership of networks taking place, given that TV Azteca, the competitor to Televisa in Mexico and one-time collaborator with Telemundo in the US, has been seeking to develop a network in the US…

Via TELOS Magazine

Español ready for prime-time

8:23 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bilingualism|Marketing|TV · 1 Comment

16 Sep 2005

Some people have no idea what that button on their remote marked “SAP” does. Network giant ABC knows, and they want Latino viewers to use it, according to the LA Times.

This Fall, ABC will become the first English-language broadcast network to make all its prime-time programming available in the language of Cervantes. While the Spanish subtitles (or dubs) may mark a pop-culture milestone, it’s unclear they make for wise corporate strategy.

Wise or not, it was bound to happen. With the success of ABC shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives in Latin America and Spain, as well as competition in these markets from CBS’ CSI, it’s no shock that networks would want to attempt to replicate that in the US Latino market. I, for one, believe that there are many people who will take advantage of this when it is offered, and not all are monolingual Spanish speakers.

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