"The press was supposed to represent the people’s voice, and it doesn’t do that anymore. Blogs allow people to take back what was theirs." |
There are Latino bloggers out there. A soon-to-be released, online survey of AOL users found that Latinas were more likely to blog than any other ethnic group. But finding them is not easy, and unearthing those that go beyond personal diary fare is even more rare.
More Latina Bloggers
Chica Rites
CraftyChica
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Blog, blog, blog, Latinos lift the conversation
Mami never let a store manager, head doctor, or any other person in charge of a poorly functioning organization get away without knowing exactly how she felt.
“They overcharged me for the chicken cutlets again! That’s it. I’m gonna give them a piece of my mind!”
As a housewife who spent a brief stint typing 75 words per minute for Citibank in New York City, my mother could have been a contender in today’s blogosphere along with Marisa Treviño, Gustavo Arellano and Gwendolyn Zepeda. Each is using the Internet to push envelopes, agendas and voices still marginalized in mainstream media.
“The press was supposed to represent the people’s voice, and it doesn’t do that anymore,” says Treviño, the voice of Latina Lista (latinalista.blogspot.com/), “a viewpoint on anything and everything from a Latina perspective” since August 2004. “Blogs allow people to take back what was theirs.”
As she waited for her flight back to Dallas at the San Jose, Calif., airport, fresh from the second annual BlogHer conference held in July (www.blogher.org/about-blogher-conference-06), Treviño, 48, could still hear the echoes of squealing women meeting their blog comadres in the flesh. Out of the estimated 700 who attended, she met four Latinas.
“So many of us are creative, articulate and you don’t have to be tech savvy in order to get a blog, so I find it really curious there are not more Latinas out there,” says Treviño, who felt obligated to fill the void of Latino bloggers analyzing the immigration debate when it broke earlier this year.
There are Latino bloggers out there. A soon-to-be released, online survey of AOL users found that Latinas were more likely to blog than any other ethnic group. But finding them is not easy, and unearthing those that go beyond personal diary fare is even more rare. Scrolling through a Google search yields a short list that includes Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos) and VivirLatino (vivirlatino.com/).
Apparently there’s a niche to be filled because mommies, journalists, marketers, CEOs, the Koreans, the French, the Japanese and the whole rest of the world are blogging, and some are building income by posting ads on their sites.
Treviño, who edits Ideas Magazine for the newspaper industry (www.inma.org/ideas2.cfm), says blogs are the way to get readers back to the editorial pages. “People are reading blogs, and blogs are editorials in a different format–there’s an audience for that.”
Blogger-turned-journalist Gustavo Arellano, 27, proves that point with his column, “Ask a Mexican” (www.ocweekly.com/columns/ask-a-mexican/ask-a-mexican/25657/), which destroys stereotypes about Mexicans while cultivating a new audience for the alternative weekly Village Voice Media group. His column now appears in the OC Weekly, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, Houston Press, Nashville Scene, Dallas Observer, Phoenix New Times, Kansas City Pitch and Albuquerque Weekly Alibi.
Since November 2004, both print and online readers have been sending Arellano questions like, “Why do you people stink?” and “Why are Mexican girls so beautiful when they are teenagers, then over the years, they become fat, old bags?”
“The entire column is meant to be a joke. It’s ridiculous. But the fact that it is so popular shows where we are in this country,” says Arellano, a “first-generation American, fourth-generation naranjero.” “Some ask about Banda or Norteña…some are flat-out racist. I can either allow those questions to disappear in the air or confront them head on.”
It’s Arellano’s way of adding a Mexican perspective to the public forum.
“I always tell people that Latinos should become the media…and it’s so much easier now to have your views out there by just going to Blogger.com or Typepad (www.sixapart.com/typepad/), so you become the daily paper.”
Now Arellano, who also writes investigative articles and is a food critic for OC Weekly, has a book deal with Simon & Schuster and will release a compilation of his columns on Cinco de Mayo 2007. It’s a dream outcome for writers who start blogging not to sell ads or conduct market research, but because it is a natural extension of their art.
“I had no idea I would sell a book when I started [my blog],” says Gwendolyn Zepeda, author of the 2004 short-story collection, “To the Last Man I Slept With and All the Jerks Just Like Him” and the blog, “Gwen’s Petty, Judgmental, Evil Thoughts” (www.gwenworld.com/).
In 1997, Zepeda, 34, visited what was then called an online diary and thought she would die of boredom. “I told my friends I could do better, so I did it to show off. I think that’s what drives me to write…”
A single mother of three living in Houston, Zepeda has a way of capturing readers of any ethnic, economic or geographic background with her biting wit and honesty.
“There’s nothing I can do or say that people don’t e-mail me and say, ‘Oh, me too,’ ” she says. In her signature honest style, she adds, “Ninety percent of blogs are terrible, self-absorbed and poorly written. Most of them are bad, so they don’t really last.”
For Zepeda, writing to an audience validated her talent. Without the blog, her books would be mere dust-collectors, and she wouldn’t have attracted Warner Books to give her a book deal.
The career success is a perk, but her reason for blogging remains pure. “No matter what you’re going through or how crazy or bad it is, someone else is going through it,” Zepeda says. “And knowing that makes you feel so secure in the world.”
Just imagine how many Latinas my mom could have shared her chicken cutlet angst with…
Kemila Velan, president of Biscayne Writers Inc. in Miami and editor of The Angel Journal, has recently started her own blog, “The Devil’s Advocate” (http://www.theangeljournal.com/news/Default.aspx?tabid=72) to offer the minority point of view to the powers that be.
Su Conexión
More Latino bloggers
Vivirlatino: vivirlatino.com/
Chica Rites by Tennille Martinez: chicarites.blogspot.com/
Ruth Kunstadter: www.chispaproductions.blogspot.com/
Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos: hastalosgatosquierenzapatos.blogspot.com/
Nancy Marmolejo, “The Local Diaries”: www.nancita.blogspot.com/
Cathy Cano Murillo, “CraftyChica”: www.craftychica.com/blogs/diary/
