4.4 Chapter 22 expansion of mass media in spanish in the united

This manuscript has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and endorsed by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of education administration. In addition to publication in the Connexions Content Commons, this module is published in the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, Volume 5, Number 1 (January – March 2010). Formatted and edited in Connexions by Julia Stanka, Texas A&M University.

A reflection on the expansion of mass media in spanish in the united states: the success story of la opinión of los angeles

Dr. Juan José García

On October 2, 1808, the Spanish-speaking people of New Orleans found out that in May of that year, there had been an insurrection in Madrid. Five months before El Misisipi, the first newspaper in Spanish known in the United States, told the news (Gutiérrez, l980, p. 8).

While living in Denver, Colorado, in 1970, I had to go all the way to Mexico for two weeks merely to witness, on television, some of the matches of the World Soccer Championship that were being held there.

On February 23, 1981, the day that Spain came close to losing its democracy with the assault to Congress, I, being in my apartment in Pasadena, was shocked to hear the events on a damaged old radio that I had while narrating it to colleagues and professors of the university on the phone.

Nowadays, one can follow the important events in Spain and of the whole world: newspapers, radios, and televisions in Spanish no longer have borders and we can follow all the events. Besides, the great spider web has caught us all in its network, putting the communication channels within reach.

43.5 million

I will tell a couple of brief personal experiences because I include myself within the 43.5 million Hispanics or Latinos in the United States (Synovate, U.S. Hispanic Market Report 2004 - I am going to use his numbers in rest of this lecture). I see that in Spain they continue to speak of 40 million Hispanic or Latinos in the United States, all of whom are being reached by all the internal and external mass media, as well as domestic politicians and those of other countries, for they think that that enormous human group "still speaks Spanish," according to the poem "Ode to Roosevelt" by Rubén Darío (1867-1916). At least they speak or they act as if they believed it.

The good thing is that they consider us important. The bad thing is that it is not true that the 43.5 million or more Hispanics or Latinos of the last updated census in fact speak Spanish. Perhaps it does not matter, since it is not about getting to the head or heart of anybody, but to our pockets or to "add a ballot to the box," as María would say to José Gabriel and Galán. We are important as a group for sure in that sense, due to the fact that we are becoming more and more numerous and more well off, and we have learned our way to the ballot boxes perfectly well. Almost eight million Latinos (7,593,536) voted in the general elections of 2004, according to the Office of the Census, 2.1% more than in 2000 (5,934,258). The data reveal that 16,088,000 Latinos above 18-years-old were qualified to vote in 2004. Fifty-seven point nine percent registered and only 47.2% voted, as opposed to the data, in 2000, 13,158,000 were able to vote, 57.3% registered, and 45.1% voted.