I like that phrase, Saber es Poder, or Knowledge is Power or Strength. It is a concept that I remember was important in my family as I grew up. It wasn’t actually verbalized, but it was lived daily in my parents’ lives. Neither of my parents were “educated,” they didn’t receive high school educations, but they did learn to read. My father completed the 2nd grade in Mexico, and my mother was Texas born so she got at least a 3rd grade education. My older brothers wrote home while they were in the military or in college and my mother would respond in her simple writing. My father taught himself to read in English and was always reading the Houston newspapers. It was important to him to know what was going on in the world. There wasn’t a Spanish newspaper for him to read about the issues that were facing Hispanics in Mexico and the United States. But he did inform himself and he made it clear to us that an education was important, literacy was important.
Now there are a number of Spanish newspapers in the United States or English newspapers that focus on the needs of the Latino. One that I remember my family talking about is La Opinion from Los Angeles, California. On September 16, this Spanish newspaper will celebrate its 75 anniversary. Ignacio Lozano came from Mexico at age 22. He worked, saved his money, and then founded the newspaper La Prensa de San Antonio in 1913 at 27 years of age. The newspaper still exists. In 1926 he later founded La Opinion. His goal was to be the observer of the community and report to the immigrants of the region the activities that affected them and also report how the community was evolving over the years. Three generations have continued their mission of informing Latino immigrants.
That newspaper and others like it are now on the Internet. I’ll give you the names of a few of the ones I’ve found.
- La Opinion
- La Prensa de San Antionio
- La Voz de Aztlan-English our of Colorado
- La Voz de Houston
- Mundo Hispanico-Georgia
- El Bohemio News
- El diario/ la Prensa-New York
- El Informador Hispano-Texas
- El Latino-California
- El Mensajero-California
- El Mundo-Massachusetts
- El Mundo California
- El Nuevo Herald Florida
- El Pregonero-Maryland
- El Sol de Texas
- Horizontes-California
What is so wonderful is that Latin America is so easy to reach through Periodico’s Latinos Americanos (Latin American Newspapers) (esta pagina web tambien -Ed.). This internet site will list with a link to all of the newspapers in Mexico, Central, and South America.
My concern isn’t that there are so many ways of getting news in Spanish. My concern is that attitudes exist about Latino immigrants that would make you believe that they’re not interested in literacy. Attitudes such as, they’re not literate, they have so little education, they had 2 years of education, or they do not have an interest in reading. I’ve heard this so often from professionals, including speech language pathologists who think that immigrant families are not literate because they’re not interested in the pamphlets of information that are sent home or left in the waiting areas of clinics or schools. Literacy is important. These families know it. To generalize an opinion that literacy is not valued by Hispanic families on the basis of some family behaviors, by a misperception by other professionals, or that literacy is not something attainable after as an adult, and especially for individuals who are poor, is not extending the hope that these families brought with them for themselves and their children.
There is so much that can be relayed to families about the community through the internet. It is a matter of downloading those key articles that affect them and then sharing these with families through meetings, bulletin boards, hand-outs sent home with the children, or just passing them along to neighborhood stores. We need to know the needs of our community and then share the information from sources such as the internet. Literacy can be taught to children through the actions of their parents. We can’t just give out children’s books and expect parents to understand the content when it doesn’t have cultural relevance and meaning to them. Children can learn the importance of literacy not only by being read to them, but also by observing their parents reading and discussing the events and issues that affect their lives.
