2014 Community Scholar in Residence

For the past six years, I have served as an advisor for Venceremos, the University of Utah’s only bilingual, Chicana/o student newspaper. This publication is dedicated to improving the “quality of life for Chicana/o communities on campus, throughout the city, state, and southwestern region of the United States,” as well as a vehicle with which to “expose and oppose the negative depictions of Chicana/os which often appear in the media of the dominant culture.” In that time, I have supervised over 60 students—primarily students of color—to produce 19 issues using a practice they define as Chicana/o journalism. Advocacy is a key element of Chicana/o journalism, as contributors seek to empower their readers to think critically and engage in activities that can transform their communities. As a result, the majority of over 100,000 copies of Venceremos that have been published in that time have been distributed for free in Rose Park, Glendale, Fair Park, People’s Freeway, West Point, Taylorsville, West Valley, and West Jordan.

Given this emphasis, I wanted to get a better sense of the impact Venceremos has on our readers. Did the content feel informative? Empowering? Transformative? It was with the intent of gauging Venceremos’ impact on the residents of west side neighborhoods where Venceremos is primarily distributed that I applied for the UNP Community Scholar in Residence funding. Additionally, I hoped to assess how participating in the production of Venceremos influences the civic engagement of its contributors. A last goal was to strengthen the capacity and sustainability of Venceremos as both a campus and community publication, so that it could continue to publish with the same frequency and quality.

To date, the data collection with past and present Venceremos contributors has been the most fruitful aspect of this project. A focus group of 12 contributors and a survey of another 6 contributors revealed that their work on Venceremos has impacted their life in several ways. A significant finding from this data is that a large number of contributors act as mentors for youth in their families and communities, encouraging them to pursue higher education and helping them to develop a critical racial consciousness and consider this an invaluable form of activism that will have the greatest impact transforming their communities.

A mail-in paper survey was designed and printed for Venceremos readership. Response rate for the first round of surveys was unsuccessful. A third attempt will occur this fall and spring. A collaboration between Venceremos and the high school youth participating in Mestizo Arts and Activism is underway this year, as a way to strengthen the sustainability of Venceremos. Lastly, a surprising finding of this project has been identifying a predecessor to Venceremos, a Chicano student newspaper from the 1970s, a publication titled Peldaños. I was able to interview the student editor of this publication who shed light on the role and function of ethnically-based alternative journalism within society and its long-term impact on its contributors. I am currently conducting a content analysis of the archived copies of Peldaños in order to compare its content with that of Venceremos.