The Politics of María

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Happy Friday to our community of 740 newsletter subscribers on our 16th week of publishing a daily post from Monday to Friday.

We are starting to hit a nice cadence and will continue to play around a bit with what we publish and why. Yet, similar to the early days of Latino Rebels in 2011, the stickiness is forming.

The Latino Newsletter is also working on the Latino Election Project with New England Public Media (NEPM News). Part of our Phase 1 strategy was to see how we teach journalism production. For me, teaching has been incredibly gratifying. NEPM News has approved our five pitches, and our team will start preproduction next week. The students have been fantastic production colleagues.

Just three months in, organic interest in The Latino Newsletter is growing. I was skeptical about doing this all over again. It’s massively difficult to build a brand-new community from scratch in 2024, I would tell myself since June.

Now, I am seeing a viable path from Phase 1 to a more ambitious Phase 2. The journalism being published daily has been pretty spectacular for an independent nonprofit startup. This week, we published Carlos’ latest political story from Puerto Rico and Adrian’s debut piece, a strong Q&A with Paola Ramos.

The key now is to keep building a strong foundation.

To quote Karen Carpenter…

Time for this week’s podcast episode.

Episode 9: The Politics of María

Puerto Rico is in the middle of a very intense election cycle. Besides the voter registration mess Carlos wrote about, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo published another blockbuster story about alleged voter fraud in the electoral process. Then there are the Bad Bunny billboards. This all happened as Democrats are reminding Puerto Rican voters in U.S. swing states about Donald Trump’s lack of leadership during Hurricane María in 2017.

It got me thinking more about the politics of Hurricane María in the 2024 U.S. election cycle. Yeah, I know it’s niche, but in a state like Pennsylvania, are the politics of María the right way to win over Puerto Rican voters? I invited Tanzina Vega, who I met in 2012 when she was at The New York Times. Then I followed Tanzina’s career at CNN and as the host of “The Takeaway” on WNYC. Tanzina has always covered Puerto Rico, along with all the national work she produced and led. I thought we would have a strong conversation about 2024 U.S. electoral politics and Puerto Rican voters.

I wasn’t disappointed. Tanzina brought it during the 24-minute conversation.

Here is the show.

If you like what you hear and want to be notified of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, or iHeart Radio. We are also on YouTube.

We are also posting all episodes here at The Latino Newsletter.

Thanks for listening!

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What We’re Watching

Challenging Election Lies Targeting Latinos & Immigrants: This was a live webinar I wanted to catch. I didn’t catch it, but a recording of the entire webinar is here.

About the Author

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder and interim publisher of The Latino Newsletter.

Do you believe in creating new journalism lanes for Latinos and Latinas? Do you believe that U.S. mainstream outlets will never understand our community? Consider donating to The Latino Newsletter. Any little bit helps to keep this newsletter free and accessible to all. ¡Gracias mil!