Hispanic students produce online news in Spanish, English

Hispanic students at California State University at Northridge publish their own multimedia web page and blogs, called El Nuevo Sol, with stories in Spanish and English.

Above is a screenshot from a blog on performing arts called Trendz LA that is part of the site.

Jóvenes indocumentados luchan por educarse from Jessica Retis on Vimeo.

Students produced a multimedia package, with video and text in Spanish, about the struggle of undocumented students to get an education in the U.S.

Another student blog, called AmericaTropical, has articles by students in both English and Spanish on a variety of topics. Here´s one in Spanish on the laws to prevent hate crimes.

A Mexican professor with a vision

El Nuevo Sol is the project of Professor José Luis Benavides, a native of Mexico City who left in the 1980s to get his master´s and doctoral degrees at the University of Texas.

California State already has a student publication in English, called the Sundial, but Benavides wanted to develop a news medium for the Hispanic students in his classes, many of them with Mexican heritage.

Multilingüe, multimedia y multicultural

His vision is to train Hispanic students to work in the many Spanish-language media outlets in Los Angeles, whose Hispanic population is 48%, and elsewhere in the U.S. To do this they must develop the skills to be, in his words, "multilingüe, multimedia y multicultural."

He offers courses in Latino Journalism and advises students on the El Nuevo Sol website.

Professor Benavides´s project serves an important need because many Spanish-language news outlets in the States have a difficult time recruiting journalists with the required language skills.

Here´s another example of a student´s multimedia package, this one an audio slideshow about the language barrier.

Las barreras del lenguaje from Jessica Retis on Vimeo.