Audio Spanish-language station reaches out to rural Hispanic population (story audio) Photos DJ Guadalupe Chavez Radio Variedades founder Tim King DJ Yesenia Chavez View full slideshow (4 images) Resources KEYL Radio Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

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Spanish-language station reaches out to rural Hispanic population
by Annie Baxter, Minnesota Public Radio
March 18, 2004

Guadalupe Chavez and his niece Yesenia host Long Prairie's Spanish language radio program. The program has been around for two years. (MPR Photo/Annie Baxter)

Minnesota boasts about a dozen Spanish language radio programs. Those programs serve the nearly 30,000 Minnesota Latinos who, according to recent census figures, say they don't speak English well or at all. But not many Spanish language programs broadcast in rural towns. That situation's changing in Long Prairie, a rural town about 60 miles northwest of St Cloud. A radio program there is reaching out to the town's burgeoning Hispanic population.

Long Prairie, Minn. — Sunday afternoons on KEYL Radio in Long Prairie, a show called Radio Variedades fills the airwaves with Mexican folk music. At the same time it fills a very real need. It's the only Spanish language media outlet in the area. Guadalupe and Yesenia Chavez, the two DJs, peer at each other from behind their microphones. They're an uncle/niece team. Their two-and-half-hour program consists mostly of music, but they also read a children's story every week. And sometimes they conduct interviews with Spanish-speaking community leaders. In recent months, they've featured a doctor, a midwife, and an expert in immigration issues.

	Radio Variedades founder Tim King

Tim King leans against a back wall in the studio and watches the show. He's the show's founder, and a local freelance journalist.

About two years ago, he noticed a growing number of Mexican immigrants around town. Nearly one-third of the town's 3,000 residents are Hispanic. King wanted his new neighbors to have their own media voice.

"They struggle to learn English, and they do a really good job of it," King says. "And it seemed to me that there ought to be a venue where they can just relax and be at home, and feel that their native tongue is valuable."

Yesenia Chavez, 18, came on board the show about a year ago. She works full time at a meatpacking plant.

Yesenia says she had no radio experience, but she learned quickly. Now she fields a couple hundred calls per show. People phone in with music requests and questions about social services. Sometimes they're just looking for friendly advice.

	DJ Yesenia Chavez

Yesenia says she gets so many calls that she sometimes handles questions in her free time, off-air.

"I give my home phone number, and my directions to my house," Yesenia says with a shrug. "And they can call me, and I can try to help."

The volume of calls points to a bigger need.

"Their number one need is information," says Flora Calderon-Steck, professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University.

Calderon-Steck and three colleagues recently conducted a survey of Latino communities in rural Minnesota towns, including Long Prairie. Calderon-Steck says results of their survey were surprising -- the majority of Latino immigrants interviewed ranked the need for information above their need for child care, job training, and health services.

	Long Prairie resident Guadalupe Montanez

"They feel very disconnected from the wider community, and have very little information about what's going on in the community, especially programs and services," Calderon-Steck says.

Calderon-Steck says Radio Variedades can help distribute that information, and give social services the opportunity to speak directly to the Hispanic community -- to families who tune in every week. The Montanez family numbers among them. Guadalupe Montanez says it's important to have a Spanish language resource like Radio Variedades in town. He says the program they did on immigration was a good opportunity to get information.

"The questions callers asked were good, and useful," Montanez says, as his son translates.

So far, Radio Variedades offers more music than news. But its producers hope that will change. Its growth will depend on support from advertising sponsors. That support has been consistent so far.

For now, the radio program is whetting the appetite of people who are hungry for information, and who will likely continue to ask for more.

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