"Andres Cruz was media savvy even as a young boy in his hometown of Alajuela, Costa Rica, just northwest of San Jose. "In Costa Rica, the newspaper plays a very important role in society. You go to every corner, they sell papers, they have their little newsstands. My mother was a teacher, my father was a Mercedes mechanic, and so from a very early age we were introduced to the importance of media," Cruz said. "As a child, I wanted to read everything on the newsstands. It opened up the entire world." Not surprising in a country that is known for having one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
As a student of sociology at the University of Costa Rica, Cruz was active as an outreach worker in rural areas and spent time teaching the disabled. He often played music in the clubs at night and created programs to engage young people in the metropolitan area during the day. He loved community work and had no plans to become a journalist.
Late in 1993, however, Cruz came to Kentucky to study history and American politics at the University of Kentucky, met his wife, Jennifer, and decided to stay. While his wife practiced as a nurse at the University's High Risk Center, Cruz was getting to know Kentucky. "Lexington is a very fertile ground for envisioning a better community, a better world for social change," he said. "People are very friendly and it's beautiful. I was seduced by the Bluegrass little by little. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to stay and give back to this city that allowed me to study here." His parents and siblings remain in Costa Rica.
Cruz was only 22 and hadn't been in Kentucky long when Alejandro Gomez, the founder of La Voz, had another opportunity that was taking him to Baltimore. La Voz was on the market. Cruz talked with his friend, Juan Galicia, and they made an offer. He knew nothing about journalism but was confident that "being an historian is basically the same: we are (collecting) the memory of a community. We felt the Latino community needed a forum, a voice that could expose the conditions of the community, the dreams and visions of the Latino community. Given that, Juan and I felt we needed to rescue the paper."
The two men decided to make La Voz a bilingual newspaper. "We are trying to build a bridge between the Anglo-speaking community and the Spanish-speaking community. We want the Anglo community to know who we are, that we have maybe the same dreams as anybody else, that we have the same difficulties that everybody has. We try to promote understanding, respect, diversity."
The bilingual aspect of the paper also reflects the need for cross-cultural communication in society today. "We don't live in an age of monolingual societies any more," Cruz said. "We understand that for Latinos to be successful in this country, to contribute to this community, they need to learn English. It's really difficult when they work 60 to 70 hours a week, and it's not the same as learning the language at 8 or 12. Also, you cannot say in English what you can say in Spanish and vice versa."
He admits that publishing a bilingual newspaper is difficult from this perspective, taking more space and making it difficult to provide adequate coverage, at times, for important stories.
Cruz emphasizes that, as much as La Voz serves as a voice and information clearinghouse for Latinos, it serves the Anglo community as well, covering topics that affect the community as a whole. "Business, economic, environmental and health issues affect all of us," he said.
Cruz described his partner, Juan Galicia, as the "backbone of the newspaper," managing all the finances and graphic design for the paper, and he has high praise for the third member of the team, his managing editor, Randi Ewing. "There are only three of us and the structure we work with is based on democratic structure: we consult, we debate, and together we decide what stories are going to be covered and written about."
Ewing, who met Cruz when she was director of the Cardinal Valley Center, is an award-winning writer herself and has composed memorable stories of Mexican border crossings.
Asked about the issue of immigration, Cruz is direct: "I think one of the main issues in the post-9/11 era is the issue of national security, securing the borders. Every country has that right. But it's very important to realize that the Latinos are here, they are not in the shadows. They work alongside tobacco farmers and horse breeders and trainers. They own and run small businesses. They hold professional positions. It is important for the community to recognize that these people are here; they are contributing, and they are paying taxes."
He continued, "The recent LFUCG Commission's recommendation of issuing valid IDs to anybody in the city is very important. We all need to know who is here. Every community, wherever you live, has a criminal element or people who don't want to work, whatever, but the media often apply this as a stereotype for all Latinos. It doesn't define — and shouldn't define — the Latinos who are here and working hard. People need to understand that a local ID is not a right to vote; it doesn't mean you get benefits. If you're not a U.S. citizen, you cannot get benefits; that's the law."
Cruz is equally passionate about standing up for and empowering the Latino community. "At La Voz, we have been witness to the birth and development of our community, which has been an incredible privilege," he said. "Not all the money in the world can compare to what we have seen or what we have experienced with this community and this paper. We had no money when we started; we didn't get a salary. Hard times, it's true, but we are growing, we are getting more numbers, we are getting more advertisers, getting more respect."
The media business has taught Cruz many lessons, he said, including how to be humble. "You can commit a huge mistake any day, any second, any edition. You learn that every story you're covering, you must treat with high respect, because it is somebody's life. You learn that life is multi-dimensional. At La Voz, we walk the edge of being a news organization but also being an agency trying to make a positive contribution to the community."
Janet Holloway is president of j. holloway & associates and co-founder of Women Leading Kentucky. A national columnist for womenentrepreneur.com, she can be reached at: jhollow@womenleadingky.com