NewsTaco’s One Year Birthday Is Today
So NewsTaco’s “official” one-year anniversary is today, but if I were to really try to put a date on when NewsTaco was born, I could take it back to my own birthday — or that of any of the other NewsTaco founders. Or even the day that Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, launching an entirely new era of human history, since today is Día de la Raza. Or perhaps a more appropriate date would be the Louisiana Purchase or the arrival of the first braceros, or…
The point is, NewsTaco was a long time coming, and now that we’re here, we want to say thank you to all of the readers, friends, supporters, interviewees, parters and everyone else who has helped us grow to where we are today. I, personally, cannot believe it’s been just a year — NewsTaco has consumed so much of my life so quickly!? — but at the same time, our world does change and grow much more quickly these days, thanks to the pervasiveness of the Internet and social media.
In one short year we’ve gone through several design iterations, we lost our dear friend and co-founder Carlos Guerra, we branched out from Texas to the rest of the country, we’re establishing ourselves in LA, we’ve gone from dozens (thanks all of my family and friends!) to tens of thousands of readers, it’s no longer just Victor Landa and myself writing, but we have published dozens of writers from all over the country.
What I meant to hint at with my historical ramblings is to say that, after so many years of biding our time, Latinos are arriving as a truly powerful presence in this country — and that’s exciting. How NewsTaco, as a Latino-owned and Latino-run media platform, aims to do is provide a place where we can talk about these changes and figure out what it means to each one of us, but together. My favorite thing about working with NewsTaco has been being able to learn from our contributors, readers and commenters.
Although I will admit that sometimes it’s not easy being nudged in so many directions by so many people with so many different perspectives, I feel I have a much better understanding for who I am as part of a group as part of a nation. Being a Latina, an American, a woman, a twentysomething, a lover of rock music and trucker hats, a sometime cumbia dancer, a devout “NCIS” fan and chile lover is a lot more fun when I’m part of a community of people who may not necessarily be “like-minded,” but who can at least understand the seeming incongruity of all those parts of myself because, well, they share that seeming incongruity.
So thanks to everyone who has helped to make NewsTaco a success and a community where we can come together and talk about us, or our country, or you know, just ourselves. And, by way of reminder, if you want to give us a birthday present, here’s how you can help:
- Invite your friends to join us.
- Sign up for our email newsletter.
- Invite your friends to follow us on Facebook.
- Donate to NewsTaco.
- Follow us on Twitter.
- Spread the word any way you can about the work we do here.
