Going Home

11/17/08 01:54:30 am, by Anthony Minne
Categories: Southwest

El Central - Mexicantown's community newspaper

Standing inside the courtyard of El Club Mexicantown Fiesta Center at 4114 W. Vernor Highway, in southwest Detroit’s Mexicantown, one feels as though they are in old Mexico.

Networks of ivy grow up exposed brick walls and a variety of flowers planted from seed seem to pop out from everywhere among scattered decorations and ornaments that were saved from the trash.

One of the barriers of the garden, a fence with barbed wire wrapped around the top of it, however, reminds visitors of the realities of the surrounding urban area.

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Vernor Highway is the main drag of Mexicantown, filled with bakeries, restaurants and businesses, where demographically over half of the residents are Hispanic.

The Fiesta Center’s owner, Dolores Sanchez, is also the owner of El Central Hispanic News, a free weekly paper that is Michigan’s longest running bi-lingual Hispanic newspaper, located right next door at 4124 W. Vernor Highway.

El Central, according to Ms. Sanchez, has a circulation of 14,000, with four full time employees, some part-time contributors and photographers and has correspondents in Lansing and Grand Rapids.

El Central focuses on issues that are important to the Hispanic community, like cultural and community events in the area as well as immigration stories from all over the U.S.

“El Central has published stories on topics like family literacy, home repair and home ownership programs,” says Bob O’Brien, vice-president of development for Southwest Solutions, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to human services and economic development in the area.

Professor Jose Cuello, associate professor of history and Chicano-Boricua studies at Wayne State University, also writes for El Central. He says the newspaper’s national and international stories, particularly on immigration, received through a news provider, supply him news not covered in local papers or The New York Times.

Like most newspapers, sports are an integral part of El Central. Every one of Detroit’s sporting events is covered by the newspaper and its sports writers and photographers are given full access to games, locker rooms and players.

Sanchez does not rely on grants to run her operation, and lacks a large reporting staff so the Fiesta Center helps bring the community to El Central.

Professor Cuello, says that “without a large reporting staff, El Central relies on the Fiesta Center for community outreach. Networking is important, I can go down to the Fiesta Center and meet with friends and also talk with members of community organizations and the business community.”

Another way El Central reaches out to the community is by offering free ad space to community organizations that otherwise could not afford to advertise, and also by offering the Fiesta Center free of charge for any community gathering.

“She offers the Fiesta Center free for community events and gets a little money back from the drinks and food, for her it’s putting community news in the paper, and she gets promotion, but also promotes a positive Latino image,” says Professor Cuello.

Sanchez started the newspaper in 1987 after she saw a niche in the market for a Hispanic news outlet in the area.

She bought the abandoned building and vacant lot that houses the Fiesta Center and courtyard intending to both revitalize the areas but also to turn them into areas that would serve the community. “The Fiesta Center, allows for a networking experience, for our community,” said Sanchez. “It allows individuals to interact and support each other. It also serves as a place where issues can be addressed in the community on a moments notice.”

Sanchez says that the Fiesta Center has attracted local business owners, members of community organizations and even politicians, from members of Detroit’s city council to state representatives to national figures like George P. Bush (son of Jeb Bush), former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham and former presidential candidate John Kerry and his family.

The Fiesta Center is open for business Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There is a full bar and space for salsa dancing classes. If you go, don’t ask for anything fancy: most people order either beer or tequila. The space can also be rented out for parties and events.

“I love this place,” says Charli Childers a Brownstown resident that used to live in southwest Detroit for 20 years. “There’s a variety of people from artists, professors, students and neighborhood people.”

The idea of Sanchez having ownership of both the newspaper and the bar right next door may be misconstrued. It surprised me, I’m a journalism student and they constantly cram this stuff down our throats about the separation of church (business) and state (news). It could be argued that El Central’s role as impartial and objective news outlet is threatened by the neighboring business.

Tom Gromak, the news and technical editor of the Detroit News online, has worked in small papers in Michigan for twenty years. He says that he is not surprised by the ownership of the two businesses and sees no problem with it.

“I don’t see a conflict of interest,” said Gromak. “Being that close to the community is really what small newspapers are all about, they are essentially networks.”

Gromak also says that publishers of big papers are usually involved with community organizations and directly interacting with the public, so what’s the difference. “At the News (Detroit News) we have dinners that we call focus groups, where 20-30 members of the public come in to our offices, eat pizza and give us feedback on the paper.”

In today’s media climate of corporate-owned newspapers, independently-owned newspapers are a rarity. Gromak says that the small papers don’t operate like the news giants that have to cover a huge amount of area and a wide range of topics.

“It’s really hard to get that close to the community,” says Gromak. “It’s hard to get that grassroots when you have reporters covering Sterling Heights one day and St. Clair Shores the next.”

Elena Herrada, director of Centro Obrero, a center for immigrant workers in southwest Detroit, an organization that often receives free ad space in El Central, says Sanchez “wants to make money, but still has a sense of fair place. She takes her responsibility seriously and has an important role in the community.”

On the subject of the newspaper and the Fiesta Center, Herrada says, “without them there would be a gaping hole in the community.”

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