Online magazine La Phoenikera aims to fill gap in Latino coverage
Latinos won’t go to film festivals. They aren’t interested in English-language rock. They don’t care about contemporary art.
At least, that’s what Eduardo Bernal was told when he worked for mainstream media outlets.
“There were times I would get really frustrated, because Latino Millennials do care about immigration and the economy and traditional aspects of our culture — but not only those things,” he said. “That narrative of ‘Traditionally, Latinos don’t do X’ doesn’t necessarily apply to us.”
While Bernal, 34, was writing for newspapers, 31-year-old Nuvia Enriquez was working in radio. She saw the same “gap in arts and culture coverage from a Latino perspective,” she said.
After years of lamenting that void,
the pair decided to fill it, launching an online magazine, La Phoenikera, in March.
The bilingual publication’s name pays homage to its birthplace — “La Phoeniquera” has long been a Spanish nickname for the Phoenix area. It offers food, music, film, politics and events coverage that Enriquez said “isn’t being done otherwise.”
The tone is cheeky, peppered with expletives and the occasional hangover mention. But the analysis is shrewd, from context about marginalized indigenous groups to recommendations for a proposed Latino cultural center in Phoenix.
“We don’t have formal coverage guidelines yet, but we do have some big questions we try to answer,” Enriquez said. “What are Phoenikeros (Phoenix residents) producing? Who is an unusual suspect we could highlight? What’s being ignored? What’s happening that’s shaping the city?”
The two attempt to tackle those questions from a bicultural point of view, Enriquez said.
“Bicultural” generally refers to Latinos who aren’t immigrants themselves but grew up around immigrants or have other connections to Latin culture. They represent a growing segment of both the Arizona and U.S. media markets, according to Aleena Astorga Roeschley, research director and multicultural expert at marketing firm Communicus.
“Bicultural Hispanics live in two worlds and can change how they act and react, depending on the situation they’re put in,” she said. “They might lean toward English, for instance, but Hispanicspecific occasions and references still resonate with them.”
Advertisers and the media “for a long time have been catering to unacculturated recent immigrants or Hispanic families, and not so much the bicultural Millennial Hispanic,” Roeschley said. “Now, they’re starting to realize, ‘There’s this whole consumer segment that we’re not reaching out to.’ ”
Authenticity will be key as corporations and publications increasingly target a bicultural audience, Roeschley said.
“Hispanics know the difference between a stereotype and a nuance,” Roeschley said. “They know the difference between ‘Oh, this is a white executive assuming all Hispanics love soccer’ and ‘This is a funny joke, playing off something I remember from my childhood, that my (non-Latino) counterparts wouldn’t get.’
“When you’re talking to this group, it’s important to do your homework and understand the overlapping cultures.”
Bernal, who is Bolivian-American, and Enriquez, who is Mexican-American, believe they’ve done both.
However, they don’t want their voices to be the only ones La Phoenikera features. “We have to make the site sustainable before we can pay contributors, but ideally, this would become a platform for other Phoenikeros to voice their opinions or cover what interests them,” Bernal said. “We would love to collaborate with artists and content creators who wouldn’t traditionally approach the media.”
Enriquez agreed, saying she is hypersensitive about “boxing in” La Phoenikera readers or contributors after being on the receiving end of ethnic stereotypes.
“If there’s awesome fashion being produced by Native American groups, we’re going to talk about that,” she said. “Or if there’s something going on with (downtown Phoenix DJ) Djentrification, there’s no way we wouldn’t talk about him just because he’s not Latino.
“I see a strong and vibrant culture scene and a lot of people trying to make this city thrive. We want to be part of that as well.”