Spanish-Language Newspapers in Ybor City and New Mexico

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Another paper of the time was El Diario De Tampa (The Diary of Tampa) which began publication in 1908. “The periodical of political independence” was advertised in Ybor City as the only Spanish daily paper in Tampa (#10). The paper was always black and white with only a few pictures in their advertisements. Like the other papers, El Diario De Tampa covered labor relations in Ybor City. The letters to the editors were often about workers and the cigar manufacturers and other business like the shipping industry (#9). Also, even though newspapers like El International were published for much longer than El Diario De Tampa, which ended after only a few years of publication, because of their more varied coverage of national and international news, this paper seems to best represent the immigrant atmosphere previously described in Ybor City.

In June of 1908, the paper began a correspondence with in Havana. On June 9th 1908, they published the following note from a Cuban newspaper called La Lucha (The Fight) under the headline “Cries and lamentations of Cuba.”

Lo repetimos: es mas que lamentable, desconsolador, que existan miles de familias, como alguien asegura, que no tienen pan que llavar a la boca, pero esas son desdichas particulares, las cuales, debemos todos en comun, procurar que cesen, pero que en nada detienen la marcha progresiva economica de Cuba, cuyo porvenir es indudablemente risueño (8).

[We repeat: it is more than regrettable or heartbreaking, thousands of families there, as someone said, have no bread to eat, but those are private misfortunes which we all in common, [they] try to stop it, but nothing stops the march of Cuba toward a progressive economy, whose future is undoubtedly smiling.]

In line with the advocacy style of journalism described by Kanellos, El Diario De Tampa went on to describe that note as optimistic and laud the effort of the citizens in Cuba. As would be expected, most of the papers in Tampa covered news from Cuba, sometimes exclusively, because of the large percentage of the population in Ybor City that had emigrated from Cuba or had a vested interest in the politics there. Furthermore, the sympathetic coverage of what was happening in Cuba helped bring the revolutionary spirit to Ybor City.

Similarly, often on the second page of El Diario De Tampa the minutes from the Sociedad de Socorras Mutuos (the Mutual Aid Society) were published (#3). Mormino and Pozzetta offer some context regarding the development of mutual aid in Tampa. They explain that unlike immigrant neighborhoods in urban areas in the north, the people immigrating to Tampa arrived to city without the necessary infrastructure to support them. “Expansion often had to await sufficient housing; and, more important, there were no institutions, such as churches or charitable agencies, left behind [by previous immigrants] to minster to newly arrived immigrants” (176). Therefore, once again, newspapers like El Diario De Tampa seem to reflect and to serve as a catalyst for the developing community of immigrants.

However, it is the coverage of news outside of Ybor City that is the most reflective of the atmosphere there because, despite the fact that it’s written exclusively in Spanish, a large portion of the issues were devoted to news from traditionally non-Spanish speaking countries such as the United States and Italy. In December of 1908, there was an earthquake in southern Italy; and while there were a large number of Italian immigrants in Ybor City, the details of the earthquake were front page news for several issues (11). Likewise, El Diario De Tampa covered new laws and regulations regarding working women in Spain and France (10). In almost every issue, there were updated statistics and standings, or in the offseason news, of baseball teams from across the southeast United States (4). They even updated their readers on the recent weather in New York City (1). Even the advertisements reflected the papers’ multiethnic character. There were advertisements for European style cafes and restaurants (2). There were often advertisements for business like the Cosmopolitan Bank and Trust Co. of Ybor City and the Cosmopolitan Drug Company of Ybor City (4). Therefore, the history of the news media in Ybor City seems analogous to the climate there. While the coverage was often of local or Latin importance, the content of El Diario De Tampa was diverse.

Changes in New Mexico

In some ways, turn-of-the-century New Mexico was very similar to what was happening in Florida at that time. Growth, this time with the expansion of the railroad through New Mexico, helped create new industries and a foreign revolution begot more immigration. However, a community of Spanish speaking people in New Mexico did not begin in the 19th century. In Speaking for Themselves, author Doris Meyer writes that “The Spanish-speaking residents of New Mexico in the late nineteenth century commonly referred to themselves as neomexicanos, a cultural identifier that both situates them and differentiates them from other Hispanics in the Southwest” (3). Meyer also explains that these people had lived in the region north of the Rio Grande prior to the creation of the United States. Therefore, the development of the Spanish-language press in New Mexico happened in significantly different context than in Ybor City.

In the case of New Mexico, the context of the immigration itself is twofold. Not surprisingly, there is the immigration of people across the border from Mexico. But another significant factor is the immigration of Anglo people from the eastern part of the United States in anticipation of the first railroads lines in the territory which arrived in 1878. The sheer number of people migrating to the region between 1900 and 1920 is the most striking attribute of what was happening in New Mexico during this time. By 1910, more than one third of the total population of New Mexico was people that had migrated there from other parts of the United States (Meyer). Furthermore, much like Cubans going to and from Florida, the United States’ border with Mexico, one of the largest unfortified borders in the world, was an open one. Between 1911 and 1920, almost 900,000 people emigrated from Mexico to the United States (127 revolt on the border). In New Mexico, there were as many 12,000 Mexican immigrants each year, and by 1920, the number had increased to 20,000 (Meyer).

In 1910, the Mexican revolution began. Perhaps the picture that best encapsulates the attitude that spurred the revolution was the popular saying “Mexico, mother to foreigners, stepmother to Mexicans” (USFP term paper). While this paper is not concerned with causes of the Mexican revolution, it is necessary to establish