The Press

El Placazo celebrates its 200th issue.

My workplace publishes a newspaper, as you know, and one of my recent tasks was to sift through back issues from 1994-2012 in search of notable articles to include in our 200th edition. In doing so I learned a lot about the newspaper and the organization itself, some of which I wanted to share with you.

A placazo, according to the paper, is a "tattoo, a mural, or one's mark (with actions, art, good works, words, writings, love, hate) left on society."

I mentioned in an earlier post that working at San Anto has helped to localize my sense of what's worth doing, in that large-scale changes aren't the be-all end-all to improving people's lives. Reading through old editions of EP nailed that down, as I found article after article protesting oppression, the school-to-prison pipeline, lack of representation, cultural erasure, drug use, sexism, dirty neighborhoods, and domestic abuse. Do newspapers usually cover this sort of material, from the people who deal with it day after day?

I ask genuinely, as I'm no curator of local newspapers, but I did go searching for similar community publications in my hometown and didn't come up with much like El Placazo, which publishes art, stories, poetry, and essays from contributors young, old, and in prison. Seriously, one of the things that impressed me the most was the fact that EP has a strong connection to its inmate readership, some of whom even participated in San Anto programming when they were younger. Many an article written from la pinta was advising young readers on how to avoid the author's mistakes. One writer detailed the many instances in which powerful white Americans were caught red-handed with illegal drugs and served no time, whereas minorities are disproportionately sentenced for the same crimes.

Many inmate contributors were very talented artists. Their work, like many of the pieces I've seen by San Antonio artists in the "free world" (as inmates call it), is steeped in the cultural imagery of la Raza.

My co-workers tell me that the prisons have tightened restrictions on what gets sent out, hence the artistic and literary output from inmates to El Placazo has slowed (significantly, from what I can tell) in recent years. We hope to get it going again, so that inmates know they have a place to share their art and writing, or at least receive the paper at a discounted rate.

Citlali, the Chicana Super Hero, by Deborah K. Vasquez 

San Anto's youth participants, ages 9-19, wrote a lot for the newspaper in past years. Many of them felt strongly about changing their community for the better. I saw articles on the disappointment felt because of absent parents, the desire to change Texas' standardized testing policies in schools, what to do with stray animals, the importance of staying safe while playing in the neighborhood, the dangers of drugs, and the pride of being bilingual. Adults wrote on injustices in the prison system, local and national government policy, the workplace, and mass media.

Community newspapers can seem quaint at first glance. Too local, not relevant. Unskilled writers, nonprofessional journalists. Grammar and spelling mistakes. You question their credentials, the depth of research, the trustworthiness of their sources. I wondered when I came to work at San Anto what relevance the paper could have in the community, if anyone even paid attention to it at all. I come from a comfortable family that typically ignores community politics, and if I ever want to see myself favorably represented in books or on TV, it's not like I'm lacking for choices as a white middle-class American. A community newspaper seemed interesting, but not especially necessary.

In many ways, your own experience blinds you. It is said that free press is essential to a democracy, and to that end, El Placazo is a platform for those whose age, training, and lack of freedom bar them from voicing their stories in more conventional media outlets. There is a danger to a single story, a single voice from a single group. The world begins to seem one-dimensional. The status quo is shaped and made legitimate by constant repetition and affirmation. You wonder what those other people are complaining about in their indie, underground, cultural newspapers, when everything on your end seems really pretty good.

I speak as an outsider to this city and community - my finger isn't on the pulse in the same way as natives and longtime participants of San Anto. I would leave it to someone else to describe the impact and importance of the paper to its readers and contributors over the years. For me, El Placazo is a window into a community I inhabit as a visitor, a community with a rhythm and cultura different than the one I grew up in. I'm glad El Placazo exists for the young kids and community members and inmates to share with each other, to have a place for their voices in a world where they are marginalized.

The newspaper also preserves old and new cultural traditions, printing oral histories, recipes, local artist profiles, restaurant reviews, advice columns, and even a play-by-play of the many paleta flavors sold by the men riding paleta cart bicycles down the street.

"Seeking Young Ladies in the Clink: Oral Histories of the Pachuco Dressers"

El Placazo is exciting, and I've been wondering what similar mural and press initiatives would look like in my hometown. The Latino population just surpasses that of the Anglos, and the ancestors of the Kumeyaay people lived there long before Spanish colonization and US statehood. If these communities have newspapers in circulation already, I should like to read them. Community papers build solidarity, foster concern for one's neighbors, and can be used to introduce different groups of people to each other. What's more, they raise awareness of pressing issues and encourage readers to have a hand in improving their communities.

If you're a reader from my community: if we had a newspaper or a mural program, what would you like to see or write about? What do you think would be the most popular themes and images?

Please do take the time to read the snippets of articles I captured while sorting through old editions.

Celebratory 200th issue prints on the drying rack. I had the lucky opportunity to help our mural coordinator label these and set them out for the ink to dry as quickly as she cranked them out.

Until later,
Caro