Pacific Citizen surviving times of declining traditional media

Story and photo by Andreas Rivera In September 1929, a small, Asian-run newspaper was first published in San Francisco and has been in print ever since. Today, The Pacific Citizen is now available both in print and online, and in these times of declining print media, it is still finding ways to connect with its audience. The [...]

Plazas making difference in Utah’s Hispanic community

by JEFF DUNN Sometimes inspiration can come from an unlikely source. For Sandra Plazas, it came from a door-to-door salesman. Two years after the first copies of Utah’s first bilingual newspaper came off the press, Plazas and her mother, Gladys Gonzalez, had had their share of difficult challenges. When the two began Mundo Hispano in [...]

Mundo Hispano: Uniting the community for 15 years and counting

by PHI TRAN Mundo Hispano, once a small publication, has grown into Utah’s largest Spanish language newspaper. Sandra Plazas, the general editor and co-founder of the paper said it is more than just a newspaper; it is a bridge of understanding between the American and Hispanic communities in Utah. Plazas said that Mundo Hispano believes [...]

QSaltLake fills a niche in Salt Lake City

Story and photo by JENNIFER MORGAN JoSelle Vanderhooft, 27, has been the assistant editor of QSaltLake since January 2007, but she began as a freelance writer for the biweekly gay and lesbian newspaper. “I discovered [freelance writing] because I was in the English department trying to get help reformatting my thesis. They had a signup [...]

NLGJA low on numbers, high in benefits

by STEPHANIE FERRER-CARTER They are called under-represented, minority groups for a reason. Groups that fall under this category often have their images skewed, stereotyped or all together forgotten in America’s newsrooms. In 1975, the National Association of Black Journalists was founded in an attempt to combat this growing problem. Other ethnic minority groups — Hispanic, [...]

Sandra Plazas: Overcoming diversity

by ERIK DAENITZ Sandra Plazas has encountered adversity in moving to a new country and running a business. However, the challenges of entering a new culture did not deter her from pursuing her goals, and the task of running the newspaper, Mundo Hispano, is something that she sees as a duty and service to the Wasatch [...]

Mundo Hispano publisher discusses her life, newspaper

by JAIME WINSTON Sandra Plazas is the coach of a soccer team for at-risk youth, vice president of an advertising agency and publisher of Mundo Hispano, a newspaper she owns with her mother. Large businesses advertise in the publication, including Nordstrom and Coca-Cola. The advertising agency, Hispanic Marketing and Consulting-La Agency, has been Plazas’ most financially [...]

Local newspaper marks 15 years of bringing communities together

by DAVID SERVATIUS She calls it the “Field of Dreams” mentality, a reference to the iconic 1989 Kevin Costner film. If you build it, they will come. It is why, Sandra Plazas says, she and her mother, Gladys Gonzalez, went to work in the dining room of their two-bedroom apartment in the early 1990s to [...]