Su banco opening up opportunities

by ERIK DAENITZ Su Banco is not just a “survival skills” language program. Instead, graduates leave Su Banco with advanced English skills in speaking, reading and writing. “The purpose of the program is to give students the English skills they need to pursue the career they want here,” said Rick Van De Graaf, the program [...]

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 [...]

DIA: The first fully bilingual school in Salt Lake

by PHI TRAN ¿Habla Español? No? Then you may be one of the many young Hispanics in Salt Lake City who has either forgotten their Spanish or never learned it. This was the motivation for establishing the Dual Immersion Academy, the first fully Spanish-English bilingual school in Utah. Patricia Quijano Dark, the one of the [...]

Newspaper struggles to achieve media diversity on U campus

by DAVID SERVATIUS In a way, the name of the newspaper tells its story. Venceremos! It is determined and defiant, a rallying cry during the Cuban revolution and an echo of the U.S. civil rights movement. Literally translated, it means, “We will win.” Or, in some cases, “We shall overcome.” Venceremos is the University of [...]

Student embodies center’s core values of social justice

Story and photo by JAIME WINSTON Construction is particularly loud outside the offices of the University of Utah’s Center for Ethnic Student Affairs. Visitors to the office take a longer route due to the work being done to improve the Union building, which houses CESA. Despite the inconvenience, students inside the offices are building relationships [...]

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 [...]