SAN FRANCISCO, Feb.21, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- El Andar, the feisty national quarterly that bills itself as "a Latino magazine for the new millennium," swept this year's New California Media Awards (NCM), which honored the best of ethnic news reporting at its third annual awards celebration on Feb. 15, 2001.
The San Francisco Chronicle calls the awards the "multilingual ethnic press equivalent to the Pulitzer Prizes."
El Andar took three top awards for work published in 1999 and 2000, including Feature Writing, Photography, and Investigative Reporting. It was also the third consecutive year that El Andar has won NCM awards; previous years' prizes include Photography (twice) and International Reporting awards.
"This was David going after Goliath... El Andar struck a blow for ethnic journalism," says San Jose‚ Mercury News columnist Joe Rodriguez (www.mercurycenter.com/columnists/rodriguez/docs/rodriguez17.htm).
"A look at the winners of this year's competition shows how ethnic media today play the role that alternative media played in the 1960s and 70s," says Eva Martinez, director of the Center for the Improvement and Integration of Journalism at San Francisco State University. Martinez's CIIJ coordinated this year's contest, tapping the expertise of over 30 journalists, scholars, and translators.
"These new ethnic media have a fire in the belly, a desire to make things right, that the mainstream press can't match," adds Rodriguez.
NCM's entries were solicited from newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and web sites from throughout California.
"Everyone's pretty amazed with the amount of recognition we're getting," El Andar editor Julia Reynolds told the Associated Press. "It's not an uphill battle anymore."
"We are exceptionally proud this year to have won such important categories, and the fact that it's our third year in a row is just icing on the cake," says Reynolds.
Since magazines are not eligible for the Pulitzer Prize, the honor is especially significant for the two-year-old publication that has already made waves in the U.S. and Latin America. El Andar features renowned authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Isabel Allende -- alongside emerging talents and El Andar's own staff of writers and photographers, who garnered the NCM prizes.
"It's the best recognition we can get, especially coming from respected scholars and journalists we admire so much," says Reynolds. "These prizes are our Pulitzers."
El Andar, named after a poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, is a quarterly bilingual publication and it has been steadily growing. It has a loyal following from educated, influential Latinos who crave culturally appropriate intellectual stimulation. Winner articles and photos may be viewed at www.elandar.com.
El Andar's Winners of The New California Media Awards:
Best Feature Reporting
Winner: Claudia Melendez for "How Transvestites May Save Femininity," which explores the lives and struggles of Los Angeles's Latino transvestite community, a minority-within-a -minority. Published in El Andar Summer/Fall 1999.
Photojournalism
Winner: Paul Myers for "Portraits of Las Colonias," one of the first national pieces to expose shameful conditions in South Texas's unincorporated border towns. Published in El Andar Spring 1999.
Investigative Reporting
Winner: Julia Reynolds and team (Claudia Melendez, Janjaap Dekkar, Jorge Chino, Jesus Blancornelas) for "The NAFTA Gang" series, which uncovered a powerful Mexican family's ties to drug cartels and money laundering through its Texas bank. Published in El Andar 1999 and 2000.
-0-
CONTACT: El Andar
Rachel Barron
(831) 457-8353
Cultural Communications, LLC
Queta Bauer
(773) 285-1055
E-Mail: qbauer@culturalcommunications.com