Photo courtesy of Savannah Koplon/Peritus Public Relations.
From left: Vanessa, Jairo and Maria Vargas own the Latino News, which publishes in 14 counties across central Alabama.
Family has always been essential to the Latino News.
It started with a church newsletter put together by Jairo Vargas and his wife and son. When they grew to a regular newspaper, his daughter, Vanessa Vargas, recalls sitting in the back of the family car, helping to pass out bundles of the weekly issues.
Now, 20 years later, the Latino News covers 14 central Alabama counties and publishes about 10,000 copies or more each week. The staff has gotten larger, but the Vargas family is still at the core of its operation.
“Now we have a little family as well, but they’re not an immediate family, but they’re still the Latino News family,” Vanessa Vargas said.
The Vargas family immigrated to Alabama from Colombia, eventually moving to Trussville in 2005. Jairo Vargas didn’t have a background in writing or reporting; he worked as a factory production manager and owned his own building and decoration materials business. But he found that Latino members of his church in Gadsden needed a Spanish newsletter, and that was the spark of a 20-year career.
“This was the beginning,” Jairo Vargas said.
The Latino News, based out of an office on Valleydale Road in Hoover, covers a broad array of topics in each issue. Jairo Vargas said local news is the most important piece, but they also report on national and international issues that might be relevant to their readers. More recently, Vanessa Vargas said they have gotten more active on Facebook and do a Monday-Thursday news highlight videos in addition to their Friday paper.
“The newspaper is more than media news. We need teaching, because education is the most important focus of the newspaper. We talk about the family, we talk about the immigration,” Jairo Vargas said.
That education factor includes being a resource for readers who need help finding something in their community, from services like the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama to recommendations for local businesses. Jairo Vargas said if readers don’t know where to look, they can always call the Latino News office.
“I think we’re the bridge. I like that the American community is wanting to reach the Hispanic community, and the Hispanic community also needs the services. We’re all the same and we have a language barrier, but I like seeing that when people place an ad, they’re like, ‘OK, thank you. Because of you we’re able to find what we need,’” Vanessa Vargas said. “It’s about educating and sharing those stories. To me, it’s always good to see when people share their story or are able to get the resources that they need through our newspaper.”
Vanessa Vargas “grew up with the newspaper” and gradually took on more roles, from helping to translate at interviews to keeping up with soccer scores.
“Soccer’s a big thing in our community, so I would do the table of adding up the points, that we would get by fax — that still existed then — the statistics, the numbers of who was winning, how many points, who got the yellow cards,” Vanessa Vargas said. “You start from the bottom and work your way up, and you learn what it takes to run the business.”
She now works alongside her father, mother and uncle in managing the Latino News. It’s part of what Jairo Vargas has enjoyed about publishing a newspaper for the past 20 years.
“I like it because familia is very important for everybody in this country, and it’s very important for everybody in the Latin community,” he said.
