America is founded on the notion that we are a free nation, extending and promoting “Liberty and Justice for All”.  If you grew up in this country, you have known this since the kindergarten days when you place your hand over your heart and pledge allegiance to the flag and the great country for which it stands.

History shows us that “freedom” is a relative term, even in this country which takes so much pride in that ideal.  Those who live here, even today, are not free to be or choose the same things as the privileged, dominant white society of America.  Inequalities still wrench at the edges of the American tapestry, distorting the beauty that could be.

This sounds idealistic, and I don’t mean for it to.  But I do hope to demonstrate the issues that minority groups in this country deal with on a daily basis – exclusion, oppression, racism – I could go on.

According to Pamela Newkirk in “The Minority Press: Pleading Our Own Cause”, minority newspapers arose out of a great need for accurate, fair representation in the public sphere.  The press was, and arguably remains, dominated by white society.  The radical minority newspapers that were born of the Civil War, such as Freedom’s Journal, were just a precursor for modern adaptations of this remaining need for minority representation, such as BET and Telemundo.

The minority newspaper that I examined was the Lawndale News, “Chicagoland’s Largest Hispanic Bilingual Newspaper”, which features articles in columns side-by-side both in English and Spanish.  The newspaper obviously came about where there was a need for it.  Chicago’s Latino population is ever-growing, and at a very fast pace.  The need for minority representation pervades the community, ad this is a viable source for news that covers issues differently than mainstream media.

Although many argue that minority papers serve to further divide minority groups in this country, I believe that until we reach full integration in the mainstream media, the call for minority press will remain.

http://www.lawndalenews.com/