Voces Latinas : Northern Latino, Who are we?

This website will be improving with time, it is an apprenticeship for us. Thanks for your patience..

This service was made possible thanks to the generous help of Grant Dunham and Helen Voogd at Yukon College. MANY THANKS for this space and for teaching us the functioning principles of the website.

We want to invite the students of the Spanish language to discover the richness and the diversity of Latin America, and support positive actions that can be done to improve the lives of the Latinos, wherever they are.

We want to invite our Yukon and Northern friends with roots in Latin America to join our Project. We would really like to know them, read their correspondence, have them write articles or send their photos, in this way, the paper will really be “Northern Latino”. Many thanks in advance.

[Please do not see this as a “translation” but rather as a “creative writing”, a lot more spontaneous and lively especially given the lack of time and resources we are all under. Thank you for your understanding – However we appreciate your comments]

Once upon a time there was Yukon, land of the First Nations. Then came the pioneers looking for gold in 1898.

One day in the spring of 2004, “our Latinos” came to Whitehorse. They came to visit our weekly Spanish conversation group. They came to Whitehorse with their family, their children, their warmth, their smile, their energy, their language, their culture. We witnessed positive changes happening in Whitehorse and forever thanks to their arrival. We found ourselves contaminated by their positive energy.

Most of this Latino community was made of refugees. A meeting was organized in Hellaby Hall, the room being offered by Rev. Peter Williams and his spouse Barbara. We ate, we made friendships, and all expressed gratitude to the community of Whitehorse welcoming them.

Maria Raillard, Yukon College Spanish Teacher led a few pot-luck evenings and invited all people interested to share Latino moments. Some of the pot-luck evenings were initiated by churches and were well attended.

Listening to all the accents of the Americas, taking pictures of these faces from all horizons of Latin America and of the events that united us, we thought “Why don’t we start a newspaper?” The momentum was there, our newspaper was born.

A first issue of two pages was published in December of 2004, called "Yukon Noticias" to celebrate the warmth of the new environment offered by our Latino friends in Whitehorse. This issue was distributed just before our friend Irma Castillo left for Venezuela, our first official foreign correspondent, as a testimony of our friendship.

Later we distributed a questionnaire to the Latino community in Whitehorse so we would know what they wanted to see in the paper, so that we would give it an official name, so that the volunteers interested in this project could be identified.

Then our Webmaster Yamilet Gorris, together with her husband Chris Dray and friend Didier Delahaye, created the Yahoo group: http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/northern-latino2005/ which served us a lot to connect ourselves with other members of the community in Whitehorse and with their family and friends in Latin America and other parts of the world. Northern Latino was placed in "pdf" format in the archives as well as a few photos. This was new for all of us and the team spent a lot of time working and trying to resolve technical problems to make it work. The result is really very nice, it was worth the effort.

The members of the Latino community in Whitehorse are the NUMBER ONE at Northern Latino. Without them, there would be no “community and news from Yukon” page, there would be no photos to give life to the written word; without their children there would be no “salt” to change our world. Without their friendship, their generosity and their tolerance, the paper would not have lasted long. Thanks to them, we publish interviews of members of our community. MANY THANKS TO ALL THE LATINO FAMILIES who allowed using photos and information to give life to Northern Latino.

The Latino families did involve their family members and friends outside Canada. We had international authors such as Jimmy Forero Arias from Colombia, Paula Santos from Uruguay, Mariela López Miranda from Argentina, Florence Colquhoun from the United Arab Emirates, Claudie Chadourne from México, .... We published photos portraying Juan Romero from México.

The children did drawings for the paper, they like to have their picture in Northern Latino. To see their smiles, their works of art, to hear their laughs and words, to observe all the love that overwhelms a room when they are together is an amazing reward.

A few babies in our community were born in Whitehorse since the arrival of the families: Isaac in the Guevara family, Luna in the Velásquez-Miranda family, Valentina in the Ospina-Giaccaglia family, Allyson in the Bonilla-Ramírez family, Santiago in the Romero-Nieves family, and Tomio in the Miyagawa-Walkley, friends of the Latino community.

Northern Latino published the original works of our Mexican poet, Maribel Ramírez. Maribel was the first to give us an interview; she was the leader of the Latino association created in Whitehorse. She is the mother of 3 young boys and soon will have a fourth. Maribel’s poems talk about friendship found in the North and the strength necessary to overcome all the obstacles found in the lives of immigrants.

Northern Latino published information and photos about Latino Art shows in Yukon Arts Society and l'AFY; works of art by Maria Guadalupe García Villalobos and Dedis Camacho Guevara. The show in l'AFY was inaugurated in the presence of MP Larry Bagnell and generated a true Latino fiesta with Latino dishes, Latino music and Latino atmosphere. Lupe and Dedis sold quite a few pieces of art and it is just the beginning.

We are proud to have published interviews with Maribel Ramírez, Maria Guadalupe García Villalobos, Sherry Hogeboom, Alejandro Ospina, Simón Pulido, Jeannette Solano y Jorge Enrique Velásquez García. The interviews are published with a summary both in English and French.

The friends of the Latino community are many and dispersed, they participate in the pot-luck evenings, in the Spanish weekly conversation group, in other activities to help out or simply be friends. Michael Dougherty lent a hand to the community since the very beginning, sharing his knowledge and experiences in the field of social issues. He has been officially named “Don Michael”, a rare honour that he deserves fully.

Businesses in Whitehorse were glad to welcome the paper in their premises and some of them showed support in the form of ads . This helps print more copies of Northern Latino . Thanks to Steve Gedrose at Rose Music, Ophelia Andrade at Subway, Moira Lassen at Yukon Sport, Larry Bagnell, M.P., Steve Robertson at Yukon News, Cathy Robertson at Copy Copy, Anne Bowen and Helen Voogdt at Yukon College, Peggy D'Orsay at Yukon Archives, Vincent Yerna, Sandra St-Laurent y Jean-Francois Nadeau at l'AFY ...

Very soon, thanks to Maria Raillard’s suggestions, Yukon College showed support by placing regular ads in Northern Latino. This was an important symbol because we hope to make the paper viable financially. Later, Grant Dunham and Helen Voogdt helped us to build this website, another big step.

People in Yukon high places also helped our Latino community and Northern Latino. Larry Bagnell at the federal level, Ted Staffen MLA, Margarita Ramón, film commissioner and others. The Education minister and the Tourism and Culture minister wrote a letter of support on behalf of Northern Latino.

Rick Karp, president of th Whitehorse Chamber of commerce has supported the Latino community since the beginning. He wrote a letter in English (not knowing the Spanish language) in order to support our Latino refugee friends. This was the first time that we published a text in all three languages (Spanish, Englisn and French). Later, the refugees asked if we could publish regular trilingual articles because many Canadians do not read Spanish and they wanted their Canadian friends to know them better.

All the Northern Latino contributors are volunteers, all do it for te pleasure of contributing and be counted among the friends of the Latino community of Whitehorse. Little by little came people who wanted to write in Northern Latino (see a list of the authors at the end of this article)

Genevieve St-Yves wrote a well appreciated Crónica. Unfortunately for us, she went back to Quebec to pursue her studies. She still appears in our Yahoo group though.

Maria Raillard, Spanish teacher at Yukon College, does the Language page and gives to her students at the college the motivation to keep learning by reading Northern Latino while away from class.

Terry Markley, a member of the weekly Spanish conversation group, suggested we could distribute the Northern Latino to the Secondary schools of Whitehorse where Spanish is taught: F.H. Collins and Vanier. Teachers Maureen McCann, Sylvie Hamel and Anne Turner worked with their students using Northern Latino at times. The F.H. Collins students published a two pages supplement with their testimonies in Spanish in the June issue..

Writing in Northern Latino is a good thing, writing correctly is even better. Martha Castellanos offered to revise the texts, she gives her opinion on the contents and motivates us to keep going and do a good job. Martha is also a writer in Northern Latino.

The Youth page in Northern Latino shows works, poems, photos of our Youth. A teenager with a passion for new Technologies, Mauricio Ruiz, accepted the challenge of creating a Youth page that was really well appreciated by the readers.

This summer, the editor wanted to take some vacations and leave the publication until September. However, Mariana and the Latino community said “we want Northern Latino in the summer”. So it was with great pleasure that we suggested that Mariana takes in her hands the challenge of publishing Northern Latino in the summer. Mariana did a special July-August issue that was really excellent, meanwhile as a new mother she had lots of responsibilities and activities, but she did it and the experience was so positive that we plan to repeat this kind of experience every summer and give this opportunity to a member of the Latino community of Whitehorse.

Northern Latino is open to take into account the opinion of its readers, its writers and friends. It is constantly evolving. Mercedes Sosa singing "Todo cambia" is a great inspiration for us.

We hope that it will become a tool for communications, through friendship, between Yukon/Canadian community andthe Latino community here on our territory and everywhere in the world.

In Northern Latino, priority is given to writings and initiatives by members of our community (including family and friends close by or far away) and community news.

Another important priority is to have in the paper positive information about Latin America so that the public’s interest is piqued and traveling Latin America-way. It is important to discover Latin America, its countries, its culture, its ecology, its environment, its history, its literature ...

MANY THANKS TO ALL, AND IF THERE IS AN OMISSION, PLEASE LET US KNOW ABOUT IT, WE WILL BE GLAD TO show all the facets of the beautiful face of our coMMUNITY. in any case, all the contributors are an essential part of our project which we plan to keep alive as long as the readers want it.

Northern Latino Authors (up-to date on the day witten at the top f this article)

Irma Castillo de Venezuela, Jimmy Forero Arias de Colombia, Paula Santos de Uruguay, Florence Pionetti de United Arab Emirates, Jorge Santiago Santiago de Mexico, Claudie Chadourne de Mexico, Mariela Lopez Miranda de Argentina y Estados Unidos, Mauricio Ruiz, Sandra St-Laurent, Jean-Francois Nadeau, Pekina Castro, Michael Dougherty, Val Mather, Camila y Yamila Miranda, Maribel Ramirez, Maureen McCann y los estudiantes de F.H. Collins, Geneviève St-Yves, Martha Castellanos, Maria Gabriela Tudela, Rosa Zuniga, Angela Walkley, Maria Arias Raillard, Vincent Yerna, Mariana Giaccaglia y Daniele Rechstein de Canada.

Last update: Monday, December 12, 2005 at 6:12:37 PM
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