Is Bilingual the Future in California?

Suzanne Manneh of New American Media has a good article examining the hard times for Spanish media in California's Central Valley.

Spanish language newspapers, mostly owned by English language outlets, were once a booming market in the Central Valley, but the recent recession has turned into a bust. In recent years, Spanish newspapers in Visalia-Tulare, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Hanford, and Bakersfield have all been shuttered. Spanish radio stations heard from the Fresno area has also been on the deline, falling from 20+ early in the decade to only a handful. Those Spanish media that have survived in the Valley have had to make significant cutbacks in both staff and number of issues published.
Despite a robust Latino population in the Central Valley, a number of Spanish publications are beginning to incorporate English content in their pages, a trend reflecting a shift in demographics.

Nearly 30 years ago, Raul Camacho Sr. founded El Popular, an independent, weekly in Bakersfield, with the intention of publishing solely in Spanish. But his son, George Camacho, the paper’s publisher, says he sees incorporating English as an essential “tool for survival,” and said his father has begun realizing that as well ... Immigration is slowing down, the Hispanics are younger and they’re bilingual,” Camacho said.

According to the 2010 Census, more than half of Californians under the age of 18 are Latino. The group accounts for 90 percent of the state's overall growth over the last 10 years, and currently make up 38 percent of the state's residents. In the Valley, that number is even higher. Fresno’s Latino population stands at 47 percent, Bakersfield’s at 45 percent, Stockton’s at 40 percent, and Merced's at nearly 50 percent.

Kirk Whisler, president of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Latino Print Media said that Latino media have been shifting toward incorporating bilingual and bicultural content.

“The Latino (print media) market isn’t a Spanish market, it isn’t an English market,” he said. “It is a bilingual market and that person out there is going to sit and choose what they want based on what’s being offered to them. Language is almost secondary," he said.

Some have expressed concerns about the substance of Spanish media over time if the trend continues. Eduardo Stanley, a former editor at Vialia's recently-closed El Sol newspaper, said that many bilingual papers “translate content intended for the first generation into English, expecting that the second generation reads it,[but]those stories don’t resonate with them. Even though they (2nd generation, onward) keep the interest about their culture or the language, they won’t care about the issue.” Stanley also noted that Spanish publications would continue to lose readers if they use this method.

In sign that the trend isn't limited to print or online publications and that it isn't going away, Univision previously announced that it would consider adding English content in the near future.