By Molly Burke / Jambar Contributor
Paulina Montaldo was working as a reporter and producer for national news stations in Chile before she immigrated to New Castle, Pennsylvania in 2001.
For a while, the move meant giving up her journalism career.
“When I moved here, I tried to apply to some of the TV stations, but the problem — if it was a problem — they said your accent,” Montaldo said. “That was the end of the possibilities of doing TV. I tried to say, ‘Well, I can work behind cameras,’ but the opportunity was not there.”
Montaldo instead got her masters in higher education at Geneva College and then moved to the Mahoning Valley. She’s been teaching Spanish at Youngstown State University and Ursuline High School ever since.
However, after over 20 years away from the field, she’s writing and anchoring her own Spanish news show called Somos Youngstown on YouTube.
“‘Somos Youngstown’ translates as ‘We are Youngstown,’ and it’s not just Youngstown — I’m trying to cover the Mahoning Valley area. I want to highlight the stories and what the Hispanics contribute to the society and the community,” Montaldo said. “I was told, ‘No you cannot do TV because of your accent.’ Well, I’m doing it in Spanish — maybe 20 years later, but I’m doing it.”
Montaldo believes there is a need for news in Spanish. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Youngstown is home to over 6,600 Hispanic and Latino residents. For her, Somos Youngstown is a service to the community.
“Maybe they have their basic English, but to listen to the news, watch news in their own language is a whole different story,” Montaldo said. “[I’m] doing this as a nonprofit — I’m really not thinking about living off this, not doing a business, but doing a community service.”
While Montaldo does all the show’s reporting and editing, she has help from old friends. Rocio Perez, a producer in Spain, oversees the show’s production. Also, each episode opens with a voice over from Edison Sanchez, a news anchor in Ecuador.
Victor Arsenio, a part-time Spanish faculty member at YSU, helps Montaldo with videography. He said the show helps to bridge the gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics.
“It’s important because it’s like a connection,” Arsenio said. “It’s a way to say all of us — we are the same. We are similar in different bodies, but we have a lot of commonalities.”
Montaldo has also covered stories of the Hispanic community at YSU. She interviewed math professor Alicia Prieto Langarica for a story about the university’s Dia de Muertos celebration in November.
“This area has a long history of Latinos being here, and we don’t have a lot of visibility, and we don’t have a lot of representation,” Prieto Langarica said. “I think this is a long time we’ve been needing this.”
Prieto Langarica has done multiple interviews for news outlets in English, but she said it meant a lot to do one in her native language.
“When you talk about feelings and when you talk about culture, it’s so much easier to do it in Spanish, and it’s so much easier to talk about family, familiarity, things like that,” Prieto Langarica said.
Senior Spanish major David Bresko is one of Montaldo’s students. He said Somos Youngstown is educational for all people, regardless of ethnicity or nationality.
“There were times that Professor Montaldo said something about our local community, about some of the events that are held that I wasn’t aware of,” Bresko said. “It’s good to see what’s actually in our local community — what kind of people do we actually have living here, because sometimes we can live in our own little bubble.”
Montaldo has been planning the project for years, and she hopes to grow it even bigger. Her dream is to have a Spanish segment on a local TV station.
“I want to do a segment with legal advice and also medical advice,” Montaldo said. “I want to tell the community, this is the news, but also these are the services. … There are so many good nonprofit organizations around the area willing to help, but people might not know that that help is available.”
Somos Youngstown is free to watch on YouTube. Updates can be found on its Facebook page and Instagram, @somos_youngstown.
Cutline: Montaldo works on Somos Youngstown with Arsenio.
