UNC National Association of Hispanic Journalists holds first meeting to build community

UNC’s chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists held its first general body meeting Thursday, Sept. 3 via Zoom. 

After months of planning since June by co-founders juniors Julian Berger and Angelica Edwards, attendees and the organization’s leaders described the meeting as a “community-building” moment. 

Berger said the meeting was primarily a social event intended to familiarize members with one another, and provide an introduction to the organization’s larger plans. 

“We really wanted a social vibe for yesterday’s meeting to get to know everybody and build a sense of community,” Berger said. “Community is one of the most important things to have first, and I feel that’s one of the things that all of UNC’s Latinx organizations strive for and that’s one of the things we wanted to establish with (Thursday's) meeting.” 

The meeting’s 30 attendees played an introduction game in breakout rooms where they answered questions about their favorite Latinx food, music and television shows and films. 

The group played a few rounds of lotería, which Berger described as a Latinx version of bingo, and music by Latinx artists like Ozuna played in the background throughout portions of the meeting. 

Kevin Gomez-Gonzalez, a sophomore at UNC and a UNC NAHJ member, said he appreciated the meeting’s fellowship, as well as the organization’s larger commitment to connecting Hispanic and Latinx journalists. 

Gomez-Gonzalez said before coming to UNC, he didn’t have many Latinx mentors in his academic life. He said seeing the opportunity to connect with Latinx professors and peers is what encouraged him to become a member of UNC NAHJ. 

“My interest in joining NAHJ is to be surrounded by my peers and people I know I can rely on for guidance and support and hearing their perspective on what’s going on in the journalism world,” he said. 

To Gomez-Gonzalez, Latinx and Hispanic voices are important to journalism because they inform objectivity with context and perspective. 

“Objective journalism is always what we’re striving for, but it’s impossible to ignore the way that our experiences educate our perspectives on the world,” he said. “In a profession that has such a large responsibility to educate the public, it’s valuable to have seats at the table.” 

Carolina Association of Black Journalists co-president Samaria Parker and social media chairperson Ruth Samuel, both seniors, presented UNC NAHJ co-founders with the gift of a mug that reads “support Latinx journalists” to show their backing of the organization. 

“We’re really looking forward to being able to collaborate with UNC NAHJ to diversify the school as a whole,” Parker said. “It was really great being able to see all of their hard work and planning come together.” 

Connection and allyship between Black and Latinx journalists is critical to Parker because she said she feels that many journalists of color experience a silencing of their voices within the journalism industry. 

“We all experience our voices not being heard in the capacity they deserve to be heard, and we have to work harder and differently than our white peers in the J school,” Parker said. “So it’s important to have spaces that diversify the J school for future journalism students who come in and may not feel like they had a space before.” 

Berger said CABJ’s gift to himself and Edwards, UNC NAHJ’s other co-founder, was a strong showing of support to him.

“It really made us feel like people have our backs,” he said.  

Laura Brache, a 2017 Hussman School of Media and Journalism graduate and a Report for America Corps member in Charlotte, attended UNC NAHJ’s inaugural meeting and pledged to sponsor 10 students’ memberships to UNC NAHJ.

Brache said her decision to sponsor 10 memberships stems from wishing that a UNC NAHJ chapter had existed when she was a Hussman student. 

“I was just so excited that there was finally a chapter,” Brache said. “This is something that I talked about with my colleagues and classmates when were in the J school.” 

Brache and two other Hussman graduates began Carolina Ahora, the Spanish counterpart to Carolina Now, Hussman’s social media news show. But she said they never got around to establishing an NAHJ chapter, which was “the next step.” 

“It’s nice that three years down the road it's happening, and I want to support any way that I can, even from a distance,” Brache said. 

For future meetings and events, Berger said UNC NAHJ intends to have one guest speaker a month from various new stations and publications, and to partner with University Career Services for professionalism events like resume building and writing cover letters. The group also plans to have all of its meetings remotely via Zoom due to the University’s shift to online learning. 

The overall goal of UNC NAHJ is to amplify and strengthen the future of Latinx and Hispanic voices in journalism, Berger said, and the success of the organization’s first meeting indicates to him that the group is on the right track. 

“Angelica and I have been working on this since June, so after so many months it was just like ‘Wow we’re having our first meeting, and we got our chapter approved,’” Berger said. “In the future we’ll be able to accomplish a lot.” 

university@dailytarheel.com