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This media that tells stories of migrants and is also made by migrants, is made up of people of different nationalities who, although not journalists, have learned to move around New York to collect stories of their struggles and traditions and tell them to the world.
In Mexican communities, mainly in rural areas, the Mill is the place where people go to grind different ingredients that are part of their traditional meals.
This space becomes a meeting point where people chat with neighbors and friends, and end up learning about the latest events in their communities. That is why, the Mill is the name that a group of migrants in New York chose to baptize an information portal in which they tell stories of migrants.
This project was born during the pandemic due to the need to make their situations known, this was explained to France 24 by Beto Paredes, editorial coordinator of El Molino Informativo. “Mexican migrant communities, especially native peoples residing in New York, saw that their life stories and their stories in the face of the pandemic were not included in the media narratives (…) and then the idea of build our own medium “he mentioned.
What is most striking about this project is that those who document the stories are not journalists by profession. These citizens from various countries saw the need to show what is happening in their environment. They work voluntarily at El Molino Informativo, and for this they have received training from professional journalists.
“At the beginning of this year we began a training with a group of around 20 people who are not trade journalists, they are people who work in various sectors and who are interested in allocating time to carry out communication work. So we did training in photography, video, we are working hard on the writing. It is a process that is not fast, so we have called different journalists and allies who, in some way, have expressed solidarity with this process, “Paredes added.
‘Crispín’ The Immigrant goes around the city looking for stories
One of the members of this project is Estaban Esteves, a Mexican who came to New York in the 1990s. Born into a family of farmers in the state of Puebla, he says that, like several in his community have done, he He was forced to leave his country due to the economic difficulties that the sector was going through.
Esteban makes a living making upholstery and alternates his work doing reporting for El Molino. There he plays ‘Crispín’ El Inmigrante, a character who travels through New York City interviewing migrants to learn about their life stories. The most difficult part of the process, he said, is balancing the time between El Molino and his work in a city as big and congested as the world’s capital.
“I have always thought that Crispín are all the migrants who are here (…) That is what I try to show, the situation that one lives here, and how one earns the money to support the family, pay the rent, and the Expenses that come with living in such a big and expensive city. Here we continue to fight and dream that Crispín will one day return, “he told France 24.
El Molino Informativo is still very new, but it generates all kinds of content. They denounce their problems, there are analytical and opinion articles and their goal is to continue growing. That is why they seek support with this project to continue training and consolidating their channels, in addition to being able to generate their own income to finance their journalistic products.
Beto Paredes says that he would like to have a network of journalists and reporters in various countries, who, in addition to telling stories, “regain ties with their communities of origin because there is also a lack of relationships. For example, if someone from Mexico migrates to the United States , he loses contact with his community, with his family. And it is important to return that contact through a platform that allows knowing both realities and also knowing other realities that are in Latin America. “
Paredes also hopes that El Molino Informativo will be presented in different languages, and not just Spanish, so that more communities can feel confident in having content in their own languages.
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