For Latinos Who Don’t Speak the Language

Lorie Campos is a third-generation Mexican-American who enjoys the cultural heritage on both sides of her hyphen.

“In my spare time, I go to Latino art events,� she says. “But I also listen to KROQ.�

Which means she also falls between the cracks that crisscross Southern California’s cultural landscape. As a Latina, she says, she’s assumed to like certain kinds of music and television shows. But because she doesn’t speak Spanish, she’s ignored by a large segment of the community with which she identifies.

“It’s embarrassing to say you don’t speak Spanish,� she admits. “But I’m meeting more and more college-educated Latinos who don’t.�

For them--and for herself--she’s developed Boca, a bimonthly arts and entertainment publication aimed at English-speaking Latinos. The first issue of the free 24-page tabloid guide will be delivered to 125 distribution points, such as markets and newsstands in Los Angeles and Orange counties this week.

Campos says Boca will include reviews of movies, restaurants and cultural exhibitions, entertainment listings and humorous articles--in other words, it will be a lot like the L.A. Weekly and New Times, two free-circulation weekly tabloid newspapers that have built wide readerships in Southern California. But there will be a noticeable difference.

“Boca focuses on Latino art entertainment and culture,� Campos says. “My frustration is I want to see things that reflect me. And I don’t in those publications.�

Boca’s first issue contains a provocative and politically incorrect feature on Hollywood “Mexploitation� and a guide to Latino culture.

Its department headings are in Spanish--musica, arte, cultura.

“Those words are readily identifiable and give a little bit of flavor,� Campos says. But she promises that will be the extent of the Spanish in her paper. That’s a good thing too, since the inaugural edition’s cover had to be reshot after the word pupusa, the name of a popular Salvadoran food, had been misspelled and initially slipped past Campos and her proofreaders.

Campos, an education attorney with the downtown L.A. law firm of Barbosa Garcia, is funding the publication’s start-up out of her own pocket. And although she won’t say what it has cost her so far, she says that “it’s not as expensive as you might think. It’s totally grass-roots right now. People are writing for me for free. People are helping to do marketing for free. We all have full-time jobs. I think I could make money without paying anybody. But that’s not my goal.�

While Boca is preparing to enter the Latin-themed magazine market, another journal, the 5-year-old Hogarama, is taking on a new look. The free quarterly Spanish-language publication, which was developed to acculturate immigrant Latinas to the U.S., abandoned its 5 1/4-by-7 1/2-inch design in Mayin favor of a full-sized magazine format.

Hogarama is distributed door to door to 1 million Latino households, including 460,000 in Los Angeles. An ad-thin and coupon-heavy magazine, it includes regular columns on health, education, fashion and family matters as well as celebrity profiles.