Cruzando Líneas
First episode of Cruzando Líneas “El Globo.” Illustration by Daniel Robles
Creating connection and community across border lines
At the end of 2020, Maritza Félix, an award-winning journalist and producer with a body of work on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, embarked on a journey to disrupt news and create new lines of communication in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Amid misinformation online, a pandemic, and people in need of quality and accurate content in Spanish, Conecta Arizona News was born. Conecta Arizona is a news service that brings together communities across the southern border through WhatsApp and other non-traditional platforms, including a podcast that features stories, accurate information, and conversations where community can exist across borders.
“Something that I really wanted to create was a podcast with different voices, different accents … about the bridges that we’ve built, while others are building walls. And something that was really important to me is to reflect how diverse we are on the border and invite everybody to close their eyes and take our hands and go to the border with us,” Félix said, adding, “and see the things that we see every single day because we are journalists working on the border, that we live on the border, that we have been like sons and daughters of the desert.”
The podcast brings together journalists who have worked only in Spanish in the Arizona/Sonora region, a majority with no prior podcast experience. “I have a very little experience with podcasting as well and I told them, ‘let's experiment together.’ Let's change the narrative together. And we start looking for the stories that nobody else tells,” Félix said about the team coming together.
Félix describes Conecta Arizona as the best thing that has happened to her professionally. Through her relationship with her mother in Mexico, she realized the tremendous need for content in Spanish that was engaging, informative, and consistent. When the borders were closed at the height of the pandemic to all but U.S. citizens, legal residents, and those considered essential such as healthcare workers, Félix found herself on the U.S. side of the border while her mother was in Mexico. Félix saw in her own home how easily misinformation could spread.
Martiza Félix and Julio Cisneros interviewing priest Mauro Verzeletti, then the director of the Casa del Migrante in Guatemala City, for an episode of the podcast Cruzando Líneas in August, 2021
“My mom is one of those ladies that send these messages with glitter with roses and songs every morning with a cute greeting, ‘how are you?’ So she starts sending me memes and links, and everything that she saw about the pandemic… was completely wrong. And it was just the beginning of the pandemic. So just like her, many other people that I knew on WhatsApp were sending me the same information in different chats, “Félix said.
What began as a family WhatsApp group to disseminate accurate information quickly became friends groups that reached a membership limit and eventually became larger community groups. Toward the end of 2020, as people on both sides were grappling with information and misinformation, they were receiving critical health information about the Covid-19 pandemic; Félix’s groups were a lifeline on WhatsApp that connected families on both sides of the border and provided information, news, resources, expert voices about relevant topics, and even memes. The space quickly expanded to include platforms such as Telegram and a Substack newsletter, as well as a radio show and connection across popular social media spaces, including Facebook and eventually the podcast.
The heart of these connections was daily dedicated time. Sixty minutes for a virtual cafecito – a coffee chat.
“Every afternoon from 2-3, I sit down with my computer and cell phone, and I start drinking coffee with the community, chatting with them, and I invite experts to join us.”
The cafecitos have included different expert voices, such as a youth ambassador, immigration attorneys, city council members, psychologists, and other mental health specialists, nutritionists, and also unconventional voices such as an essential oils expert. Since then, Maritza Félix has hosted 600 hours of cafecitos since launching the online chat.
Conecta Arizona is not a traditional media outlet, and its aim isn’t to become one.
“I know traditional media will say, ‘those are listening sessions.’ Yes, they are. But actually, we're with them. And that's why I'm so proud and so passionate about this project. We are not extracting stories from them. We're getting inspired from them, and we're working with them for them,” Félix said.
In addition to her mother’s messages through the early part of the pandemic serving as an inspiration to start the WhatsApp groups, it is also deeply personal for Félix as someone who grew up in a small town in Mexico just outside of Sonora. Moving back and forth between countries, she developed a nuanced relationship with the border that she wishes more people understood.
Mariza Félix. Photo by Daniel Robles
“One of my mentors lives in Maine. He has never been to the border. And when I was talking to him about the border restrictions and how my family stayed in Mexico, and I stayed on this side of the border, and how hard it was not knowing when we were going to be able to hug again, he didn't quite understand how this dynamic worked,” Félix said.
She realized there was a need to inform and create content that spoke about this reality. She collaborated with her mentor on a few stories about the southern border, which are featured in the first season of the podcast. One of the stories featured human interest pieces like the story of a little girl living in Mexico who gets her Christmas wish list unexpectedly fulfilled in the U.S. side by a couple who have struggled to have children of their own, and they find her wish list through a balloon.
More than 100 people gathered to celebrate the anniversary of Conecta Arizona at Phoenix Botanical Garden in April 2022. Photo by Daniel Robles
“It is really important for us to be telling the stories about our own communities and the episodes that we selected. The stories that we have selected are not just because we wanted to do them, but we’ve been having listening sessions with our communities to know what exactly they're needing, what they want to hear. It’s not always about immigration or health, or COVID, or fact-checking or anything. Sometimes it's a feel-good story that they need to hear,” Félix said.
‘We're taking over the narrative with our accents, with our stories’
Since the initial WhatsApp group, Conecta Arizona has created an impressive body of content and connections. The group has 65,000 subscribers to the weekly newsletter and 68,000 weekly listeners to the radio show. They have published 119 newsletters and 105 columns and hosted three in-person cafecitos in Tucson, Arizona, and Hermosillo, Mexico.
“We're really proud because we are all freelance journalists working in Spanish on the border, and nobody else paid attention to us before. And now we're taking over the narrative with our accents, with our stories… And so it's not just about telling stories; it's about opening new doors for them in their portfolios. It is a way to tell the world we are here. Please look at us. We have something to say,” Félix said.
You can find Conecta Arizona’s podcast on all major streaming platforms and across social media platforms. To sign-up for the newsletter, visit https://conectaaz.substack.com/.
—
Cora Cervantes-Orta was born in México and raised in Los Angeles. Growing up within a diverse community taught her to understand issues from different perspectives. She completed her undergraduate studies at Columbia University and her Master's degree in Multimedia Journalism at New York University. Her work has been published by NBC News Digital, Al-Jazeera, NPR's Latino USA, Salon, NAHJ: palabra and Narratively. She has produced stories for MSNBC and NBC News NOW. During her time at NBC Universal she has worked as Diversity Coordinator for NBC News and MSNBC, and as an Associate Producer for MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton. Currently, she is an Associate Coverage Producer for NBC News. Cora is passionate about equity in representation, in the media. She currently serves as Vice President of NAHJ’s Los Angeles Chapter. She resides in East Los Angeles, California.