For Immediate Release
March 1, 2001
Contact: Jessica Hernández (559) 455-5782
Call-in Program Fosters a Live Radio Dialogue with Mexico's Migrant Heartlands
Radio Bilingüe's partnership with XEJB, La Jalisciense, makes possible a live radio interconnection between U.S. audiences and listeners in Mexico's migrant heartlands of Jalisco and Michoacan.
Beginning Tuesday, March 6th, at 13:00 PST, Radio Bilingüe will join La Jalisciense for a special series with a focus on issues of special interest to Mexican migrants and their families. Entitled "Frontera Libre" (Open Border), this weekly program will air as a special edition of Línea Abierta, Radio Bilingüe's nationally-syndicated call-in program. The series will feature interviews on migrant education, money remittances, community investments, migrant health, U.S. visas, and will be open for listener comments, messages and salutations.
Radio Bilingüe's satellite affiliates reach communities with high numbers of émigrés from Jalisco and Michoacan in California, Washington, Texas and other states. It is estimated that more than 1.5 million migrants from Jalisco state live in the U.S.
With 60 years on the air, XEJB, 630 AM, La Jalisciense, is a pioneer of non-commercial radio in Mexico. The station is owned by the state's Sistema Jalisciense de Radio y Televisión and broadcasts a mix of talk radio and traditional Mexican music for Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city, and most major cities throughout Jalisco. It also reaches some areas of northern Michoacan, the other largest home state of U.S. migrants.
The simulcast will be hosted by Línea Abierta's Samuel Orozco in San Francisco's satellite studios and Alberto Osorio in Guadalajara.
The program will be available to stations in the U.S. via satellite. Radio Bilingüe's live streaming on the Internet will make the program available for audiences worldwide.
Radio Bilingüe is the national Latino public radio network. With offices in Fresno and San Francisco, CA, the non-profit network distributes ground-breaking news, information and cultural programming. Sixty stations around the United States, Puerto Rico and northern Mexico are affiliated to Radio Bilingüe's satellite service.
Funding for Línea Abierta, Radio Bilingüe's flagship program, comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The California Endowment.