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Though a few papers turn profits, most barely squeeze by. Many publications are based in cramped storefronts or lofts, run by a few workers who do everything from report stories to deliver copies. The bigger Hispanic papers have begun to attract national advertisers, but most rely on local merchants for ad revenue. What all the papers have in common is a doughty resolve to keep the presses running. Alejandro Esclamado, editor of the Philippine News, continues publishing despite financial losses he blames on advertisers that were allegedly bullied into canceling ads by the Marcos government. "You reach a point when you make a decision that you are going to dedicate your life to a cause," says Esclamado, who began the paper in his San Francisco garage in 1961. "This community still needs this newspaper."
Here are three papers, all relative newcomers themselves, that reflect the diversity of today's immigrant press:
-- Before Do Ngoc Yen fled Viet Nam in 1975, he worked for a newspaper that was once shut down in anger by South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. But even those troubles did not prepare Do for the difficulties of starting Nguoi Viet, one of California's oldest and most respected Vietnamese-language papers. Armed with $4,000 and a borrowed IBM Selectric typewriter, Do put together his first issue in a friend's San Diego office in 1978.
Today Nguoi Viet (which means Vietnamese people) has its headquarters in a shopping mall in Westminster, Calif. The paper's eight full-time employees (top salary: $800 a month) publish four issues a week, including a special edition for Los Angeles. Do distributes his 8,000 copies free, but he sells enough ads, mostly to local Vietnamese merchants, to turn a modest profit. As Nguoi Viet has grown, however, so has the field. Do must compete with 14 other Vietnamese papers and magazines serving Orange County's 90,000 Vietnamese.
As the paper's only full-time journalist, Do writes and translates as many as ten stories an issue. Though Nguoi Viet specializes in local news, the tabloid also covers the large Vietnamese communities in Texas and Washington, D.C., and events in Viet Nam. Since most of its subscribers cannot read English, Nguoi Viet carries a healthy dose of national and international news. Do relies on a network of part-time reporters across the country and his biggest problem is finding journalists without an ideological bias. "My readers need to know both sides," says Do, who reserves his bitter antipathy toward Hanoi for the short editorial notes that sometimes accompany stories. Do's dream is to make Nguoi Viet into a national daily, but the paper's financial health is still too fragile. Admits Do: "I survive by week or by month."