Romulo, who recently won a Voqal Fellowship, reflects on what she learned at City Bureau and why she started a bilingual news site in a west Chicago suburb.
By Bettina Chang
Irene Romulo (left) sitting with Cicero Independiente cofounders Ankur Singh and April Alonso at Dulce Mami Cafe, a coffee shop in Cicero where they first met.
How did you get interested in journalism?
It was partly through my experiences just being discontent with how undocumented and immigrant communities are portrayed in the media—wanting more stories to be told by people with different experiences. All of that spurred my interest in wanting to figure out how people affected by social issues could be involved in telling their own stories.
What made you interested in applying for a City Bureau Fellowship?
City Bureau is local, place-based, and doesn’t want to replicate harms that media often causes in communities of color, specifically in Black and brown and poor communities. I was attracted to the focus on equipping people from the community with the tools necessary to tell these stories. I was looking to learn more about journalism without necessarily going back to school, because it’s expensive and time consuming, and also I wanted to be somewhere that aligned with my values.
And what are those values?
Both the community where I grew up in Chicago and Cicero are majority Latinx communities. For a very long time, we have been misrepresented in the media with eyecatching stories of our trauma, crime, outrage—the whole complexity of our lives is not being represented. There’s not so much of what people are doing to survive in resilient and powerful ways.
Even in my work organizing with undocumented people, yes, stories of deportation and hurt and the pain that people go through are important and are very real. But people’s lives are more than that, right? That value of seeing people as full humans with agency, capable of creating, capable of telling their own stories, I found aligned with City Bureau. Everybody is an expert of something, and everybody has something they can teach.
Tell us more about how you started Cicero Independiente.
City Bureau helped me feel prepared, where I gained skills that have been helpful. But the spark really came from meeting others here in Cicero who felt the same way, and who wanted to devote their time and their love into creating this. When I got together with Ankur [Singh] and April [Alonso, my cofounders], it felt like, yes, we have the drive, we have the energy to do this. Let’s make it happen.
We launched in July 2019 with a summer block party and a documentary screening about youth in Cicero, and we started publishing stories online in August. We are proud of the feedback from residents. People have reached out to us to volunteer; they want to become involved; parents have thanked us for speaking up at public meetings or asking questions. People told us that they really value the stories, the report-backs of government meetings, events coverage and giving a more complete view of people living in Cicero.
What will you be working on in 2020?
We’re planning to make available print versions of our stories to be able to reach people who are not online. We also are looking forward to having public events here in Cicero, to discuss our stories, provide training and also just bring people together. I’ve been working on this on a volunteer basis and that’s challenging. We’re working on infrastructure so we can provide more support to people who want to contribute. That way we make sure we’re still being good with each other, providing opportunities for people to learn and to grow. It’s mutual.
Congratulations on receiving the 2020 Voqal fellowship! What will it allow you to do?
It will give me resources to spend more time focused on this project. Most importantly I’ll continue to build connections with people who are also trying to create new projects in their respective places. It’s really important and valuable and energizing. We’ll be paired with mentors who will support us throughout the project, help us develop business plans, address infrastructure questions, and be there to guide us to develop our own story and vision for our project.
What are the most important things you got from City Bureau?
The community I formed through people involved with City Bureau is the most important. They want to learn together and create media in more equitable and respectful and joyful ways. I also took away the basic technical skills and editorial processes, like learning how to ask the right kinds of questions, use audio recording equipment and edit interviews. It’s helpful to me now at Cicero Independiente and I’m also sharing it with others. I know I still have a lot to learn, but having an introduction to journalism that was so rooted in community, that’s the best introduction that I could have received.
What advice would you give others who want to start their own news sites?
Be open to opportunities and to advice and collaboration. It can be scary to try new things and to jump head on. And that’s OK. There’s always people who will have your back, and people who want to support you and see you succeed. You need to find them, and be open to accepting their support.
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