Memories of home: Immigrant radio station in Homestead broadcasts in indigenous languages

Andrés Villegas stood in the middle of the tiny Homestead radio studio on a recent evening, tapping on the black foam of his microphone. The 57-year-old Mexican laborer began to read the Spanish-language script in his hands:

“¡Que calor! Did you know that this year marks the first annual heat season in Miami-Dade County, from May 1 through the end of October? If you work in a place exposed to intense heat, you and your co-workers may be at risk of heat stress. …”

Outside the recording room, Martha Gabriel scribbled Xmuj and Ajlan on the edges of the script, the words for shade and rest in Mam, the Mayan language she spoke in mountainous western Guatemala. Pedro Marcos, a Guatemalan man from the rural highland region of Nebaj, sat next to her at a long white table practicing the same message in Ixil, another Central American language.

Together, the multilingual trio recorded back-to-back versions of the heat advisory in their mother tongues, signing off with the same cheery slogan: “Radio Poder, la chispa del pueblo!”

The spark of the people.

For half a decade, the immigrant workers organization WeCount! has run Radio Poder, 97.7 FM, a Spanish and indigenous language community radio station in South Dade with public service programs about subjects ranging from workplace discrimination to the 2020 Census to U.S. immigration policy.

“Radio is important for us,” said Marcos. “Through the radio, we can share campaigns and ads, like protecting workers’ rights, and we motivate workers. I always have Radio Poder on.”

WeCount! staff and members said Radio Poder is the only station in Miami-Dade County that broadcasts in Mayan and indigenous languages from Mexico and Central America — reflecting what they describe as a dearth in available information in these languages in South Florida.

“Radio is a critical resource to the [community], which often feels isolated from government and culture,” said Esteban Wood, policy and civic leader for the organization. “Many of our listeners tune into programming which is in Spanish, but also in indigenous languages.”

Hundreds of indigenous languages are spoken by millions of people across Latin America. Some 30% of Guatemalans are native speakers of the 22 Mayan languages found in the country, according to the nation’s government, which also acknowledges that not all indigenous people understand Spanish.

Filling that local information gap in Mayan and indigenous languages like Mam, Ixil, K’iche’, Mixteco and Q’anjob’al that are heard around Homestead’s supermarkets, stores and homes is a crucial part of the radio’s mission, said WeCount! members and staff.

“The community tells me, ‘You are the one speaking on the radio in Mam. Thank you,’ ” said Gabriel, who has lived in Homestead for five years while working in plant nurseries and agriculture, “By giving a message in our language, people understand it more and listen to it more.”

Visions of where the radio can go

About 38% of Homestead’s mostly Latino population of 80,500 is foreign-born, higher than Florida’s overall total of foreign-born residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Its immigrant residents overwhelmingly come from Latin America, including Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

WeCount! focuses on supporting and organizing immigrant workers in Homestead and across South Florida, many of whom work in agriculture and other types of outdoor and manual jobs. Marcos, a former elementary school teacher, first came to Florida in 2006 and has worked as a plumber, roofer and painter. Since joining WeCount! years ago, he said, there had been talks of having a member-led station through which they could share public safety advisories, their campaigns, and broadcast information about workers’ rights and labor issues.

“It was very difficult when we started,” said Miguel Brito, a WeCount! member from Guatemala. “We had to talk to each other and the community about whether there was interest, and there was, and then we started the process of getting a license to have a community radio.”

The radio station dreams materialized in February 2017 when the Federal Communications Commission granted WeCount! a low-power FM station license. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which operates its own community station in Spanish, Mam, Creole and Popti’, offered support in getting the application together. A radio broadcast engineer gave them “a straight talk” about how to go on air after facing technical issues, recounted former executive director Jonathan Fried.

And so, Radio Poder was born.

“We educate our community through the radio,” Brito said, “Many people don’t have the time to come here to our offices, but they listen to us.”

Today, the station is housed in a small room with two windows overlooking the building next door. Three standing microphones are hooked to a flurry of consoles and monitors. One wall is painted green and covered with a large white poster decorated with the station’s logo and slogan: Radio Poder 97.7 FM…La chispa del pueblo! There’s a kitchenette with a sink and coffee maker. The rest of the walls are covered with the radio operating license documents and colorful, hand-drawn posters about how the radio works and the languages of Homestead: Creole, Kaqchikel, English, Otomí, Zapoteco, Spanish and more.

The antenna on the roof of the building broadcasts Radio Poder throughout South Dade 24 hours a day. WeCount! listeners tune in to the programming in the car or at home, while those who work in plant nurseries and agricultural fields often bring hand-held, battery-operated radios to pass the hours laboring under the hot sun.

New content is usually aired every two weeks. Segments, which can run from 30 seconds to a minute and a half, are created by staff and members based on what is going on among WeCount! members and the wider South Dade community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been radio spots in Ixil providing information about where to get a vaccine and segments in Mam countering misinformation about their safety in a community where rumors about the vaccine harming pregnant women and mothers took hold through social media.

“At any given hour, you’re probably going to be hearing between four and six public service announcements. You’ll hear shorter PSAs quickly, like ‘Hey, get vaccinated,’ ” said Claudia Navarro, co-executive director of WeCount! who oversees the radio programming. “And there are some that go a little more at length that can describe ‘What does it look like to have a heat stroke?’ and talk people through how to find medical resources.”

On the station wall is a long list of the genres Radio Poder plays in between programming — a musical mosaic of its audiences that includes Colombian cumbia, Haitian konpa, Mexican norteñas, Dominican bachata, and marimba band music.

“We kind of represented a broader range of the community, so we put on a broader range of music,” said former director Fried, who now volunteers at the station in retirement.

Now, WeCount! is looking to go digital so listeners can hear its programming online, and aiming to have hourlong programs every week. The new lengthier segments could feature WeCount!’s youth membership talking about issues that are important to them or explore about what it means to be an immigrant in Miami-Dade County, from navigating the school system to being undocumented.

“We have a lot of visions of where the radio can go,” said Navarro.

“A Little Nebaj”

Radio Poder also fosters community and belonging on the South Florida airwaves for indigenous people and other immigrant listeners far away from their homes and support networks.

“What the community radio does is offer an equitable place for everyone, no matter your ability to read or write, no matter your ability to speak a different language,” Wood said. “They can remember home when they listen to their native language on the radio.”

The organization had nearly 1,000 members as of January. While 55% speak Spanish as a first language, the other 45% are native speakers of Mayan and non-Mayan languages, with most speaking Mayan Mam and Ixil. Members also speak Kaqchikel, K’iche’, Chuj, Tzotzil, Mixteco, among other indigenous languages spoken in Mexico and Central America, according to data provided by the organization.

Homestead “is like a little Nebaj,” said Brito, referring to a Guatemalan municipality where Ixil and K’iche’ are spoken. “There are many people here who don’t speak a lot of Spanish or weren’t in school and we have the opportunity to give announcements in different languages.”

Community radio has a strong presence among indigenous people in Guatemala and other areas of Latin America, where they operate stations to preserve and celebrate their tongues and traditions. It’s one of the most effective mediums to spread news and information and defend human rights in indigenous communities, according to a 2016 United Nations report.

“It’s aligned with that spirit and vision. The idea of the community radio is not something we invented and what we are trying to do is bring that same level and comfort of familiarity,” said Wood.

In June, WeCount! will launch its first hourlong program titled “La Hora del Calor,” or the “Heat Hour,” where members will talk about the impact of extreme heat in South Florida across different outdoor industries like construction and agriculture. The station hopes to invite climate scientists, public health experts and meteorologists as part of the show, an extension of the organization’s Que Calor campaign, which advocates for heat protections for outdoor workers. The show will be broadcast in Spanish, Ixil and Mam.

“We want the radio to reach different states, so all our countrymen and friends can hear it,” Marcos said.

Brito, 35, who left Guatemala for the United States in 2004, heard community radio only a few times before leaving his home country. Today, Radio Poder transports him back to his roots.

“It motivates you to keep going and makes you remember where you come from or reminds you of the whole family,” he said. “You think that you are in your town.”