In May, WKAR launched a new Spanish-language podcast called “¿Qué Onda Michigan?” It’s an effort to bridge the information gap faced by many non-English speakers in mid-Michigan.
From its first lively chords on the classical guitar, “¿Qué Onda Michigan?” sets a welcoming tone.
“¿Qué Onda is like, somebody might greet you with, ‘What’s up?’” says co-producer Araceli Crescencio. "¿Qué Onda? So, ¿Qué Onda? is like ‘What’s Up, Michigan?’”
As a reporter for WLNS in Lansing, Crescencio is a familiar face in mid-Michigan. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis grew, Crescencio began producing a series of news updates on Facebook in Spanish.
Her work caught the eye of our own Michelle Jokisch Polo, who joined the WKAR news team last August. In December, she reached out to Crescensio with an idea to build upon that work.
“I felt like there was something missing, and this was an opportunity to get that started; to get a weekly update of what’s important for Latinx communities in Michigan,” says Jokisch Polo.
So, Michelle and Araceli teamed up to produce a new Spanish-language podcast.
“Local news in Spanish is something that people don’t get a lot of,” notes Crescencio. “So, when I found someone that was also bilingual and did similar work through a different medium, it was really exciting.”
“¿Qué Onda?” delivers local news in Spanish, like COVID-19 updates. But it also highlights topics relevant to Latinx listeners, like immigration and DACA, the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Jokisch Polo recounts a recent interviewee who is struggling to renew her two-year work permit that allows her to stay in the U.S. legally.
“She reapplied earlier this spring, and she’s been waiting since March and she was let go of her job because her permit lapsed,” she says. “So those things, I think, are particularly important for the Latinx Spanish speaking community, and we kind of dive a little bit deeper into that.”
“Que Onda” is slowly building listenership in mid-Michigan. So far, feedback has been good.
“This new program (to) get information that they want and they need is very, very important to the community,” says Nino Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is a leading figure in Lansing. He’s a former educator, a city school board member, and the founder of “Adelante Forward,” a quarterly magazine catering to a largely Latinx audience. He’s encouraged to see a new audio platform informed by strong journalism.
“WKAR, having the knowledge that they’ve got…they’ve got to transfer that to our community,” Rodriguez says. “For instance, the vaccine and all this pandemia we’re having. WKAR has a lot to say in that.”
Sein Benavides agrees. He’s a local organizer and director of “Cafecito Caliente,” which promotes news and events in Lansing’s Latinx community.
“We needed it yesterday,” says Benavides. “There’s a community out there that just doesn’t hear. The only thing we have, really is Nino’s magazine, ‘Adelante Forward,’ which provides everything imaginable that you would want… and at the same time, it’s still not enough.”
Araceli Crescencio says she wants listeners to feel like they’re part of a family.
“We feel like it should be a conversation between us and the Spanish speaking community,” Crescencio says. “So, we want it to feel like an open invitation to call in and let us know what it is that they want to hear.”
Michelle Jokisch Polo says engaging the community by soliciting their story ideas will ultimately be the key to the show’s success.
“That’s the only way that we’re going to truly be a community effort,” Jokisch Polo says. “So, in the future, I think we really want to build that network of community, you know…this is important to me and I would really want to hear more about it.”
Jokisch Polo says she hopes the podcast becomes an avenue where the community can call in and have their everyday news questions answered.
You can find "¿Qué Onda Michigan?" at NPR One, Spotify, and coming soon to other podcast services.