Spanish Language

When light rail returns to the Eastside neighborhoods of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles this summer, many Spanish-speaking residents will undoubtedly talk about taking el tren. But will commuters say they are riding la Linea de Oro? Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina will propose during an MTA board meeting today that the Eastside extension of the Gold Line be officially named la Linea de Oro, Edward R. Roybal.

Florentino Vidal began working on his family's ranch in Mexico at age 7, forgoing grammar and high school for a childhood spent growing lettuce, carrots, watermelon and tomatoes. Vidal, 47, said he knows the Spanish alphabet and can read some, but gets confused writing much more than his name. Now he will have the opportunity to resume his studies and earn his Mexican diploma here in the United States.

Spanish-language broadcasters in the U.S. project their political advertising sales will soar this year as the presidential candidates woo Latinos in states that have a chance to tip the election. "We are significant players in the battleground states," said Philip Wilkinson, chief operating officer of Entravision Communications Corp., owner of 51 Spanish-language television stations.

The Navy chaplain brought his guitar. The Marines brought their M-16s. What they all brought to a Friday night service at the Chapel of Hope was a desire to speak Spanish while discussing Scripture and its application to life and death in a war zone. The services were inspired by something that Navy Lt. Cmdr. Samuel Ravelo, a chaplain and Southern Baptist minister, saw a few months earlier when he arrived in Kuwait while en route to his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Public television will now have its own 24-hour Spanish-language network. V-me, pronounced \o7veh-meh\f7, will be available to people with basic digital cable service, giving Spanish-language viewers an alternative to the popular \o7telenovelas \f7 that have made the Univision network popular. V-me will offer viewers programming on such subjects as child care and yoga. It will air a Charlie Rose-like interview show.

With a ceremonial pressing of a button Monday, the new Spanish-language network V-me hit the air. "V-me is fundamentally about encouraging and facilitating the emergence of the new American Latino culture," said Mario Baeza, the network's founder, shortly after the network signed on. "But most of all, it should be entertaining."

Spanish-language radio stations continued their dominance of the Southland airwaves, capturing three of the top five spots, including first, in the winter Arbitron ratings released Monday. Improving from its second-place finish from the previous quarter, KSCA-FM (101.9) claimed the No. 1 spot with an average of 4.8% of the listening audience age 12 and older between Jan. 11 and April 4.

Considering that Latinos make up the largest ethnic group in the United States and Latino buying power is on an upward march, you'd figure Spanish-language networks would be fighting advertisers off. They aren't. This week in New York, where the bulk of the commercial time for the upcoming television season will be sold at what's called the upfront market, Univision and Telemundo will need to make hard sells.

Univision, the country's highest-rated Spanish-language television network and a leading draw for young adult viewers, has invited White House hopefuls from both major parties to participate in the first presidential candidate debates to be conducted entirely in Spanish. The network has proposed two debates, one for each party, to be held on back-to-back Sundays in September -- giving the candidates unprecedented exposure to a mass audience of increasingly important Latino voters.

Not long ago, Lucas Bongarra, a former college soccer player and now coach, was watching ESPN2 when a promo came on for ESPN Deportes. He switched. And stayed. "I now can watch 'SportsCenter' in Spanish," said an almost jubilant Bongarra, 30, who grew up in Buenos Aires and now lives in West Hollywood. "It's the same format as the 'SportsCenter' on ESPN, only it's in Spanish." He doesn't deny that he is hooked.