May Wu of the St. Louis Chinese American News
The smell of fish doesn’t just drift through the air when you walk into the foyer of The St. Louis Chinese American News. It hangs there. But once you step into the newspaper’s office, where stacks of past issues climb the walls, the smell from the adjacent Olive Farmers’ Market lessens.
The St. Louis Chinese American News has a prime location in University City, situated on the long stretch of Olive where there’s restaurant after restaurant serving Chinese and pan–Asian food. Since it was founded in 1990, the paper’s mission (no doubt bolstered by its locale) is to help newly arrived Chinese acclimate to the St. Louis region. Its four-member staff prides itself on being the bridge between the Chinese community and the general St. Louis population.
This is just one paper out of thousands in the United States that cover news for immigrant communities that are not fluent in English. Imagine not knowing where to shop for groceries. Imagine deciding which school you should send your child. Imagine finding a hospital. It all can be very intimidating and unmanageable.
Ethnic media fills, or rather, bridges that gap. “They are incredibly strong immigrant integration tools,” says Anna Crosslin, president of the International Institute of St. Louis. “The value they have is more than just to the immigrants themselves. It’s a great value to the wider community as a tool in helping these immigrants really adjust and take their place in the communities as a fully participating member.”
Like the immigrant communities themselves, the content published in each newspaper is diverse. Virtually all explain laws, regulations, and nuances of American culture, but some report on national and international stories. Others, like The St. Louis Chinese American News, focus solely on community events. Rita Csapo-Sweet, professor of media studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says the ethnic media’s community emphasis creates a sense of cohesion that mass journalism often fails to generate. “[Ethnic newspapers] report on films, theater, cultural events, important personalities in the community, and human interest stories which are something that gives the ethnic community praise and validates their existence,” she says. “All of a sudden, you have your photo in the newspaper and your friends and family see it, that’s very validating.”
Chinese immigration to St. Louis isn’t new. From the mid-1800s to right after World War II, they came to work on railroads and later opened Laundromats. Immigration picked up again in the ’80s and ’90s, but there was—and is—a wide disparity in the amount of education, says Eric Huang of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Greater St. Louis. Extended family members make up a lot of those who lack education. Others are university students, which are a big audience for the St. Louis Chinese American News. The paper has a Twitter account, and also publishes an annual Chinese phone book for the community. The weekly paper has a circulation of 6,000 and about 3,500 daily visitors to its website, which features an e-copy available to download. The paper’s director, May Wu, says staff members often bring new restaurant owners to the health department to go over questions. It’s all in an effort, she says, to improve transparency and communication.
What hasn’t been lost in translation is the recession. All media, regardless of the audience, have been hit by the loss in advertisement. Maybe even more so for the St. Louis Chinese American News, which doesn’t charge. “We feel the affect of [the economy],” says Wu, who also handles advertising. “Some advertisers might change from once a week to every other week, or they just do once a month, and of course some drop [completely].” However, advertising in ethnic media can be lucrative, Crosslin says. Immigrants don’t always read the main newspaper, and businesses can miss out on reaching underserved communities. Huang, from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, estimates the St. Louis Chinese population, including international students, to be about 70,000.
The Chinese are one of the few communities in St. Louis with more than one local publication. The St. Louis Chinese Journal, which was not available for comment, opened in 1996 and has a regional focus, with news from the Kansas City Chinese community, as well as national and international articles. Although they may be competitors, Crosslin doesn’t think they, and other ethnic media, compete with mass media. “I think each of them have their own role in the community. There’s no way that the mainstream can segment itself enough to be able to reach all these different audiences,” she says. “Rather than thinking of them as being in competition with each other, I think of them more as complementing each other because the ethnic media can sometimes drill down on an issue in a way to offer details and an educational opportunity.”
St. Louis’ ethnic diversity is surprising given the city’s size, but it’s also what makes it a destination. “In the late 80s, 90s and so on, St. Louis was a perfect place to bring in ethnic groups because of the fact that there wasn’t a saturation of immigrants,” Csapo-Sweet says. “But they were not going to be putting these people into an already-traumatized, already-polarized environment...I guess you could say it was the right place, right time. It’s becoming a much more diverse place, and I think that’s to everyone’s benefit.”
This is the first installment in a three-part series on ethnic newspapers in St. Louis. Next week, we look at SabaH, a Bosnian newspaper that relocated from New York to St. Louis.
