Anthony Victoria
For 91.9 KVCR News, I'm Anthony Victoria. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino-led and Latino-serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Joining me today is Ivan Fernandez, an editor with LA Taco and the recently launched IE Taco. Thanks for joining us, Ivan.
Ivan Fernandez
Hey, great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Anthony Victoria
So, my understanding is that IE Taco actually started as an April Fool's joke. So, uh, how did this joke turn into reality?
Ivan Fernandez
Well, it started with actually, it started years ago. So, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, in Pico Union neighborhood moved to the city of Rialto, and out here in the Inland Empire back in the 90s, and I've just been back and forth between LA and IE my whole life, and I would say maybe over the past three to four years I've been really trying to get LA Taco to venture out of LA, and do a bit more coverage in San Bernardino and Riverside. Earlier this year, we hired our events person. He's from Pomona, but spent a lot of time in, like, Montclair, Ontario, and Rancho growing up. And so he's always felt that he's very much an IE person. So, with his help this year we really finally convinced Javier Cabral, editor in chief, to like, at least let us do one guide, like, let's just try it out, let's see what happens, and and that's also when Alex Blazedale, who was our co-publisher and co-founder in LA Taco, he started noticing even before then, but start like after, after that, also noticing more like clicks and readers and subscribers coming out of Riverside, San Bernardino counties. He's saying, "Well, okay, it's you know something's going on, and people from outside of Los Angeles are eating LA Taco. Let's see where it goes. And so we kind of had that little bit of a momentum to start working on something, I'm thinking, wait a minute, April 1, April Fools. Guys, what if we, you know, make this a bigger thing, and just go, hey, we could change the banner, we can make a little announcement on Instagram and social media, and say, hey, we're no longer LA Taco, we're now the Inland Empire Taco, so it's april 1, like, yeah, we're the IE Taco now. Here's our first IE Taco guide. April 2 is like, okay, yeah, we're LA Taco, but we do have an actual guide for all of you to read. So I'm really happy with the way it turned out, because again, it was not entirely a last-minute idea, but definitely something that, like, it wasn't in the plans initially, up until we started getting closer to deadline, and realized, oh, actually, this would be a really great way to announce that we do, in fact, have a nice big guide about the Inland Empire, and we really want people to read it.
Anthony Victoria
I mean, I definitely loved the joke, people were stoked, and to your point, it shows just the desire for information and for news and for journalism. What kind of stories should Inland Empire residents expect from IE Taco? What's going to be the focus of your coverage?
Ivan Fernandez
The IE Taco right now is being funded through the help of the Inland Empire Community Foundation, the IECF, through the CIELO Fund, and so the focus is going to be on like Latino organizations, Latino businesses, and so forth. So, you know, there's going to be a focus mainly on that, but we do eventually want to expand and do more. You know, we don't want to restrict ourselves to just that, because the Inland Empire is a very diverse area. It's a very diverse region. A lot of folks, I hear a lot of African Americans, a lot of people from Asia as well, you know, like whether it's Chinese background, Japanese background, etcetera, etcetera. But to start off, the focus will be a bit more on the Latino community, food guides, of course, and I have already spent quite a lot of time in many restaurants in nearby.
Anthony Victoria
Full disclosure for our audiences, KVCR, and this program is also funded by the CIELO Fund and the Inland Empire Community Foundation. But to this point, right, we're both getting supported for local journalism. Why is it important? Why is it crucial, maybe even to highlight these voices, and why do you think the coverage that you all give at LA Taco is so important?
Ivan Fernandez
I think there's almost like a level of trust there. I think the trust comes from, you know, all of us being from similar backgrounds, similar communities. Number one thing is showing folks that we do, in fact, care about what we're covering. It's been very exciting to have everyone working together, and then covering more stories, but even then it feels like, okay, there's more of us, but it still feels like it's not enough. That's also why it's important to have the little helping hand from the CIELO Fund to help us come. For more stuff out here in the Inland Empire.
Anthony Victoria
Thank you so much for your commitment to local journalism here in the Inland Empire.
Ivan Fernandez
Yeah, thanks again for inviting me.
Anthony Victoria
Ivan Fernandez is an editor with LA Taco and IE Taco. Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at kvcr.org forward slash IE Latino Voices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media, and is funded by generous support from the CIELO Fund and IECF. For KVCR News, I'm Anthony Victoria.
