In the La Crosse area, Spanish-speaking residents can easily discover updates by reading El Sol, the only newspaper in the tri-state area completely written and published in Spanish. El Sol is a Viterbo University newspaper, stemming from the Spanish 306 class Spanish Newspaper and Journalism, taught by Jesus Jambrina. Jambrina is now the advisor for El Sol, though he plans to leave most decisions up to current team, business manager Hannah Mertens, and Alessandra Betchner, editor-in-chief, who sat down for an interview with the Lumen to share her insights on El Sol. 

Betchner is a first-year Spanish major with big plans as the editor-in-chief for El Sol. “I wanted to challenge myself more,” she said about joining the team. “Jesus is my advisor and told me a position was open and that he needed to fill it, and he thought I was a good fit.” It’s always a struggle for first-year students to find a place where they feel comfortable, but Betchner found hers quickly. “I needed to hone-in on my skills and find a leadership role,” she said. 

The work done by El Sol is important, both on campus and to the community. “As you probably know, we are the only Spanish newspaper in the tri-state region,” Betchner stated. “We have such a large Latino population, and we are trying to develop that as part of our social structure.” One of Viterbo’s core values is hospitality, which is demonstrated through El Sol. Betchner continues, “It’s important to see representation. We can translate any newspaper into Spanish, but it’s not the same. There’s school news, community news- but this is geared towards the Latino community.”  

Eventually, El Sol will be more accommodating and get a remodel. When Betchner was asked where she saw El Sol in the next 5 to 10 years, she responded, “5 to 10 years- like after I graduate?” with a little chuckle. She continued, “I hope it’s more well-known, more advertised. Like we don’t see it anywhere right now. I want to attract different audiences. All of our articles are intermediate level, so I really just want to grow our audience and make the paper more well-known.”  

El Sol recently joined the virtual network, too. “We actually bought our domain about a year ago,” says Betchner. “Now we are focusing on making our site better and trying to figure out what it means to be totally online.” Readers can go to elsolspanishnewspaper.com to see all of the articles they publish and learn a little bit more about the Latino community in La Crosse.