Crescent City Connections: 200 Years of the Spanish-Language Press in the United States

December 5, 2008 -January 23, 2009

New Orleans has long traced its cultural roots to France. Yet, Spanish-speaking peoples from Spain and Latin America have left a lasting imprint on all aspects of the city—business and political ventures, jazz, architecture, food and print culture.

It is a little known fact that the first Spanish-language newspaper in the United States, El Misisipí, was published in New Orleans from 1808 to 1810 and, in retrospect, is considered a foundational moment of the Hispanic press in the country. In fact, during the first half of the 19th century, the Crescent City was the undisputed center of the U.S. Hispanic press, with twenty-three known Spanish-language newspapers, almost double the number for New York at that time.  Indeed, antebellum New Orleans was a stage where many important political figures from Latin America came in exile and plotted their return.  Mexican Liberals José Antonio Mejía and Valentín Gómez Farias lived here for six years during the 1830s and 1840s, from where they re-gathered forces to return to Mexico.  Future Mexican president Benito Juárez worked in a New Orleans cigar factory for nearly two years in the 1850s while plotting the overthrow of Santa Anna.  Equally significant was the presence of Cubans of many political stripes, such as Cirilo Villaverde, author of the classic anti-slavery novel Cecilia Valdés (1882), as well as an influential group of exiled poets from the island.  The city also was a launching point for filibustering expeditions to Central America, while New Orleanian John Slidell spearheaded the failed 1845 attempt to purchase California from Mexico.  Surrounding these figures was a vibrant multilingual print culture in the Crescent City, which reached international audiences. 

In the 20th century, New Orleans continued as a preferred destination for Latin Americans from many backgrounds.  As the headquarters of banana giants Standard Fruit, Cozumel Fruit, and United Fruit, the city was a magnet for Central American workers from the early 1900s until the mid-1960s.  Towards mid-century, local businesses such as Holmes and Maison Blanche Department Stores and schools such as Sophie Newcomb College and Sacred Heart Academy aggressively sought to attract wealthy Latin American consumers, tourists and students.  The recent wave of Latin American laborers—Mexican, Brazilian, Central American—who have come to New Orleans to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina is but the latest chapter in the long and evolving story of New Orleans and the Hispanic world.

This exhibit commemorates the publication of El Misisipí (1808-1810), and is presented in conjunction with a program featuring talks by Kirsten Silva-Gruesz (University of California-Santa Cruz) and Nicolás Kanellos (University of Houston).  The exhibit presents a selection of relevant titles held at Tulane University libraries.  Spanning two centuries, these publications document the strong and continuous presence of Hispanophone populations in New Orleans.  Cases 1 and 2 feature 19 th century publications, with a facsimile of an 1808 issue of El Misisipí, of which only four issues are held in the United States, and an original 1835 issue of a later publication with the same name from Tulane's Louisiana Collection.  Of note in Case 2 is a facsimile of the prominent newspaper, La Patria (1846 – 1850) containing an assessment of the state of Spanish-language publishing in New Orleans, as well as a pirated edition of a Spanish publication, La Risa, by the same publishers.  Cases 3 and 4 present publications from the 20th century. Of particular note is El Mercurio ( 1911-1927), regarded as New Orleans' most prestigious Spanish-language publication, which carried exclusive articles by prominent intellectuals such as Miguel de Unamuno and José Echegaray.

Special thanks to the Louisiana Collection of Tulane University for loaning material displayed in this exhibit, and to Kirsten Silva-Gruesz for images and insights into the early Spanish-language press in New Orleans.

This exhibit was made possible through an endowment to the Latin American Library from the Zemurray Foundation in memory of Doris Zemurray Stone.