Multicultural publications seek staff, funds

Three publications, two performing arts groups, one night.

The editorial boards of Little Black Book, La Vida Magazine and Mosaic Magazine — three of Penn’s minority publications — have come together to organize Preserving Our Perspectives: A Night With Penn’s Multicultural Magazines.

The event, which is meant to raise awareness about the publications, will take place at 8 p.m. tonight at the Bodek Lounge in Houston Hall. It will include performances by Penn’s spoken word group the Excelano Project and the Middle Eastern dance group Ya’lla.

In between each performance, the editor of one of the multicultural magazines will speak about his or her publication.

“Basically, the purpose of the event is to get students familiar with the magazines on campus, to know that they’re there and what sort of impact they’re looking to have,” said College sophomore and former Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer John Bang, co-editor of Mosaic Magazine, Penn’s Asian American interest publication.

Funding is also a major issue for minority publications.

The magazines suffer from being under-funded, according to Isamar Ramirez, the editor-in-chief of La Vida Magazine, Penn’s Latino interest publication.

“Though La Vida is currently SAC funded, its staff remains small — five people — and it can only afford to release one issue per semester,” Ramirez said.

“Having these kinds of events is crucial to being recognized by SAC,” Bang said.

During the event, the publications hope to recruit more staff members.

Mosaic — formerly called Propaganda Silk — was discontinued in 2005, but current Penn students are attempting to revive it.

“We hope that more students will know about Mosaic and will wish to be part of our editorial board,” Bang said.

Recruiting more staff members and contributors is a common goal of all of the publications participating in the event, according to College junior Nichole Nelson, the executive editor of Little Black Book, Penn’s African American interest publication.

LBB, which formerly focused solely on African American women, has recently become the predominant African American magazine on campus, Nelson said.

With its new, wider audience, the publication is seeking to expand its staff, which currently consists of 10 people, Nelson explained.

She attributes LBB’s staffing problem to the fact that “there’s only so many minority students on campus and not all of them want to write.”

Writers of all backgrounds are welcome to contribute to the magazines.

However, the staff members of each minority publication tend to belong to its respective minority group, according to Bang.

Nelson hopes that today’s event will “remedy that by putting these publications in a different setting.”

But getting more funding and a bigger staff is just a means to an end, according to Nelson.

“We want to show people that minority perspectives are unique and invaluable,” she said.

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