Today we’d like to introduce you to Cristina Escobar.
Hi Cristina, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I had a whole career in nonprofits before becoming an entertainment journalist and entrepreneur. In those jobs, we were always encouraging people to “find your voice.” I literally helped run a campaign called “Find Your Voice” but I hadn’t found mine.
I did meet a lot of amazing women whose example helped me realize that I should take the leap. One of them was Nicola Schulze, another Latina who I met working in the media representation space. Together, we realized that no one was working at the intersection of gender and Latinidad to encourage more Latinas to become critics. We decided to do something about it and co-founded LatinaMedia.Co. It started out as an experiment. Nicola and I writing for the site, editing each other’s work, and seeing if we had anything to say and if anyone would care.
It turned out we did, and the audience for Latina-led criticism is boundless. Since then, the site has grown, and we are now proud to work with a roster of over 50 Latina and queer Latinx critics who are helping the industry know what we want!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It was a long journey to co-founding LatinaMedia.Co, and it certainly wasn’t easy. First, you should know that I wanted to be a writer as a kid. I was constantly reading and dreaming up stories, but sometime around puberty, I decided nothing I could write would ever be good enough, so I put aside that particular dream. Still, I loved stories majored in English, and embarked on a career in communications in marketing. Along the way, I learned that I’d been wrong. That you don’t need to be one of the greats to contribute, that women creatives may often get overlooked, but we can’t let that stop us.
As I was getting ready to take the leap and start pitching myself as a professional writer, I found myself in conversation with another, Latina Nicola Schulze, who I had worked with in the nonprofit space around advancing women’s representation in media. We talked about all the amazing organizations that were doing similar work to make Hollywood and the storytelling industries at large more reflective of the actual population of Earth. But we noticed that less was happening to encourage diversity in film criticism, the third wheel of the Hollywood eco-system. And no one was specifically encouraging Latinas like us to trust our voices and insights and become critics.
So, together, we created LatinaMedia.Co to platform Latina and queer Latinx perspectives in media. It started out as an experiment, with Nicola and I writing for the site and editing each other’s work. We wanted to find out if we had something to say and if anyone else would care. It turns out we did, and the audience for Latina perspectives is vast and untapped. Since then, we’ve grown dramatically, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers, 50+ contributors, and philanthropic and corporate partners. And we’re not stopping – we’ve got big dreams for LatinaMedia.Co, and we’re not letting anyone hold us back.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I write at the intersection of gender, race, and pop culture. That means I’m not particularly interested in whether something is good or not (I find quality deeply subjective and largely boring). But rather, I’m interested in what’s important about a given piece of art. That approach to covering TV and movies (and sometimes podcasts, books, and the conversations that surround them) has led me to become a regular contributor to Roger Ebert and POPSUGAR. But you can catch my work all over – I’ve written for Vulture, Refinery29, Glamour, the AV Club, Remezcla, and more.
Of course, I also still write for LatinaMedia.Co but my work over there is more editing these days and I couldn’t be prouder. Nicola and I created LatinaMedia.Co not as an elite space but a community one. We’re proud to give a lot of Latinas their first bylines, nudging them on their journeys to becoming professional writers. And we also work with pros, giving them a chance to speak directly from and to their community. It’s an honor and privilege and I love it.
Contact Info:
- Website: LatinaMedia.Co
- Instagram: instragram.com/latinamediaco
- Twitter: twitter.com/latinamediaco
