In the News

Moonshine Ink is Truckee’s Bilingual Newspaper
date posted: December 27 2005

Lake Tahoe Report #116
May 9, 2005
By John Cobourn and Heather Segale


In addition to a mainstream newspaper, the town of Truckee has an independent bilingual newspaper that emphasizes community news for locals. It is published monthly and is about 40 pages in length. The paper has a circulation of 7000 readers.

Anne Grogan and Mayumi Elegado began planning the first issue in 2002 with the belief that the Spanish-speaking members of the community are the backbone of the Tahoe-Truckee economy and need to have a source for local news. “Without them, things would fall apart. The construction industry, hotels, restaurants, ski areas, and golf courses would have few or no employees. We need to acknowledge this vital element of our community.”

Grogan came up with the idea from personal experience: “When I was in Mexico, in the process of learning Spanish through immersion, there was a phase where the bilingual publications were a tremendous help to understanding what I was hearing. Many language teachers and learners in our area use our publication in their courses as learning tools.”

The paper highlights the assets, issues and events of the Truckee community. Subscribers include full time residents and second homeowners. Grogan says she likes to write about the decision-making process in the Town of Truckee and the Special Districts. “It helps give our readers a sense that decisions are made through dialogue and not just arbitrarily.”

The events calendar is comprehensive and covers art, film, music and other cultural events in the Tahoe-Truckee as well as the California foothills and the Reno areas. The stories Moonshine Ink translates are what Grogan and Elegado consider important to every member of the community. The two attempt to print all stories on health, education, housing, growth and development issues in both English and Spanish.

Both women also love and are concerned about the environment. Grogan says she has discovered through publishing Moonshine Ink that she didn’t know as much about the environment and other issues as she thought she did before starting. “We have learned that our beliefs can change with more information, and that there are a lot more gray areas than black and white.”

Grogan said Moonshine Ink also tries to demonstrate that Truckee is a neighborhood community which further expands into the regional, state, national and world communities. “Events outside our area do affect us. The war is beginning to hit home, and the amputees are arriving. China’s commercial market is affecting prices and supplies in our area. The Bush administration’s proposed changes to immigration policy and Social Security will impact all of us. Truckee is no longer the insulated community it seemed to be 10 years ago.”

Reading ideas like that can give us all something to think about.

The Lake Tahoe Report is a collaborative effort of the Lake Tahoe Environmental Education Coalition, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and the California State Water Resource Control Board. For more information, contact Heather Segale, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, (530) 583-3279, or logon to www.lteec.org.