National Award for Excellence in Spanish-language Journalism – The AL DIA Foundation, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization, announced today the “FELIX VARELA’ National Journalism Awards, endowed with cash awards of up to $20,000 dollars, honoring an American intellectual of Hispanic origin who 183 years ago published in Philadelphia a Spanish-language newspaper, one of the very first in the history of the nation

“The AL DIA Foundation, with headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, unveiled today in the nation’s capital the “Felix Varela y Morales” Annual Awards for Excellence in Spanish-Language Journalism in the United States, in a press conference held today Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 12:00 p.m., in the Zenger Room of the National Press Club of Washington, DC.

“Hispanic print has been contributing to the national dialogue, ever since 1824, when Father Felix Varela y Morales founded the first known Spanish-language newspaper in the East Coast, in the City of Philadelphia,” stated Hernán Guaracao, Chairman of the AL DIA Foundation.

Since its inception, and over the past 100 years, the industry of Spanish-language publications has been part of a vital process to provide news and information to a substantial group of “Americans that have populated this land since Father Varela came to Philadelphia, and America, like all the ancestors of our fellow American immigrants, on a plane, boat, ship, plane, or simply by foot,” Guaracao said. “All of them, escaping persecution, and in search of freedom –the central and universal longing of the human race– in this generous land called the United States of America.”

He also stated that the recognition of this kind of intellectual work, and particularly what he called “this type of overlooked American journalism,” produced today by hundreds of Spanish-language publications across the nation, and already with over 200 years of history in America. This little known but proud journalism “must be finally recognized for its excellence, as any other, important as its essential role is in bringing Americans together and building pride for what American Democracy, in general, and American Journalism, in particular, still represents in the free world today,” the AL DIA Foundation Chairman said. CASH AWARD, THE LARGEST IN HISPANIC PRESS:

The National Felix Varela Annual Awards for Excellence in Spanish-language Journalism in the United States will carry one of the largest cash prizes for journalism in the nation.

In its first year, the contest will choose winners in only two categories: Hispanic Print Journalism and Hispanic Digital Journalism.

Each category winner will receive a $10,000 prize each, the largest in the nation today for Hispanic Journalists in the US.
THE JURY IN CHARGE OF SELECTION:

The jury will be made up of 3 prestigious practitioners of Journalism in the Americas:

Albor Ruiz, Columnist of the New York Daily News, and member of the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).

Zita Arocha, Former Executive Director of NAHJ, and currently Associate Director of the Sam Donaldson Center for Communications Studies at the University of Texas, at El Paso.

Jorge Castañeda, former Foreign Relations Secretary of the Mexican Government, and current syndicated columnist of El Pais in Spain, has been invited to be the third judge in this prestigious panel.

THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRY SUBMISSIONS:

Entries for this award will be accepted from October 12th, 2007, until June 30th, 2008.
A formal ceremony, with guests from all across the Americas and Spain, to acknowledge the winners, will be hosted in a prestigious venue in the Washington-Philadelphia-New York corridor during Hispanic Heritage Month of 2008, which runs from September 15th to October the 15th.

Full details will be made available soon online through an official web site of the “Felix Varela” Awards of the AL DIA Foundation.

Those that are interested in learning immediately more information about the program, please contact Hernán Guaracao at 215-569-4666 ext. 116.

Mr. Guaracao is the former president of the National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP, Inc.), and a Fulbright Scholar with 25-year career in Journalism in the Americas. He has an undergraduate degree in Communications and Journalism from a prestigious University in Latin America, in addition to a Masters Degree in Journalism from the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. He is currently the Publisher of AL DIA Newspapers Inc., one the leading Hispanic Publishing Houses in the nation, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
THE FOUNDATION:

The AL DIA Foundation is a nonprofit organization incorporated as well in the State of Pennsylvania.

Current members of the Foundation Board, in addition to Mr. Guaracao, are Dr. Concetta Stwart, Ph.D, Dean of Communications of Temple University in Philadelphia, and Mr. Rudy Beserra, Senior Vice-president of Coca-Cola, USA.

The Foundation named the award after Father Felix Varela y Morales because his intellect as a writer, entrepreneurship as a newspaper editor and publisher in Philadelphia and New York, and his commitment in the defense of poor immigrants, at his time pouring into New York City mostly from Ireland and Italy to escape poverty and hunger in their homeland.

“Living always as one of the poor, he devoted himself entirely to the service of God and of needy people. He became an Apostle for the Immigrants,” says one of his many biographies.

Father Varela was born in Havana in 1788, and died in Saint Augustine, FL, in 1853.

At 1824, at 37 years of age, Father Varela came to live in Philadelphia where he published in Old City “El Habanero”, a newspaper in which he passionately wrote for the independence of Cuba, well before the better known Cuban writer and poet José Martí­ came to New York to pick up exactly the same flag and follow on the same intellectual pursuit.”

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