Editor’s note: This article was first published on October 3, 2025, by Dieter Mouchkatine and was translated into English by Dieter Mouchkatine on October 6, 2025.
I felt great pride seeing how the voice of Spanish-speaking students at UT reached a new level in student journalism this Tuesday, September 29. For the first time since The Daily Texan was founded in 1900, the newspaper published an article in Spanish in its print edition.
This achievement represents the most recent step we’ve taken at The Texan en Español within a stage of unexpected but necessary growth.
Moreover, as I reflected on the significance of this milestone, I felt the weight of the magnitude of what it means to be part of this historic moment. And so, I asked myself: “What marks the difference between history and the historical?” My answer: “purpose.”
The article published in this context, written by senior reporter Chelsea DeRoach Acosta, is about the moment when, also for the first time, UT’s Mariachi Paredes de Tejastitlán and Texas Folklórico Dance Company performed together in front of a stadium with a capacity of more than 100,000 spectators during a football game.
In an interview during Acosta’s reporting, the president of Texas Folklórico said: “[We wanted to make sure that] our fans and the university community… see their culture on a national stage.”
That quote made me realize that people and groups who give themselves a purpose—whether to advocate for others, create positive change, transform lives, and more—are the ones who create historical moments and movements; thus, the aforementioned event was not just a performance, but something more transcendent.
That’s how the Texan en Español began in 2022, as a translation project of The Daily Texan under the direction of Editor-in-Chief Fiza Kuzhiyil. The purpose? According to Kuzhiyil: “To listen to, uplift, and celebrate Latin voices.”
Since that moment, the Texan en Español hasn’t stopped following that mission, and it has led us to have, this semester, the largest team since our beginning—with more than 40 reporters, translators, and digital staff.
But while we celebrate our achievements, today the Latino community faces both new and old obstacles, which, thanks to studies and reports on the state of Latinos in this era, make it clear that it’s not erroneous to conclude that the Latino identity is under attack.
That’s why I hope to redefine our purpose: to reaffirm that our voices, ideas, and perspectives have a legitimate place in the journalistic spaces of UT, Austin, and beyond; from those spaces, we are not going anywhere.
The inclusion of Acosta’s article is only our first step under this renewed purpose.
Thus, our Latino community will be able to see someone like them writing stories and, at the same time, making history.
