Countywide : Magazine Offers Latino Immigrants Tips

A new Spanish-language magazine being distributed across Orange County offers pages of how-to tips, health and legal columns, and features that highlight cultural diversity.

Publisher Olga Lumsden said the goal of the monthly publication, titled CondorciTo, is to help Spanish-speaking families, especially recent immigrants from Latin American countries, gain knowledge and prosper here.

“We’re trying to make people aware of the services available to them, to empower them,” said Lumsden, 48, who emigrated from Paraguay in 1965.

To that end, Lumsden said, articles in the free magazine tell readers how to apply for U.S. citizenship, enroll in free English classes and manage personal finances.

“CondorciTo gives an answer to a lot of questions that immigrants have about this country and how it works,” said Arturo Olmedo, the publication’s graphic artist.

Teacher Ivette Galvez-Medina of Huntington Beach is one of the magazine’s avid readers.

“I picked up one issue a few months ago in a health center, and I couldn’t put it down,” she said.

“It contains so much useful information that I’ve started collecting it to give to the students in my parenting classes, and they find it very helpful.”

Iliana Lopez, 27, of Costa Mesa said she reads the magazine for the recipes, the jokes and commentaries on political issues of special interest to Latinos.

“The writing is very eloquent, and the grammar is correct,” she said, flipping through the latest edition.

“I have several issues. They are very useful.”

Lumsden, who owned an import business in the 1980s, said she hopes eventually to make a profit from the magazine, which now sells only enough advertising to cover the $3,000 bill for printing 20,000 copies a month.

Meanwhile, she said, she plans to expand the magazine’s circulation to include Los Angeles and Riverside counties.