Targeting the Trend Setters

Latina teenagers buy twice as many cosmetics, skin- and hair-care products as other girls their age. They read magazines as much as they watch television. More than 90% say they want to attend a college or university. Advertisers see them, along with urban and black teens, as trend setters for the rest of the country. So it makes perfect business sense to launch a magazine targeting them.

Latin Girl, a bimonthly from New Jersey publisher Micro-Media Affiliates, launches this week. But for publisher Bill Ryan, the decision to start the magazine was personal.

An Irish-American New York native, Ryan remembers how disenfranchised Irish Catholics once were. And he’s passionate about empowering Latina readers. “They deserve everything that the Irish and the Poles [had] here,” he says.

A veteran publisher of the Village Voice, Ryan immersed himself in Latina writers. Then he hired editor Lu Herrera and asked her to read “Angela’s Ashes.”

“The European migrants to this country faced the same kinds of bias,” Ryan says. “They came over here with their brogues and accents. I see the huge immigration from all over Latin America as the same thing.”

The magazine will be similar to many teen publications--focusing on beauty, relationships and clothes, but with a different bent. “Relationships are different when you have a Hispanic parent, especially when they are first generation,” Ryan says. “It’s different than what the typical Anglo teenager has to deal with.”

Latinas not only face issues separate from Anglo girls, they have different ideas about beauty. Focus groups showed Spanish versions of traditional teen magazines weren’t addressing exotic, fuller-figured images of womanhood. That frustrated readers.

For Herrera, a former junior high school teacher, the goal is to publish a slick magazine that is also empowering. Expect Latin Girl to be sophisticated and good-looking. “Appearance is very important to our girls,” she says.

The magazine will initially be distributed in schools and in the top 10 Latin markets, including Los Angeles and New York. Up-and-coming actress Rosario Dawson is the cover model of Latin Girl’s debut issue.

Latin Girl will be available on L.A. newsstands beginning Jan. 19. To contact the magazine after publication, call (888) 440-4583.