Blog: Media and Hope – Latina Futures 2050 Lab

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March 20, 2025

Adding authentic voices across communities and media landscapes

By Sandra Baltazar Martínez

The Latina Futures 2050 Lab team is diligently working to position experts with lived experience across key audiences.

Over the past four weeks, Latina Futures team members have led meetings with English and Spanish-language media executives, attended leadership conferences, and supported community-based research in three key regions of California.

“Latina Futures’ commitment to improving the lives of women and girls is unwavering,” said Sonja Diaz, a lawyer and co-founder of Latina Futures. “We’ve made meaningful investments to community-centered research efforts in California’s Central Coast and Imperial Valley, while also leveraging cross-sectoral relationships to amplify Latina experts in print, digital and broadcast news.”

Screenshot — Daisy Verduzco Reyes, associated professor of sociology at UC Merced was published in De Los in the Los Angeles Times. Verduzco Reyes participated in Latina Futures’ op-ed writing bootcamp.

A recent visit with English and Spanish-language television executives in Los Angeles led to conversations around the Los Angeles wildfires, the 2026 elections, impact of mass deportations on regional economies, and the national attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion in educational and non-educational settings.

As the form and content of information continues to experience tectonic shifts, Latina Futures is focused on ensuring audiences, regardless of age, gender or racial/ethnic background, are exposed to the multi-dimensionality of Latina life in the U.S. by leveraging a budding cadre of bilingual experts and researchers who can speak on relevant topics. Among them is a cohort of experts who participated in an op-ed writing bootcamp led by Latina Futures senior journalism fellow, Jean Guerrero. The bootcamp aims to elevate Latina voices in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

“We want to be good partners and accessible to reporters who need experts who understand the issues from the inside. Whether it’s labor, housing, education, health or immigration, Latina Futures experts can provide fresh, data-driven perspectives,” Diaz said. “Even as the media landscape shifts, networks and print media remain a go-to source for some sizable generational cohorts of Americans, with Spanish-language news being even more deeply trusted sources of information during geopolitical tumult. We want to support efforts to close information gaps about news of the day.”

HOPE's Latina History Day2025. (photo courtesy of HOPE) — Helen Iris Torres (second from right), HOPE’s chief executive officer, poses for a portrait alongside conference speakers. (Photo courtesy of HOPE)

In addition to making connections and supporting the media fluency of Latina leaders through hands-on training, Latina Futures also spent a day at Hispanas Organized for Political Equality’s (HOPE) Latina History Day in Los Angeles on March 7.

In an era where digital spaces like messaging apps, social media, and news websites keep users glued to their phones, Latina History Day allowed for in-person connections among women who represent different communities and professional sectors. By achieving these in-person conferences, HOPE shares and reinforces Latina Futures’ passion for creating connections and knowledge-sharing that is rooted in trust.

Yazmin González, Latina Futures director and Sandra Baltazar Martínez, the team’s senior communications manager, were among 1,300 Latinas who attended HOPE’s panel discussions featuring speakers such as MJ Acosta-Ruiz, SportsCenter anchor and sideline reporter for ESPN; Alejandra Santamaria, president and chief executive officer at LAist; Janisse Quiñones, chief executive officer and chief engineer with Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; and Nathalie Rayes, former United States Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia — the first Latina in history to occupy this role to a non-Spanish speaking country.

Rayes, an immigrant from Venezuela who started her political career in Southern California, reminded the audience to be bold and fearless.

“Your potential is not predetermined. It’s limitless,” Rayes told attendees. “Leadership does not begin in the spotlight. It begins in the trenches. Leadership is about action … and as Latinas, we don’t just adapt to spaces we enter. We change them.”