La Vida Voices: Marcela García from the Boston Globe

When you dedicate your life to Latino culture and history through the lens of baseball, it doesn’t take long to connect the dots on fellow Latinos carrying the same banner. Marcela García is a member of the same club and with her voice on the Boston Globe editorial board, her Latina perspective is woven in to the unsigned essays representing the official view of the prestigious newspaper.

Like many Boston transplants, Marcela, a Monterrey, Mexico native and lifelong baseball fan, adopted the Boston Red Sox as part of her assimilation. Her journalistic career ascent – from Telemundo to editor of El Planeta to the Globe – paralleled the Red Sox’s rise to becoming regular World Series Champions.

I’ve admired Marcela’s work on connecting the Red Sox’s Latino significance in Boston and providing a Latino voice and perspective through a powerhouse media platform. Recently, I had the pleasure of connecting with Marcela to talk about the intersection of the Red Sox, the Latino community and her voice.

Adrian Burgos, Jr: What sparked your interest in baseball and to follow what’s been happening with the Boston Red Sox and the Latino community?

Marcela García: I grew up in Monterrey, México, and my dad is a huge baseball fan so the sport has always been part of my life. I have very early memories of going to Los Sultanes de Monterrey games with my parents and my sisters. In 2000, when I moved to Boston, it was just natural that I would follow the Red Sox – it was the Nomar and the Pedro Martínez years, and that totally was a draw for me. When I started my journalism career, I never had any interest of becoming a sports writer. But I have always been fascinated by the intersection of US Latino culture/politics and sports/athletes. And the league where Latinos have the biggest representation is the MLB.

I was way more interested in asking Latino players about how their “Latinidad” reflected their lives here in Boston.

Here in Boston I used to work for El Planeta and I would always try to cover Red Sox games but, again, not from the sports lens (we had sports writers who could do that). I was way more interested in asking Latino players about how their “Latinidad” reflected their lives here in Boston, how it impacted/changed the way they played the game, what did they make of Boston’s Latino community, did they experienced racism, etc. Not all of them would talk, but once in a while I would discover something interesting about the players – like when Big Papi made sure Latinos would have a place at Fenway.

AB: That’s a great example. You’ve written many other editorial pieces for the Boston Globe that provide a Latina/o perspective on issues ranging from immigration, life in Boston, and the federal response in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Why is a voice like yours important for the Globe’s audience and also more broadly?

MG: Lack of representation in US mainstream media is a huge problem. That void only gets amplified in the current context of a president who has made immigration the cornerstone of his administration. It’s how he got elected, with a decidedly anti-immigrant agenda and by demonizing Latinos and other groups of color. It is frustrating when outlets like CNN or the New York Times don’t understand what the lack of these voices does to their coverage. It renders the experience of a whole group of people almost invisible.

As a Latina immigrant, I have first-hand experience and deep, nuanced understanding of these issues.

We all bring our own particular life experience to our reporting, it is inescapable. And my own experiences inevitably color the work that I do. I am the first Latina ever to be on the Boston Globe Editorial Board. The work that we do is very consequential and, as an editorial writer, I get to shape the voice of the Globe as an institution. For me, being able to elevate the issues that are important to the Latino community, in Boston and beyond, in a platform like the Globe, is quite a privilege.

AB: Let’s take that a bit broader from Boston to beyond, as you say, to your roots as a Mexican. How do you personally see the intersection of baseball, Mexico, and immigration?

MG: It’s a multi-layered, super rich intersection ? There are a significant number of Mexican players in the major leagues, many of whom go back and forth between the US and Mexico. Then you have the border connection, as well, where immigration plays a big role (Adrian González comes to mind.) And then of course the subtext is politics. This is why I find myself wishing that, in these times of Trump, more Latino and Mexican baseball players use their platforms in a Kaepernick-like way.

Remember a few years ago when Sergio Romo wore a “I just look illegal shirt” to their championship parade in SF? I thought that was an amazing moment. Cora did the same throughout the season here, frequently wearing t-shirts that displayed his Puerto Rico pride. Again, I think Latino MLB players have an amazing opportunity to advance Latino issues in this country. I get the downside of appearing to be political, but the stakes are high right now in this country and I wish they would take the risk.

AB: You are a bilingual writer, having worked at El Planeta and now the Boston Globe. How important is it for you to be able to write in either language? How does being bilingual allow you to write better stories about the Latino community in English?

MG: It is very important for me. I see it as a huge asset and advantage to be able to interview people and write stories in two languages. It allows me to tell stories in a more… faithful way. Also, I wrote the first ever Globe editorial both in Spanish and English, when Big Papi retired. It was actually one of my editors’ idea. He knew I could do it in both languages and he recognized that being able to send Big Papi off in a culturally competent way was important. And of course I agreed. They knew what Big Papi meant to the local Latino community, and for me to be able to deliver that for our readers, Latino and non-Latinos, was one of the highlights of my career. We ran the two editorials right next to each other, in English and Spanish. I saved a copy of it for my dad.

AB: You have been in Boston for over a decade, having studied at Harvard for your Master’s in Journalism and working as a journalist. From your perspective how has (or hasn’t) Boston changed for the Latino community? What role have the Red Sox had in this change? What role has Álex Cora had in this? 

MG: Álex Cora has been here for a year and just by virtue of who he is – an incredibly savvy manager who happens to be bilingual and as such is able to communicate effectively with Latino players in their language – has already brought this city a championship. Boston famously was the last major league team to integrate. But the Red Sox organization has made a good faith effort to repair those wrongs (the team owner recently led a push to change a street name to that end).

And now to have the first Latino manager in Boston, who went on to become the first Puerto Rican ever to lead a team to the World Series – that is a powerful source of pride for Latinos here in Boston. And before Cora, it was Big Papi, Pedro Martínez, Nomar Garciaparra, etc.

AB: Thank you, Marcela. Please know you are a powerful source of pride for our La Vida Baseball community. Keep up the great work and we look forward to checking back in with you throughout the season to get your take on all things Red Sox!

Be sure to follow Marcela on Twitter!

Featured Image: Marcela García
Inset Image: Marcela García
Inset Image (Romo): Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Sport