Please join us for this book launch, celebration, and discussion with author Monica De La Torre, GWSS Alum (PhD 2016) and Assistant Professor in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. The road to the 2022 publication of her book Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley (UW Press) began with Dr. De La Torre’s doctoral research in the UW Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies. In this event, she will give a presentation on the research behind the book, delving into community-based radio as feminist praxis, public scholarship, and the process of turning a dissertation into a book, and then opening into a discussion with the audience. A reception will follow the event from 5-6pm.

On March 20, 2022, The Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine cover story featured Dr. De La Torre and her research. Read more by following these links: 

‘Feminista Frequencies’ explores how female radio producers built community – and a powerful support system – at Spanish-speaking KDNA in the Yakima Valley 

How the author of ‘Feminista Frequencies’ tuned in to the inspiring voices behind Spanish-language community radio 

Book Description 
Beginning in the 1970s Chicana and Chicano organizers turned to community radio broadcasting to educate, entertain, and uplift Mexican American listeners across the United States. In rural areas, radio emerged as the most effective medium for reaching relatively isolated communities such as migrant farmworkers. And in Washington’s Yakima Valley, where the media landscape was dominated by perspectives favorable to agribusiness, community radio for and about farmworkers became a life-sustaining tool. 
Feminista Frequencies unearths the remarkable history of one of the United States’ first full-time Spanish-language community radio stations, Radio KDNA, which began broadcasting in the Yakima Valley in 1979. Extensive interviews reveal the work of Chicana and Chicano producers, on-air announcers, station managers, technical directors, and listeners who contributed to the station’s success. Monica De La Torre weaves these oral histories together with a range of visual and audio artifacts, including radio programs, program guides, and photographs to situate KDNA within the larger network of Chicano community-based broadcasting and social movement activism. Feminista Frequencies highlights the development of a public broadcasting model that centered Chicana radio producers and documents the central role of women in developing this infrastructure in the Yakima Valley. De La Torre shows how KDNA revolutionized community radio programming, adding new depth to the history of the Chicano movement, women’s activism, and media histories. 

Author Biography 
Monica De La Torre is an Assistant Professor in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. De La Torre’s interdisciplinary research and teaching practices bridge Chicana feminist theory, Latinx feminist media studies, radio and sound studies, and women’s and gender studies. As a critical scholar and practitioner of digital media and radio, she analyzes both media content and production practices to push the analytic edge of scholarship foregrounding modalities of difference such as gender, race, class, and citizenship. A former community radio producer and member of the Los Angeles based radio collective Soul Rebel Radio, De La Torre's forthcoming book, “Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley,” (University of Washington Press) details the powerful story of Chicana farm workers and activists turned community radio broadcasters beginning in the 1970s.