A uniting force: Hispanic radio station offers window into Spanish-speaking community

It was with prayers and an outpouring of emotion that the volunteers who operate radio station KCAH-LP, 107.9 FM introduced themselves to their community on Saturday.

La Iglesia Cristiana Hispanoamericana, or the Hispanic Christian Church, at 122 S. Grant St., held an open house, ribbon cutting and blessing for their new radio station which is aimed at opening a window for Spanish-speaking Carthage residents on a mostly-English speaking community that has long been closed because of the language barrier.

The radio station has been on the air for about a month, and this was a chance for organizers to see and hear from their listeners.

"The people are getting excited, as you can see the phone doesn't stop ringing now, and we have the whole community listening to Hispanic Radio," said Neri Ramos, a DJ, or in Spanish, a locutures, for the radio station.

"We are covering the whole city of Carthage, and we are happy about that," Ramos said. "We are on the air 24 hours without stopping."

Francisco Bonilla, pastor of the Hispanic Christian Church, said the station is committed to playing Spanish Christian music and running religious programming.

"We are committed to preach the gospel and we cannot limit ourselves or pretend to speak to everyone inside of the temple," Bonilla said. "We wanted to go inside of people's houses and preach to them and also give information about things like the medical clinic and the Carthage Crisis Center, activities that the city usually does and we as Hispanics because of lack of language sometimes do not know what is going on."

Bonilla said the radio station is also an outlet to get vital information to people who don't speak English.

"Even when the schools shut down because of weather, here we are, we can give information to people who do not speak English early in the morning," Bonilla said. "We want to give people general information about what is going on in town, plus specific information about what is happening in the health department in the hospital, or in the city like parades and stuff like that."

More than 125 people made their way to the church on Grant Street to hear Gilda Vargas, a speaker at the church, and Bonilla, talk about the radio station and what it had to offer.

The service started with two young boys carrying in the U.S. and Christian flags, and Vargas preaching and praying. Twelve of the volunteer staffers at the radio station paraded into the service, sporting white polo shirts with the KCAH logo on the front.
Bonilla then spoke and then he and Carthage Chamber President John Bode cut a ribbon to the cheers of the crowd and the station staff.

Bode reiterated Bonilla's comments about the station as a conduit to the Spanish-speaking community.

"This is a way for businesses to get information out to the Spanish speaking population of Carthage in a way that previously we couldn't do," Bode said. "There are a lot of programs and a lot of activities and a lot of information that needs to be shared, it's everything from weather reports to general information about activities that are going on to cultural things that the Hispanic population could take advantage of if they knew they were going on."

Both Bode and Bonilla spoke of the radio station as a unifying force between English-speaking Carthage and Spanish-speaking Carthage.

"I think the radio station will unite us," Bonilla said. "English and Spanish speakers will be united through this radio station."

"Any time you have better communication, you have more unity," Bode said. "Division is generally created by a lack of communication, so anytime you improve communication, you ought to create more unity in whatever group that you're talking with."