Adelante Magazine
Celebrates 20 Years of Publishing, June 16, 2018
Adelante Magazine is celebrating 20 years of publishing this month. Your team here at the magazine is overwhelmed with this milestone in time. Our readers’ support has enabled us to produce 240 great monthly editions because you have continued to pick up the publication and/or read it on line. We have the best readers. Our advertisers have been numerous and great and provide the support needed to financially produce this product and we thank them very much. This is truly a celebration for the community.
Please join us: We will be having an anniversary bash at Rage Nightclub in West Hollywood on Saturday, June 16 beginning at 9 p.m. We would love to see our friends and supporters come out and make this evening special with us. If you’ve been one of our past models, writers, photographers, artists or supporter of any kind, please join us as we mark this tremendous milestone. For more information, please email us at readelante@aol.com or call 323-256-6639.
Our History: Adelante Magazine / Revista Adelante was founded in June 1998 as a free bilingual and bicultural Spanish and English gay print magazine for the Latino LGBT community of Los Angeles County. From our beginnings, Adelante has remained a focused publication for the Latino LGBT community of Los Angeles County. Our goal has always been to strive to create a space to provide a forum for current information, cultural awareness, health news, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, immigration, politics and local happenings.
When the first edition of Adelante was published there were no other Latino LGBT magazines. We all felt this was a sad reality given that nearly 45% of the population was/is of Latino decent. We were also aware there were a few other magazines that attempted to produce Latino-specific content but ultimately not able to stay in the market. It was our belief that Los Angeles and California needed gay Latino publications. This was especially true because at that time, the widespread availability of content was not present on the Internet. We always knew that support from the business community was critical in the form of advertising to support a free publication. Although LGBT businesses did advertise in gay publications, the support was evidently not there as much for past Latino gay publications which tried to enter the market.
Why we decided to start the magazine: One of our primary drivers as the publishers was getting information out to the community on HIV/AIDS. We asked ourselves, how was our community getting information on the HIV epidemic? How would basic HIV/AIDS testing and treatment information get to at-risk people in Spanish? How would a community impact the epidemic and inform readers about the latest news in prevention and education or where to access medical care if they were infected our thought they were at risk?
We would go to bars, bookstores, nightclubs, restaurants and see the publications at the time. Frontiers, Edge, Fab, Advocate and Odyssey to name a few and we’d look at the content. There were no Spanish-language pages and there was very little information being written about the HIV epidemic and how it was affecting people of color and especially Latinos. There was very little information about the cultural issues affecting Latinos at risk of HIV and there was relatively little information about resources in the community for prevention and care.
We felt strongly that this was tragic and a huge missed opportunity to educate the community. So, the roots of Adelante were focused primarily on education about HIV/AIDS. In every monthly edition, multiple pages were dedicated for this education and we believe this helped our community access care and understand better the epidemic as tens of thousands of magazine’s were picked up each year by our community.
How we evolved: Although we started primarily to educate about HIV/AIDS, other very important community issues needed to be covered. These included homophobia and transphobia, immigration concerns, education and politics, bullying and healthcare in general. So we began bringing on other writers that could address these issues and concerns and offer tools and resources our readers.
As time went on, Adelante evolved into a general community publication and we began including interviews with celebrities, writing about current events and national and local politics.
Famous for our covers: What about our gorgeous cover models and designs? Adelante has a definite place in history as the magazine that produced the best models and hottest covers. We have featured some of the best looking models from across the spectrum of the diverse Latino community. We feel we have the best material to work with….LOL. These models, coupled with the great cover graphic designs caused Adelante to be the magazine that flew off the shelves.
Therefore the bulk of the work on this publication has always been produced by volunteers and that reality continues today. In the early days, print as very different. Much of it was cut and paste with negatives and film on boards. That is very different than today when print is done directly from the computer, uploaded to the press and printed directly from the digital designs.
Some of the successes we’ve been most proud of:
- Writers and collaborators – many have been working with us for the entire 20 year history
- Our 10-Year Anniversary Parade entry in the West Hollywood Pride/Christopher Street West Celebration in 2007. There were probably half a million photos taken of our parade entry and the gorgeous Adelante cover models that were on the float.
- The Best Magazine trophy from the WeHo Awards in (add year).
- The Best Magazine awarded by Christopher Street West named for Bob Craig, the founder of Frontiers in (add year).
- Grand Marshall Honoree for Pepe Torres our Editor for the Tijuana Gay Pride Parade in 2000.
- Exclusive interviews with presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore for the 2000 national presidential elections.
- Interviews with celebrities including Linda Carter (Wonder Woman), Paulina Rubio, Gloria Trevi, (Add others)
Adelante will continue its mission is to publish information and education on issues and current events of importance the Latino LGBT community. As long as we are needed, our goal is to continue. This will certainly mean we place a bigger emphasis on delivering our content via electronic formats.
Adelante is thankful to its long-time editor Pepe Torres, who has assisted the Magazine for 20 years and for 240 different monthly editions. This publication has been a labor of love for Pepe and we all are better as a community because of his efforts. Alberto Orozco, our Operations Manager has been with Adelante since issue number three. Alberto has been a steadfast pillar for Adelante, ensuring the continuity with writers and our advertisers.
Adelante is proud of its writers, photographers, artists, poets, models, contributors, advertisers and supporters. We are thankful to our readers, the Latino LGBT community and the larger LGBT community for supporting our mission for 20 years. We’ve met thousands of you along this journey. We want you to know that you’ve enriched our lives.