About El Tucsonense. [volume] (Tucson, Ariz.) 1915-1957
Tucson, Ariz. (1915-1957)

El Tucsonense

Published from 1915 until the early 1960s, El Tucsonense was one of the most influential and longest-running Spanish-language newspapers in Tucson, Arizona, and cultivated a strong reputation in the Mexican and Mexican American community in Southern Arizona. The paper was founded by Francisco S. Moreno, who had worked as a printer at other Tucson newspapers. Moreno, from Sonora, Mexico, was involved in community organizations, such as serving as president of the mutual aid society, Sociedad Mutualista Porfirio Díaz. When Moreno died in 1929, his wife Rosa Elias de Moreno became owner of El Tucsonense. Over the years, the couple's sons managed the paper with different editors, including Ricardo Fierro, who edited the paper for almost thirty years.

In its inaugural issue, El Tucsonense expressed its goals, in part: "Laboraremos por el mejoramiento de nuestra raza…" ("We will work for the improvement of our race…"). The paper remained "ostensibly dedicated to promoting the Mexican American middle class and furthering its business interests," and was "noteworthy for developing a sense of Americanism among the Mexico-origin population within the United States" (Nicolas Kanellos, Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960). Thomas Sheridan wrote in Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson that El Tucsonense was conservative in tone and was "the voice of the city's Mexican businessmen, who provided most of its advertisements."

Published for most of the first half of the twentieth century, El Tucsonense carried news about Southern Arizona and Mexico, reporting on the community, politics, and labor issues, and events like the Mexican Revolution. It covered national and international news, from the Bracero Program to both World War I and World War II. The newspaper included poetry and a literary column, arts and theatre news, and in later years, a sports section. In May 1923, El Tucsonense ran a special issue that introduced the new home for the paper, a print shop that was later called Old Pueblo Printers, where the building still stands today. The special issue profiled members of the Mexican American community and ran two articles – "El Tucson de Ayer" and "El Tucson Actual" – about the past and current city of Tucson.

The newspaper had several different masthead designs over the years, initially publishing with a simple title, then using more decorative script and images, such as drawings of San Xavier del Bac, a historic mission near Tucson; saguaro cactus; the sun shining behind the mountains; and an image of a building on the University of Arizona campus. In its last two decades of publication, the masthead incorporated a drawing of its print shop and later a city scene of Tucson's downtown buildings with the mountains in the background. Throughout its run the paper varied in frequency, first publishing twice weekly from 1915-1919, three times a week from 1919-1933, twice a week from 1933-1956, and then weekly in its final years. A more complete digital archive of El Tucsonense, 1915-1957, is available open access as part of the University of Arizona Libraries' Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press digital collection.

Provided by: Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records; Phoenix, AZ