This interview was translated from Spanish to English by Nancy Piñeiro. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
This is the fourth installment in a collection of interviews with Indigenous and feminist media makers and community organizers in Bolivia. They explore building community media, Indigenous liberation, and feminist social change through grassroots journalism and people's movements. Read the other interviews here.
Paddle boats crowd the scenic shores of Lake Titicaca in Copacabana, Bolivia, a town of roughly 6,000 inhabitants. Copacabana borders rural Aymara communities which dot the landscape stretching out to snow-covered Andean mountains.
It is here that Rosa Jalja has devoted most of her half century of work as a radio journalist. At age 16, Jalja began working in radio in her native language of Aymara and has not stopped since. An Indigenous leader in her community of Sampaya, Jalja was one of the founders of Radio Copacabana in 1997.
Radio Copacabana is an informational hub for the wider Copacabana region, providing daily news and programming in Aymara and Spanish. From charango music and environmental education about Lake Titicaca to fundraising for medical emergencies, the radio strengthens the community through its airwaves.
In this interview Jalja discusses her decades of work at Radio Copacabana, the importance of news coverage in Aymara, and how the radio supports local Indigenous communities and union movements.
Benjamin Dangl: To start off, could you please talk about how you became involved with your work at Radio Copacabana?
Rosa Jalja: We started Radio Copacabana on April 24 in 1997. We inaugurated it with the neighboring Indigenous communities in Copacabana and were very much welcomed. In those 27 years, we have been able to provide news in Aymara and Spanish, where we also develop the news through investigations.
First, we started to value our region’s richness. We’ve done traditional dances for kids, we’ve recovered our Indigenous foods. Here, hotels just give you fries and fish and such, but we have kept our typical food, which is not bad food and is ecological.
So, we’ve been recovering our cultural heritage and the people identify themselves with their radio. We’ve also done workshops for our popular reporters, so they would support us and thank us. As citizens and community members (comunarios) we’ve also begun to hold positions in the community. That is, brother, what we worked on.
And we also worked on the issue of violence; many women, they’ve been victims of femicide, girls have been raped, and we have promoted awareness about these issues.
As a radio, we also don’t stop there. Here in Copacabana, we don’t have a hospital; when someone has a burn injury, a fracture, or something delicate such as a complicated pregnancy, they need to be taken to La Paz, so we’ve done hundreds of campaigns. A few days ago, we did one, for example, for a diabetic patient who had his foot amputated. We give a service to our community, to Indigenous peoples.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, comunarios have helped. We have recovered values. They brought their products to help the communities in Copacabana because there was no tourism and no people here; it was like a desert. Comunarios brought their products, potatoes, and any products they produced for the town. How they have helped!
Radio Copacabana has done great work. When you are a communicator and journalist, if there’s an accident you must go, rain or no rain. If there’s no transport, you have to go on foot to cover that story.
We’ve worked with leaders on training around the Land Reform Law. We’ve done a lot of work with the community. And Radio Copacabana is very much identified with the society here, and they thank us. That gives us strength.
BD: Thank you very much, that’s impressive. Could you describe the importance of the radio coverage in Aymara and the relationship between the radio and Aymara communities?
RJ: Yes, they are Aymara communities. We have a program from 5 a.m., one that is a service to the community: obituaries, mass, congratulations, meetings—that’s one hour. Then we have news in Spanish because Copacabana city speaks Spanish, too.
At 8pm, we have the news in Aymara. Why in Aymara? Because all the people who are in the countryside are getting back to their communities after their work in the fields and herding. So, people get to their homes, and the news is in Aymara about what is happening, what the municipality has informed. Or if there is a community holding an assembly, we cover that, then we edit that news, and we broadcast the news in Aymara.
BD: Could you please explain to me the relationships between the radio and organizations like the Bartolina Sisa Women’s Federation and local unions? Is there a relationship between the radio and such organizations?
RJ: Exactly. We have a considerable relationship. Last year we had time for shows on [18th-century Indigenous anti-colonial rebel] Tupac Katari, and social organizations like Bartolina Sisa [Campesina Women’s Federation] had a program. Some have that radio interest, saying “I will talk about what unionism is,” etc.
There are 33 unions of food sellers, butchers, bakers, and florists that had a program called “Union Family, Present in Copacabana!” So, we’ve done that. Radio Copacabana is fully committed to society and these organizations. We give this support.
All my children are communicators, so they help to set up and broadcast. Without that, we wouldn’t be able to broadcast because you need money for that, equipment, a camera, and an internet signal you have to pay for. It has a cost, that’s our weakness.
Our economic needs are sometimes a limitation. But we have strength, and we have capable community journalism. We can do a lot! The main goal is to always be next to the Indigenous brothers and sisters, the inhabitants of Copacabana.
BD: Your radio is very connected to the community. What has it meant to you to work as a community radio journalist throughout all these years?
RJ: Well, brother, as a journalist I’ve liked these activities. It makes me feel younger. Now I will turn 70, but I think all these activities make me feel younger. I don’t have any health issues, thank God. I have no problem and I’m always very much on the move. I feel very, very happy and that makes me feel strong and younger as an Aymara journalist and communicator and as a woman. That’s my strength.
Dr. Benjamin Dangl is a Lecturer of Public Communication and Journalism at the University of Vermont. He has worked as a journalist across Latin America for over two decades covering social movements and politics. Dangl’s most recent books are The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia and A World Where Many Worlds Fit.
