This May 15, 2017, Rumbo celebrates twenty-one years of its founding. It is true that time passes very quickly and we are surprised to see that so many years have already passed. After several years of frustration because at that time Dalia Diaz worked for the Lawrence School Department and saw how the press releases she was sending out were ignored by the newspapers in the area, my answer to her frustration was always the same, “if you don’t like it, start your own newspaper.”
And so we did. One day, learning from the saying “nobody is a prophet in his own land,” we decided, without being journalists and having no idea as to how and where to print a newspaper, we launched our first edition, which was dedicated to the Malden Mills disaster and how its owner Aaron M. Feuerstein was struggling to keep all his employees on the payroll until the rebuilding was over.
During all these years we have learned many things. We have learned to understand this community much better than before. Covering events has been the easiest way to see our differences and also our similarities. We crave and work for the same things in life and when we treat each other with respect, we see that we are the same no matter what language we speak.
We came to live in Lawrence many years ago because we liked the city. As we learn ‘how it works’, we come to feel a deep respect for its history and we want to contribute for future generations to appreciate what we leave behind. When we started, the future was uncertain; nobody could predict success, particularly when none of us had any notion of the turn we were engaging in, but the need for local information existed and we ventured.
This feeling has not changed: we still do not consider ourselves journalists but our hearts are in the right place hoping this city is a little better because Rumbo was here once.
Thank you to all those who have helped make these twenty-one years a beautiful experience. Whether it’s with your ads, writing for the newspaper, or simply being available when we are looking for some information, the people of this city encourage our commitment to continue doing our best.
