Nuestro Magazine

The 1977 premier issue cover of Nuestro Magazine. Photographer: Ryszard Horowitz; Art Director and Designer: Joan Gramatte

In 1977, Nuestro (ISSN 0147-3247) was the first national monthly magazine, in English, for and about Latinos in the United States. It was conceived by Daniel Lopez, 36, a businessman who saw the need to provide a slick, glossy, high-end, general-interest magazine, covering everything from politics and culture to sports and the arts, for the burgeoning bilingual Latino population in the then 1970s.

Lopez, along with Joan Gramatte, his business partner and co-founder of the parent corporation Nuestro Grafico Inc., a successful graphic design and consulting company based in Washington, D. C., initially funded the preliminary run-up to publication expenses with their own money. Then, with a solid business plan in place, they secured staff and production funding (more than $1.1 million) for the venture from the Federal Government's Small Business Administration (SBA), the prestigious Ford Foundation, and several private investors.

The first issue was published in April 1977, with a 200,000 print run. It was both a subscription and newsstand publication. Primary offices were in midtown Manhattan. With Lopez as publisher, the editorial department was headed by Charles Rivera, editor-in-chief, and the co-managing editors, José Ferrer and Philip Herrera, both of whom were formerly associate editors at Time magazine; the art director was Joan Gramatte.

An all-business magazine called NBR, Nuestro Business Review, was also launched by Lopez and Gramatte.

Neither magazine survived past 1980. All of the editorial hierarchy mentioned above moved on to other, successful publications.

References

• [1] The New York Times article.
• [2] The New York Times article.
• [3] Time magazine article.