The S.F. State-born project that lasted five decades: El Tecolote turns 55

The year was 1970, and Juan Gonzales was newly graduated from San Francisco State University.

The year before, S.F. State had founded the first ethnic studies program in the country, and they asked Gonzales if he’d be willing to develop a class for it. 

He decided to teach a journalism class. The final project: Create a bilingual newspaper.

The class and a group of volunteers paid for printing costs by throwing a fundraiser, and collecting a dollar at the door from everyone who showed up.  With the resulting $400 in donations, El Tecolote — Spanish for owl — was born.

The publication’s first ever-staff consisted of about 10 volunteers, half Gonzalez’s students and half Mission residents who wanted to write and contribute. On Aug. 24, 1970, the first issue hit the streets. Gonzales, 23 at the time, told himself he would commit five years to the publication.  

“Five years turned into 55 years,” said Gonzales with a laugh.

At first, the publication used garages and whatever space it could find in the Mission and the Excelsior as its home, including five to seven years at El Centro Latino on Potrero Street.

The founders also hosted monthly fundraisers to finance its operations in its first decade, selling menudo and hosting dances. In 2000, the paper was able to buy the building that has remained its home ever since. 

Over five decades later, Gonzales says that El Tecolote has become the longest-running bilingual newspaper in California. Those long years, said Gonzales, have been a “dream come true.”

During those 55 years, El Tecolote has documented a changing Mission.

An investigative series published in the early 1970s found that it took an average of four minutes longer for Spanish speakers who called 911 to get assistance, due to a lack of Spanish-speaking operators.

Later that decade, the publication investigated Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital over concerns that not enough translators worked there to properly and safely serve the Spanish-speaking community when a Spanish monolingual speaker lost her baby after not receiving proper care.

The story led the hospital to hire 26 trained translators, according to El Tecolote.  

An article published in 1989 reported the early signs of what would become an epidemic of homelessness (“As a group, they are not readily identifiable because of legendary Latino hospitality, which results in their being put up in a family’s garage, or in their garden in tents,”) it read.

Another story, published in 1990, covered one of the first support groups for Latinas with AIDS (“Gloria, now in her 50s and a grandmother, still looks like a typical housewife. After one of her visits to San Francisco General for treatment, she walked down the street to buy a cake for her daughter’s baby shower.”) 

El Tecolote covered police harassment of lowrider culture, changes in immigration law, and the many waves of gentrification that displaced thousands of Latinx residents from the neighborhood. 

Throughout, the paper has remained true to its mission: to answer and report news that shapes and affects the lives of Latinx and immigrant communities in San Francisco.

To celebrate its 55th primaveras, the Mission-based publication is hosting a party this Friday at its office (which does double duty as an art gallery) at 2958 24th St. Attendees can expect live music, beer, wine, palomas, sheet cake, a raffle, limited-edition gear and, of course, a piñata.

Over the last few years, El Tecolote has won the approval of The New York Times and racked up multiple awards, including four at The California Journalism Awards in 2024. The publication also won 13 awards at the S.F. Press Club in 2023, including the overall excellence award. 

El Tecolote has also served as the training ground for other journalists around the city: the San Francisco Chronicle’s Laura Waxmann, Santiago Mejia and Carlos Avila; San Francisco Public Press’ Cami Dominguez; and former Los Angeles Times and Pulitzer winner Hector Tobar all spent years reporting for them.

“It was awesome. We were kind of a little family,” said Waxmann, who worked at El Tecolote between 2012 and 2014. “We were all kind of learning together. It was one of those very scrappy but awesome, wonderful newsrooms.”

“I still have some of those contacts today,” she added.     

Erika Carlos, El Tecolote’s editor-in-chief, described the relationship between El Tecolote and its readers as one of the most satisfying things about working at the paper.  

“​​I’ll get emotional when I go to a taco shop and I see an older man looking through the immigration tracker,” said Carlos, referring to the publication’s updates on the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how beautiful.’”

“I hope our readers come” to the party, Carlos said.

Today, El Tecolote has its biggest paid staff since its founding, and a bi-weekly printed circulation of 7,000. The publication also makes an effort to engage with readers by hosting events and maintaining a WhatsApp channel in Spanish where readers can send questions to the staff.

Under Carlos’ leadership, El Tecolote has seen an increase in visual storytelling as well. Some of the most recent examples include an investigation into the lives of the Latinx families affected by the new regulations on RVs, and a story accompanied with a photo essay documenting the life day laborer who lost his leg while at work.

Pablo Unzueta, the reporter behind the day laborer photo essay, came upon the story by striking up conversation with the man while walking in the Mission District.

“It’s been really nice to be able to have that freedom to really dive into stories that don’t often get told or photographed,” said Unzueta. He will be at the birthday celebration on Friday, Unzueta said, ready to photograph the joy of the community.

El Tecolote will host its 55th anniversary celebration on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, at its office, at 2958 24th St., from 5 to 10 p.m.