<\/p>\n
A new weekly radio program on KCSS 91.9 is using music as a gateway to cultural storytelling,\u00a0geography\u00a0and community connection at Stanislaus State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cM\u00fasica, Cultura y\u00a0Geograf\u00eda,\u201d\u00a0airs\u00a0Wednesdays from 2 to 4 p.m.,\u00a0hosted\u00a0by Jos\u00e9 R. D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa, Ph.D., professor of\u00a0geography, in collaboration with Stanislaus State student Yanet Soto Pallares, who also inspired the name for the program. Broadcast primarily in Spanish with bilingual commentary, the show blends music with historical,\u00a0cultural\u00a0and geographic context.<\/p>\n
For D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa, the program reflects a long-standing commitment to ensuring the University\u2019s cultural life and public spaces mirror the experiences and voices of the students and communities it serves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came for my campus interview in 2016, I noticed that although more than half of our students identify as Hispanic, that presence was not always visible in campus imagery or cultural expression,\u201d D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa said. \u201cI later learned that KCSS had Spanish-language programming in the past, and the idea of giving continuity to that kind of programming has always stayed with me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He noted that the\u00a0University has made meaningful progress over the years, pointing to the creation of the Warrior Cross Cultural Center, bilingual commencement\u00a0programming\u00a0and new murals across campus. The radio show, he said, is another way to move that work forward.\u00a0
\u00a0The program also reflects the educational mission of KCSS as a hands-on, student-centered learning environment where students are deeply involved in every aspect of production. During the show\u2019s development, D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa worked closely with KCSS student leaders Adin Dibble, station manager; Luis Mincey, production engineer; and Yanet Soto Pallares, work-study assistant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKCSS is an educational platform with students always at the forefront,\u201d he said. \u201cIt provides non-commercial cultural programming, serves the\u00a0University and surrounding communities, and functions as a laboratory where students learn how a non-commercial radio station operates.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before launching the show, D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa immersed himself in the station\u2019s operations, working closely with KCSS leaders and student staff and producing a pilot episode that aired last semester. He also extended gratitude to Greg Jacquay, general manager at KCSS and faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of them have offered excellent support,\u201d D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa said. \u201cThis is the main reason this has been possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Soto Pallares, the show is rooted in personal experience and a desire to create space for multilingual and multicultural expression.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a first-generation Mexican American, and I heavily rely on \u2018Spanglish,\u2019\u201d Soto Pallares said. \u201cI can have a full conversation in either Spanish or English, but I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0fully feel myself. I have the best conversations when I\u00a0am able to\u00a0speak both languages.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said discovering bilingual and bicultural artists such\u00a0as LUNA\u00a0LUNA, Maye, Cuco and\u00a0The Mar\u00edas\u00a0affirmed that blended identities and languages can coexist naturally in music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hope to\u00a0accomplish\u00a0with \u2018M\u00fasica, Cultura y\u00a0Geograf\u00eda\u2019 is to share the different sounds of music that are created by many talented Latinx artists,\u201d Soto Pallares said. \u201cA lot of their music speaks to similar hurdles or heartbreak that we experience in life. Music has always been a way of finding common ground to understand yourself and, most importantly, one another.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Geography is a central thread throughout each broadcast, shaping both the music\u00a0selection\u00a0and the conversations that\u00a0accompany\u00a0it. Soto Pallares said the concept\u00a0emerged\u00a0organically through her collaboration with D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginally, I wanted to start an all-Latin Spanish radio show,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there are so many artists from different countries and backgrounds who have created masterpieces over the years. Geography became part of the conversation because Professor D\u00edaz- Garay\u00faa\u00a0is a geography professor, and we\u00a0both had a vision to\u00a0share\u00a0music and sounds from around the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa connects music to place,\u00a0history\u00a0and social experience through the lens of cultural geography, drawing parallels between how cultural movements\u00a0emerge\u00a0across regions and how music carries those stories forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hard to think about a cultural group without music,\u201d he said. \u201cSongs tell stories about people,\u00a0place\u00a0and social conditions. In that sense, music is deeply tied to geography.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed to the Afro-Puerto Rican musical tradition of Plena as one example, describing it as a genre rooted in percussion that historically functioned as a \u201csung newspaper,\u201d documenting social and political life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KCSS 91.9 is the student-run, non-commercial educational radio station at Stanislaus State and has served the campus and region since 1974.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.turlockjournal.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new weekly radio program on KCSS 91.9 is using music as a gateway to cultural storytelling,\u00a0geography\u00a0and community connection at Stanislaus State.\u00a0 \u201cM\u00fasica, Cultura y\u00a0Geograf\u00eda,\u201d\u00a0airs\u00a0Wednesdays from 2 to 4 p.m.,\u00a0hosted\u00a0by Jos\u00e9 R. D\u00edaz-Garay\u00faa, Ph.D., professor of\u00a0geography, in collaboration with Stanislaus State student Yanet Soto Pallares, who also inspired the name for the program. Broadcast primarily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2288510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2288509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/New-KCSS-radio-show-amplifies-Spanish-language-music-culture-and-place.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2288509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2288511,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288509\/revisions\/2288511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2288510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2288509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2288509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2288509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}