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[SPEAKING SPANISH] ANNIE BAXTER: Sunday afternoons on KEYL Radio in Long Prairie, a show called Radio Variedades fills the airwaves with Mexican folk music, at the same time that it fills a very real need. It's the only Spanish language media outlet in the area. DJs Guadalupe and Yesenia Chavez peer at each other from behind their microphones. They're an uncle-niece team.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

Their 2.5-hour program consists mostly of music, but they also read a children's story every week. And sometimes they conduct interviews with Spanish-speaking community leaders. In recent months, they've featured a doctor, a midwife, and an expert in immigration issues. Tim King watches the show from a back wall in the studio. He's the show's founder and a local freelance journalist. About two years ago, he noticed a growing number of Mexican immigrants around town. King wanted his new neighbors to have their own media voice.

TIM KING: They struggle to learn English. And they do a really good job of it. And it seemed to me that there ought to be a venue where they can just relax, and feel at home, and feel that their native tongue is valuable.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

ANNIE BAXTER: Yesenia Chavez came on board the show about a year ago. She's 18, her full time job is at a meatpacking plant. Yesenia says she had no radio experience at first, but she learned quickly. She had to. She fields a couple of hundred calls per show. Yesenia says she gets so many calls that she sometimes handles them in her free time, off air.

YESENIA CHAVEZ: I give my phone number, and I give my direction. And if there are questions, they can go in my home or they can call me, and I can try to help.

ANNIE BAXTER: The volume of calls points to a bigger issue.

FLORA CALDERON STECK: Their number one need is information.

ANNIE BAXTER: That's Flora Calderon Steck, a Professor of Ethnic Studies at Saint Cloud State University. She and a few colleagues recently conducted a survey of Latinos in rural Minnesota towns, including Long Prairie. The study's results should come out next month. Calderon Steck says preliminary data are telling. The majority of Latino immigrants interviewed ranked the need for information above their need for child care, job training, and health services.

FLORA CALDERON STECK: They feel very disconnected from the wider community and have very little information about what's going on in the community, and especially programs, services.

ANNIE BAXTER: Calderon Steck says the radio program Radio Variedades can help distribute that information and give social services the chance to speak directly to the Hispanic community. That means to people like the Montanez family. Every Sunday, the radio here in their Long Prairie home is tuned to the program.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

Guadalupe Montanez says it's important to have Spanish language radio in the area. The Radio Variedades program on immigration provided a good opportunity to learn more about the issue.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

Questions callers asked were good and useful, he says. Not all of Radio Variedades programs are so chock full of information, but its producers hope that will change. The show's development will hinge on financial support from advertising spots. That support has been consistent so far. For now, the show is whetting the appetite of people who crave information and who will likely continue to ask for more. Annie Baxter, Minnesota Public Radio, Long Prairie.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[SINGING IN SPANISH]