KDNA

KDNA (91.9 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish Variety format including music (norteña, accordion, banda, and mariachi), children's programming, local and international news and a unique show each weekday morning highlighting employment opportunities in the Yakima area, all in Spanish. Licensed to Yakima, Washington, USA, the station serves the Yakima area. The station is currently owned by Northwest Communities Education Center, and has a studio in Granger, Washington.

History of Spanish speaking radio

Latinos yearned for media representation and they sought out a radio license from the Federal Government in the early 1920s, however many popular show times were given to American/English radio stations. Most Latino/Spanish radio stations had to opt for purchasing less desirable show time hours such as early in the morning or very late into the evening. Many of the people working towards creating a better and stronger Spanish radio station did so because they wanted to rebuild a patriotic citizenry, that promoted literacy and sobriety that focused more on the folkloric and nationalist elements, for Mexicans not only in the United States but also in Mexico. Pedro J. Gonzalez along with his group Los Madrugadores (The Early Risers) were listened to by many agricultural workers, there music was an inspiration to many however they were also a direct opposing force towards the U.S government and their efforts to deport Mexicans during the Great Depression. Pedro and his group helped pioneer the road for media representation of Latinos and they were a building block that allowed Spanish language radio broker Raoul Cortez to be granted, in 1946, the first U.S radio station to be licensed to a Latino.

KDNA (St. Louis)

KDNA (102.5) was a Saint Louis, Missouri FM free-form non-commercial radio station from February 8, 1969 until sometime in 1972. It billed itself as "Radio Free St. Louis". The KDNA call letters are currently used by a different station, a Spanish station at 91.9 in Yakima, Washington, and the 102.5 FM frequency in St. Louis is currently occupied by a station with the call letters KEZK which broadcasts in the "Adult Contemporary Format".

KDNA in St. Louis was founded by Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam. Lansman was from the area, had attended Clayton High School (Clayton is a suburb of St. Louis), and had formally studied radio. Lansman met Milam in Seattle, Washington while the two were working at an alternative radio station there called KRAB. Milam provided the initial funding ($50,000) for KDNA, and, after competition for the frequency from the First Christian Fundamentalist Church, eventually the Federal Communications Commission granted Lansman and Milam a license. The radio station broadcast from 4285 Olive in Gaslight Square in the center of St. Louis, an area, according to Leonard Slatkin, where "the majority of nightlife used to be concentrated, but [by] the late ’60s had [been] reduced...to a set of run-down and decrepit buildings". Slatkin was Assistant Conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at the time, and after an on-air interview at the station, he agreed to host his own weekly show called the Slatkin Project, which aired from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM Thursdays.