Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A fun, thoughtful magazine for trendy women
Comment: I don't think it's fair to make Latina magazine be the be-all, end-all magazine for American Latinas. It's not like we throw a fit when
Cosmopolitan perpetuates "female" stereotypes. I understand that for minorities, it would be nice to hold mainstream media to a higher standard, but sometimes, don't you just want to kick back on the couch and not
stress?
For those moments of kicking back, not stressing, and not finding fault with everything around me, I love reading Latina magazine. Thoughtful articles and first-person essays, easy recipes, and great trends.
And, I'm not even Latina -- I'm Asian-American. And I have to say, reading this magazine has made me appreciate just that much more how we are all sisters in this world, just trying to find happiness, love, and a hot pair of shoes.
Customer Rating: Summary: Bridging the Gap Between Hispanics and Americans
Comment: Latina is a cultural magazine designed to appeal to the modern, trendy Hispanic woman who resides in the USA. This magazine features a mixture of entertainment, fashion, and practical advice on topics ranging from personal finance to family life and its primary audience is young woman, both married and single.
This magazine is designed with the female consumer in mind but there are several departments and monthly features that offer more widespread appeal. Latina Life, for example, is a collection of articles in each issue that contains many relevant articles offering good reading that will appeal to a broad range of people. Here, the reader can find articles about money, health, fitness, travel, and other subjects that most anyone can relate. In addition to this, it is common to find articles that focus on specific Latina women (both celebrity and non- celebrity) who have overcome adversity. These are often the best articles in each magazine because they often present inspirational stories where a challenge or difficult circumstance was overcome. These articles offer good reading that can apply to anyone regardless of age or gender.
Most of the remaining featured articles in Latina are geared in the direction of strictly feminine topics and I tend to skip over these when I read. These articles talk about things such as manicures, hair styling, clothing selection, and other things that are intended for the female market. But in spite of the limited appeal, there is one thing that men will like: The photos. These articles about women and their fashion options are usually accompanied by plenty of pictures of hot Latin babes making them worthy of a look or two.
Advertisements are common in this magazine and one interesting fact is that part of the ads are written in Spanish. This is only true, however, of the ads- the articles themselves are all composed in English. This surprised me when I first read Latina because I always thought the magazine contained English and Spanish in equal or nearly equal quantities and that Spanish was used in some of the featured articles. This isn't true, and while Latina does try to bridge the gap between Hispanic and American differences it is obvious that Latina assumes its readers already know a good deal of English.
Latina contains a large amount of reading material that has little or no relevance to men but it redeems itself by including a good deal of articles that can appeal to anyone. There is an emphasis on stories relating to Latin women who have achieved success and overcome barriers and these are usually Latina's best articles. The personal touch is nice and the reading is inspiring. But most of the magazine is geared toward women and for this reason most men will not rate Latina very highly. I'm going to rate this publication with a small recommendation nonetheless because I can see its value and I can understand how the female market would enjoy this magazine.
