The 2025 conference theme is ‘Stronger Together.’ NAHJ says it’s not about politics.
Stronger together. This slogan may sound familiar to the hundreds of journalists converging on downtown Chicago this week for the 2025 NAHJ conference, but organizers said, this time, the meaning is different.
During a Tuesday news conference ahead of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists gathering, national board president Dunia Elvir said despite the slogan’s long history of use as a worker’s rallying cry and presidential campaign slogan for Hillary Clinton’s run in the 2016 election, the political connotations of the words were “totally out of my thought process.”
“The first thing I thought is the new era of duopolies, English and Spanish,” Elvir said.
Latinos, Elvir said, are not monolithic, and the idea behind this year’s theme was to bring everybody together and invite NAHJ members to think about community.
The words, displayed prominently on blue banners around the convention hall at the Chicago Hilton this week, have gone largely unnoticed by conference-goers.
Those that did pick up on the theme said they liked the feeling of unity it inspired.
“We are stronger when we partner up with our friends in the industry for support,“ said Daniela Hurtado, a reporter for ABC13 in Houston.
Leonor Carrillo, is a recent member and a student at the University of Illinois, and thinks that the theme resonates with what is happening around the country with Latinos.
“The community needs a voice, and we are the only voice for it,” Carrillo said. She said that the words did sound familiar, but added that that in this context, they feel different — and more personal.
Sofia Alvarez, a student from the University of Illinois and recent NAHJ member, said she feels that context is, really, everything.
“We use the same words,” Alvarez said, “but it does not mean the same thing.”
Oriana Torre is a bilingual journalism student at the University of Florida, specializing in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Latin American Studies. She is also the Executive Producer for the university’s Spanish-language broadcast news show and is currently completing an internship with NBC Telemundo Boston. You can reach her at ori8torre [at] gmail [dot] com or on Istagram @Ori_Torre.
