Perseverantia (S1, Bonus): FIVE WITH A FALCON: Paulina Torres (‘23), WXPL
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Kate Jewell: Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Fitchburg State?
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Paulina Torres: My name is Paulina Torres. I am a senior student at Fitchburg State. I actually transferred in from Keene State during the pandemic in 2020. It's a really weird time to be transferring schools. I have changed my major a lot, so it's always a difficult thing to discuss with people. But I like science, I like the environment, I like art. So right now I'm a GIS major, which is geographic technology, making maps and stuff like that.
But I try not to stick too much to my academics side. I like doing other stuff too – the academics are there to, hopefully, you know – as long as the semester goes good – get my degree and be able to find a job that way.
Kate: So what kind of meaningful activities do you have at Fitchburg State outside of your academics?
Paulina: I am part of the WXPL Club and that's the radio club – W-X-P-L, 91.3 FM.
So there, I've been doing a show for about almost two years now, which feels crazy. It's been a really weird experience being at WXPL right now because the pandemic has made it a little lonelier than I believe it would have been beforehand.
I know that going in it was – I would just go in and do my show. There weren't a lot of activities to do together as a whole group. But these past couple semesters we've been able to do shows. Again, we're working on some events to do with our members. It's very exciting. We have the spring show coming up soon.
Kate: So what's your show about, what got you interested in doing radio to begin with and, you know, what is it musically that you find yourself drawn to?
Paulina: Music has always been a really big part of my life, like culturally. So I come from a Mexican American background and for anyone who is Mexican American or Latin American, they'll tell you that music is a big part of it.
Listening with family, dancing with family – I often found myself only experiencing that kind of music around family or around Latin American people. So coming into the show was my way to kind of bring that forward towards my peers and connecting with people who also listen to the type of music that I listen to.
I tend to like more alternative music. So finding how to mend the two together in highlighting Latin American artists who are alternative and do alternative music. Kind of like a way for me to find my own, like I say like young roots, you know.
Like if I had not had the opportunity to come here, the United States through my parents coming here, I probably would be in Mexico being a little like dark Mexican. That's, that's what the culture is down there is like the goth, like dark culture. So I like to imagine myself in in that culture through the guys of my show.
Kate: What are some of the artists that you like to feature? If you had to pick a top three?
Paulina: Oh my gosh, that's very hard. [laughs]
Right now, there's some really important artists I think in the Latin Latina alternative subculture that I would say Son Rompe Pera, they are a marimba punk cumbia group from Mexico. So I feel very connected to them. They actually do come out here quite a bit. They come out here like once or twice a year.
They basically, they set up this big marimba. They play what feels like very traditional Mexican, from other countries too, marimba music, but they're all like a bunch of punk dudes. So it's very punk. There's a lot of screaming and thrashing around and it's, it's, it's very fun to connect those two cultures together through their shows.
It's always a fun time. Secondly, a band called Meridian Brothers from Colombia. They play also cumbia – more salsa. I often hear people describing the lead artist as a scientist of music. Comes from a family of science. So he views music as science and it's very interesting how he interprets that through his music.
Kate: Love that. So what has this activity, WXPL meant for you? What has it provided you?
Paulina: It's provided me a space to really go into my roots that way. To set up a show, pick out the music, especially now to share it with people too.
I had a conversation once with one of the members where he asked me – he was like, “you, you play a lot of like different music. When you said you were playing Latino music, I didn't know what to expect, but you, every time I listen there's something different.”
And I explained to him, well, when you hear Latino music here in the United States, you think of like a very specific narrow set and it's really like a bunch of genres that they present to you as quote unquote Latin music.
So I set out to kind of split those into their different genres and, you know, share that. That's been kind of a key moment in what it means to me. Also just sharing with people, especially now that we can share with people, going to the shows together, seeing the bands perform, organizing events. It's been really difficult to organize events through COVID and being able to do that now has been really good in interacting with my peers.
College has been like a very lonely experience overall for me being what we're all living through. Being able to finally like, organize, collaborate, and get to know my peers in a different way, that has definitely been really important for me.
Kate: So how have you changed since you've been at Fitchburg State?
Paulina: I understand the school system so much more now. I'm a first generation student, so a lot of what I've learned about how to reach out to the registrar, how to ask for financial aid, how to do all of that stuff, I've had to learn through experience.
And not only that, but understanding that there's things I could do other than just my homework in school and that that has been provided through WXPL.
You know, understanding how forming an event works, what you can do with it, what you can do with funds that they give you to be able to join with people and connected me with a lot of different clubs.
I go to a lot of events. I'm not in a lot of different clubs.
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I see what, what the background of, of all of those clubs means, you know, understanding how it gets done, who puts work in for that. It's really interesting to see how that all works out.
Kate: Fantastic. Well thank you so much for taking these few minutes to talk with us.
Paulina: Thank you.
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Hank Parkinson: This is Hank Parkinson, Dean of Students. You’re listening to Perseverantia – the Fitchburg State Podcast Network.