Today’s multicultural Catalonia is gradually gaining more presence on public television. We had the last two examples just a few days ago, with the debut of the journalist Beatrice I give as the first black news presenter of the news channel 3/24 and with Maria BouabdallahCatalan of Moroccan parents, at the head of one of the core programs of the SX3, the new Super 3.
“At the end of the day we are a public broadcaster and we have to represent society as a whole”, claims Bouabdellah, 20 years old. Born in Vic, but raised in bathrooms, the young woman became known as a YouTuber. From there she became part of Canal Malaya, the digital platform for Catalan content on the internet, and worked as a collaborator in the ‘Adolescents iCat’ debates and the TV3.cat program ‘Mood Z’ . This very Monday she premiered, together with David Its Me, as presenter of ‘random‘, the youth channel’s new afternoon show, which aims to hook teenage audiences with a frenetic pace that feels more like a Twitch stream than a TV show.
Third year student of Journalism at the UAB, Bouabdellah is not the first Afro-descendant to appear in Super 3, where the actress Neus Ballbé played the character of Pati Pla for more than a decade. But it is a small sample that Catalan TV wants to bet on diversity. “Racialized children often lack references and, above all, positive references, who talk about different topics naturally”, says the young presenter, who emphasizes that this lack does not only occur on TV or in front of a camera.
The importance of references
“In general, in society, racialized people are missing in more qualified positions. I think it’s something that will happen over time, as the sons and daughters of immigrants grow up, study and occupy spaces where we weren’t present”, he reflects. And he insists on not just putting the focus on the small screen: “I’m talking from teachers to health personnel, who are the important references we have close to us, and not so much those who appear on TV, who also…”.
Says a girl who grew up in Catalan in his day-to-day life (although with his Moroccan family he usually speaks in Daria), but who they usually address in Spanish when they leave Banyoles. “There, more or less, we all know each other and it doesn’t usually happen to me”, he justifies. “There are people who, in good faith, tell you: How well you speak Catalan! And I answer them: “You also speak it very well!” In the end, it seems like something anecdotal, but it is symptomatic of the changes that will occur in our society”, explains the young presenter, who predicts that both in ‘Ràndom’ and in other areas of the new SX3 there will be more references for children and young people “not of African descent, but of other origins, which is very positive”.
For Maria, who has precisely been a great reference is Beatrice Duodu, the journalist who a week ago became the first black presenter of a news program on Televisió de Catalunya, specifically on the channel 3/24. Born in Ghana in 1996, she grew up in Vic and studied Journalism at the UAB.
He has worked in media such as the magazine of the Official College of Journalists, ‘Capçalera’, the newspaper ‘El 9 Nou’, RAC1 and RTVE. At TV-3, she had worked as a collaborator of the ‘Blue print‘ by Ricard Ustrell. “This is a collective victory, I am here thanks to the work of all of you who fight to claim our place in Catalan society. This is only the beginning, the daughters of migrants will continue to work to occupy all the spaces”, he wrote on his networks. At the moment, both she and Maria Bouabdellah have already done their bit, as Yolanda Sey did before, for example, in the Catalan language program ‘El llengado’.