Meet Veronica Salcedo, the Mexico native bringing news, hugs and help to Middle Tennessee's Spanish-speaking community

Samantha MaxWPLN News

Veronica Salcedo records a daily segment for Univision at the Nashville Noticias studios in Plaza Mariachi on April 25, 2022.

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It’s a little after 9 on Monday morning, and Veronica Salcedo has just pulled into her driveway in Antioch. She’s fresh from the salon, and her long, blond hair is perfectly curled in loose ringlets that fall down her back. She looks like a TV star, in a tight, red dress and heels, as she ushers me into her living room.

If you don’t already know Veronica Salcedo, here’s the abridged version: Salcedo runs the local Spanish-language news channel Nashville Noticias, which started about seven years ago with just herself, her husband and a laptop.

Now, Nashville Noticias has about a dozen employees, a studio at Plaza Mariachi and a daily show on Univision. Every day, Salcedo reports live from across the region, interviewing fellow immigrants, and providing essential information to her 365,000 followers on Facebook. In 2020, WPLN News established a partnership with Nashville Noticias to exchange content.

Salcedo first fell in love with media as kid in Zacatecas, Mexico. One day, instead of getting on the bus for school, she went to the local radio station, where she hoped to audition to be a singer.

Spoiler alert: Seven-year-old Salcedo did not become a professional cantante. But she says that visit to the radio station changed her. It felt magical.

“I was really impacted by that,” she says in Spanish. “So, I always followed that idea.”

Salcedo started dictating stories into her dad’s tape recorder and taking speech classes. Then, when she was in high school, she heard the radio station was hiring broadcasters. She decided to apply.

After her test, the folks at the station told Salcedo she had a good voice. But they couldn’t hire someone so young. They let her intern instead.

“I was delighted,” she says.

One opportunity led to another, and eventually a professional career in radio. When her husband was offered a job at a station he had worked at years before in Nashville, they decided to go to the states.

“El espíritu aventurador de un periodista es como siempre buscar a conocer más gente,” she says. The adventurous spirit of a journalist is always looking for more people to meet.

Since moving to Tennessee, Salcedo has befriended so many people. Everywhere she goes, people hug her. Her phone is always ringing.

It makes her happy when people greet her while she’s out reporting. She doesn’t have any family here, besides her kids. The Latino community is her local family.

That’s what gets Salcedo out of bed every day. She has a crazy schedule, often starting early and ending late, working through holidays and weekends. Her body and her mind have to adjust, she says. The news can’t wait.

The pandemic was particularly tough to cover, as COVID tore through Nashville’s Latino community. She remembers taking calls from people who were sick and terrified to go to the hospital. Bringing them garlic and onions and tea. Comforting families who had lost their loves ones.

Right before the pandemic, Salcedo had lost both of her own parents, a few months apart. She says their deaths helped her to connect with people who were grieving.

Some days are hard for Salcedo. She would rather have spent Christmas 2020 watching a movie at home, not shivering in the 20-degree weather as she covered the downtown bombing.

But other days are happy. Days when she helps people. When fiascos are resolved or crises are averted. Like the hot July morning in 2019 when federal agents tried to detain a man and his son in their van on the way to work.

Neighbors and activists filled the street, blocking the agents. Some brought gas to keep the air conditioning running. Others delivered sandwiches and drinks. Salcedo remembers people holding hands to make a human chain. It worked. The officials left.

Salcedo gets emotional thinking back on that day.

“Y sí me emociona porque, no sé,” she says, her voice catching as tears begin to dribble down her made-up cheeks.

As a mom, Salcedo says, she could feel the mother’s anxiety while her son and husband were trapped in the car, praying they wouldn’t be deported. She was overwhelmed by the energy in the crowd to do something — anything — to help.

Those are the best days, Salcedo says. When she gets home and tells herself: I did what I needed to for one more day.

“Digo ya, por hoy, este gracias a Dios, ya se cumplió lo que tenía que hacer,” she says.

Every day, there’s something. Someone needs a lawyer or an appointment with the consulate. There’s a fire. Or an accident. Or an apartment building with no electricity.

When she needs to let it all go, Salcedo drives through her favorite tree-lined street in Antioch with all the windows down and takes a few deep breaths.

“Pero, no, me queda tranquila, porque pues, por lo menos, tratar de ayudar un poco,” she says. “Si puedo ayudar, qué bueno, verdad.”

If I can help, she says, how great is that.

Update: This story has been updated to describe a partnership between WPLN News and Nashville Noticias.

Follow along on a day of reporting with Veronica Salcedo: