The migration from intentional online communities, like forums and Facebook pages, to platforms like Twitter that put you in conversation with any number of strangers, is a social experiment, the outcome of which remains to be seen. With Twitter in its death throes, I worry about how the next generation of voices will find their open door.Įven before Elon Musk took over, before features started glitching and rate limits were randomly imposed, I was (and am) more than willing to admit Twitter had its flaws. The point is, Twitter was one of the few rooms available to me where I could meet editors and writers in an industry that’s notoriously difficult to break into. He sent me his email address, and the rest is history. It was a shot in the dark, but I created a Twitter account and pitched a story idea to Roque Planas, an editor at Huffington Post’s Latino Voices. One of those prayers, to my surprise, ended up being answered.

I had no idea where to start, no family connections to speak of and had little more to work with aside from Google Docs, coffee shop Wi-Fi and prayer. I was fresh out of college in 2013, working at a bookstore in Oklahoma City and desperate to get bylines of any kind so I could hopefully pursue a career in journalism. Latino Twitter is how I got my foot in the door as a writer.

Color me pink