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“Every New Yorker deserves to know what their city is doing for them in the language they speak at home,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a press conference announcing the launch of “El Chisme Oficial de NYC.”
New York City is expanding the way it communicates with Spanish-speaking residents through the launch of an initiative called “El Chisme Oficial de NYC,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced this week, featuring a new Spanish-language WhatsApp channel and newly re-established Instagram account.
With 1.8 million Spanish speakers citywide, according to the NYC Department of Planning, residents will be able to access important information from multiple city agencies and stay updated, officials said. “El Chisme,” translates to “gossip,’ a term affectionately known amongst the Spanish-speaking community. WhatsApp, a popular messaging platform, is also a staple for communication amongst many Spanish speakers.
“Every New Yorker deserves to know what their city is doing for them in the language they speak at home,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a press conference Monday.
The “El Chisme Oficial de NYC” WhatsApp channel currently has over 7,000 followers, and is filled with updates from City Hall: the latest on the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak on the Upper East Side, scenes from a pick-up soccer game at Gracie Mansion, and voice messages in Spanish from Mamdani.
Both the Whatsapp and Instagram accounts are geared towards connecting Spanish-speaking New Yorkers with resources, immigration support programs, announcements and official government updates. The expectation is to streamline communication, making it easier to alert those with language barriers to changes in their community, according to the administration.
City Hall says the effort builds on earlier actions to get New Yorkers more civically involved. In January of this year Mayor Mamdani signed an executive order establishing the Office of Mass Engagement, which was built to coordinate grassroots, resident-powered campaigns across multiple government agencies, according to city officials.
“We are all too familiar with wanting to participate in City government and not knowing where to go,” newly appointed Commissioner of the Office of Mass Engagement, Tascha Van Auken stated, in a press release. Van Auken was an organizer for Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, an operation that reached over 7 million people between phone calls and in-person outreach, officials said.
“You should not have to chase down a dozen agencies to find the information you need,” Mamdani said of the new effort. “We’re bringing it together in one place…that’s what a city government that works for working people looks like.”
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