Arturo Hilario
El Observador
Recently we had the opportunity to get a behind the scenes look at the various Latino Heritage Month activations curated by the San Francisco 49ers as part of their yearly celebrations that include the Latino Heritage Night game, digital content and retail merchandise.
Sarina Soriano is an Emmy-winning producer that works with the San Francisco 49ers at their media department, 49ers Studios, creating content for the team’s website and social media channels. She helped coordinate and create the content for this year’s festivities, culminating in a video highlighting the Latino community and 49ers fans.
Born and raised in East Side San Jose, Soriano attended St John Vianney Catholic School and Archbishop Mitty High School, before going to the East Coast to attend Caldwell University in New Jersey where she studied Communication and media Studies, Spanish and Sports Management.
As the first female Senior Producer for the San Francisco 49ers, She is a two-time Emmy Award winner in the following categories: “Best in Craft Achievement Photographer/Editor Spanish: Sarina Soriano” and “Best Sport’s Program Live or Post-Produced: 49 Hours.”
Alongside the 49ers Latino employee resource group L.E.A.D. Soriano worked to make this year’s Latino Heritage celebrations a particularly home grown and authentic one, culminating in the feature video Unidos: Latinos United.
The video features plenty of local fans in the community, cultural touchstones, Latino 49ers players and even some family and friends of Soriano intercut with footage of the team, which happens to be going 4-0 undefeated into the game against the Cowboys this Sunday October 8. That video can be seen here: 49ers.com/video/latinos-unidos-latinos-united.
What was the process for producing a video like the Unidos: Latinos United?
Starting in February, kind of after our season was done, I knew I definitely wanted to do a fan centered piece. And luckily last year I was able to hire an international video producer under me who also helps me exclusively with Spanish video content.
So I let him know, “hey, I know it’s the offseason, but let’s start maybe brainstorming and we can get this done hopefully in the summer.” So finally June comes around, and it’s like, “okay, I’ve been in the business a long time. I know Latino Heritage Month comes up really quick.” So we were like, “let’s really knock this out and try to create a piece that we feel represents not only Mexicanos, but all of the Latinos here in the Bay Area that happen to be huge 49ers fans.”
Video Producer Aaron Sarmiento came up with the script. From that script, that’s when we really started to hone down and storyboard exactly what shots we thought would go perfectly with the script and what we were trying to say. There’s a bunch of eclectic people in the group, from my grandmother, the girl shopping for my grandmother is my prima, my cousin. I have my hair braider in there. I thought that some type of hair product or something should be included and represented in the video as well.
Aaron had been in contact with our 707 Faithful Group, as well as all those guys with those cool cars. They’re here constantly every home game, so we knew we wanted to include them in as well. And then to make it very gen Z-like and just having a really broad younger audience as well, we included our influencers, the Salguero family, as well as the Aguilars.
So it’s truly awesome to see that all come together and everyone who was so willing to want to be a part of it. I can’t forget Fred Warner and the rest of our players, who, from the moment they heard it, were like, “I would love to represent my culture and what that means to me.” So it was awesome that we were able to produce that and have that be the hero piece for Latino Heritage Month at the 49ers.
I read that you were the first female senior producer for the team. What was it like stepping into that role and being the first?
I was hired in 2016 as an intern, part of the Denise DeBartolo York Fellowship, where it put women who had just graduated from college in six departments that were underrepresented and that were male dominated.
I knew growing up that I wanted to be specifically with broadcast or cameras, so I knew my heart was in 49ers Studios as soon as I stepped into that rotation. After one year, the program ended, and I was very lucky to be the first female in the entire group. I think a lot of that attributes to women not being able to see a lot of women on screen holding cinema cameras.
Back when I was in middle school, the only Latina I saw on my screen was Michele Tafoya. So I thought that I wanted to be a sports reporter growing up, but I always have had this love for cameras, so I think it’s truly an honor to be one of the first. But I just hope that women see the work that I’m doing and not only appreciate the art of it itself, but also the fact that I’m doing it in this space where we’re not really seen as much.
And I hope that young women can see and can learn that they can go this path if they really want it as well.
Could you talk a little bit about the L.E.A.D. group and what that entails?
Yeah, I feel really special working for the 49ers because of our Latino employee resource group. We’re called L.E.A.D., and we have a wonderful group that was in charge of the complete slogan for the entire month of Latino Heritage Month, which was “Latinos Unidos”, so you see that in all of our graphics. You see that on game day, you see that on social media. So they played a really huge part in all the activations that we were able to achieve for this month. So it’s really cool to be a part of them and to get their input on certain things. And they were also part of the Latino Heritage video as well. They were all those people holding the flags from their culture, so it was really cool to include them in that.
Can you tell me a little bit about any feedback or commentary you’ve gotten from this video going out into the public and maybe from the people that are in the video themselves, like what they think of it?
Yeah, I feel so blessed and just still a little bit overwhelmed by the outpouring of positive messages and responses, not only from the 49ers organization and the Latinos in this business, but even from mothers and daughters saying that they felt represented, that they were like, “I truly resonated with the video. I get my hair done. It’s so cool seeing Fred and Alfredo on the screen.” I think when people say that your work is inspiring them, it’s going to take your breath away a little bit. But I’m just glad that they know that not only are they represented with the 49ers, but we care about them as an organization as well.
Can you talk a little bit about what else is going on with the team for the end of the Latino Heritage Month and anything you’ve done already?
I think one of the biggest things and elements that we’ve done, we had a whole Latino Heritage Month game against the Giants. So that whole game, from the music that had a lot of Latin flavor and culture incorporated in it, to the video that played on the big boards, that was probably our main piece.
But also, our L.E.A.D. team, like I said, played a huge part in the Latinos Unidos slogan. But we are also highlighting a lot of our Latino and Latinas that work in the 49ers through LinkedIn and on various other social posts through the 49ers channels.
Additionally, we have Latino Heritage Month merchandise that we have been selling in the store where you could grab some pins, some hats that are super popular, shirts and all that. So we’ve been trying to do multiple things in that regard social, but there’s also in regard to videos, we have our players speaking Spanish in the locker room. We’re going to do more videos on that on a weekly basis. So we’re going to continue to do that through the end of Latino Heritage Month.
So, overall, what has been your takeaway in working on these community focused events and content for the team? How does that make you feel, being Latina as well?
Being able to not only represent who I am, my family and my culture through my art is something that is so special to me. I absolutely love the 49ers and I absolutely love who I am, and being able to mix that together is a dream come true. Being a Latina in sports can be sometimes very daunting, especially when I first started in my career.
But just to see the amount of growth of women in general in the sport and on my marketing team even, there’s actually a few other Latinas on the marketing team, and I’ve never worked with so many Latinas. It’s truly amazing, and I just know that more people who look like me are going to want to continue to have their careers in these sports.
And I just hope that they feel that I am a resource of some sort that could try to help and give them advice into how to get their foot in the door, but also how to truly be authentic to who they are in this huge space where we’re still very much underrepresented.
And as seen in the video, having Latina/os in these spaces equals very organic outreach to the community of fans as well.
Yeah, exactly. I love how I was able to incorporate just fans who’ve been a part of the team forever, like the guys in the car or just all of that. They felt so appreciative to even be noticed and it’s like, absolutely. You guys are what make the team go around. We do this for our fans, so it was awesome to include them.
Is there any final thought you have on this?
I think I basically said it, always be proud of who you are and authentic to yourself, your culture and what you want to represent, and know that people out there can really feel connected to you because of how authentic you are.
