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Charles E. Gillman Company Accounting Specialist Sales and Marketing Everready Glass Sales Reps Mechanical Komatsu Equipment Co Resident Field Mechanic Administrative & Professional Jorgensen Brooks Group Counselor Administrative & Professional Tucson Urban League CEO/President Trades/Construction RANCHO RESORT MAINTANANCE POSITION OpinionHonoring Latino journalistTucson, Arizona | Published: 04.20.2008
Olga Briseño, the author of this article, is the director of the Media, Democracy & Policy Initiative in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. She spoke in March at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' 19th annual scholarship banquet in New York, presenting awards named in honor of Rubén Salazar. The following is an excerpt from her speech. The U.S. Postal Service is unveiling a stamp this week to honor Salazar.
Recognition of Rubén Salazar with a new stamp is a fitting tribute. It is fitting that we are advancing the education of our future journalists and scholars in his name.
March 3 marked Salazar's birth and what would have been his 80th birthday. I have been asked several times, "What do you think Salazar would have done if he had lived?"
Of course I do not know the answer, nor would anyone, but I do think that his career was defined by the times he lived in — as it would have been for any journalist.
He would have probably written about Watergate and the economy, and the national impact of stories in Los Angeles. He may even have gone on to a larger media format or been an owner in what is now Univision, the No. 1 media outlet in most major cities in America today.
I do know that if he were still with us, he would be happy to see his name used in the advancement of education — in all that we have seen of his writing and his interviews, we find that education was paramount to change.
The month of March also marks the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report, a pivotal moment to adjusting to the inclusion of minorities in the media.
In the mid-1960s in Los Angeles, the black community rioted in the city's Watts neighborhood. President Lyndon B. Johnson called for an investigation that is known as the Kerner Commission Report. It said very plainly that when the media does not reflect its communities, the communities will feel disenfranchised. Thus the notion of having diversity in the media was brought to light.
Twenty years later, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was born. Even though there still is not parity in the media, the efforts are visible.
I have had the unique and enviable task of meeting Rubén Salazar from a perspective few others have before. Through the archive we are assembling, I have lived with his story, his words, his thoughts and talked with those who knew him, whom he relied on and whom he inspired.
I have read through his story files and looked at his handwritten notes on a story. I learned what motivated Salazar to become a journalist.
He intended to be an editorial cartoonist, but while at Texas Western College, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso, he wrote an editorial and found that the impact of his writing would far exceed the impact he would have as a cartoonist. The story was about the college football team refusing to play a visiting team that included black players.
Those who knew and loved him hope that Rubén Salazar will be recognized for how he lived and the extent of his journalism career.
Most will always associate his name with his death and his instant status of martyr to the Chicano movement. He was at the Los Angeles Times in top positions, shoulder to shoulder with then-publisher Otis Chandler.
He interviewed presidents and presidential hopefuls. He introduced California and the nation to César Chávez. He talked with students about their protests and encouraged a nation to look to education as the key to their future.
He was the author of "Stranger in One's Land," a 1970 report on a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearing in Texas.
All this he accomplished in 15 years as a journalist — 11 with the L.A. Times. He preceded many of us and in doing so held the bar very high. His career opened doors that made it easier for the next woman and the next minority to walk through.
My goal in asking the U.S. Postal Service to name a stamp after Rubén Salazar was to bring to light the many contributions Latinos have made to the history of this nation. As a journalist, it seems right to have the first stamp I proposed to be that of a most respected Latino journalist.
Your challenges are no greater than the ones we faced. You will have to work harder than anyone in the newsroom to succeed. You face a different kind of challenge, but from challenge you develop opportunity.
Your challenge is to enter an industry that is undergoing great change. Hundreds of journalists are being laid off.
So why should you consider a career in a dying industry? Because it is not dying, it is changing. You bring new skills to the industry that are needed.
At the same time our fight becomes yours: You join us in demanding the media include minorities. We need media owners to reflect who we are.
E-mail Olga Briseño at obriseno@u.arizona.edu. Visit http://mdpi.arizona.edu/ to learn more about the Media, Democracy & Policy Initiative at the UA.
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