Other articles by George Sánchez:

One man's cancer journey'I feel like a chemical factory,' and other stops along the treatment trail The turbulent times of Roger Pfeuffer Horne out of touch, program backers sayDebate on TUSD ethnic studies descends into shouting match TUSD Ethnic Studies targeted TUSD's No. 2 resigns, eyes Marana top job Mystery donor gives $1 million to school School arrest puts TUSD librarian on paid leave 16 students named Merit scholars; most plan to attend UA

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Roberto Rodriguez was 16 when journalist Rubén Salazar was killed by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy while covering a Vietnam War protest about a dozen blocks from Rodriguez's home on Whitter Boulevard in East Los Angeles.

Now a columnist, Rodriguez has been nationally syndicated, and his work has appeared in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, among other publications. Rodriguez recently received his doctorate following years of research on maize, ancient maps and historical patterns of migration in the Americas.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp to commemorate Salazar, who died at age 42 from a tear-gas projectile. Rodriguez joined the University of Arizona this year from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is preparing research for a class on Salazar at UA.

A quick Q&A with Rodriguez:

"I never really looked at journalism as a profession, but rather as a place to write about injustices. In a way, this is what Salazar wanted to do at the end of his life. He had gotten tired of writing to nobody. He wanted to reach people directly. That's why he switched from the L.A. Times to KMEX, Channel 34, a Spanish-language station."

What are your memories of Salazar?

"I think I only saw Ruben Salazar once on television before he was killed. My parents saw him talking, and they had me come in. They wanted me to see this because they told me he was going to get killed for talking about civil rights. Salazar was covering human rights, and he was being interviewed because he covered the Chicano civil rights movement."

So journalism, to you, is not so much a profession but a venue to call for social justice?

"I think so. I look at myself as part of peoples in between stories, peoples that are displaced or do not fit, according to society . . . I remember interviewing a young girl. A lot of progressives would say, 'Hey, leave the immigrants alone; they don't take anybody's jobs, not the job anybody wants.' I remember the little girl saying, 'But I want one of those jobs. I want to be a scientist.' That opened my frame of thinking."

"In all honesty, outside of the sun — which was absent for some nine months out of the year — life is not really about geography, but about relationships. Wisconsin was a great place to live. Arizona and the Southwest are also great places to live."