By rights, I should have never become a mainstream journalist. Just a month before graduating from high school in 1968, I had no interest in pursuing a college degree. Yet, 16 years later, I found myself reporting on Central America’s wars for Time. This excerpt from my book recounts my thoughts.
Mine was an uncommon odyssey, since most Mexicans in the United States of my generation typically did not attend
college. Sometimes I felt my goal of becoming a professional journalist was unrealistic. I was discouraged because there as only a handful of Latinos in mainstream English-language journalism. Institutional racism was an imposing barrier for those of us who were not white men. Even after I made my way into a newsroom, I fought to keep from being
pigeon-holed as a “Hispanic” reporter. I was a journalist who happened to be a Mexican—a mestizo comprised of European, indigenous Mexican and African ancestry—fully capable of reporting any story, including those that benefited from my Latino perspective and intimate knowledge of my American homeland.
I eventually earned the respect and trust of my colleagues and bosses at several news organizations and took on stories
ranging from Los Angeles city hall to Mexico’s Palacio Nacional, the US-Mexico border, Central American wars, historic
summits and American diplomatic affairs in Washington, DC.
As I reported and edited stories of every sort, traveling to more than forty nations, I would earn awards, including the 1994
Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.
I found that my profound identification with my Mexican heritage and the poor set me apart from most American journalists of my time, who I saw as privileged white people. Never could I imagine Central America and its poor would remain a United States foreign policy concern well into the
2000s. I would witness how Washington’s support for repressive regimes would set in motion the current mass exodus of
Central Americans to the United States-Mexico border
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 