Ricardo Chavira Chicano

In the beginning, I was a mainstream media rarity: a bilingual Chicano with a four-year degree in journalism and

In Latin America, my Latino appearance allowed me to blend in. Then, as now, American journalists were overwhelmingly Euro-Americans, or we can say, simply middle-class white people, who grew up with the privileges afforded to those who lived in mainstream America. They could not see the world as I did. I found this was true even of white reporters who spoke fluent Spanish.

My experience would be filled with journalistic adventures in dozens of nations, including the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and much of the Middle East. I would enjoy a first-hand view of historical events.

That years-long voyage would demand that I overcome the obstacles of poverty, racism, and a dysfunctional family. I had struggled through high school, rejected gang affiliation, avoided committing serious crimes, evaded the Vietnam War draft, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

In my early twenties, I sometimes dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent for a top-tier American periodical. But I could not honestly believe I would realize that dream.

Mine was an uncommon odyssey because 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 only a few Latinos were 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 pigeonholed as a “Hispanic” reporter.

I was a journalist who happened to be Mexican—a mestizo 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, privileged white people.