Forget the Pope and Sub-Comandante Marcos, the real story is Maria Elena Salinas Miami, Florida

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Feb-March, 2002 by Anita Savio

In Maria Elena Salinas's website you can click on tabs to find pretty much the expected in information about this award-winning journalist and co-anchor of Noticiero Univision: biographical notes, photos of her interviewing the famous and infamous, clips of her work, and articles others have written about her. Everything you would expect, that is, until you get to the tab labeled "Familia." There you read:

"For those who are interested in my family life, I would like to share part of that. I believe that sharing my experiences as a woman, mother, and wife, as well as a journalist, can help to create a dialogue among women who, like me, have to divide themselves between two worlds--the professional and personal. I would love it if the readers of this section would share with me their own experiences of 'mama profesional."

So much of who Salinas is comes across on that simple page. Mother of two young daughters, Julia Alexandra and Gabriela Maria, and of two older stepdaughters, wife of Cuban American news anchor Eliott Rodriguez, Salinas has been quoted as calling herself "a mother first, and then a woman and professional." She speaks of cherishing her time with her husband and daughters, delighting in reading to her children at night, being the first person they see upon awakening, preparing their lunches, and dropping them off at school.

But the page also fits the person who describes her mission as "journalism combined with social service." In her recent interview with Latino Leaders, Salinas talked about an experience that, some years later, would help shape that journalistic mission. She was twenty-two at the time and working with a friend in a kind of finishing school--but not the kind for debutantes.

"I used to teach women who were from very poor families everything from how to dress and comb their hair and put makeup on, to how to feel better about themselves, how to feel secure about themselves--to come out of that last that a lot of women are in.

"These women really wanted to be better, to know more. They didn't know their rights as women, as residents, as minorities. They didn't know anything. We had one class where women would come in the middle of the day because they had to hide from their husbands. There was so much illiteracy and need for education at so many different levels.

"That made me realize when I went into media, and even though we're not a school, that we can help out our community. That's always in the back of my mind."

Salinas's humanity shines, as do her journalistic skills. With more than 20 years of experience in the news media, fifteen of them as co-anchor of Noticiero Univision, Salinas also co-hosts the prime-time news magazine Aqui y Ahora, has a daily radio commentary on Radio Unica, is a syndicated columnist with King Features, and writes a weekly column on Hispanics for Univision.com. She won two Emmys for her coverage of Hurricane Mitch in Central America and was part of the news team that received the Edward R. Murrow Award for Univision's coverage of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombings.

She has interviewed presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, was the first network anchor to report on the death of Lady Diana live from London, and has covered nine of Pope John Paul II's trips including his historic visit to Cuba.

Her list of exclusive interviews with world political figures includes former Mexican presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo, and current president Vicente Fox; former president of Argentina Carlos Menem; Chile's Augusto Pinochet; Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega; Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and President Violeta Chamorro; Colombia's Cesar Gaviria and President Andres Pastrana; former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori; and Mexican rebel leader, Sub-Comandante Marcos.

In line with the mission of serving her community, Salinas has headed up a Radio Unica campaign to motivate Hispanic students to stay in school, as well as several voter education campaigns to get out the Hispanic vote. She has appeared in US Department of Health and Education videos on issues ranging from immunization for young children to the risks of heart disease and the importance of parents' involvement in their children's education. She is a former vice-president and founding member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and has been acclaimed as among the most influential Hispanics in the United States.

Salinas's story begins in 1954 when her parents, who were living in Tijuana at the time, crossed over dm border so their child would be born an American citizen. Her sisters had already been born in Los Angeles. The story of Salinas's parents has an element of mystery and drama. Salinas describes her father as a brilliant man from an upper class family in Mexico City who spoke six languages. But after he met and married Salinas's mother, a poor seamstress from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, his family disowned him.

Salinas, who is currently writing a book of memoirs about her life and her family, speaks of her surprise when, after her father passed away, "a friend of his brought me a box with mementoes and things. There I found something that made me realize my father had been a priest. I'm still trying to find out why he left the priesthood. It was like a novela. A man from a very upper-class family marries a very poor girl with little education from a small town." Salinas's father worked at many different jobs, among them selling real estate and teaching at a technical school, hut was never truly successful. Her mother used her skills as a seamstress in a sweatshop. As a result, the Salinas family, which had settled in south central Los Angeles, was very poor. But there was no sense of deprivation. "I had no idea that we were poor. My parents made us feel very comfortable," she recalls.