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

At the age of 14, Salinas started working in a clothing factory to help out her family, and then in a cafeteria and a movie theater. With her earnings she was able to pay for her Catholic school education. She as yet had no thought of journalism. "I wanted to be a fashion designer." Instead she ended up studying marketing at East Los Angeles Community College and developing an interest in the business side of the industry. "I didn't have the patience for ripping out stitches and starting over again." Also, she had inquired at universities, without success, about a fashion degree. "Of course, if I had had the right counseling, I would have realized you don't go to university to study fashion design."

It was about then that Salinas ended up teaching at her friend's finishing school, which, in the convoluted way that life's events work, eventually led her to radio and the start of her journalistic career. "My friend had a line of cosmetics, and she used to give makeup advice on the radio. I wanted to do the same thing, thinking I could be successful at using her name to sell beauty products to Hispanic women.

"So when I went to the radio station with my idea, they said that somebody was already doing that, but they wanted me to d music and news. And I actually ended up as production director at the station."

At this point, Salinas still wanted to pursue a career in advertising and media. Instead, in 1981, she was offered a job as reporter and talk show host with Channel 34, the Los Angeles affiliate of the Spanish International Network, the company that became Univision in the late 1980s.

"For the first couple of weeks I had laryngitis, I was that nervous. I was so petrified of the camera I wouldn't dare look into the lens. I was at UCLA (taking extension courses in journalism), and it was already an obsession for me. I knew I had to be a rely good journalist, but I had a lot to learn. When I wrote stories, they were always too long and would be sent back to me to be cut, and I would cry. I remember I used to be very, shy at the beginning. At press conferences I was too scared to ask a question for the first year. Then someone would ask the same question I wanted to ask, and I would think, 'Oh shoot, I could have done that.'"

Salinas also realized something important in those early months: "I realized the need there was in the Hispanic community. I realized that people were hungry for information out there. This was a very big responsibility, and I could not take it lightly. Even though I'm an American citizen and I was born in Los Angeles, I've always fit in more in the Hispanic community. My parents always spoke to me in Spanish, and it built the pride in me. We were part of a subculture, parallel to the United States."

Salinas speaks of the early days of Hispanic presence in mainstream American life: "In the beginning, in 1981, there were 14 million Hispanics in the United States. In Los Angeles, we were maybe 25-30 percent of the population; and there was no political representation. One time a position opened up on the City Council, and a Hispanic was running. I went to one of the local communities and did a street poll of what people thought of the candidate and of having a Hispanic represent them. Out of 15 people polled, 14 had no idea it was happening. I went back and told my boss, 'I can't do this story.' And my boss said, 'That's your story, that nobody knows.'"