Hinojosa, María (de Lourdes): 1961—

views updated

María (de Lourdes) Hinojosa: 1961—: Journalist

In the mid-1980s María de Lourdes Hinojosa became the first Latina correspondent on National Public Radio (NPR). Her balanced and incisive stories on Latino life in the United States helped usher in a new era, when multicultural media coverage of American life became more commonplace. Since 1997 Hinojosa has been with the Cable News Network (CNN), based at their New York City bureau, where she serves as the news organization's first urban affairs correspondent. As always Hinojosa works to bring more Hispanic-focused news stories to the public. "Growing up in this country, I always felt invisible," she told Houston Chronicle writer Clifford Pugh. "So I kind of feel this continued need to be visible and bring my reality into visibility."

Hinojosa was born in the early 1960s in Mexico City, Mexico, and she felt so closely tied to her roots that she did not begin her U.S. citizenship application process until nearly 30 years old. She came to the United States as an infant with her parents, when her research-physician father landed a job. The family settled in Chicago, but traveled regularly to Mexico to visit relatives. Hinojosa attended the University of Chicago High School, where she created a channel for her strong political and social convictions when she founded a group called Students for a Better Environment. She was more interested, however, in a career as an actress, and enrolled at Barnard College, part of the Columbia University system. Her short stature and Hispanic heritage did not make her an easy type to cast, and she found an outlet for her talents instead when she took a job as producer and host of Nueva canción y demás, a radio program that aired on WCKR, the Columbia student station. She played unusual Latin American music, wrote news stories that focused on Latino issues, and conducted interviews.

Award-Winning Journalist, Author

Hinojosa proved such a natural in radio that she eventually became program director for the Columbia station. She graduated with honors in 1985 with a degree in Latin American studies, focused on political economy and women's studies, and took an internship with National Public Radio (NPR) at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. This led to a position as an NPR production assistant, and by late 1986 Hinojosa was serving as associate producer of Enfoque nacional, its weekly national news program for Spanish listeners, which aired out of affiliate station KPBS in San Diego, California. She became NPR's first Latina correspondent, but left for a brief period when hired as a producer for the CBS News radio network. Hinojosa returned to NPR in the middle of 1988, moved back to the Washington area, and began producing and reporting stories for the NPR programs Morning Edition and its afternoon counterpart, All Things Considered. During this period Hinojosa began winning a number of industry awards for her stories, including a 1989 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Award for her "Day of the Dead" report.

After relocating to New York City in early 1990, Hinojosa spent a few months at WNYC Radio, and then became a general assignment reporter for NPR's New York bureau. Later that year she began hosting a live call-in public-affairs show for WNYC television, New York Hotline. She continued to file stories for NPR, many of them emphasizing Latino culture in New York City and elsewhere in the United States. In 1993 she launched Latino USA, a radio program on NPR heard in several U.S. markets. Produced from New York City by Hinojosa—though it airs from Austin, Texas—the show serves as a forum for the Latino diaspora. "It's opened up the doors for the rest of America to learn about us, and it's also allowed Latinos to learn about other Latinos," Hinojosa told Pugh in the Houston Chronicle. "If they happen to be Mexicans in Los Angeles, they're learning about Dominicans in New York…. Or they're learning about the fact there are Latinos in Arkansas, Nebraska and Iowa." Researching such stories for Latino USA only reaffirmed Hinojosa's commitment to serving as a ground-breaker for her community, as she told Pugh. "Having this outlet has been extraordinary," she said of the show. "It confirms to me what most of the mainstream media still doesn't get, which is Latino stories are important."

At a Glance . . .

Born on July 2, 1961, in Mexico City, Mexico; daughter of Raúl (a medical doctor) and Berta (a social worker) Hinojosa; married German Perez (an artist), July 20, 1991; children: Raúl, Yurema. Education: Barnard College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1985.

Career: Radio and television journalist. WKCR-FM, New York, producer and host of radio program Nueva canción y demás, 1980-85, program director, 1983-85; National Public Radio, Washington, DC, production assistant, 1985-86, freelance reporter/producer, 1988-89, New York Bureau staff reporter, 1990-96, host of weekly radio program Latino USA, 1993–; Enfoque Nacional, KPBS, San Diego, CA, associate producer, 1986-87; CBS News, New York, producer, 1987, researcher/producer, 1988; WNYC Radio, staff reporter, 1990; WNYC Public Television, host of talk show New York Hotline, 1990-91; WNET Channel 13, host and guest of talk show Informed Sources after 1992; WNBC-TV, host of talk show Visiones ; CNN, New York Bureau, urban affairs correspondent, 1997–.

Memberships: National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Alliance of Third World Journalists, New York Newswomen's Club.

Selected awards: Silver Cindy Award, New York Society of Professional Journalists, 1986; Silver Award, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1989; Silver Award, International Radio Festival of New York, 1990; first place, New York Newswomen's Club, 1991; Latino Coalition for Fair Media Award, 1992; first place, National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Radio, 1992; National Association of Hispanic Journalists Radio Award, 1993; Robert F. Kennedy Award for Coverage of the Disadvantaged, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, 1995; named one of the 100 most influential Latinos in the United States by Hispanic Business magazine, 1995; Ruben Salazar Award, National Council of la Raza, 1999.

Addresses: Home— New York, NY. Office— CNN, New York Bureau, 5 Penn Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Agent— Susan Bergholz, 17 West 10th, Suite 5, New York, NY 10011.

Hinojosa's first book, Crews: Gang Members Talk to María Hinojosa, stemmed from another award-winning story she did for NPR. The idea for it came to her after a much-publicized 1990 slaying of a tourist from Utah in New York City by members of a Latino youth "crew." The negative media attention the story received prompted Hinojosa to go into some of the rougher neighborhoods of the city and interview young people who had been portrayed as gang members by the media. She won the trust of several youths from the borough of Queens, who recounted tales of growing up in violence-prone neighborhoods, or in homes where abuse occurred; they explained to her the sense of solidarity and even family that they found as members of a crew. "Hinojosa is a nonjudgemental interviewer," noted Booklist reviewer Stephanie Zvirin, "and the young men and women … seem to respond with honesty."

Found New Challenge in Motherhood

In 1995 Hinojosa delivered another award-winning story on NPR about the disproportionate number of young men of color who have spent time or have contact with the criminal justice system in the United States; "Manhood Behind Bars" was honored with the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Coverage of the Disadvantaged. She departed NPR as a correspondent in 1996, but kept the post at Latino USA. Married by then, Hinojosa decided to have a child, but found the experience one of the first true challenges of her life. After being a first-generation Hispanic immigrant who graduated from an Ivy League university and then went on to forge an impressive media career, as she wrote in Raising Raúl: Adventures Raising Myself and My Son, she took her own "can-do" attitude for granted—but conceiving a child was an entirely different matter. She suffered two miscarriages, and then after giving birth to her son found herself contemplating an entirely new set of issues about her abilities. Recalling her own background and the strong maternal figures in her family, Hinojosa hoped to become a good parent, but realized that the examples in her own family history usually involved heartbreaking sacrifice. She had always considered herself to be independent and ambitious, and was somewhat surprised by her relatively sudden desire to become a parent. "Even though I grew up seeing myself as different from everyone around me," she wrote, "I suddenly realized that I wanted what everyone else had. I wanted to be a full, well-rounded, accomplished woman. And though I had achieved a lot in my life, I couldn't get away from the Mexican yardstick for measuring womanhood—becoming a mother."

Raising Raúl charts the growth of both Hinojosa's young son and her own coming-of-age. She hoped that its readership would be "American moms, no matter what their race or cultural background," she told Houston Chronicle writer Fritz Lanham, who called it "a high-energy sprint across sometimes rocky personal and cultural ground." In 1999, the same year that it was published, Hinojosa won the Ruben Salazar Award from the National Council of La Raza in recognition of her outstanding body of work as a journalist.

Hinojosa's spouse is a painter from the Dominican Republic, German Perez, with whom she creates altar projects, in the fashion of Mexico's Day of the Dead homages to departed ancestors. Theirs often highlight issues of importance in the Latin American community, such as undocumented aliens and AIDS, and have been exhibited at the Bronx Museum of Art and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, both in New York City. The couple live near Harlem and have a daughter, Yurema, in addition to son Raúl.

Pushed For Hispanic Reporting at CNN

In May of 1997 Hinojosa was hired by CNN to report out of its New York bureau. There, she has covered many stories related to the September 11, 2001, tragedy, especially the impact on New York City families who lost relatives in the World Trade Center disaster. She has also continued to push for more stories with a Hispanic angle, arguing that such topics are far more "mainstream" than some of her bosses and editors believe. It has been a difficult task, as she told Juleyka Lantigua in an interview that appeared in Nieman Reports. "The mainstream media suffers from a profound lack of understanding of how widespread and mainstream the Latino community is in this country," said Hinojosa. "The new census figures make what's happening clear. It's only then that people say, 'Oh my God! We've got to do something. Quick, go out, do some stories.'"

She recalled one report called "Latinos in the Heart-land," in which she interviewed new immigrants who had come to rural northwest Arkansas to work in chicken-processing plants. "I consistently try to bring out my subjects' humanity so that whoever the viewers or listeners are, they can find commonality," she told Lantigua. "I think that's the very first tiny step to understanding who they are, who we all are." Hinojosa continues to use her position at CNN to make the public aware of what it means to be Hispanic in America and worldwide and looks forward to a time when all networks will present balanced newscasts.