Pulitzer Prize award-winning journalist, Ricardo Chavira speaks to CSULB students

Foto por: Amazon Books

Pulitzer Prize award-winning journalist, Ricardo Chavira, spoke to journalism students on Wednesday, through Zoom, recalling his experience as a Chicano student at Cal State Long Beach and as a bilingual journalist.

The Pacoima naive, has worked with many publications, but most notable for being one of the few Chicanos working with Time magazine and the Dallas Morning News. 

Chavira shared his newest work, We Were Always Here, which he describes as, devoting almost two books in one, and his evolution as a Chicano. "I didn’t want to speak Spanish. I didn’t want to be associated with things that were too Mexican. In my subconscious that was inferior to me,” he said.Although Chavira considered himself not college material, he ended up graduating from San Fernando Valley High School in 1968.  He later went to on CSULB, where a professor by the name of Patricio Mascorro noted he had a ‘journalist flair’ and encouraged him to take a news writing class. From there, he noted he enjoyed interviewing and reporting and began his career as a journalist.

Chavira recalls his first job as a journalist in Simi-Valley at the Simi-Valley Enterprise. On his first day as a reporter there, he recalls covering an egg farm, or Egg City as he remembers, were waiting to vote for representation, or no representation, from the United Farm Workers (UFW). While he was covering that event, he says the workers were finally happy to have a reporter who spoke Spanish. “I figured, I learned that knowing Spanish opened a world that would not be opened to non-Spanish speakers,” Chavira said.

Due to being a bilingual journalist in the early 1980s, Chavira started to report from Latin American countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Cuba. “Most reporters are not Latinos. Most are not bilingual. Most are uninterested,” he said. When asked about the Pulitzer Prize, Chavira said he it was a team effort. “It wasn’t a big deal for me.” As for his book, he said, “I felt like I have accomplished something. The book is more gratifying.”