Blogdolfo

By Adolfo Flores

Washington, D.C.-- For those who followed his career firsthand and others who came to know him only as a martyr, there will soon be a new way to remember pioneer Chicano journalist Rubén Salazar. Early next year, he will be memorialized on a first-class postage stamp.

Salazar’s international exploits with the Los Angeles Times included war correspondent in Vietnam and Latin America bureau chief based in Mexico City. Returning to Los Angeles, he investigated and exposed rampant police brutality as a Times columnist and news director with the city’s Spanish-language television station KMEX.

During the National Chicano Moratorium march through East Los Angeles on Aug. 29, 1970, his ascending career was cut short at age 42. An L.A. County Sheriff’s deputy shot him through the head with an armor-piercing tear-gas projectile. He died instantly in the Silver Dollar Café, where he and his crew had taken a lunch break. A coroner’s jury ruled only that he died “at the hands of another.” No charges were ever brought.

Three years ago, former journalist Olga Briseno, who directs the Media, Democracy and Policy Initiative at the University of Arizona in Tucson, chose to ignite a campaign to share Salazar’s story with a commemorative postage stamp.

“He was a very successful, respected journalist at a time in which there was great change in how Latinos looked at themselves and were treated,” she says.

While attending a National Council of La Raza conference, she met U.S. Post Office spokesperson Augustine Ruíz Jr. She asked him why César Chavez was the last Latino to be commemorated on a stamp.

“Who do you recommend?” answered Ruíz. Briseno recommended Salazar.

Ruíz continued to serve as an advisor to Briseno throughout the process.

Last year Briseno mailed the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee a package that weighed exactly ten pounds.

It included resolutions and more than 1,300 signatures from state and U.S. legislators to people in coffee shops around the country.

The committee reviews 50,000 submissions a year, says Ruíz. Of those, its members recommend 30 to the Postmaster General who makes the final selections.

Salazar’s 41-cent stamp will be one in a block honoring the contributions of five eminent journalists. The block is expected to be released next March, the same month as Salazar’s birthday. The other journalists’ names will be released during the unveiling at the JW Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., Oct. 5.

Salazar began his career with the El Paso Times, across the river from Juarez, Mexico, where he was born. Lisa Salazar Johnson, one of his three children, was nine years old when her father was killed.

At first no one would tell her what had happened, she recounts. “The TV was on and it said ‘Newsman Salazar Slain.’ I didn’t know what ‘slain’ meant.”

At that point her grandmother explained to her what had happened. Johnson says she can’t believe that after 37 years her father’s name still means something.

She says she will work to ensure that it continues to do so long after the stamp is unveiled.

Danny Villanueva, KMEX general manager when Salazar was killed, remembers when Rubén received hate mail for expose police malfeasance, he would post the letters on his office wall. “He would say, if they were angry enough to write, at least he made them think about the topic.”

Salazar’s stories put him on police radar to the point Villanueva was visited by some departmental representatives.

While they never directly asked, they made their point clear that they wanted Salazar fired. “When I refused, they said they had a pretty big file on me too,” recounts Villanueva.

He defines Salazar, “He was very honest. He was unwavering. He would attack Latino politicians if he thought they were wrong on a subject. If that bothered some people, too bad.”

(As published in Hispanic Link Weekly Report on Oct. 1, 2007)