Ruben Salazar

Dushuan Headd

 

From September 15 through October 15, the United States of America recognizes the Latinos in our country with National Hispanic Heritage Month. Their contributions cannot be overlooked and while many people deserve to be recognized, I would like to recognize one person in particular. As a minority looking to make it in the journalism field, I have a deep appreciation for those who have come before me and Ruben Salazar certainly fits the mode. 

Born in Mexico, 1928, Salazar would move to El Paso, Texas as a youth and would serve in the US Army for two years upon graduating from high school. He would then go on to graduate from Texas Western College in 1954 with a degree in journalism. Displaying some of the same courage it took him to enter the army; he would work as an investigative journalist, covering some of the most risky assignments. As an example of his courage, he once upon of time posed as a nomadic to get arrested while he investigated the poor handling of prisoners in the El Paso jail. Separating himself from others, he would get his big break starting in 1959 where he would work for the Los Angles Times. 

At the Los Angles Times, Salazar early on in his career with them would serve as the foreign correspondent, covering the 1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic, the Vietnam War, and the Tlatelolco massacre. Upon returning to the US in 1968, he would begin to cover the Mexican-American community, in particular East Los Angles, an area not given much attention by the media with the exception of crimes. His pieces would be critical to the Los Angles government’s treatment of Chicanos. 

 In 1970, Salazar would leave the Times and became a news director at a Spanish television station in Los Angles called KMEX. There he would investigate allegations of police officers planting evidence to incriminate Chicanos and the July 1970 police shooting of two unarmed Mexican nationals. In August, he would cover the National Chicano Memorial March organized to protest the lopsided number of Chicanos killed in the Vietnam War. The nonviolent march ended with a rally, a rally Salazar would not make it out of. He would be found with a shot in his head from short range with a tear gas projectile.

 His death could have passed by as an accident for a lot of people if it wasn’t for the events that led up to his death. Salazar had been warned by police officers against chasing stories concerning the Latino civil rights struggle, saying that his actions were dangerous and advised him to stop. Days before he was killed, he met with members of U.S. Civil Rights Commission to express his concern that the police might target him. Though Salazar was a citizen who died at the hands of law enforcement, no criminal charges were ever filed against the deputy who killed him or against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. President Nixon’s Department of Justice declined to investigate the shooting.  

Though probably wrongly killed, Salazar’s legacy is one that is hard to follow. His legacy includes being the first Chicano journalist to cover the Mexican-American community in East Los Angles while working in general circulation media, interviews of President Eisenhower, Cesar Chavez, and Robert F. Kennedy, the Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award, and having the park he was killed in renamed after him in his honor. Though all these accolades are great, the biggest and most impressive thing about the legacy he leaves behind is in my opinion the courage and poise he demonstrated. No matter the risk, he did what his heart told him was right. Salazar just wanted to report on the truth within his community and with a journalism degree; Salazar understood that he had a platform to do just that. As a black man, I understand the trials and tribulations people such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X went through, so looking at Salazar’s troubles, I feel for him and inspire to always report the truth no matter the cost, just as he had done so courageously.