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Chicanos Por La Causa to honor media pioneers
Arizona Daily Star
6.05.2006
Tucson, Arizona | Published: http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/132202
Eleven Spanish-language media pioneers will be honored at the Chicanos Por
La Causa annual dinner on Thursday.
The honorees are "individuals who struggled and gambled to keep our native
language and culture alive in radio, television and print," said Adela
Gonzales, event organizer for the nonprofit group.
"They were at the forefront of educating and helping our community," she
added. "They did play an important role in our past and in what we have
today."
The pioneers are Ernesto V. Portillo Sr., Raśl Gamez Bogarin, Leyla Cattan,
Bertha Gamez and Josie Velarde. Honored posthumously will be Don Jacinto
Orozco, Henry and Tony Villegas, Lorenzo and Arnulfo Palma and Claudio
Jimenez y Fernandez.
Their collective work will be remembered with clippings, audio and film from
the days when they kept Mexican music and important community issues on the
front burner.
Portillo, like several of his fellow honorees, spent years in radio
beginning in the 1950s. Unlike today, Spanish radio was almost a novelty
then, he said.
"There were no paths to follow," Portillo said, recalling the difficulties
in luring advertisers to Spanish radio. Now, as the industry has grown along
with the Hispanic population, many corporations invest in Spanish-language
media as a matter of course, he noted.
Velarde, who was still in high school when she first delved into Spanish
radio in 1969, remembers her more than two decades in radio with fondness.
"There was a lot of respect between the radio announcers and our audience,"
she said, adding that radio continues to be a force in helping to educate
Tucson's Spanish-speaking community.
With its dinner, Chicanos Por La Causa will mark its 26th anniversary. The
event is one of the community services agency's primary fund-raising events.
The funds benefit about 6,000 people each year through housing assistance,
youth leadership development and educational programs.
● Contact reporter Lourdes Medrano at 573-4347 or lmedrano@azstarnet.com.
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