1	The Story of John The man of a thousand movie personas discusses everything from his new favorite role, to his latest crusade to why he loves Obama. read more...
2	Two Decades of Growth As Hispanic magazine celebrates it’s 20th anniversary, we look back—and ahead. read more...
3	The Issues Over the course of the publication, Hispanic has covered many of the issues at the core of Latino life and some that have altered it. read more...
4	A People in Progress Much has changed in 20 years, from the size of our wallets to the size of our waistlines. We look at the impetuses for the evolution. read more...
5	Stamp of Approval A look at the life of the late Ruben Salazar, one of the first Chicano journalists in the country, and what it took to get his face on a new U.S. postage stamp. read more...
6	America’s Forgotten Children For a large number of Hispanic children languishing in foster care, the dream of a home where they can feel safe and loved remains elusive. read more...

The Story of a Stamp

In April, the United States Postal Service unveils a stamp commemorating pioneer Ruben Salazar, the trailblazing Chicano journalist.

One blazing late August afternoon in 1970, U.S. Civil Rights Commission official Charles Ericksen, his boss Phil Montez and journalist Ruben Salazar met over carnitas on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Salazar, then a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and news director for the KMEX television station, told the two men he thought the police were following him.
“I thought they might do something to discredit him, like plant marijuana on him or something,” Ericksen recalled one recent evening, after closing another edition of Hispanic Link, his Washington-based news service.
Ericksen had followed Salazar’s dispatches from East L.A.’s Chicano community, then a foreign country of sorts for many Times readers. He remembers Montez remarking darkly, “The Chicano community needs a martyr—why not you?”
But neither anticipated what would follow. Less than a week later, Salazar was dead at age 42. A sheriff’s deputy fired a small torpedo filled with teargas through the journalist’s head during a Chicano protest against the Vietnam war. To some, including Ericksen, Salazar’s death was intentional, though no one was ever prosecuted.
Nearly 40 years later, Ericksen’s signature was on one of the petitions organized by Olga Briseño, director of the University of Arizona’s Media, Democracy and Policy Initiative, in support of a postage stamp honoring Salazar.
Many Hispanic heavyweights across the United States also signed the national petition seeking the stamp including members of the band Los Lobos, the National Council of La Raza and members of Congress.
Briseño sent 10 pounds of paperwork to the U.S. Postal Service in 2006 to advance her quest. Now, two years later, the agency is planning to release a stamp dedicated to Salazar on April 22 .
Salazar will be the first Hispanic journalist on a U.S. postage stamp and one of less than a dozen Hispanic Americans so honored in the agency’s history.
Terry McCaffrey, manager of stamp development for the postal service, says he sees Hispanics as “overdue for more representation.” His agency is “trying to be more inclusive” in creating stamps dedicated to Hispanics, with another on Latin jazz also due soon.
McCaffrey is quick to point out that a stamp is far from mundane, despite its everyday use. Having your name and image on one is “the highest form of recognition to an average person that the U.S. government can give,” he says, adding that the agency gets thousands of recommendations for stamps every year, but chooses fewer than two dozen.
Come April 22, there will be 30 million first-class, 41-cent stamps available nationwide commemorating Salazar. That’s millions of opportunities for people who might not know about the journalist to look him up, something easier in the Google age than it was in Salazar’s own time.
A desire to keep history alive is part of what motivated Briseño to push for the stamp.
Although she wasn’t even out of high school when Salazar was killed, she considers him a major influence in her life.
Briseño’s early career was at the San Diego Union Tribune. She became a board member of the California Chicano News Media Association and organizer of a 1990 conference on Salazar’s legacy. She and other contemporaries lobbied for more Hispanics and other minorities in newsrooms across the United States—an unfinished struggle. Today’s newsrooms are less than 5 percent Hispanic, she notes.
She muses on what Salazar would be like today, at 80. “He would’ve enjoyed seeing a woman and a black person running for president,” she says.
Born in Juarez and raised in El Paso, where he became a naturalized citizen, Salazar began his career at the El Paso Herald-Post in 1955. He became one of the first journalists of Mexican descent to work at the Los Angeles Times in 1959. In the 1960s, Salazar covered the Dominican Republic, the Vietnam War and Mexico.
In 1969, he came back to California and reported on his own people in East L.A. detailing the problems of that community. His reports on schools and the police brought controversy. By January 1970, he was writing a weekly column for the Times and working at KMEX, a Spanish-language television station.
That all ended August 29, shortly after he stepped into the Silver Dollar Cafe while covering a chaotic march against the Vietnam War. A projectile pierced his head, killing him instantly.
Nearly four decades later, Ericksen says he hasn’t seen Salazar’s equal. Still, he, like Briseño and many others, have picked up the torch. His Hispanic Link news service, now 28 years old, has trained 274 young Hispanic journalists, he says. And the service’s columns on Hispanics are syndicated to more than 400 newspapers nationwide.
Briseño hopes the stamp will bring national attention to Salazar and inspire future generations. Her program, based at the University of Arizona’s College of Humanities, is compiling the journalist’s archives.
Although two journalism awards, two university buildings, a park, an elementary school and a high school all bear his name, many remain unaware of Salazar’s legacy. Briseño wants people to ask, “Who was he? What did he mean?”
Her goal: “Someday, my grandchildren could open up books in school and read about Ruben Salazar, and not just somebody named Smith.”

Stamps OF Distinction

Honoring: Simón Bolívar Date issued: 1958
Was the South American General, also known as “El libertador” for giving Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia their independence from Spain. He is one of the greatest military figures in Latin America’s history, honored by two stamps released 1958.

Honoring: The Contributions of Hispanic Americans Date Issued: 1984
In honor of the many Hispanic contributions in the sciences, arts, philosophy, and the armed forces, the postal service released a stamp in which Hispanic men and women in uniform stood in front of a boy and a girl in the background, which symbolized the future.

Honoring: Frida Kahlo Date issued: 2001
As part of a celebration of the fine arts, this stamp honored Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, one of Mexico’s most emblematic artists.

Honoring: César Chávez Date Issued: 2003
The United States Postal Service paid tribute to civil rights and farm labor leader César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America and a tireless advocate for nonviolent social change. He led the first successful farm workers union in American history, achieving fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits and other rights and protections for farm workers.