My name isn’t one usually associated with the titles of publisher or editor-in-chief.

Writing was not something that my Cuban immigrant parents encouraged as a career option. But I first stumbled on the journalism department at the University of Southern California while I was there searching for an undergraduate major — only to be told I didn’t qualify because I didn’t check the right boxes. I had no clips and I hadn’t worked at my high school newspaper.

I was different.

My life as a kid revolved around small shops, working for my mom in the wedding and flower business, surrounded by the whirring of sewing machines and the sloshing of flower buckets.

The majority of my workweek growing up involved early morning runs to downtown Los Angeles flower warehouses and weekend proms, quinceañeras and weddings across Southern California.

At my Catholic technical high school on the outskirts of East LA in Rosemead, California, I had been trained as a machinist.

School was a break, an easy one in between selling flowers on street corners during Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day and snacks along Pasadena’s sidewalks during the annual New Year’s Rose Parade.

My first Saturday off came during my sophomore year at USC when I moved to campus.

I went on to major in political science but as graduation approached, I realized I had found a true passion — one that I wasn’t supposed to find in college, a calling I was too scared to turn into a profession: journalism.

Growing up as a Cuban American, I was full of questions about democracy and totalitarianism, experiencing family struggles both economically and against government repression on the island.

It gave me a deep appreciation for what it means to be free. To self-govern.

Yet growing up in SoCal during the 1980s also made me question what I saw around me in the largely Mexican American neighborhood where I lived.

As a young man, residing a block away from a regional probation center, I questioned what I saw on the streets. Most importantly, I questioned the lack of public investments in things like libraries, parks, sidewalks, skateparks and pools, and the visible differences in those services depending upon which neighborhood you lived in.

I had a fire inside me to cover government and politics at the local level. Yet at the time, it seemed an impossible goal. I had no idea where to start. Or who to even ask.

In my senior year in college, I thumbed through the Yellow Pages, calling local editors listed in the newspaper section. Eventually, I found the Redondo Beach Press, where I got my first clip about an upcoming neighborhood benefit concert.

That clip got me my first official gig at a suburban daily in San Diego’s East County, but I didn’t get much mentoring there and later transitioned to freelance for an East County alternative weekly, all while I considered leaving journalism for a master’s in Latin American studies at San Diego State University.

Then, during one of my drives up to Los Angeles to visit friends, the 1992 riots broke out, just as I was driving on the 405 freeway in one of my mom’s flower shop vans.

This, I told myself, is where you become a reporter.

The series I wrote about the unrest for the East County Weekly won me a media fellowship to Washington, D.C., with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

When I finished my yearlong stint in D.C., I was ready to come back home, making it into the final round for a special Los Angeles Times fellowship. Yet I failed the final cut.

I didn’t fit.

It prompted a six-year detour in D.C. where I met my wife and also ended up traveling across Latin America as an analyst with the National Endowment for Democracy, monitoring elections and democracy promotion programs.

Years of that work led me back to journalism after working to publicize the work of Cuban dissident writers living in Cuba. The tools I developed questioning the Cuban system ultimately led me to question my own government, which led me to investigative journalism.

I restarted my journalism career — again from the phone book — by finding Congressional Quarterly, where an editor named Kinsey Wilson took a chance on a very different resume and offered me a basic entry-level job monitoring bills in early 1995 for an online service called “Bill Watch.”

While CQ wasn’t the most diverse place, I earned a series of opportunities to keep learning, covering congressional action for several sessions of Congress. That experience gave me solid fundamental skills to track every aspect of government. I really learned how to count votes. I loved working in Washington, D.C., and felt like I could cover Congress forever.

Yet after several sessions, unofficial mentors working for major papers in the Senate press gallery gave me the best advice of my life: Get out of D.C. Develop a different perspective on politics. A local one.

I came close to getting a job back in Southern California with The Orange County Register covering the city of Anaheim but ended up losing the job competition.

Once again, I didn’t fit.

The experience left me motivated to find a local job in a warmer climate. I eventually landed in St. Thomas to start my first newspaper job covering the territory’s governor and Senate with the then-Gannett-owned Virgin Islands Daily News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper known for local investigations.

I was finally in.

Yet within months, the paper would be up for sale. I would see the same pattern at paper after paper over the next few decades: constant ownership tension amid economic woes, negative impact on coverage at city hall, my corner of the newsroom, and a crippling lack of staff diversity. That lack of diversity was especially true for civic beats like city hall or investigations.

Ownership changes eventually turned to bankruptcies at the papers where I covered city halls, a principal reason why in 2009 I led a community coalition to found the Voice of OC, a nonprofit newsroom in Orange County, California.

Along the way, I learned some fundamental principles that can help every newsroom increase diversity and therefore improve coverage:

Go Local

Forget corporate sponsorships and advertising. Go deep in the community with the hopes that those readers would support a publication they regularly see themselves in.

While chronically underfunded from day one, it’s worked for the Voice of OC. As usual, I had to find a different way in.

This is where every lesson I learned selling flowers on street corners came in handy.

As the publisher and editor-in-chief of our award-winning local newsroom over the past 15 years, I’ve worked with our board of directors and staff to forge a working culture around diverse recruitment, training, mentorship and empowerment for the staff and our community.

Fed largely by pay-as-you-go investments from a host of foundations and major donors, the newsroom has earned on average 200,000 unique readers each month — going as high as one million during the pandemic — and the staff has grown to more than a half dozen. It’s been recognized as an industry leader earning numerous state and local journalism awards along with a strong local readership and growing local donor base.

Last year, I was honored to be recognized by the News Leaders Association for my leadership in recruiting and training diverse staff.

And a few years ago, I was even invited to speak to students at the USC School of Journalism.

Fellowships

Fellowships are a way newsrooms can keep staff fresh and get exposure for apprentice journalists.

Whether it was the American Press Institute, the Newspaper Association of America or Investigative Reporters and Editors, numerous fellowships I earned along the way allowed me to network and build on my fundamental skills, which always helped me earn the next beat or job.

Training

It’s critical to train the next generation and empower leaders with the right skill sets on things like open meetings and records initiatives that are essential to reporting and democracy.

In this endeavor, local universities and community colleges are among the best partners.

Mentorship 

When I took on new beats at news organizations, nothing helped me more than great mentors at places like IRE, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the California Chicano News Media Association.

Regardless of where I was, there were always great reporters who stepped up individually to help me and offer guidance and direction on their own initiative, as well as leading in their newsrooms on diversity issues.

Promotion

This is where I found news organizations were falling short the most in terms of finding and advancing talented journalists, and making sure they knew the path they were on.

Managers, often pressed for time, didn’t always do a great job of understanding where each staffer wanted to grow and how their aspirations could be matched with the newsroom’s goals and needs.

This area is where mainstream newsrooms often become dead ends, especially for working class journalists of color. Much of the challenge is that newsroom managers keep looking in the same traditional places for leaders.

Instead, they should also look for people who found a different way in.

About this essay

This essay is part of the Latino Watchdogs series sharing journeys to journalism from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Investigative and Data Journalism Task Force. More from this series: