Chicano Journalist, Writer Olvera Honored With Mural

By News/Web Producer Joe Villasana

EL PASO — Controversial Chicano journalist and writer Joe Olvera received another accolade Saturday as a mural honoring his 38-year career was unveiled at Del Pueblo Publishing.

The mural was made possible through a collaboration between Mr. Reyes Mata, the owner of Del Pueblo, and State Representative Marissa Marquez. She recently sponsored legislation meant to honor Olvera.

In January, Olvera was honored with the Chicano Lifetime Achievement Award and the city of El Paso also honored him with the “Star on the Mountain” award.

Olvera told ABC-7 he was happy to be honored and hopes his mural inspires Latinos to get more involved in their community. “You need to get on the ball and get involved in your community to start doing stories that need to be done,” he said, “Don’t be a lazy reporter and just be happy doing briefs from press releases.”

“Chicano journalists need to get involved. If you don’t have the passion for it, do something else. You need to take risks and chances because that’s the only way you are going to keep the doors open,” he added.

Olvera was the first-ever Hispanic television reporter in El Paso. However, hesaid he became bored with the profession and decided to become a creative writer before venturing into editorial writing.

Olvera began writing for the El Paso Herald-Post in 1982 and then ran unsuccessfully for Mayor. He later became a reporter for the El Paso Times, where he contributed until 1994.

It was his weekly column with the Herald-Post that often put him in the hot seat. “My editors gave me free rein and I give a lot of credit to them because I would write some columns that would blow the city away,” said Olvera. “People would hate me and I would get a lot of hate mail, but I didn’t care because that meant they were reading me.”

Olvera said he started writing about issues that concerned Latinos in the U.S. and immigrants. His main goal was to erase common misconceptions about Mexicans. “We’re not just some people that grew up in the desert like weeds. We’ve been here for thousands of years and many of us think we are nobodies because we lost a war and territories,” he said. “To hell with that.”

Although he recently lost his legs because of Diabetes, he hasstarted concentrating his creative efforts on the plight of the disabled in America. “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” he said.