Emmanuel Esparza, multimedia journalist

My name is Emmanuel Esparza or 'Manny' for short.

I was born in Providence Memorial Hospital in 1992. However, I was raised in Juarez until 2003, right at the start of 6th grade. My brother had been diagnosed with Leukemia, making my family migrate back to my city of birth seeking better medical treatment.

This allowed us to spend some much-cherished time with my brother before he passed away in March of 2004. This has been the hardest thing my family has had to endure.

My parents, wanting a better life for me, decided to stay in El Paso. Since then, “El Chuco” has been my home.
Morehead Middle School was the first school I attended. It was also the place where I learned to speak English, and I’ve been trying to perfect it since then.

Then, I became a Thunderbird until my sophomore year at Coronado High School. In 2010, I graduated from Riverside High School in the Lower Valley, and this school holds very special memories for me, like the birth of my dream of becoming a reporter one day.

On my graduation year, I declined a scholarship to study pre-med at Our Lady of the Lake University, in San Antonio, Texas. I gave up wanting to become a plastic surgeon, I knew it was a profession that wouldn’t keep me interested.
This decision didn’t sit well with my parents, even some friends were surprised by the decision.

So, I ended up going to EPCC as an undeclared major, which lasted about a year before I dropped out, and ended up moving to San Antonio anyway.

I tried attending the community college over there for journalism, but without a scholarship, I soon dropped out and became a car salesman.

That job is still probably my best-paid job ever, I ended up forging a stable 3-year career out of it, but I realized I did not feel fulfilled and might even dare to say happy.

On a Sunday, which would be my only day off back then, I thought to myself “what if I would have just gone for it?” That same afternoon I was driving back to El Paso with as much of my stuff as I could pack in my car.
Two years passed before I enrolled back in EPCC, then transferred to NMSU in the fall semester of 2019.

During my time at NMSU, I experienced for the first time what it was like being 'live' in front of a camera. I became involved in News 22 and Noticias 22, the University’s student-run news departments. I was the only student participating in both the English and Spanish newscasts simultaneously. I received a bachelor’s degree in journalism along with a minor in marketing on May 15, 2021.

I took the long road to graduate college, however, it has been very rewarding, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
In El Paso, I had many of my firsts: first soccer team, school dance, kiss, date, driving lesson, job, beer, etc.
Now, thanks to KVIA for hiring me two days after my graduation, I have another 'first' to add to my list; my first job in journalism!

I strive to serve the community that saw me grow up and gave me so much, by telling stories in the best way possible: with accuracy, respect, and passion. I know that everyone has a story and I want to help tell them all one at a time. So please if you have any story you’d like to share with me, I’m all ears. I’ll drop this here: emmanuel.esparza@kvia.com