On the Air with Javier Martinez

July 12, 2008
By Joe Hyde
Special to LIVE!

Javier Martinez is an icon of local Del Rio radio. His “Town Talk Live” is a popular hour of talking about the issues. Or, detractors would say, one hour of local political drama. He is also the founder of the local chapter of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

My first encounter with Martinez was during one of the many Del mayoral elections. He usually sets up a remote broadcast from the polling location. This time, it was in the Del Rio City Hall parking lot inside his mobile studio, or Del Rio City Councilwoman Pat Cole’s motor home, whichever way we define it.

He had assembled a panel of political experts. Del Rio City Councilman Claudio Sotelo, Pat Cole, Laura Loftin (at that time, now she is Allen), and a few other notables. He was broadcasting live with two microphones. Javier had the microphone with the red foam. The yellow one was passed around to the panel so they could offer opinions live and on the air. I was asked to join them, as if I knew much about local politics to offer much pontification. It was like the local CNN station, with “experts” offering a dose of opinion on every little detail that was leaked from the polls.

That night, Dora Alcalá was facing a field of five candidates. Robert Garza was the favorite to force a runoff, or upset the incumbent. “We just heard that the polls are closed and the counting has begun,” Martinez announces on the air. “And sitting to my right is Del Rio City Councilman Claudio Sotelo. Mr. Sotelo, what does this mean?”

Well, err, it means the polls have closed? But Sotelo was always good for taking that bait and turning a question like that into a ten-minute talk on the people, players, and drama of Del Rio politics. And everybody all over Del Rio seemed to listen, taking in each word as if somehow that night we were going to answer the question about what is the meaning of life.

Martinez has made his niche inside a place no one really wants to be out front: The dirty row of local politics. He closely follows the issues and gets the players to come talk on his show. He has a loyal base of callers who sometimes like to call in to attack the guest. One time, I heard Superintendent Roberto Fernandez get ambushed on the air about extramarital affairs. I am not saying that he had any, but one caller wanted to know. That was a classic Javier Martinez Show ambush. Fernandez ignored the question and went on to the next issue. Smart man.

“This is my 40th year in radio,” Martinez says. He was born and grew up in Zaragosa, Coahila, Mexico.

Martinez says he was lured to the U.S. by his older brother who had immigrated a few years earlier. Back then, in the 1960s, legal immigration was easier than it is today. Martinez says he applied for a visa and three months later it was approved and he was off to the states to find his fortune. “They said [after the resident visa was approved] that I had to arrive inside the United States within 10 months, so here I came,” Martinez says.

Martinez laments about all of the red tape required to immigrate today and notes that this is a large part of the problem of illegal immigration. “Right now, if you made an application to immigrate into the U.S., it would take you a good 10 years,” he says. “You’d be on a waiting list.”

He found a gig, his first radio job, at WEAW in Evanston, Illinois. “At that time, it was 1968, you could go into any radio station and buy time. You could buy and hour and put on whatever kind of music you want on,” he says. He played an hour of Spanish music.

Martinez says he was happy rocking on Illinois airwaves until he received a call about an opportunity back in his hometown of Zaragosa. “It was when the Mexican government started to allow twin plants to establish outside the [immediate] border corridor,” he says. Martinez became a plant manager. He worked there until the 1973 oil embargo caused his factories to close. He then moved north, to Del Rio, to find opportunity.

“I remember Del Rio well then because that was the year of the U.S. Bicentennial,” Martinez says. Tom Sullivan, the Spanish language programming director of a local radio station hired him. “That is how I started my radio career in Del Rio in 1976. It started with six hours of Spanish programming on Sunday on the AM station for KDLK,” he says.

After a few years there, Martinez was offered a management position at XEDH, an Acuña radio station. “The owner said we’d work on a 50-50 [percent] basis,” he says. From there he moved to an Acuña FM station.

In the 1980s, Martinez worked with other managers and investors, including Frank Mendoza, Dr. Manuel Martinez, and Dr. Alfredo Gutierrez, “and we came out with KTDR,” he says. “We put that station on the air in 1985.” He stayed at that station for six years before moving to his current home, KWMC, “The Mighty 1490” on the AM dial.

Martinez has covered many memorable events during his career. He is the most proud of his coverage of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Mexico in 1979. Martinez followed the Papal visit and called in reports over the phone to Acuña radio (XEDH) from all over Mexico. “This was before the assassination attempt of The Pope, so there was not as much security I was able to get within four or five feet of him in some cases,” he says.

Martinez says the most interesting event he witnessed while covering The Pope was when The Pope made his entrance into Guadalajara wearing an Indian hat. “He put [the hat] on his head and drove into town in his pope mobile, and drove all over town, until he arrived at the cathedral. That was very special because it was the Indians of that particular state [in Mexico] who gave him that unique, traditional Indian hat that they’d been using for centuries… [The Pope] showed that ‘I’m with you’ and ‘I’m humble.’ He was saying ‘I wear this [hat] because I am one of you,’” he says.

His second most memorable experience was covering the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush in 1988. “At that time I was with KTDR and we were affiliated with ABC News. So I called them and obtained press credentials,” he says. “It was exciting. We did the reports from the ABC bureau in Washington D.C.,” he says. While there, he met his all time favorite national news anchor, Ted Koppel.

Then came the Del Rio Flood of 1998. “I got a call from a friend and they said, ‘Javier, did you know that the Brown Plaza is flooded?’” But he also remembers the tornado that hit north Del Rio in the early 1990s. Martinez was the station manger of KWMC at the time and had dispatched reporters to cover the event in real time. “We were worried for their [the reporters’] safety,” Martinez says. Martinez admits that while the flood was more traumatic to many people, in terms of covering weather, the tornados were more exciting because it was in real time. “The flood happened over night, and we could only cover its aftermath,” Martinez says.

You can enjoy an hour with Javier three times per week on his Town Talk Live radio show. It plays Monday, Wednesday and Friday on 1490 AM, KWMC from 9:30 until 10:30 a.m.

During the next election, you should tune in to KWMC after the polls close for Javier’s election coverage. I won’t be there (only in spirit), but the information and entertainment is truly of a local flavor and something you have to experience at least once. I guarantee it is worth your time!

I asked Javier Martinez about everything. Some controversial, some not. And we had a frank discussion. Here it is:

How do you see news-reporting changing in Del Rio?

I think that now people have the ability to know what is happening in Del Rio faster. Years ago, you had to wait for the newspaper. Now there are more media. [And there are] publications that are free. People don’t have to rely on one type of media, and you really don’t have to pay for it either, to get to know what is happening in town.

Do you think Del Rio has been changed by the greater number of voices?

I think people are getting more involved with the decision makers. It is not easier to get elected, because the people want to know why you are making that decision. You have to explain yourself other than you have a lot of money. Whether you are running for city council, commissioners' court, or school board, you have to explain what you are going to do. People are smarter today.

Three things are necessary to win an election here. One, you have to have a good candidate, two you have to have money to advertise, and three you have to have a good team of campaign workers to win. You can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t have a team, people aren’t going to elect you. People want to know what kind of person it is that is running.

Have you seen local political campaigns get more sophisticated over the years?

Before you used to have candidates walking door-to-door only. You have to get in touch with the people on a one-to-one basis. But today, it is harder to get to all areas. Now you have to advertise on radio, in the newspaper, and all over.

You are the founder of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Why is a Del Rio chapter of the HCC important?

All over the United States, Hispanics are the number one economic force. So why not a HCC? This decade, Hispanics are not only just in Texas, California, and Florida. Hispanics are all over! In a small town in North Carolina, there are over 200 members [of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce]. That means there are over 200 businesses owned by Hispanics in a small town in North Carolina. But that town has only 18-20 percent Hispanics. Why not in Del Rio where we have over 80 percent Hispanic?

I have no idea why people are questioning the Hispanic Chamber when we know that everyone in the United States is in a Hispanic market. Everyone! [The number of] Hispanics is growing tremendously. We have right now 42.7 million Hispanics in the United States. If you put it all together, that is more than the population of California, more than Texas. Bigger than Spain. Bigger than Colombia. Second only to Mexico. Hispanics are the fastest growing market in the U.S.

Mostly Hispanics are young. The population of Hispanics is growing at a rate of four times the national average. One in every five babies born in the United States is Hispanic.

I believe in 2020, in Texas, every household is going to have an Hispanic. Like it or not! Probably your daughter is going to marry an Hispanic. Or maybe your granddaughter is going to marry an Hispanic. And somebody in your house is going to say, “I want a tortilla, papa!” You are going to be hearing Spanish in your house.

Why would anyone ask you why we build a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce? So I say, why not?

Some say the formation of the HCC was purely for political reasons. They surmised that the HCC was a front for the resurgence of former Del Rio Mayor Dora Alcalá.

The timing was when [Mayor] Dora Alcalá lost [her re-election] when I formed the HCC. I thought it was a necessity for Del Rio. The first time we tried was in the mid-1980s. So the first thing that I did was talk to Herman Ornales at the Del Rio News-Herald and Eduardo Castañeda and I said we need someone who is young and intelligent, clean, popular, and well known in the community. And we found Sergio Diaz. I think he will be a good president and good chairman for the HCC.

Some people said we were a front for Dora Alcalá or some other political faction. If that were the case, I would have pushed to make Dora Alcalá the chairman? But we’ve been around for 1.5 years and we have not supported (as a organization) one political candidate.

Small businesses have a tough time making ends meet. Some small business owners say that they do not want to have to buy two chamber memberships. What about affordability of joining two chambers?

I think that if you are smart businessman you are going to make a decision to support whatever chamber of commerce is going to provide you with the best service. If you are going to pay $120 per year to be in the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, you need to evaluate what you are going to get for your money. Likewise, if you are going to spend $220 per year with the Del Rio Chamber of Commerce, you have to ask what that chamber is going to offer you.

So I don’t consider us in competition with the other chamber. We have what we do, this is what we offer. Our primary thing we do is education for the youth, not only Hispanics but also all youth. That is our main priority. The second thing is women in business. And the third is to support small business in Del Rio. That’s what we are aiming at.

The name “Hispanic” in the name of the chamber sounds threatening to many people who aren’t Hispanic. Does not the name itself hint at exclusion?

Remember the name is “Hispanic” but that doesn’t mean that everyone else is excluded. We keep most of our minutes in bilingual [form], and Spanish is a very beautiful language. It is an asset to know Spanish. So we are very proud we hold our meetings and workshops in bilingually. But everyone is welcome. In our bylaws, in our introductions, it doesn’t say anything that you aren’t welcome is you aren’t Hispanic.

If you are a smart businessperson, you want to target your business to any kind of segment of ethnicity in the country. If there is an African-American Chamber of Commerce, I want to tell them I support them and I want their business. That is the same thing with the HCC. That is what big companies do! Wal-Mart, Toyota. Why do you think Toyota put a big truck factory in San Antonio? Why? Because they wanted to be close to Hispanics. They wanted to tell Hispanics ‘we are a part of you! Buy our product!’ That’s the reason they came to San Antonio, Texas. That’s Smart!

So if you say [as a businessperson] that you don’t want to be a part of this Hispanic group, you’re wrong!

We’re here to help. We’re not here to divide. Now those people that think that way can call me and we can talk.