Remembering Ernesto Portillo, renowned Spanish-language radio broadcaster in Tucson

As the year draws to a close, The Show is sharing memories of Arizonans who died in 2025.

Ernesto Portillo was a renowned Spanish-language radio broadcaster in Tucson. Portillo’s career spanned 50 years. He's remembered for his weekly "Charlas Portillo," a Saturday morning segment on KXEW, where he reported the news and interviewed local leaders, including César Chávez and Dolores Huerta.

Portillo first interviewed Chicano activist Raúl Aguirre after Aguirre won a state Spanish-language competition as a high schooler. Portillo later used his influence to help Aguirre create one of the first bilingual radio programs in the country. The two worked together for over a decade before Portillo passed away earlier this year. Ernesto Portillo was 92.

RAÙL AGUIRRE: Of course, my mom listened to him. Everybody listened to his program daily and also on the weekends because he opened the mic to give advocates, activists, politicians, a voice to talk to our community in Spanish about what was going on in Tucson, in the state, in the nation. He had a very commanding presence and commanding voice. He was very polite, respectful, perfect Spanish all the time. So I was thrilled to be interviewed by somebody of that magnificent dimension.

So, I met him in high school. I was a junior. When I was a sophomore in college, a friend of mine, Gustavo McGrew, and myself had started a group called MEChA, which is the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, a student movement that grew out of the need to activate the urban areas in support of the farmworkers.

So one day we are literally cruising in a little Karmann Ghia. We were talking about, ‘wouldn't it be great if we had, like, a radio station that catered to young Chicanos in Tucson and in a bilingual format, particularly catering to our musical taste and our social justice endeavors. Wouldn't that be great?’

And he, Don Ernesto Portillo, saw our vision, opened the door for us younger people, and we did exactly what we said we were gonna do. We had editorial comments. We supported the United Farm Workers. We played music that no one played.

He was Javier Solís, which is a famous Mexican crooner, to my Little Joe y La Familia, which is the "king of the brown sound," right?

In 1976, we were the first ones to institute a program that was so multicultural that we were able to weave this tapestry of music that encompassed all the people who live here in Tucson. And it was a huge success.

And also, of course, his impact in the community. I mean, he served on boards … How he walked around the mainstream market, who sometimes was very derisive of what we did in Spanish or bilingually. Chicanos and Mexicans, we were invisible to them. And he would walk into a room and make sure that everybody knew who Ernesto Portillo was. And that's something that I've emulated, you know, that I, I refuse to be invisible.

But he was in all measures, not just a broadcaster, but a journalist and also a civic leader that had a very strong identity in promoting also the fact that Mexican-Americans, Chicanos, have always been an intricate part of American society and life.

He was so Mexican that he died on Día de los Muertos!