As the year draws to a close, we’re sharing memories of Arizonans who passed away in 2025. We begin today with Ernesto Portillo, 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.
Full conversation
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…