Roberto Martinez Quintana
1900-1978
By Juan Felipe Herrera

“Be el vocero de la gente, the voice of the people!”

¡Vámonos al norte!

Shouted Roberto to his brothers Geno and Vicente at the age of twelve. Let’s go! If we don’t leave, the revolution will roll right over us! We should roll over it! He said jokingly moving his hands as if rolling tortillas. His pants were ragged and his shirts flapped in the windy alley of El Niño Perdido, the Lost Child, in the center of Mexico City.

The year was 1912 and the Mexican revolution was two years old; people jumped on trains, others rode horseback, many simply carried their satchels on their backs as the city braced itself for gunshots, cannon balls and change. ¡Vámonos! Roberto cried. In el norte, we can join the American Army and with our pay, we can take care of our mother Juanita and two sisters, Lucha and Aurelia, Roberto said, hopping on one leg and kicking his heels.

Always cracking jokes, the family ignored him. They knew he loved to hang out in the Las Carpas, and listen to clowns, comedians and singers in the makeshirt tent-theatres that traveled through the markets and barrios of the boisterous booming capital city. One of his favorite comedians was his very own friend, Cantinflas.

Six years later, Roberto, his mother, brothers and sisters hitched rides and made the trek to Juarez, Chihuahua, a border town on the edge of the state, next door to El Paso, Texas. There, the family settled in a shanty by the El Río Bravo, separating the two cities. Pancho Villa, one of the great leaders of the Revolution had just ridden his horse Siete Leguas to El Paso to speak of the revolution. Roberto listened to him on a radio: “We must give the land back to the people, we must reward those who work so hard under the sun.”

Not long after that, Roberto’s mother, Juanita told him, I am sorry son, but I am going to send you away with your brothers to live with my uncle Arturo. Otherwise we won’t survive on the few pesos I earn washing floors and cleaning people’s houses on Mt. Franklin in El Paso where the rich live. And my sisters? Only Lucha will stay with me, she’s the smallest one. One day, Roberto told his mother Juanita, you are going to hear my voice on the radio too so you won’t have to work so hard and so we can all be together again.

Still in his teens, Roberto made ends meet for his family by selling newspapers and sodas in Juarez. He joined comedy troupes, wore baggy pants and short straw hats and passed the hat around for spare change, He even helped his brother chente and sister Lucha make toys out of wood for one of the stores on town. By the time Roberto was twenty, the revolution was over and there was a lot of commotion in the air; he sported a fancy cap and whistled the latest tunes blasting out of the downtown stores. Roberto was inspired. It’s time to join the Army in the United States! He told his brothers one day while visiting his uncle Arturo. It’s just a hop, skip and a jump – across the river! Are you joking? Chente asked. He’s serious, Geno the oldest brother said, remembering what Roberto had said years before.

Roberto and his two brothers enlisted in the army in Fort Bliss, a few miles from El Paso. The year was 1920. Mama Juanita gathered the children and moved into the poorest section of the city, a brick building on third and Campbell streets in el Segundo Barrio, the Second Ward.

After serving two years in Fort Bliss, Roberto came back home and a few months later began to work as a DJ for a new radio station in Juarez, XEJ. What are you going to name your show? The manager asked. After thinking about all the changes rocking him and his family to and fro, as if in a wild wavy ocean, he said, El Barco de La Ilusión, The Ship of Illusions.

During the late twenties and thirties, Roberto’s radio show became one of the most popular station on both sides of the borders. He played the music of the day with songs by Agustin Lara, Lucha Villa, Pedro Infante, Tito Guizar, and he brought on board a co-host Jermán Valdez. He taught Jermán a few jokes and gave him his comedy name, Tin-Tan.

They both tickled the funny bone of thousands across both cities. On occasion, Roberto featured new talents. Today, ladies and gentleman, he would start, we have El Charro Avitia. Then, one day in 1940 Roberto’s mother, Juanita Martinez de Quintana, passed away from a stroke.

Let’s go south, to Mexico City! Jermán told Roberto. South? Yes, Jermán replied. We’ll become famous movie stars! No, we must go further north. That’s where we will survive and take care of our families. Not long after that, Tin-Tan went south to Mexico City and Roberto, with his wife Albina and children Judy, Beto and Graciela headed to San Francisco – el Norte.

In the misty city of the Golden Gate, Roberto struggled to find a job. There were no Mexican radio stations, no comedy-tents like the ones in Mexico City. After finding a place to live in the Mission District, he joined the Teamsters Union and worked as a warehouse man, moving boxes and hauling sacks of coffee beans.

He wandered about town, WWII was over. When he passed by Union Square, he could hear the Lawrence Welk Orchestra in the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel. He missed his days of laughter and charros and the music of Mexico – of family on both sides of the border. After visiting his friend Tin-Tan, now a budding movie star in Mexico City, he made up his mind to bring the sights and sounds his beloved home-country to the United States. But how?

Let’s start our own Mexican Festivals here in San Francisco! He told his pals at the warehouse. By the early fifties, Roberto founded the Comité Civico Mexicano and inaugurated the first day of city-wide festivities on the sixteenth of September. City Hall opened it’s doors at midnight for the comité and Roberto raised the Mexican flag in honor of Mexico’s Independence.

At about the same time, Roberto began to volunteer as a disk jockey in Oakland. The daily Barco de Ilusión radio program from the Juarez and El Paso border became the weekend Sunday morning special called El Vocero de la Gente, The Voice of the People – the first Spanish speaking program in the Bay Area, Radio KOFY.

The Quintana children became part of Roberto’s troupe. He did not need to journey back to Mexico City after all. Little Judy became the secretary of the Mexican Civic Committee, teen Roberto Jr. became a bugle player in the radio show’s promotion rag-tag band, Banda Guerra and curly haired Vicente was know as “mi satélite,” my satellite, on the Vocero morning show. At the local cultural events organized to help promote the show, Mrs. Albina Quintana made her famous tostadas de frijol con queso while little Rosa helped at the tables and Graciela danced on the ballroom floors.

In 1972, Roberto now seventy-two years old, fell ill and passed away six years later. His son Vicente and daughter Rosa attended a special recognition ceremony at the Sheridan Palace in San Francisco, where their father was honored as a pioneer in Mexican radio. They received the trophy in his name. They did not have a chance to tell the public that their father also invented the first tortilla machine in the Mission District, opened with his wife Albina, La Reina, the first Mexicatessen on twentieth and Harrison Street and that he was a baker of pan dulce and Mexican candy on his off-hours from work.

They didn’t have to. Everyone knew who Roberto Quintana was, from Mexico City all the way to El Norte. They recognized his caring and positive voice -- You must be el Vocero de la Gente – the voice of the people.