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| Journalist Jose Luis Sierra. |
Journalist, page 2.
He also realized his children were growing without a
close father, and Sierra dumped the war reporting job, returned to Los Angeles,
and found a writing and editing position at MundoFox news.
His son Joshua said his father told him he wanted to
be close to them, and serve as family anchor.
“[My father] wasn’t too worried about death,” Joshua
said. Sierra told him that “when I die I want you to plant a tree with these
ashes at its foot to which you can stay close. And that’s what I’m going to
go.”
Sierra’s music tenor voice and commanding sense of
newsworthiness made up for his lack of formal university education in the
United States, a pitfall he sometimes regretted with close friends.
Nonetheless, he became a journalism instructor as
part of the University of California Los Angeles extended education program,
where he taught several beginning journalism classes.
At an eulogy, organized by his family and work
colleagues, many praised his work and the professional legacy he left behind.
“He was one who strongly believed the [man in the
street] stories provided you with the best tools to develop a good craft in
journalism,” said Eileen Truax, a former La Opinión reporter, who met Sierra as
his boss in the assignment desk . “He was a very good editor and mentor.”
Marilú Meza,
another La Opinión staff writer, said Sierra quipped “that sometimes he felt he lived with broken
wings in a four-walled room, and he needed to become involved in formal
[school] teaching. He was a good man.”
Jorge Luis
Macias, a reporter for the Spanish-weekly newspaper “Unidos,” said Sierra was a
boss, a mentor and a guide who encourage him to break from suicidal tendencies.
“He said ‘Look, don’t be an ass and quit those
thoughts.’ He wielded a rule of
order, and had a deep cultural vocation.
I hope now he’s in heaven he can write a chronicle on Juan Diego (the Mexican catholic
saint whom The Lady of Guadalupe appeared to instruct him to build a church in
her name)."
Leonardo Lorca, a program producer at KPFK 90.7 FM radio
station, said Sierra was a bohemian who delighted to hang out with Latin
American friends involved in the trade, with whom was easy to sing impromptu
songs and chat about cultural issues affecting communities in Los Angeles, and
beyond.
“We are paying homage to you, and what will endure
from you. Here we are, many of us whom met you and knew you celebrating life,
and now a departure,” Lorca said.
Gerardo López, a former editor in chief of La Opinión
and current MundoFox editor, said he encouraged
Sierra to cover the police beat with balanced accounts, because he had
become a sort of activist for the working classes who often suffered brutality,
were abused or wrongfully detained.
“ I told him to include both sides of the story, and
let the readers judge. That was our job as journalists, and still is. He was a
good crafter of the trade,” López said.
Community leaders also paid respect to Sierra’s work.
“I always saw in José Luis a comrade with lots of
respect who knew about many of our problems,” said activist Antonio Rodríguez. “But
he also proposed solutions. He always showed solidarity to us.”
As he requested, his body will be cremated, and his
ashes would be kept by Joshua, his older son. His brother Jorge said they may
also be scattered across the Copper Canyon, or Barrancas de Cobre in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, or at
Yosemite Park in California.
José Luis Sierra married twice, and is survived by his wife Loreta, his sons Joshua and Alejandro, and his daughter Loreta.
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