Diversity Isn’t New to Him, but the Job Is

It is fitting, say many in the public broadcasting arena, that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting should enter the next century with its fate guided by the son of Mexican immigrants, a recognition of the increasingly diverse audience public television and radio are attempting to reach.

Frank Cruz’s recent appointment as chairman of the board broke new ground: He is the first Latino and, the corporation believes, the first ethnic minority in its more than 32-year history to hold the post. His unanimous election by fellow board members followed an announcement by President Clinton of his intention to appoint Cruz to a second six-year term as a board member of the federally funded organization that helps support public television and radio.

In plain soft-spoken terms, Cruz, who turned 60 early this month,is serving notice that he wants to bring a greater measure of diversity, involving minorities and women, to both PBS and National Public Radio--in subject matter, on-air broadcast presence and within producing and writing ranks.

Yes, public broadcasting is doing well, he said from his home in Laguna Niguel, just after returning from Washington, “but I think we can certainly do a heck of a lot more.”

“And certainly more than the commercial brethren at a time when the commercial side is being accused of not having enough blacks and Hispanics and Asian Americans. We must do it and we can do it. Just to cite an example, ‘American Love Story’ [recently] on PBS about a biracial [married] couple, white woman and a black man, the trials and tribulations of the family. . . .”

As chairman, he noted, he can “encourage” his colleagues at NPR and PBS and, at the end of the fiscal year, “tally” the score. He also argues that diversity in programming is another way to grow audiences.

This fiscal year, CPB will grant $7 million specifically for diversity programming to the five minority consortia--representing Latinos, blacks, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders--that provide financial support to minority producers. That’s an increase of $3 million over the budget of the previous year. The corporation also has $9 million in discretionary money to seed innovative programming, and there is substantial other funding over which it has indirect influence.

“When we grant money to NPR and PBS for programming dollars, we can’t tell them exactly what to [broadcast],” Cruz said, “but when we target and earmark the money to them, we say, ‘Look, these are our priorities. So make sure we’re inclusive. Make sure that your shows . . . reflect the diversity and culture of America.’ ”

Jesus Trevino, co-executive producer of the 1996 PBS series “Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement,” who has directed episodes of such prime-time shows as “NYPD Blue,” “The Practice” and “Chicago Hope,” said of Cruz’s election: “It’s certainly significant that at long last Latinos have been recognized at such a high level of importance. I am sure that Frank will see his appointment as a mandate to respond to the diverse needs of the Latino producing community, to explore new avenues of funding and distribution of Latino programming.”

A String of TV News Positions

If Cruz seems familiar, it’s because nearly 20 years ago he became an anchor at KNBC-TV. “I had weekends, and then I always filled in for the [Paul] Moyers and [Jess] Marlowes of the world,” he said. “I was told then that I was the first Hispanic male to anchor” in the market.

In 1984, he left to help create KVEA-TV, the second Spanish-language station here--the demographics were “screaming” for it, he says--and was vice president and general manager before he segued into helping found the second Spanish-language network in the U.S., Telemundo.

“As a Mexican American, I have been very cognizant of diversity all through my life,” Cruz said. “I wanted to make sure that whatever industry I was in that they practiced the equality and showing of diversity. I carried this as a belief when I was with KABC, KNBC, even when I started my life insurance company.”

In 1991, with a partner, Cruz founded Gulf Atlantic Life Insurance, the first Latino-owned life insurance company in the nation, and is its former chairman.

Indeed, his is the sort of biography that might play well on the public airwaves.

He grew up in the barrios of Tucson, raised by his mother, who was left a young widow with a 4-year-old son, and 6 months pregnant with Frank. Both parents had worked in a laundry, then his father died of meningitis.

English was Cruz’s second language. Like many children of immigrants, he didn’t learn it until he attended elementary school. To support her family, Ruth Cruz, now 86, opened a Mexican restaurant in which Frank and his brother worked after school. “I never knew that there was any other food until I joined the Air Force, to be honest with you.”

It was there in the chow line that Cruz says he first encountered pancakes. “I thought we were getting tortillas with syrup on ‘em.”

After he left the Air Force, he moved to Los Angeles and attended East Los Angeles College--”the place I like to affectionately call the ‘Chicano Harvard of the West’ “--and worked in a factory making containers for ice cream. In 1964 he married classmate Bonnie Baldwin and got an associate of arts degree. He moved on to USC, where he got a bachelor’s degree in history in 1967, a teaching credential a year later and his master’s in Latin American history in 1969.

Yes, he was part of the student protest movement in the ‘60s. “Oh, sure. Who wasn’t in those days? I was very much a social activist for Hispanic rights, for bilingual education, for better schools. You recall in 1968 there were massive student demonstrations, the walkout at Lincoln High School. I was a teacher there. . . . I did a lot of support for them, a lot of rallies and speeches.”

Trevino remembers those days. “I knew Frank back in the ‘60s when he was a schoolteacher actively involved in championing, along with many others, improved education for Mexican Americans through the Chicano civil rights movement,” the director said. “I’m certain that he’s going to bring that sensibility and sense of fair play [to] the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”

Relationships That Cut Across Party Lines

While teaching at Cal State Long Beach in 1972, Cruz played a key role in hosting and crafting an educational TV series called “Chicano” in 20 half-hour segments for KNBC-TV. A rerun of it led to his broadcast career, first at KABC, beginning in 1975.

The sum of all these experiences along with Cruz’s manner of dealing with issues and people led to his selection, according to corporation board members. Though he has been vice chairman since 1997, the move up is not automatic.

Although Cruz is officially a Democratic appointment, Bob Coonrod, the corporation’s president, points out that Cruz has developed good relationships with congressional Republicans as a founder of the California Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that provides resource materials on public policy issues. “He’s a great guy. I’m very optimistic.”

Outgoing board chairman Diane D. Blair, political science professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas and a close friend of the Clintons, talks of Cruz’s “intelligence, dignity and great good humor. Some of the issues we grapple with are very contentious, very intense, and numerous times Frank just cracks us all up. Frank was trying to illustrate how sometimes people see the same thing but through different cultural lenses. We’re all Americans but we have different experiences, different names, different understandings. He makes his point with humor rather than anger.”