Ilia Rodríguez, a native of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, graduated magna cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico with a degree in print journalism. Ink is in her blood. An assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism in the College of Arts and Sciences, Rodríguez has been at UNM since 2003.
Rodriguez earned a master’s in Latin American Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a concentration in Latin American history. “It was an interdisciplinary degree. It was a time to focus. I did a lot of studying, reading, while always thinking I’d go back to journalism,” Rodríguez said.
Following her husband, Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz, to Providence, R.I., where he went to earn a doctorate, Rodríguez found a job at the library. “I’ve always had an interest in books and research. I conducted research about an academic career. In my second year working at Brown University library, I applied to doctoral programs,” she said.
She went to the University of Minnesota, where, in addition to her studies, she taught. “I taught Spanish to Spanish language students and for those planning to go abroad. I was acquainted with Spanish language academic writing from my work on my master’s. This gave me the opportunity to teach the language, keep it up,” she said.
Operation Bootstrap
Rodríguez earned her doctorate in mass communication. Her dissertation focused on the modernization of Puerto Rico through Operation Bootstrap as it was reported in the media.
“Operation Bootstrap – a means to shift the Puerto Rican economy from agriculture to industry – was key in history. I looked at the narratives of change – who we are, economically and socially.
I looked at reporting as storytelling. I started thinking about development not just as an objective economic policy, but an ideological construct,” she said.
Rodríguez said that the ideology was put into stories for people to grasp. “Puerto Rico began to be used as a model to demonstrate what industrial capitalism can do for a third world country.
The goal was to show how development with U.S. capital can bring forth economic growth,” she said.
“Leaders wanted to attract U.S. textiles and light manufacturing companies to Puerto Rico. The press reconstructed, or ‘showcased’, the country by showing that people from all over the world were visiting us. What they said was printed in the press,” she said.
“Industry and civic leaders would talk about it at the Rotary and other local clubs. They were the narratives of social leaders,” she said. Rodríguez said that the policy was indispensable to the survival of Puerto Rico because population growth was an issue.
“Turning farm land over to factory was a solution to our problem,” she said.
“My interest in journalist was in society and culture in practice. I discovered that the academic environment was what my career was about. It is a good compromise to be connected to journalism as an educator,” she said.
Diversity in Journalism
Rodríguez teaches hard news and featuring writing. “I draw on the notion that the inverted pyramid is a narrative, chronicling a story,” she said. Even necessarily factual economic and business stories are still stories, she said.
Her news writing courses include a focus on multi-cultural diversity. “We undertake notions about journalism as cultural practice. Newspapers chronicle diversity in the U.S.,” she said.
Using the American Society of News Editors’ award-winning selections of diversity writing, she encourages students to look at what ideologies about multiculturalism are presented and challenged.
“We look at the role of newspapers in social and cultural communication,” she said.
Her current research focuses on Spanish language anarchists writing in Spanish language newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century, “when anarchist presses were targeted and freedom of speech challenged,” she said.
Placid in Placitas
Away from the university, Rodríguez and her husband, who teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, lives in an adobe home in Placitas. “We live next door to the church. I wonder how many photos of the church feature me in the background with the caption, ‘native New Mexican tending her garden,’” she said.
Rodríguez and Santiago-Díaz like to drive around New Mexico, exploring back roads and towns. That’s about as much moving as she plans to do.
“I moved around enough. I love New Mexico and I am happy to be part of a community. I want to stay in Communication & Journalism and develop more programs that connect journalism outwardly,” she said.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920 e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu