Juan Manuel "John" Quiñones is an ABC News correspondent, and currently the host of Primetime: What Would You Do?.
Background
John Quiñones was born in San Antonio, Texas on May 23, 1952. He is a fifth-generation San Antonian and a fifth-generation American, Quiñones grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and did not learn English until he started school at age 6. When he was 13 years old, his father was laid off from his job as a janitor and John's family, including sisters Irma and Rosemary, joined a caravan of migrant farmworkers and journeyed to Traverse City, Michigan to harvest cherries.
John will never forget the words from his father, Bruno early one morning as they knelt on the cold, hard ground of Ohio's tomato fields.
Education
St. Mary's University, Texas. Columbia University.
Career
Later that summer, the Quiñones family followed the migrant route to pick tomatoes outside of Toledo, Ohio. "Juanito, do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Or, do you want to get a college education?" It was a no-brainer. Determined to overcome the current Hispanic stereotypes of being uneducated, he decided to attend college.
While attending Brackenridge High School in San Antonio, Quiñones was selected to take part in the federal anti-poverty program, Upward Bound, which prepared inner-city high school students for college. "Upward Bound saved my life," he says. John attended St. Mary's University, in Austin.
After graduating from St. Mary's with a bachelor's degree in Speech Communication, Quiñones earned his master's degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism. Quiñones served as a radio news editor at KTRH in Houston, Texas from 1975 to 1978 and also worked as an anchor-reporter for KPRC-TV. He later reported for WBBM-TV in Chicago. In 1982, Quiñones started as a general assignment correspondent with ABC News based in Miami.
Currently, he is a co-anchor of the ABC News program, Primetime. He also reports for all ABC News programs such as 20/20, Good Morning America, World News with David Muir and Nightline. According to communications attorney Mark Lloyd, "Quiñones told the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) audience that he got his start because a San Antonio community organization threatened that if the stations didn't hire more Latinos, the group would go to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and challenge their licenses.".
Membership
As an undergraduate, Quiñones was also a member of the Sigma Beta-Zeta Chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.