Ilia Calderón was born in Istmina, Colombia, a small primarily Black, town in the coastal Choco region. Now, she’s a journalist working as the evening news anchor on Univisión Network. She is the first Afro-Latina to hold this position, and the first Afro-Latina to anchor a national newscast in Spanish in the United States.
In a piece for The Americano, she writes:
Every time I face the cameras, I feel extremely proud of my accomplishment but, more important than that, I think that there needs to be more people like me. The industry needs to be more inclusive and there should be an equal representation of the diversity of our audience and community.
We’re talking to Ilia Calderón about her new book, a memoir titled My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race, her work and her identity.
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