Maria Hinojosa: for putting Latino stories front and center

María Hinojosa, one of the most influential journalists in the United States, uses humor to break the ice in interviews and speeches: "I have five characteristics with which President Trump has problems: I am a woman, I am Mexican, I am an immigrant, I am journalist ... and, since he has an obsession with this: I'm flat chested."

Her name recognition extends beyond the Hispanic world. Hinojosa has won four Emmy awards, and was twice the winner of the Robert Kennedy Journalism and the Edward R. Murrow prizes, among a dozen other awards. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, CBS and has directed the show Latino USA at NPR for the last 25 years, which she now produces at the Harlem-based company she founded in 2010: Futuro Media Group.

She also leads "Humanizing America" and the podcast "In the thick" with Julio Ricardo Varela, and is the creator of the series "America by the Numbers" on PBS, in which she reveals the human face of demographic changes in the country.

Hinojosa says she does not like the word "minority" and argues strongly against the term "illegal" to refer to undocumented immigrants living in the United States. "Illegal is not a noun. No human being is illegal," she explained in a television interview that went viral on social media.

As a child she says she felt that she, her customs and people like her were not reflected in the media. Later, as a journalist who was often the only Latina woman in an American newsroom, she always had a clear objective: "Make the invisible visible."