‘What Would You Do?’: How ABC’s John Quiñones went from migrant farmer to renowned show host

Strap your seatbelts and get ready for this absolute rollercoaster of a journey as ABC’s John Quiñones shares the stories that got him to where he is today as a beloved news correspondent and show host.

Tomatoes in Ohio & Cherries in Michigan

At the age of 13, John Quiñones spent his days traveling as a migrant farm worker with his family.

With the changing of the seasons, John and his family had to move around and follow the crops. His travel experience consisted of picking tomatoes in Ohio and cherries in Michigan.

John grew up in a household where his parents didn’t speak any English, so neither did him or his sisters when they were preparing to start attending school.

“In San Antonio, when you grew up in the Barrio, the poor community on the West side, you didn’t have to learn English,” John said. “But it was tough because I wanted to be a journalist.”

John dreamt of expanding beyond Michigan and beyond Ohio, where he farmed and picked fruits. He wanted to travel and see the world so he could tell the stories of people in different walks of life.

“The dream seemed far out of reach,” John said. “But I never stopped believing.”

The discouraging start to his journey

“No one would hire me in television,” John said. “It was really frustrating and depressing for a number of years.”

After facing the discouraging side of trying to get into the television industry, John met a young woman from Columbia University. As their friendship grew, he opened up with her about his idea to give up journalism and go to law school.

The young woman was not about to let him give up on his dream. She was going to do whatever was in her power to push him in the direction that would only bring him up.

“She introduced me to Columbia and I applied,” John said. “I wrote two essays based on my life and they accepted me.”

The sharpest tool in the toolbox

After taking the advice to continue fighting for his journalism passion, John pursued his studies at Columbia University. With this new sense of hope and an incredible education, he landed a job at a local news station in Chicago as a local T.V. reporter.

John’s journey in Chicago allowed him to grow his craft and expand his knowledge when telling stories of those in the community, but his journalistic skill set wasn’t his only spotlight.

John’s sharpest tool ended up being his background, the facet he thought was the reason television wasn’t going to work out.

“I also drew upon my being Hispanic,” John said. “For example, one of the first big stories I did in Chicago as a local T.V. reporter was to go undercover and pose as a Mexican immigrant trying to get into the U.S.”

With some convincing, John’s news director agreed to let him go to Mexico and John set off for the journey that was about to change the lives of many, including his own.

And so the story began

John arrived in Mexico, ready to take on the experience of a Mexican immigrant.

“I found a coyote, a smuggler, who for $300 put me in an inner tube and I floated across the Rio Grande, telling the story of what the push factors are that make immigrants risk their lives to come to this country to get a job as a dishwasher or a roofer for very little money,” John said. “How desperate must they be?”

As he floated across the Rio Grande and arrived back in the U.S. as a Mexican immigrant, John got a job back in Chicago. 

“I went to a restaurant where we had heard that the owner had seven undocumented Mexican immigrants working for him,” John said. “He had not paid them in 17 weeks.”

The owner hired John as a dishwasher.

“He thought I was just another Mexicano,” John said.

The very night that John was hired, he slept in the basement with all of the other men and decided it was time to hear their stories.

“I pulled out a little camera and I started interviewing them in Spanish about their lives,” John said. “Through tears they told me how they were being held as virtual slaves in that restaurant.”

The suit

With a method to his madness, John left to freshen up for his second day at the restaurant.

“I came back and this time wearing a suit, speaking fluent English with a camera crew behind me,” John said. “I remember we had to chase the owner around through the parking lot because he didn’t want to talk to me about what he was doing to those men.”

The day after John’s story aired, the U.S. government decided to step in.

“They shutdown the restaurant and arrested the owner,” John said. “And they got the Mexican workers the money they were owed and temporary visas to remain in this country while they worked on their residency.”

Eyes at ABC

After the breakthrough success of the story and the justice delivered to those men, John earned his first Emmy with the Chicago station.

It was only a matter of time before ABC called from New York.

“They hired me to go to Miami and cover Latin America,” John said.

The sewer children

One of John’s favorite stories upon beginning his career at ABC all began when he arrived in Bogota, Columbia and looked out his hotel window.

He had been in Columbia covering the election, but no big news was really breaking. 

“I saw some children in the streets,” John said. “They would steal necklaces from women and watches from men during the day and then they would open up the manhole covers and climb down into the sewer systems.”

John wanted to know more about the kids, so he asked around.

“They’re called gamines,” John said. “They’re street children, runaways, castaways.”

After finding out that there were about 300 of these homeless, runaway children living in the sewers of Bogota, John knew he needed to get as much information as he could and hold a microscope over the situation.

His first concern was about how or if the government was doing anything to help these kids.

“The government was trying to clean up the streets,” John said. “They’re afraid to go down into the sewers because these children control that dark world.”

Instead, the government would open up the manhole covers, pour gasoline down into the sewers and throw a match down.

“They tried to burn them out,” John said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Kids were burned and their faces melted.

“I asked if anyone was trying to help them,” John said.

That’s when he found out about Jaime Jaramio, a wealthy industrialist who finds oil for American oil companies in Latin America. He was the only man who couldn’t sleep at night knowing that those children were suffering.

He would open up the manhole covers, put on some gear and climb down with a loaf of bread, a bucket of chicken and a six pack of soft drinks to do what he could to rescue the children of the sewers.

“I said I have to meet this guy,” John said. “I met him and asked if he could take us down there.”

John and his team followed along with Jaime Jaramio for a week to film the children and hear their stories.

“I met a little girl who was 16 and had just given birth to a baby in the sewers,” John said.

The return to New York

John got back to New York with the information and content from the story he decided to pursue about the children of the sewers.

A few weeks after getting back, ABC aired the story on “Prime Time Live.”

“The story aired and American viewers sent in a million dollars in donations to Jaime Jaramio,” John said. 

Jaime Jaramio was able to pull all of the children out of the sewers and open the orphanage he wanted for them.

“It’s beautiful,” John said. “And it was because we shined the light of that camera on that story.”

The moved and the shaken

Pitching stories and finding news before it’s already covered can be a hard task for newer journalists.

Being observant is the biggest key to finding the needles in the haystack.

“Stand on a corner and look around,” John said. “Don’t expect someone to bring you a story.”

John says that it’s important to tap into the sources within your own community that someone from the outside might not be able to see.

“Don’t worry so much about talking to the movers and shakers of the world,” John said. “Talk instead to the moved and the shaken.”

Take the risk… safely

Being a journalist alone requires a lot of risk-taking when chasing stories. However, entry-level journalists might feel the need to agree to every risk that comes their way in order to shine and make a good impression. Where should you draw the line?

“The adrenaline starts flowing and you want to get the story, so you do push the envelope sometimes,” John said. “It’s a thin line between pushing the envelope to go in for something exclusive that no one else is getting because you’re brave enough to do that and risking your life.”

John says that it’s important to really analyze the situation before jumping into something dangerous. Safety comes first, so if you have to pass up a story for your own safety, it’s perfectly okay.

Mental health for journalists

John is at a point in his career where he loves to tell stories of all different varieties. However, while some are whimsical and happy, others are nothing short of heartbreaking.

“There were many times where I had to interview too many families and they’re in tears, telling me their story,” John said. “You feel it yourself and sometimes we need to get therapy ourselves as producers and journalists. We’re still human.”

The new president of ABC, Kim Godwin has made it a mandate and provided an abundance of counseling and therapy resources to help journalists take care of their mental health.

“When we need to step away, we step away and if it means not being on the air for a few months, so be it,” John said. “You need to be able to pace yourself, because it can be horrific.”