‘Someone needs to tell our story’: Armando Polón Vázquez, lifelong Latino community journalist, dies at 65

Armando Polón Vázquez, 65, a longtime journalist covering Latino communities in Philadelphia, died last week.

Mr. Vázquez was found dead in his Philadelphia apartment on June 7 by friends who were concerned when he hadn’t responded to their calls for a few days. Police said Mr. Vázquez had died five days before he was found. An official cause of death was not available.

Mr. Vázquez was well-known across Philadelphia’s Latino communities. Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Mr. Vázquez became passionate about journalism when he graduated from la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. He first established his journalism career on the island, covering foreign and national news for a radio station. And when he immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s, he continued that career in community, Spanish-language news.

“He was probably the premier journalistic voice for the Dominican diaspora,” said Israel “Izzy” Colón, a community policy analyst who was director of multicultural affairs for former Mayor Michael Nutter. “That’s the way I used to view him. I always saw him as this community journalist that always somehow captured the pulse of the community struggles.”

Mr. Vázquez was a freelance reporter who worked for numerous Spanish news outlets in the area, including Impacto Media and El Comercial. He was passionate about amplifying the voices of communities that are often unheard and unseen, which extended to Latino communities beyond Dominicans as well — and he was a strong believer in community journalism.

“He was probably the premier journalistic voice for the Dominican diaspora.”

“[Mr. Vázquez] really believed you have to tell the stories of the people who you live with — you’re in the midst of the community,” said Pedro Rodríguez, a community activist and former city official who previously worked with Mr. Vázquez. “It makes a huge difference when you feel comfortable with a community and the neighborhoods that you’re covering.”

Because of his familiarity and embed in the community, Mr. Vázquez’s work extended beyond journalism, as he often made sure to connect new immigrants to support, resources, and friends in the community.

Words that friends used to describe Mr. Vázquez included fearless, controversial: he was passionate about politics, and had even been subject to political oppression in the Dominican Republic for his involvement in the left movement on the island in the ‘80s.

His “profound world view,” Colón described, meant that he focused his journalism on showing the direct impact that colonialism and imperialism have on present-day strugglesin Latino communities, and the connections between those struggles.

But he was also passionate about highlighting the joys in communities.

“He and I used to talk about, there’s a psychology that gets created when people only see [in the] news all the bad things that happen to communities,” Rodríguez continued. “He believed that style of reporting is misrepresenting the community, and you’re doing tremendous harm to the community. So he tried in his own way to talk about the other things in the community — kids graduating from high school, the recognition the people in the community receive about the work that we’re doing.”

And telling those stories in Spanish was crucial for Mr. Vázquez.

“We have a presence in Philadelphia. But somebody needs to tell our story. And Polón was one of the most important persons doing that in the area,” said José Mota, a friend of Mr. Vázquez’s and former vice consul for the Dominican Consulate in Philadelphia.

“There are many people who don’t speak, don’t read English, and we need to know what’s going on. And that’s how he came to be so important to these communities — because he was reporting in our native language.”