José Ignacio López Vigil

José Ignacio López Vigíl was three years old when his parents, infected by the uncertainty that the triumph of the revolution produced among the Cuban middle class, decided to move the entire family to safer lands. He arrives in Spain where in his youth he enters the Society of Jesus.

As a Jesuit, he has the opportunity to pursue studies in different Latin American countries and upon arriving in the Dominican Republic, he experiences firsthand the 1965 North American invasion against the democratic government of Juan Bosch. This experience marks him deeply and determines the strong political content of his work in popular communication.

It is in the Dominican Republic where the then Jesuit priest has his first contact with radio. He was bored with the classes he received at the time and decides to make contact with a commercial radio station in the area. While there, a peasant community that had been evicted from their lands by a landowner seeks him out so that through the microphone, he would show solidarity with their struggle. "It is there where I discover the tremendous value of public speech through radio. The importance of radio becoming participatory to give voice back to a people silenced for so long," he recounts emotionally.

The 1970s arrive and he becomes involved with Radio Santa María where he contributes from his position as programming director to consolidate the educational, pastoral, and alternative project that has meant so many achievements for this Dominican radio station in its 50 years of existence. At Santa María he learns how radio works from the inside and discovers the countless possibilities that radio offers when made by the people, with the people, and not just for the people.

In the late 1970s he leaves the Society of Jesus and decides to accept the challenge of strengthening a small radio station in the south of the Dominican Republic called Radio Enriquillo. For López Vigil, it was the best place for experimentation thanks to the magical realism that infected everything in those years and, of course, also radio itself.

It was a time when community radios in Latin America were experiencing their golden years thanks to the push of a popular church very close to the people. And in that line of liberation theology, he writes with his sister María López Vigil—for Cerpal, a pioneer producer in creating educational programs—the series titled: "A Certain Jesus." As soon as it came to light, this production generated great sympathy and also fierce persecution by the Catholic institution to the point that the producer was shut down.

In the 1980s he takes on the role of training director at ALER, the Latin American Association of Radio Education, giving workshops in almost every country in Latin America. These were very practical spaces that helped communicators rethink their programming and remake their programs from a more participatory perspective. A radio close to the people, colorful, written in simple language and that served as an intermediary in social conflicts.

López Vigíl continues wandering throughout Latin America, giving courses, participating in or inventing popular communication projects. In this journey he arrives at turbulent Nicaragua in the 1980s to participate in Sandinista radios. From there he approaches the already mythical Radio Venceremos of El Salvador. "The most heroic radio in the history of radio communication in Latin America," according to his own words.

Then comes the founding of the Latin America office of AMARC, the World Association of Community Radios, an organization with which he works until 2000, the year he begins his last project: Radialistas Apasionadas y Apasionados. It is a radio production center that makes use of the Internet and seeks not only to democratize content, but also its production and distribution.

López Vigil and his team of passionate radiolists produce a daily program that is distributed to hundreds of radio stations and users via the Internet. In their permanent search to expand the possibilities of radio language, Radialistas has introduced the radioclip as a format that allows saying much in little time. Short programs, very agile, with many sound effects and music for a public accustomed, as it is today, to the agility of messages.

For José Ignacio López, community radios in Latin America have achieved and advanced much. But, without a doubt, their great achievement has been returning public speech to hundreds of thousands of citizens. "Public speech makes us citizens and citizenship is a process of rights and duties, of empowerment. This return of speech and empowerment are something that has no price; they are of incalculable value."

It has been a long time since José Ignacio López Vigil lost faith in the faculties of communication. So much so that this icon of Latin American broadcasting decided to abandon the university teaching position and dedicate himself entirely to spreading his knowledge directly to those interested in promoting communication close to the people, colorful, written in simple language and that serves citizenship as an intermediary and overseer of the spheres of power.

A firm promoter of community radios, this former Cuban-born priest does not hesitate to boast about his most ambitious project: Radialistas Apasionadas y Apasionados, the most comprehensive radio content production platform in Latin America. From the portal www.radialistas.net, about 2,000 clips are offered produced with different content that touches on topics such as human rights, ecology, gender, and culture. Under the umbrella of Free Culture, all this production is freely accessible, downloadable, and distributable for any radio station or person who wishes. And in an era marked by commodification and mediocrity in radio production, this work is a breath of fresh air for alternative communication.