When Robert Feinman came to Tucson in the late 1960s, the 18-year-old had no plan.
Like a lot of University of Arizona students, Feinman came to Tucson from New York because it was warm, far away from home, and both the academics and the party life got high marks.
But unlike most students, Feinman came to Tucson because he spoke Spanish and wanted to live near the border.
Despite having learned Spanish with New York Puerto Ricans and Cubans, he knew little about Southwestern Mexican and Chicano culture.
"I didn't have a clue what a taco and mariachi were," Feinman said.
Yet within a few years of his arrival, Feinman, who grew up in a German-Jewish family and culture, found himself working in Spanish-language radio, helping to bridge cultural gaps in the Mexican and Mexican-American communities during a 40-year career in broadcasting.
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"What a great way for a Jewish kid from New York to get to know the community," said Feinman, 61.
When he arrived in Tucson, there were two Spanish-language radio stations: KEVT went on the air in the mid-1950s and KXEW began broadcasting in the early 1960s.
Feinman was working for KWFM, Tucson's first alternative rock FM station, when he was asked to do work for KEVT. The stations shared the same owner and space at Broadway and Stone Avenue.
There were nights when Feinman spun Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin rock albums and jazz albums by John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie on KWFM, and then found himself airing ranchera records of Antonio Aguilar and Lucha Villa on KEVT.
Then in the early '70s, KXEW-FM became the area's first Spanish-language FM station. Feinman joined KXEW-FM at its inception.
That's when I first met him. My father, Ernesto V. Portillo, was general manager of KXEW and hired Feinman.
At KXEW-FM, Feinman helped pioneer a bilingual, multigenre radio format aimed at young Chicano radio listeners. He understood the cultural dynamics at play, knowing that young bilingual listeners wanted to hear Latino rock and Tejano cumbias alongside American R&B and jazz. In addition, Feinman almost single-handedly introduced Afro-Caribbean and Latino jazz sounds - his first love - to Tucson's airwaves.
He would remain in Spanish-language radio, here and in Phoenix, for four decades. Feinman retired early this month from Clear Channel Radio in Tucson, which owns Spanish-language stations KXEW-AM and KTZR-FM.
While his career was spent on the air, his home was with Tucson's Mexican community.
"I liked the warmth," said Feinman, who married Peggy Fleder of New York and became the parents of Joel and Sacha Feinman. "It reminded me of ethnic New York City."
Spanish-speaking Tucson felt like visiting his grandparents in their Brooklyn neighborhood, where only Yiddish and Hebrew were heard.
In Tucson's Latino community, Feinman and his Caribbean-accented Spanish were something of a novelty - but he was embraced because he respected the people and places of his new hometown.
Feinman plans to stay involved in local activities. He will pursue his love for classic Mexican movies from the 1930s to 1950s and will continue helping to promote tourism to Nogales, Sonora, which he has been doing for years.
His life here has been a satisfying two-way street; Feinman adopted the local Latino community and it adopted him.
It's a tremendous feeling, he said.
Not bad for someone who didn't have a plan.
Ernesto Portillo Jr. is editor of La Estrella de Tucsón. He can be reached at netopjr@azstarnet.com or 573-4187
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