Juan Manuel "John" Quiñones is an ABC News correspondent, and the current host of What Would You Do?.
Early life and education
Juan Manuel "John" Quiñones was born in San Antonio, Texas on May 23, 1952. He is a fifth-generation San Antonian and a fifth-generation Mexican-American. Quiñones grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and did not learn English until he started school at age 6. When he was 13 years old, his father was laid off from his job as a janitor and John's family, including sisters Irma and Rosemary, joined a caravan of migrant farmworkers and journeyed to Traverse City, Michigan to harvest cherries. Later that summer, the Quiñones family followed the migrant route to pick tomatoes outside of Toledo, Ohio. Quiñones recalls the words from his father, Bruno Quiñones, early one morning in Ohio's tomato fields. "Juanito, do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Or, do you want to get a college education?". Determined to overcome the current Latin Americanstereotypes of being uneducated, he decided to attend college. While attending Brackenridge High School in San Antonio, Quiñones was selected to take part in the federal anti-poverty program, Upward Bound, which prepared inner-city high school students for college. "Upward Bound saved my life," he says. John attended St. Mary's University, in San Antonio. As an undergraduate, Quiñones was also a member of the Sigma Beta-Zeta of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. After graduating from St. Mary's with a bachelor's degree in Speech Communication, Quiñones earned his master's degree from Columbia University'sSchool of Journalism.
Career
Quiñones served as a radio news editor at KTRH in Houston, Texas from 1975 to 1978 and also worked as an anchor and reporter for KPRC-TV. He later reported for WBBM-TV in Chicago. In 1982, Quiñones started as a general assignment correspondent with ABC News based in Miami. He was a co-anchor of the ABC News program, Primetime and now hosts What Would You Do?. He also reports for all ABC News programs such as 20/20, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight and Nightline. According to communications attorney Mark Lloyd, "Quiñones told the League of United Latin American Citizens audience that he got his start because a San Antonio community organization threatened that if the stations didn't hire more Latinos, the group would go to the FCC and challenge their licenses."
