A Voice that Sparks the Hispanic Community

By Alexandra Mendoza

Mery Lopez Gallo sees her microphone as a platform to help motivate San Diego’s growing Hispanic community.
17 years ago, the San Diego born Mexican broadcaster launched her show called “De Viva Voz” (In Your Own Voice) on Univision Radio and, as the name implies, it has served as a platform for Latinos to be informed and heard.
After 900 broadcasts, this radio personality still perfectly remembers her first time on the air. Lopez Gallo started in radio as a producer, but she then asked for an opportunity to be on the air; she was granted her own project, which she got to name.

“I named it De Viva Voz because I felt that it was a beautiful phrase, one that Latinos would get and embrace”, shared the broadcaster. “Back then, my boss told me that (on the show) I could not talk about politics, religion, or sex and obviously, we have talked about all three many times.”
This was not the first time that Mery felt radio call out to her. A year before, right after graduating from the San Diego School of Broadcasting, she got to share the air with journalist Jaime Flores on Radio Formula’s “Libre Expresión” (Free Speech) program.

She got her love for the craft from her father, whom she remembers as a “masterful speaker”, and who at times would ask her to serve as his “TV remote” while she was growing up.

“When I was little, I would sit in front of the TV with the main task of turning the volume down during commercials”, recalls Ms. Lopez, who grew up in both Rosarito and Tijuana.

“When the news or whatever show he wanted to watch would come back on, I had to turn the volume back up. Since I had to carefully watch during the commercials, I would make up scripts for them in my young mind”.
Unknowingly, this experience taught her something that would eventually open a door into her craft, as one of her first jobs was writing scripts for TV ads.

Ad writing was something for which she was recognized. In 2014 the San Diego Ad Council, now San Diego X (SDX), awarded Lopez Gallo with the Multicultural Marketer of the Year award at the Brand Diego awards.
Radio has become a pulpit from which she has advocated for and moved forward causes that matter to the Hispanic community. This has not been limited only to radio; while she served on the Advisory Board to the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (2009-2011), one of the fights she led was that of promoting having her countrymen vote in Mexican elections while residing in the U.S.

This effort is memorialized in the book “El Voto de los Mexicanos en el Extranjero” (The Vote of Mexicans Abroad) written by [electoral] board member Francisco Guerrero, in which she is dubbed “the godmother of the experience of voting abroad”, due to her being the first person to perform an official interview on the topic in the U.S.

On her current show, she has had the opportunity to interview renowned personalities such as former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow, Former Treasurer of the United States Rosario Marin, and former Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, to name just a few.

At the same time, she has participated in different non-profit organizations, including the Chicano Federation. She currently supports groups such as Teatro Máscara Mágica, We Support U, Father Joe’s Village – for whom she was the Latino face of one of their campaigns – and more recently YALLA San Diego, an organization that helps refugee and immigrant youth rebuild their lives and attend college.

Ms. Lopez Gallo tries to ensure that the topics she covers will be useful to her community, focusing on education, safety, and immigration issues, among others.
“If you have the possibility of helping someone else, why not do it? That has always been very clear to me, I never think of the show’s rating, what I want is to talk to people, if I can reach even one person, that is blessing enough”.

Mery Lopez’ s “De Viva Voz” airs every Sunday morning at 7:00 am on 106.5 FM, and is rebroadcast at 8:30 a.m. on 102.9 FM.